Metallic Art Journal Cover

This was a fairly simple piece. I wanted to join the Use Your Stuff Challenge Blogs current challenge. The challenge was "metallic". I had remembered I had some cool metal words I had gotten off a scrapbooking lot on eBay.

And from there I came up with the idea to make the cover for one of my art journals.

Here is how I did it:

🐛 I first covered the chipboard cover with a layer of gesso.

🐛 After the gesso was dry, I painted it with white pearlescent paint.

🐛 Next, I got out my alcohol inks. I grabbed a dark blue and dark purple, along with a silver.

🐛 I cut a piece of felt and squirted a color on it and dabbed my cover all over. I did this with all three of my colors.

🐛 Next I did the same thing, but with an alcohol inks blending solution. This makes the colors run together.

🐛 After that was done, I turned to my chipboard butterfly and painted it metallic silver.

🐛 When everything was dry I glued it all in place.

My materials:

I still have a few journals without done covers. I'd love any suggestions for something fun to try.

Lucky Journal Page

There was once a time in my life that I tried to learn the Irish tenor banjo. If anything, it deepened my love for all things Irish, including St. Patrick's day. That's why I was excited to do Creative Corner's Challenge. The theme is "good luck", so I gave my entry a St paddy's day flare.

There's not much to it, but here's how I put it together:

🍀 You can't see it too well, but I made my background by sticking strips of masking tape to my card stock.

🍀 Once the page was covered with tape, I mixed some metallic gold, light green, and gloss Modge Podge. I painted the mixture on my page.

🍀 The rest of the page just involves gluing the elements to the page. I used a "luck o' the Irish" sticker, along with some Pom Pom ribbon and mulberry flowers.

🍀 I had printed the leprechaun image from my iPad. And I punched four leaf clovers out of sparkly paper and glued green pearls in the center.

I have a tendency to forget to dress my kids in green on St. Patrick's day. So when the holiday nears, I would appreciate any reminders😜

Vintage Christmas Journal page

I hope everyone had some happy holidays! I made this art journal page for a challenge at Dragons Lair Design Challenge site. The theme was vintage Christmas.

Here is how I made it:

🎄 I smeared my background with a kelly green and let it dry.

🎄 I placed some mesh over the green and sponge painted metallic gold over the top.

🎄 I cut off some red lace, and glued it about an inch in from the left.

🎄 I placed some Christmas ribbon down and atop the lace edge.

🎄 I recently bought some craft supplies off eBay and in one of the packages came those gold dots. I spread them about an inch apart on the ribbon.

🎄 Next I printed my vintage Santa to the size I needed.

🎄 I placed the Santa and my "surprise" piece to see where I would want my snowflakes.

🎄 The snowflakes are sparkly foam stickers I got from the "Dollar Tree" this year. I stuck them down.

🎄 I decided I wanted my Santa to stick out a little bit. So I used foam pieces that were sticky on both sides to attach my Santa to the page.

It surprised me a little that I didnt do more holiday art. What about you? Was this a crafty Christmas?

Gothic Arch ATC

This is for a group swap on swapbot. All cards are to made in the Gothic arch style of ATC. I took a simple approach to this card but I loved how it turned out and so therefore, wanted to share it with you.

Here's how I made her:

🌀 First off, I wasn't sure the exact dimensions of a Gothic arch and so had to guess a little. I hope I got it right.

🌀 I decided to use one of my bubble wrap methods for background technique.

🌀 I first painted the cut shape purple.

🌀 When that dried, I painted bubble wrap with another purple and let that dry too.

🌀 My last layer of bubble wrap paint was a purple glitter paint.

🌀 I had printed the image of the woman several weeks before because I liked it and knew I'd want to use it eventually. I thought it would go well with this card.

🌀 All that was left was placing the pieces; I glued the girl image first. Followed by the word love. Next came the rhinestone and flowers.

🌀 I decided to glue the sparkly blue string on before the German scrap so the scrap would cover the string.

🌀 All that was left was to outline thee word love.

I rarely save images for later but what about you? Do any of you mixed media artists out there hoard images to be used later?

Thankful ATC

Here is an ATC I did for swapbot. The rules of the swap were to include five things you are thankful for on your card. Choosing mine was easy.

Here is how I made it:

🌀 I cut an orange piece of card stock to atc size and ran it through my Sizzix embossing machine. I used a floral design.

🌀 Using a pink color, I gently ran a pigment ink pad across the raised parts of my card.

🌀 Next, I printed out the things I was thankful for. I used a text app on my iPad to get the font I wanted.

🌀 To make the glittery leaves, I started by punching out the leaf shape with little punches I have.

🌀 Then, I painted them with glue and sprinkled a different color of glitter on each of them and let them dry.

🌀 Just to make sure the glitter would stick, I painted them with sparkle podge.

🌀 I glued my words and leaves in place.

🌀 I added gold string around the edges.

🌀 Lastly, I outlined the words with glitter glue.

This one was fun to do because it made me think about what and who I'm thankful for. 

Art Nouveau Altered Book Page

I have a pretty bad tendency to overdo things. Why do or make 1, when you can do or make 5!

So when I got on my altered book kick, I prepared several books for altering.

I shared my "love" book with you in my last post. Today's book I have dedicated completely to art nouveau.

Here's how I made my first pages:

🌀 First of all, when you prepare a book for altering you rip out pages throughout the book to make room for the altering. I ripped out about a third.

🌀 Then you must glue several pages together to make them strong enough to withstand the art.

