Journal play........

Evening all,

here is another spread from my large, old book journal........

Very much inspired by Dina Wakley's new book - Art Journal Freedom (lol I would highly recommend!!).

Materials used - acrylic ink, black acrylic, black copic brush pen, white gel pen, various stencils, gesso and an image from an old magazine (painted black to create the silhouette).

Ooh nearly forgot!! The background was done using acrylic ink. I primed the pages with gesso first, made sure this was dry, spritzed with water, dropped on acrylic ink randomley, squished the pages together and peeled them back carefully and quickly (if that makes sense lol). I have found that spritzing with water first helps the inks flow more successfully. The inks once dried had left a fab border shape, which I first outlined with a fine-liner before colouring the rest of the space with a copic brush marker for speed!!!!!!!!

Ha ha ha, my journalling may seem very contradictory (if you can read it??) The main black bit refers to following your heart but personally I have found that mine tends to lead me in the wrong directions even when my gut is screaming at me not to listen to it!! The other main journaling is in white on the sillhouette, the rest is just ridiculously random, just like me!!!!! I think this page was very much me giving myself a damned good 'talking to'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, your time and thoughts mean an awful lot to me.

Huge hugs

Dawn x

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - Letter U.......

Afternoon all,

lol hope some of you are having better weather than Cornwall!!?? It is grey and wet here and yesterdays 'longest day' was a total wash-out!!!!!!! Ha ha ha I'm hoping that this means we will have some decent weather for the long school summer holidays!!??

Anyhoo - I bet any of you that have been following The Craft Barn's fab alpha challenge will be able to guess what I have done for the letter U!! It was a bit of a 'no-brainer' for me but it meant me getting those 'pants' on again tee hee, here you go, please meet my UNICORN........

My apologies for the poor pics!! I tried to get a shot with the camera but the light is terrible today so I admit to giving up on that and resorting to the scanner ha ha.

I started by doing a pencil sketch, adjusting until I was happy. This was outlined with a black fine-liner and shaded slightly using a stabilo all black pencil which is easily smudgable and not quite as messy as regular charcoal (says she whose fingers were decidedly black!!). I then added some highlights with white and gold gel pens. A very wise lady (thanx Mrs G x) suggested adding some colour for a little more impact so I went around the unicorn with blue and green inktense pencils, using the side of the pencil to try and avoid harsh lines. The colours were then activated by washing over the whole background with a water-brush.

Many Thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, always very much appreciated.

Huge hugs to you all

Dawn x  

How Much Fun Can You Have With Three Bits of Paper.............................????????

LOTS!!!!!!

Evening All,

I wanted to share this mini-journal with you all. I had SOOOOOOO much fun making it but I will apologise now as this is a little photo heavy!!

My inspirations for this came from Valerie Sjodin's stunning, shaped edge, hand bound journals and Teesha Moore's fab youtube tutorial for a hand bound journal, please pop on over via the links included if you fancy a peek too.

I have adapted my mini-journal to fit my supplies and make it my own........

Front cover

Back cover

Internal pages

Full cover spread

Ha ha ha, 3 sheets of A4 160gsm paper, folded, trimmed, painted, stamped, stenciled, stamped again, embellished (slightly!!), doodled, bound together with a simple 3 hole pamphlet stitch and secured with a magnetic clasp.

Stamp credits go to - Paperartsy, Lynne Perella (Acey Deucey and Stampington), Stampotique, Lindsay Mason (DooLallyPip), Bo Bunny, Lost Coast Designs, Prima and various others from my stash that I sadly couldn't identify!!

The 'colour pop' embellishments were made by colouring an old book page with distress ink, stamping the images I had chosen, cutting them out and then embossing them with a single coat of clear powder - I love how distress ink intensifies in colour by doing this.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, your time and thoughts mean a lot.

Huge hugs

Dawn

Colour fix................

Hi all,

hmm please come back sun!! It's very grey and thundery here today with some heavy downpours this morning!! I'm not complaining really lol, the weather was kind to us for the school run and its not cold, always a bonus hey!!!!!!!!

I have this old book that I'm using as a journal and wanted to start sharing some of it. It has been a real challenge and totally out of my comfort zone as a double page spread in this book is approximately A3 size - MUCH larger than I am used to but SOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun!!!!!!!!

Ha ha ha between 6-7 layers of paint, stamping, stencilling and doodling - happy days.

Stencils - Tando Creative and TCW.
Stamps - Kars, Kaisercraft and Prima.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, always greatly appreciated and enjoyed.

Huge huggles

Dawn x

Fun and Memories........

Hi all,

hope you are all well?? Lol what's happened to the sun!! Mustn't grumble, at least it's not cold ha ha ha!!

Anyhoo, a quick journal page for you........

Fun fun fun with promarkers and gel pens, can't beat it!!

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like too, always much appreciated my lovelies.

Hugs

Dawn x

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - Letter F

Evening all,

lol my apologies before I even start!! I really wasn't feeling the love with this one as I could not find a word within the challenge remit that inspired me much but I stuck to my theme and plodded through as I am determined to complete the challenge - hey ho, such is life sometimes!!

If you fancy joining in with the challenge please pop on over here for all the details and if you fancy a peek at the other amazing entries please pop on over here.

Anyhoo, my chosen word within the FE - FR twist this week is FLAMEN........

The image is from royalty free stock on Wikipedia and depicts the priests, the FLAMENS.

The flourish stamp is from a BoBunny set.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like too. Ha ha ha after this feeble effort I wouldn't blame you if you don't.

Huge hugs

Dawn x

New Stash Journal Play........

Afternoon all,

wow! What a fab weekend at the Craft Barn for their Extravaganza event. It was so so good to get a chance to meet some amazing and special people and see a lot of them 'in action', what an experience and one I will never forget! It was soooooooo good to have some quality girlie time with my big sister too, something we don't get a chance to do very often these days so very very special (thank-you sweetie, luvs ya).
Hmm, didn't do the bank balance much good though ha ha ha, we have very little in the way of large craft outlets down in the depths of Cornwall and I don't know about you guys but I do like to see things in real life before I commit to buying them!!

Anyhoo, I just had to have a play with some of it and here is what I came up with........

Stage 1 -

I started by covering my page in strips of old dictionary pages (left over from the alpha challenge I'm currently doing - nothing gets wasted!!). I then stamped my character using archival ink. The character was stamped again on some scrap paper, cut out and used as a mask.
With said mask in place I set about painting my page with adirondack paint dabbers. Further layers were built up with the paint dabbers and pebeo iridescent paints applied through various stencils. Tee hee, I loved the painty mask when I removed her so she will keep for another page in the future!!

Stage 2 -

I coloured the dress and hair of the stamped image with watercolours, added a sentiment using a scrap of previously sprayed paper and finished off with some minimal doodling.

Brilliant fun to do, I hope you like it?

Products - Adirondack paint dabbers, Pebeo studio acrylic iridescent paint, Tando Creative and TCW stencils, Prima mixed media doll stamp, sentiment stamp by Doo Lally Pip (Crafty Impressions?), black fine liner and white gel pen.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to. Your time and thoughts mean a lot.

Huge hugs 

Dawn x