Art Journey Blog Challenge

The Dutch craft company and rubber stamp manufacturer Art Journey hold a challenge every month and for August the theme is The Sun. At the end of the month one random entrant is picked to win a 10 Euro gift certificate to shop at Art Journey. The requirement is to follow the set theme and use mostly Art Journey stamps. Here is a link to the challenge if you'd like to join in:-
 http://artjourneydesign-team.blogspot.nl/2014/08/challenge-48-zonsun.html

I decided to create an Art Journal page and the Art Journey stamp sets I've used are Nature Flowers and Ripple small. They are very good quality red rubber stamps and Art Journey will ship worldwide.

I first stamped and embossed the flowers with white embossing powder. I then coloured the right hand corner of the page with Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink. I stamped and embossed over this with clear embossing powder and then blended over this again with Spiced Marmalade Distress ink and graduated this colour into the yellow ink previously applied. As you will see the embossed sun acted as a resist and the yellow still shows through from underneath.

Next I added Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to the sky area and Mowed Lawn & Peeled Paint Distress Ink to the lower portion of the page. Using a cross hatch stamp by Jofy I added lightly stamped texture to the sky with colorbox inks in white and dark orange. To make the piece pop I over-stamped the flowers in Black Archival Ink by Ranger.

 To finish I found a quote about the sun on the internet which I though fitted my page well and printed it out. I cut the quote into strips, used Vintage Photo Distress ink around the edges and used Claudine Hellmuth Matt Medium to glue them into place. I used black alcohol marker pen to accentuate the edge of the page then matted and layered it onto blue and then black card ready to be adhered into my Art Journal..

ATC SWAP WITH VELOCITYVETTE08

I was invited to participate in an ATC swap with Jane who is Velocityvette08 on YouTube.

We had to each make 5 different ATC's which could be on any theme.

These are the 5 designs I came up with:-

The first one is a nice jokey card made using a Magazine Freebie Rubber Stamp by Acid Drops & What Nots. I stamped the design several times and then cut out several sections of each stamp to compose a decoupage of the bow on the swimming costume and  the hat. The background was painted with acrylic paint over Gesso. I added glitter to the wet paint for the sand and a Tim Holtz stamp for the birds. To finish it off I added a bit of rhinestone bling with a dolphin and some starfish. I then edged the piece with gold paint pen.

For my second piece I used Dreamweaver Crackle Paste through the Crafters Workshop Mini Cell Theory stencil. Once dry I dripped on Green, Blue, & Black Liquitex acrylic Ink and allowed it to flow into all of the cracks. On top of this I rubbed gold Inka Gold to pick out the high points and add some shine. The beetle is from a stamp set by Chocolate Baroque called Steampunkery. I painted it with alcohol markers and Lumiere paint in Halo Green Gold then added Ranger's Glossy Accents to the clock face and the beetles shell. I adhered this piece with foam tape for dimension and slightly curled up the edges of the wings. 

As I'm English I went patriotic for this card. I used the bus stamp from the DoCrafts Portabello Road set. I used a Union Jack flag napkin for the background and two ribbons from the set. I printed out a tiny London scene and fussy cut it around the edges. Because the design was too intricate to cut it all out, I coloured inside the design with alcohol marker pens to blend into the napkin design. I added flag design buttons for the headlights of the bus and Ranger's Glossy Accents to make the red paint shine. I then added a London Button to finish it off.

This ATC was fun to make and to have a little messy play. I used the stamp set by  the Dutch company Art Journey and fussy cut out all the pieces I wanted to use. For the paint colours I actually used melted wax crayon and allowed it to run down the card. I melted one colour at a time matching each line up with a stamped paintbrush. It's a very tactile card with a lovely feel to it..

For my last card I used the Punky Flowers stamp set by Chocolate Baroque onto a background of Acrylic Paint which was stamped with script and spattered with black Liquitex Ink. The poppies were stamped onto glossy card, coloured with alcohol ink markers and silver paint pen. I covered the light bulbs with Anita's 3-D Clear Gloss Finish and added my sentiment with Matt Medium. I drew a shadow around each poppy with a gray marker pen and added highlights to the bulbs with a white Faber Castelle PITT pen.

I was really happy with how they all turned out and I hope Jane likes them too.

Art Journal Page - "Shining Souls"

This Art Journal page is inspired by the 100 year Anniversary of the beginning of WW1 which is being commemorated throughout Europe.

I used two of the stamps from a set by Chocolate Baroque called Punky Flowers. I stamped onto light weight card several times and then coloured the flowers with Inktense Blocks used as water colours. Once dried, I fussy cut out each flower and covered the light bulbs with glossy accents to look like glass. I used a black Faber Castell Pitt pen to re-enhance all the stamp lines and a silver gel pen to colour the metal elements at the bottom of the light bulbs and the bottoms of each flower. The stems and leaves were painted with two different shades of green.

The background was a piece of light weight chipboard which I first painted with white Gesso and then a coat of Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Paint in Beach Hut. Using a script stamp and Aquamarine Archival Ink by Ranger I stamped across the entire image. On top of this I then used white colorbox ink and a cross hatch stamp by Jofy randomly to create visual texture.

The flowers were glued into place using Claudene Helmuth Matt Medium. Some were cut apart and slotted behind other flowers to achieve the layout design I was looking for. I added some alcohol ink pen around the bulbs in yellow and then went over this again with a wash of yellowInktense block to add a glow. I added white highlights to each bulb then outlined each flower with a dark grey Spectrum Noir marker pen . The sentiment was typed and printed on my computer. Cut apart and adhered into place with Matt Medium. I then added the small white plaque to explain the meaning of the piece.  I matted the page onto yellow, then black card.

I created a step-by-step YouTube video of the creation of this page which you can watch below.