🌀 So after I did all that and had two sturdy pages, I glopped two shades of green on them and smushed it around.

🌀 When that dried, I used plastic mesh from the dollar store as a stencil using gold metallic paint.

🌀 Then I picked my images from online. I google searched "art nouveau seasons". I picked which set I liked best and printed and cut them out.

🌀 I thought it might be cool to add a layer of clear plastic over the images. I cut out plastic rectangles in the same shape from the packaging of some gel pens I recently purchased. 

🌀 I attached the plastic to my images using brads in the corners.

🌀 I then picked some silk flowers that I thought would match the colors

best and cut them in half.

🌀 I placed my images around where I wanted them and glued the flower halves accordingly.

🌀 When the flowers were dry, I glued my plastic covered images in place.

I realize you can't really see the plastic in the picture and in all honesty, it's hard to tell the plastics there when the pages are right in front of you too. I think perhaps if I had used a thicker plastic, I would have gotten a cooler effect. 

"Love" Art Journal Page

My family and I moved into a really cool house a couple months ago and the place is huge. That meant I was able to take my 102 crafting books out of storage!! Yay!!

So I spent several days looking through them and I got inspired to work on some altered books. I had some old children's books that I thought I'd use to start my book project.

🌀 It is suggested when altering old books, to rip several pages throughout the book from it. So I did. Every 3-7 pages, I took out another 3-7 pages.

🌀 I also read to make the pages thick and sturdy, you should glue several of them together. So I did that also. Both sides of my spread are made from 3 book pages glued together and then I gessoed them. Don't forget that part. Working on a gessoed page is always better.

🌀 After the gesso was dry, I painted the spread a dark purple.

🌀 I then took two lighter shades of purple and painted bubble wrap with them and applied it to my page. I like to apply the bubble wrap several times so you can have many prints.

🌀 While my background was drying, I took a piece of 12 inch white cardstock and cut it into a thick strip.

🌀 I rubbed the strip with yellow, gold, and a little orange ink pads. I did it using a circular motion.

🌀 Then I took a dropper and dropped little drops of water on the yellow strip. When it dries, it gives a really cool effect that you can't see all that well in the picture. But it is fun. 

🌀I punched some half holes using a circle bound hole punch along the bottom just to give it some more shape.

🌀 I glued the strip to the middle of my spread.

🌀 I added some washi tape and glitter glue to finish that part off.

🌀 The hearts are made from some old background papers I had made awhile ago. The texture on the papers is glass bead gel medium and then painted over.

🌀 The red dots on the hearts I had to make up. I wanted a red bead type thing so I ended up using little dollops of glue gun glue. And when it was dry, I painted it red. Viola.

🌀 I have some chipboard letters and decided to use those. I had to paint them yellow.

🌀 The red squares are crafting foam that I punched with a square punch.

🌀 I layered the chipboard letters onto the foam squares and onto my pages.

🌀 Once they were all glued on, I added some dots of glitter glue in the corners of the squares.

I really like how these pages turned out. I was planning to devote the whole altered book to love as its theme. Do any of you have an entirely themed altered book? 

Sports ATC

There's not much to this "sports atc" I made for a swapbot swap. But since I'm such a Giants baseball fan (or rather, my husband), I decided I'd share it with you all. 

🔸The background is probably the most "artsy" part to the whole thing, and I made it by squeezing some alcohol inks on a plastic surface (one color at a time) and then smooched my glossy card-stock around in it. If you smooch it around multiple times and with multiple colors, you get more variations to it.

🔸Then I added my sequin waste.

🔸Followed by sequin string.

🔸And last, the Giants logo I printed and cut using my cricut. 

And it's ok that they didn't make the playoffs this year. If the pattern repeats, they'll win the World Series next year!

Traveling Art Journal

This art journal was for a swap on swapbot. The swap called for a "mini" art journal. I didn't read the directions fully and I made mine the maximum size. I probably would have made it a bit smaller had I known better. 

The Cover:

The inside:

The front and back cover:

🔸I used chipboard for the front and back. I did them both the same.

🔸I smeared them with thick gesso, making it lumpy in places. 

🔸While it was still wet, I sprayed it with two colors of spray ink.

🔸My original plan was to embed some elements in the gesso. I started with sequin waste but it didn't sit right so I took it off but left the impressions they made.

Inside Cover:

🔸I printed my address information using my computer and printer. I attached it to the page. 

🔸I then spread glass bead gel around it and to the edges. 

🔸After it was dry, I painted it with metallic paints. First lavender, then I rubbed periwinkle in places with my finger. 

🔸Lastly, I covered my address area with "hard" modge podge. 

First Page:

🔸The prompt for the page was "numbers". So I incorporated my age on the page.

🔸I attached a book page to my cardstock.

🔸I watered down some green acrylic and painted my page. 

🔸I attached some borders I had to the top and bottom, leaving some room at the top for my name.

🔸The number "36" was made with some background paper I had made a few years ago. It was originally a paper grocery bag that I had used underneath making other projects so not to get paint on my counter. After it looked cool from all the different colored paints, I covered it with thick, clear embossing powder and melted it.

🔸I outlined my 36 on my page and painted lavender around it so it would be like a border for my number.

🔸I then outlined the lavender with gel pen.

🔸After that was dry, I glued on my "36". 

Are any of you in any other art journal swaps other than on swapbot? If so, I'd love to know about them. There are limited art journal swaps on swapbot and art journals are what I am into right now.