Art Journal page - Just Breathe

Hello everyone, thank you so much for visiting.

I have another Art Journal page to share with you.  I wasn't actually going to post this one because so many things just didn't go right with it and I almost tossed it in the bin.  It was my lovely friend Heather Jacob who persuaded me that it wasn't a total loss, mind you she hasn't seen the finished product so maybe she'll change her mind ... LOL.  

She actually loved the background and I must say I do too.   The base colour was laid down using Walnut Stain and Faded Jeans Distress Inks.  I used the Walnut Stain again to randomly stamp around the page with the Arty stamp and  script stamp from Kaisercraft.    It was the texture paste that was the first thing to go wrong.  I used the Crafters Workshop Mini Ledger Stencil and it looked great but as it was drying the paste started to bleed into the paper.   Not happy Jan!!!!  Won't tell you which brand texture paste I used but I just wanted to throw the whole thing out.  This was the stage Heather saw it and persuaded me to do some more and see what happened.  

I was going to cover up the script but then decided to leave it as is.  After looking at it for a while I decided it wasn't a big issue and I could live with it.  So I said to myself  'just breathe' and think of what to do next.

So I added some flowers.

 Cut out some random flower shapes, stamped them with a KC stamp and coloured them with a mix  of Distress Inks and Reeves Water Soluble Wax Pastels.  Must say, I do like how they turned out.

 I originally had some paper flowers glued to the bottom of the page but again, didn't like it, so took them off again and added the hearts which were also stamped with a KC stamp and coloured with Distress Inks.

I went around the edges of the flowers and the hearts with the Wax Pastels in black and went around the edge again with a wet paintbrush to blend it a little and that went wrong too.  I made a mess.  Tried to fix it but it didn't work too well so, again, I left it.  Take a deep breath I said to myself and keep going.
There really wasn't much more I wanted to do except perhaps add a few words.  Thought about it and decided to add what I had been saying to myself all along.  'Just Breathe'.

Coloured some paper with the Faded Jeans, wrote the words and cut them out.  I then edged the pieces with Walnut Stain and glued them to the page.  And, of course, when I outlined it with the wax pastels and tried to blend it, I did it again ...  made a mess.  But, you know what, I figure this page is just for me.  I haven't made it to give to someone, it is just for me to have a little bit of creative time for myself.  So, what the heck!!  Doesn't matter if I made a mess and, funny enough, I actually do like it.  Probably because it was a pain to put together, but now it's done I can look back at it and say 'so what' if it didn't turn out the way I imagined and 'so what' if no-one else likes it.  It's mine and I can look back at it and laugh at myself for taking it all so seriously!!!!

Done!!!  Finished!!!!
"Just Breathe' !!!

Thank you so much for visiting, hope you enjoyed it a little bit.
Take care and God Bless.
oxox Marg

Meg's Garden Design Team

Hello again everyone.  

I am really, really happy today!!  As a matter of fact you could say that I am over the moon!!  

 I AM A MEMBER OF THE DESIGN TEAM AT MEG'S GARDEN !!!!!  

Cannot tell you how thrilled, delighted and honoured I feel to be a part of this amazing Team.  I'm still pinching myself.  I would like to thank my lovely friend Heather Jacob for giving me so much support and also to Meg Foreman for being kind enough to take me on.  Thank you so much ladies, you have no idea how much I appreciate it.

Can't wait to get started.  Meg's Garden has such amazing products, it's going to be a dream working with them.  I urge you all to check it out for yourself.  You will find the Meg's Garden Blog HERE and the Shop HERE.

Not sure when I will get my first project posted up, but I hope you will all join me on this exciting (and a bit scary) journey.

Thank you so much for visiting.

Take care and God Bless.

oxox Marg

Netting and Lace Ribbon

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a fabulous day.  We have gorgeous sunshine in Adelaide after a night of wild winds and rain.  The weatherman just cannot make up his mind as to whether it's summer or winter.   He keeps flicking the switch every few minutes it seems.  Crazy!!

So, I am back to share another card.   Surprise!! Surprise!!  hehe!

This one has some netting incorporated into it and some gorgeous lace ribbon too.

I have seen the netting used in other peoples projects and really loved the look of it so decided to use it myself.  It adds a bit of softness to the card I think and I love that look.  To see where I got the inspiration from check out Dorota's Blog HERE  and Klaudia's blog HERE.  They both make the most beautiful cards.

 The papers I've used are Kaisercraft's On This DAy and I've distressed them quite heavily.  The lace is from my stash and I've glued it on with my heat gun, gathering it up a bit in the process.   The chipboard frames are from Little Birdie and I've actually used two different styles here ... an oval and a square frame.  The oval was used as is and the corner pieces were cut from the square frame.  I painted them with a mix of White and Mud Puddle Acrylic Paint and then coated them with Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint.  As they are such small pieces the cracks are not huge, as you can see, but they do give them a bit of texture.

 The main flowers are a little daisy spray purchased from Seriously Scrapbooking.  I really loved the colour mix and thought they would help to brighten the card up a bit.  The small rose is from Kaisercraft and the white spray and other little flowers are from my stash.  The leaves are my staple which I've cut with my Silhouette Portrait and then inked and doodled.  The doodling idea came from the amazing Heather Jacob, you can find her blog HERE.

 

 Lined the inside with some paper from my stash and a strip of the KC On This DAy paper on the side.

 And there it is!!  

I just want to say how grateful I am that there are so many of you talented people out there willing to share your art and give inspiration to others.  I love looking at other people's work and I get such a lot of my ideas from them.  Thank you all so much for your generosity.  I do hope that, along the way, I've inspired a few of you too.

Thank you so much for visiting and, perhaps, leaving me a little comment.  I read each and every one and love them all!

