Embrace Your Art, Week 6

Hey everyone. I decided I'd try and make a post for each art journal challenge. That way I can go more in depth on how I made it.

So right now I'll share with you my page for the Embrace Your Art challenge:

The prompt was "your hobbies" and the challenge was to use "Inktense."

Honestly, I hadn't heard of Inktense yet, so I looked for it on Amazon. I found several different products, most were watercolor pencils. I had actually just bought some water color pencils so I decided to purchase the Inktense ink blocks. ( I will list it at the bottom of this post.)

Once it arrived, I started my page. I decided to make it like a coloring book. So I searched the web for black and white clip art that illustrated my hobbies. 

Once I had all the images, I arranged them using a notebooking application on my iPad. Here is a screenshot:

I also wrote out the titles of my hobbies using a little block lettering.

Then I printed it out and prepared to color it using the Inktense blocks. I printed it on 80 weight paper (planner pape.) this weight paper doesn't allow the printer ink to bleed as easily when put with water.

The Inktense paint like water colors. Here is after I had just painted the background:

I painted in all my illustrations:

After it dried, I cut it out and attached it to the back of my week 5 page.

But I didn't want that to be it. I didn't think it could be classified as one of my art journal pages if so.

So I grabbed a gel crayon and drew along the edges:

I still wanted to add more to it, so I added some crackle accent gel to the blank spaces:

Once the crackle medium dried, I rubbed some metallic brown paint over it to show the cracks.

And I decided to stop there.

It looks a little messy to me, but that's what art journaling is about, I guess. What do you think?

My Charm Story

I have this awesome idea in my head for an altered art project. But to do it, I need some various charms. Of course I could buy some, but I of course, thought I'd make my own.

However, my first attempt didn't quite turn out the way I'd hoped. I had wanted to make shrink plastic charms with silver Solder around it. But as you'll see, it didn't work out. So Instead, I made some altered dice charms. Here's my story in pictures:

The shrink film I used. I did some with clear film, and some with matte.( I'll list all the products I used at the end of this post.)

I cut the shrink film into smaller squares using a square punch:

I used alcohol inks to color my shrink plastic:

I used a hole punch to punch a hole so they could be used as charms:

I decided to emboss them with a stamp and embossing powder:

I figured I could heat my embossing powder and shrink the film at the same time:

This is right after heating:

As you can see, the stamp was a little too intricate and there was too much powder for the stars to come out clean.

So I decided to draw a squiggly line design with colored sharpies:

After they'd been heated:

And on chains:

At this point, I still wanted to add the solder around the edges of my plastic squares.

So I super glued the solder around the charms so I wouldn't have to hold both things.

But apparently, solder doesn't really stick to plastic. 

And so this is what I ended up with:

As you can see, it looks like I started getting into the groove of it on the last edge. But it was extremely difficult and some adjustments are definitely needed.

And so, frustrated, I put that aside for now till I come up with a better way. (Btw, if ANYONE has any ideas on a better way to do that, I am all ears.)

And so, I moved on to altering some good, old fashioned dice (sort of old fashioned):

Since I eventually needed to hand them from a chain, I needed to add a loop thing.

So I got my drill out, and drilled a hole right into the one:

I left the hole alone for now and I gathered some supplies to alter my dice and make them pretty:

After they were all embellished, I added super glue gel to my drilled hole:

I added a Tim Holtz screw eye into the hole:

After it dried, I added a jump ring and a chain and there you go!

Here are my altered dice charms:

And again, with my plastic guys:

And that's the end of my charm saga. Any questions?

Week 5 - Art Journal 2016, Part 2

Before I start with the journal pages, I've got a quick little announcement. I'm really excited because I was asked to join the design team of TWO wonderful arts and crafts challenge sites! I am very proud to be joining the sites Incy Wincy Challenge Blog and Aud Sentiments Challenge Blog. I'll be posting my work for them here after the challenge goes live, with hopefully my "how I did it pictures" in tow. So please support me by checking in.

Alright. It's time to finish up my week 5 in my art journal challenges. Today I've got my entries for Embrace Your Art 

I will start with Embrace Your Art whose prompt was "your hometown" and challenge was to use corrugated cardboard. I mostly hail from the awesome town of Chico, California:

And here's a run down with pics of what I did:

For my background, I sprayed glimmer mists both on the whole page and thru a stencil. And then dripped some green over top that:

I printed out some pictures of Chico that I thought I'd use:

I then sprayed my cardboard and a white piece of card stock (for the "Chico" and "California" ) with a different color glimmer mist. (I'll list my supplies at the end of this post.)

Next, I stamped the words:

And I cut out my cardboard:

Then all I had left was to put it together:

And there you have it!