Book Pages

It's Artsy Circle day today which means the Art and Soul Studio and the affiliated facebook group Soul Sisters have a new prompt.

The prompt for today is book pages. Now I know this can cause some people to shudder when they think about people ripping a book and if this is you please still play along but find a piece of cardstock that looks like a book page. I have an old text book that is filled with Shakespeare's plays that I brought from an op shop for $5, I am sure it will last me a life time.

I started with a piece of heavy watercolour paper that I cut with my metal circle die through my bigshot. The circle is 10.3cm in diameter which I have then put gesso on both sides.

I decided that I was going to cover the surface of my paper with the book page, at first I was going to run it through my bigshot but I vetoed that idea. I put glue on my watercolour paper and then put it straight down onto the book page. Once dry, well what I thought was dry I torn the rest of the page away from the edge of the circle. To make sure that the paper was well attached I used my brayer over the top and bottom.

I let it sit overnight because I had no idea where I was going with this. I thought about drawing on it and actually went ahead and started, that was a complete disaster. I tried to erase my light pencil marks but I torn the page. Once the page was torn I could actually remove the book page from the watercolour paper. The glue wasn't dry, I don't know if this was because I used a glue stick on gesso. So my background on my actual complete circle is different from this picture because I put a new piece book paper down. This time attaching it with matte medium. Using a paint brush I put the matte medium on to my circle then the circle straight on to my book page.

I wanted a garden on my book page. Why you ask? I have no idea its just what I wanted. Looking through my large stash of stamp I found one that I like and knew would work for the idea I had in my head. When stamping I didn't want a dark or perfect image, so I had sure that I stamped on a scrap piece of paper first. Also I had never used this particular stamp from the set so I seasoned it with my ink first.

Once I found the stamp I was going to use I knew that I had some rub-ons that went with this stamp and that is what I used for the middle flower image and dragonfly.

I am not really sure where I was going with the gesso but I went with the flow and ended up with a smaller image but you could still see some of the image underneath.

Using my inktense pencils I coloured my image but I wanted the middle flower to stand out from the rest. I didn't want to use gesso so I was at first a little bit stumped but then I had a brain wave of using my artisan powders from Prima to dull the image. I painted the powder over all of my circle and once I was happy with the colour I then recoloured the middle flower. I also used another colour of my artisan powders on the gesso. I like these powders as they have no shimmer. I didn't put them on very heavy so they are really hard to see but they are there.

products used that can be found in the shop
Prima Artisan Powder - vintage ivory and trianon patina
Derwent Inktense Pencils - beach green, burnt orange, deep violet and deep rose

Happy Creating

The First Step In a Journey

I am really excited to share with you this project and tutorial.

This project and tutorial is an Arsty Circle. It is a project that has been created for the Art and Soul Studio online store and Soul Sisters facebook group. Arsty Circles is loosely based on the ICAD challenge which is created and run by DaisyYellowArt. ICAD is basically where you create art every day on an index card.

The Artsy Circles for Art and Soul is where a prompt is posted in the Soul Sisters facebook group every Thursday and Sunday, you can play along or just see what others create.

The only request that we have is that the shape of your substrate is a circle. This circle can be any size, so if your mojo is overflowing you could have a huge circle but if you are struggling maybe a 1” circle is all you want to use.

The reason we chose a circle is because a) it’s different and b) Our mantra (see pinned post) is all about a circle of women.

There are no rules other than you must have fun. The first prompt is Red.

Here is what I created

My circle that I am using is 10.3cm in diameter, the only reason it is that size is because that was the largest die that I had. I could have created a bigger circle if I got my silhouette cameo out of the cupboard, but that just seemed too hard.

My  first step was to cover the back and front of my circle with gesso, I applied this with a palette knife, as I am not a fan of brushstrokes. Using my heat gun I made sure that it was completely dry before I found my favourite stamp Script from Kaisercraft and stamped all over the surface of my circle. I didn't worry about where I was stamping I was just making sure it was covered.  Around the edge of my circle I coloured with my Stabilo All and then activate it with a water brush.