I am hoping too that, very soon, I'll be able to share some wonderful news with you all!!

Take care and God Bless.

oxox Marg

 

In the Pink

Hello again everyone and a very warm welcome to my blog.  Lovely to have you here.

I want to share another card with you.  This one is made with some gorgeous papers from Meg's Garden.  I love these papers, they have such a lot of pretty detail in them.  Lots of flowers and different images and the colours are so pretty too.

 No inking around the edge this time just a couple of rips and some sewing.   I added a little texture with a TCW Mini Tile stencil and some texture paste and then started doing a bit of inking.  Unfortunately  I didn't like the result and decided the extra colour wasn't needed anyway so then I had to cover it up again.  This was where a bit of watered down gesso came in very handy.  Covered up the 'whoopsie' very nicely and the little butterfly completed the camouflage.    

 I used a doily and some diecuts under the flower and added a little tag from G45.  The flower is from Prima and it was originally yellow and white which wasn't really right for this card so I sprayed the centre with Sugar Plum Glimmer Mist and also added a vintage brad.   I love how it turned out.

 The flower sprig die is the Honey Blossom Sprig from Memory Box.  The crystal sprigs are from Magnolia Ink.   

 The inside was decorated with more  dp from Meg's Garden.  You can see here what I mean about all the detail on these papers, you really don't have to add a lot to them.

 And there you have it!!  Another card finished.  I have more to show you, but they are for another day.

Thank you so much for visiting and for any lovely comments you might leave me.  Much appreciated.

Take care and God Bless.

oxox Marg 

 

... and More Art Journalling!!

Hello everyone.  Hope the weather where you are is as lovely as the weather we've got at the moment.  After days of wild winds and stormy conditions we have got the most glorious sunshine  out there at the moment.  I had every intention of getting into the garden and putting in some new plants but  fate conspired against me because someone lost my garden gloves!!  Cannot find them anywhere and I cannot work in the garden without them. 

So here I am to show you my latest effort at Art Journalling.  I made a double page spread this time.  I had intended this to be quite minimallist but got carried away a bit I think. 

 I used watercolour paper as my base this time.  For both sides I just glued on some random strips of paper and a piece of burlap to start off with, gessoed over the top of that and then coloured where I wanted with Distress Inks.  Colours used are Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Walnut Stain.  I splattered a bit of the Walnut Stain randomly and let it drip.  Unfortunately it did bleed a bit but I'm just telling myself that it adds to the 'Arty-ness' of it. LOL!

The chipboard clock is from Imaginarium and was coloured with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and randomly brushed with a bit of gesso.  The chipboard stickers are from Cheap as Chips were also lightly brushed with gesso.  The bulb is a small typo bulb from Prima.

Stamping was done with Versafine  Vintage Sepia and the stamps used are one of the Stained Texture stamps from BoBunny but I have no idea where the diamond shape stamp is from.

The printed clock is a free image from the net and the wording was simply written on plain paper, glued to some pasteboard and inked with Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade.

The page below is basically the same but of course with different elements.

The ruler is from Prima's Engraver Collection and I believe the postcards are from Prima as well but I'm not 1oo% sure.  The flourish is from Little Birdie, the small chipboard clock is Imaginarium and the printed clock is another free image from the net.  The flourish and the little clock were both coloured with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and lightly brushed with gesso.

The wording was done in the same way as the previous page and the chipboard stickers are also from Cheap as Chips.

  I thoroughly enjoyed working on these pages.  Got into a heck of a mess but loved every minute of it but now I really need to get back to making my cards and have to leave the Art Journal alone for a while.  
Thank you so much to all the lovely people who share their gorgeous works out there so that people like me can be inspired.  Love you all!!!!
I also want to thank all the lovely people who leave me such heart warming comments.  I love to know what you think and you have all been very generous.  Thank you so much!!
Please take care my friends.  God Bless!!
oxox Marg

 

Another page for my Art Journal

Hi everyone!!!  Lovely to welcome you here and hope you are having a wonderful day.

I have another page from my Art Journal to share with you.  I have to admit this has taken me quite a while to put together.  I've worked on this between doing other projects so it's been lying around on my craft desk for a few weeks.

For the background I inked the paper with Distress Inks in Mustard Seed, Faded Jeans and Walnut Stain.

The stamping was done with Versafine Vintage Sepia.  The stamps used are Kaisercraft's Arty and Bubble Background  and also a script stamp from Prima.  I added a couple of strips of washi tape and then added a little texture with TCW's Mini Tile Texture Template.

The butterflies  were cut from cardstock with the Memory Box Darla Butterfly Die.  I then coloured them with the same Distress Inks and stamped them with  the Prima script on one side and a small Hot off the Press stamp in Memento Tuxedo Black.  An idea I found on Astrid Maclean's Blog.  You can find her blog  HERE. I also coloured the image on the butterflies lightly with Reeves Water Solluble Wax Pastels.  The trails were done with the wax pastels too and the white dots were done with a gel pen.  This was an idea I found on an Art Journal Tutorial by Gabrielle Polacco.  You can find her blog HERE.

I went around the butterflies with the Reeves pastels in white so they would stand out a bit more and also did a bit of doodling around the edges but, unfortunately the pens I have wouldn't work too well over the wax so I couldn't finish.

 For the circles I simply used the cap of my Scotch Glue tube as a stamp.   I dipped it in Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then again in Gesso.  The hearts were drawn with the Reeves Pastels.

A couple more close-ups ...

 and Voila!!  It's done.  Actually, it's not quite done.  If and when I find a decent pen I will finish the doodling and I may also add a quote but I'm not sure about that.  I kinda like it as it is.

Thank you so much for visiting and I would be really pleased if you could leave me a few words to let me know what you think.    That would be lovely.

Please take care and God Bless.

oxox Marg