Art Journalling- Love, Love ,Love

OK I know I'm a little late for Valentine's day but some scrumptious stamps & mixed media products from IndigoBlu have  recently come into my possession & I just had to have a play! Some of you will know of my recent obsession for my art journal so I decided to put my new goodies to good use. So here's what happened!

The first thing I did was to create the textured border you'll see at the left. I stuck some white tissue paper all over a piece of card using Super Thick Slap it On. When dry I torn off a piece & gave it a coat of black gesso. Leave to dry again & then I just lightly brushed IndigoBlu metallic acrylic "Ruby Slippers". This is quite useful as you have the rest of the tissue piece to treat with other colours & mediums.
For the main background I used Distress inks Barn Door, Dusty Concord & Victorian Velvet. I really soaked this with a spray & let it move around & run before drying off with a heat tool. I then dripped some water onto the ink & blotted out with some kitchen paper.
 Next I stamped IndigoBlu's "Love Is" using a Onyx Black Versafine- gorgeous stamp! Now came the fun part my first play with Flitter Glue & gilding flakes, good thing I paid attention! I was thrilled with the results stamping with  "Heart Flourish"- such great detail & so easy, I thought I was bound to mess it up but no!!   
I masked parts of the sentiment & printed separately which worked out well so all that was left to do then was to add some touches of the "Ruby Slippers" to the stamped image & stick the border in place. The little butterflies, dragonflies & hearts you see were punched from a piece of black card which had a "smear" of the red metallic paint applied. To finish I added some leather flowers which I knew would come in handy when I added them to my stash! I scuffed the edges of the page & aged a bit with some Black Soot Distress ink.   

Here's a closer look at the border

The gorgeous heart stamp

My first attempt at Flitter Glue & gilding flakes- I'm proud of that!

OK I'm done for now ....my art journal is beckoning again!!

Love is in the air

Soon the wedding season will be in full swing again so here's a pretty card to send to the happy couple or indeed for an anniversary, using Stix2 products. I've used a Stix2 A5 ivory card blank & for the panel at the centre I've  die cut a piece of ivory pearl card & then passed it through an embossing folder. The delicate blue edging have been die cut using the beautiful Stix2 Moondust card in baby blue I've placed a piece of double sided polyester ultra sticky sheet under the the die cut aperture before covering with seed beads from the bead & glitter set (you can see all the products I have used in the final photo). The borders at each side are created from the micro beads from the same set with the ultra sticky tape. The 2 ovals which I've used for the sentiment are Stix2 die cuts- very handy as they layer together perfectly.

Art Journal

I've caught the art journalling bug lately & those of you crafty folk who happen to wander onto my blog now & then will know that I'm rather partial to all things of a mixed media vein. So this is a perfect showcase for me & a way of cataloguing all the various techniques I've happened on along the way. Here are a few to be going on with (oh yes there's more!!) & a brief "here's how".

I stuck pieces of book page, lace, ribbon, papers, crochet flower & sheet music to a piece of water colour card. Quick coat of white gesso over all & then when dry sprayed with Glimmer Mists. Dry again & then stamp sentiment & background script.

Take a piece of A4 white card stock & cover with Creative Expressions Gilding Polishes which I've also used to do the stamping. By the way I'll be featuring these for my demo next week at Liberty Craft Exmouth. Then we have a stamped sentiment & some skeleton leaves.

Not being coy but I'm really not sure about about sharing  this one as I drew it myself. It harks back to my days as a hairdressing student when art was part of my course & we were taught the correct way to draw heads & faces. I was quite good at it in those days & even went on to paint a mural on the college salon wall as part of my coursework. Wow that's almost 40 years ago now!! Anyway I thought I'd have another go so this is my first attempt coloured with Gelatos. More practice methinks!