 

Once my I was happy with the black watermarks I made sure it was complete dry I then added bright red paint with my palette knife. I didn't want the paint too thick and I also didn't want it to complete cover the surface. Because I am too impatient I used my heat gun to dry the paint then with an Inktense pencil I added three lots of three triangles (which I activated with water), with my black paint pen I added three lots of five crosses and then lastly I with my white paint pen I added dots to the red paint.

The last thing I added to my Artsy Circles was a word sticker.

products used that can be brought from the shopinktense pencil - deep blue
dina wakley media heavy body acrylic paint - ruby
timholts idea-ology - clippings stickers
kaisercraft stamp - script

Happy Creating

Technique Tuesday

Today up on the Art and Soul Studio I have a photographic tutorial with different techniques using Nuvo Mousse, a Stencil Girl stencil both can be purchase in the shop.

If you would like to know more on how these techniques were done please pop on over to the blog to find out

Happy Creating

Stay Strong

There are lots of things in my stash that just don't seem to get used and other things that get used a lot. The card that I created is a combination of both.

products used: ranger archival ink - jet black, gelly roll pen - white, stabilo - all, prima artextravagance texture paste - white crackle, uni pin fine line marker - black, derwent inktense blocks, tim holtz idea-ology - small talk, kaisercraft stamp - script, stampers anonymous stamp - halftone & rings, prima elementals stencil - grungy grid, bobunny stickable stencils - butterflies, mixed media paper, artbasics heavy gesso - white

Happy creating

Plume from IndigoBlu

I have had the stamp 'Plume' from IndigoBlu for a little while now, and I have been thinking of a design that I could use it on. I finally created a card.

The stamp reminded me of a peacock feather so I used the colours of a peacock as my starting point.

products used: inktense pencils - turquoise, deep violet & deep rose, posca paint pen - pink, memory box die - distress windham collage, studio calico - wood veneer heart, versamark, ranger embossing powder - seafoam, art basics heavy gesso - white, mixed media paper, book paper.

Happy Creating

Wings

The current challenge on The Mixed Media Card Challenge blog is 'Wings' and you have the option of adding foil.

I am the first to admit that I am addicted to butterflies so when in my blog travels I came I across this challenge I knew I could not go past it. The other reason why I could not go past this challenge was because card making is my first love and mixed media is my second so all round this challenge was screaming my name.

When creating I always save the left over bits, I started with a small bowl and it has now grown into a draw. I am one of those people who cannot throw anything out because you never know how useful it will be in the future. Now that my draw is almost full, I have been trying to use these left over bits. The background on this card was created by using pre-cut strips of paper. The strips are from where I was cutting card inserts down to size. Seems appropriate for them to go back onto a card. I then used my Derwent Inktense Blocks to colour the background

Just recently I purchased the Butterflies Thinlits Dies from Stampin' Up and this was the perfect excuse to use it, not that I really need an excuse. In my paper scrap draw (yes I have one of them too, for plain cardstock and patterned) I found the perfect size piece of paper to use.

Using the option of adding foil to my card I used a new product from IndigoBlu called Mega-Flake and changed my black butterfly into a gorgeous metallic one.

 

While searching in my scrap draw for the strips of paper I also came across some aqua colour hexagons and some aqua coloured thread. I pulled them out and decided that that is what I would used to embellish my background. I knew this wouldn't be enough for the card so I went into my chipboard stash and found my diamond UmWowStudio chipboard. I love how the diamonds are all different sizes. The last thing I wanted to add was some sort of material. I found some natural fibre tulle cut a small piece which I then proceed to distress, so it didn't look so new.

The background needed something more so I used my Stampin' Up Off The Grid Stamp and when that was dry with my white pen I drew down the right hand side of my vertical strips of paper. It's all about layering and creating texture.

The order that everything went down is hexagons first, then the tulle and then the tread. This is where I hit a snag, I had to seek advice from a friend as I had no idea how to put the thread down without it looking messy. Her response was "It's meant to be messy". I struggled with this but I think I managed to get it right although the more I look at my card I am thinking it maybe could have done with a little more. Next came the placement of the diamonds. Over all of this I splattered white ink. The last layer of my card is my butterfly.

Happy Creating