Art Journalling!

I know, I know…I've been very absent.  No excuses really: Work, more work, Masters courses, etc, etc, etc.  Being an adult sucks sometimes.

But….I've been crafty busy too!  I took an art journalling course in October and have been obsessed ever since!!  I dream about it.  I think about it often.  I scour Pinterest.  I think I am finding my well hidden artsy side!  I *try* to do one page every day.  Some days are more forgiving than others.  Here are some of my favourite pages I have made.  Many of them are 'stolen' from other peoples' work!

Tim Holtz October Tag Challenge!

Hi All y'all!

Here is my rendition of Tim's October tag challenge.  Tim used a halloween theme, but since I had none of the stamps, I chose to do a romantic tag instead.  I had always wondered what to do with this chandelier stamp:

Here is Tim's original:

Can you spot the similarities and differences?

Some more Bellaicious layouts!

Sharing some more layouts from my Bella album that I made this summer.

This one is my favourite in the entire album.  I create the mat and journal card using some of Tim's distress techniques.

I love how the colours turned out in the this one.  I think the white background helps to make them pop.  I used a Tim stencil in the back to looks like grass since this was an outdoor picture.

I really like the clean-ness of this one as well.  Perhaps I just like white backgrounds.

Cinco Layouts

Hello faithful reader!

I know I have been sort of MIA lately.  Life…work, other work, university, household responsibilities, etc.  I was in Indianapolis last week presenting a 3 day workshop to other IB Math teachers.  I LOVE this part of my job, but I am still playing catch up.  It is nice to have today off to get through my to-do list!

One of the things on my list was to get outside and take better pics of the layouts from Bella's album I made this summer.  I needed a really sunny day to get the colours to pop and the details to be noticeable. The weather cooperated today!  And so, I will treat you to 5 of the layouts today to make up for my absence!

I love the colours in this first layout.  It's Teresa Collins paper, which is so thick and feels so good to work with.

Sorry for the shadow of the binder rings on this one.  This is why I will never be a professional photographer! This layout was just made from scraps and odd papers I had in my stash. I like the minimalism.

This one came from some paper that my Peep gifted me.  I like the horizontal strips of paper and the wash tape on the right hand side.

This one I sat on for weeks, half done.  I couldn't figure out what it needed.  I finally added the yellow ribbon on the top left and it made a nice yellow visual triangle.

This layout is one of my favourites!  It is very outside-my-box-comfort-level.  I'm used to more linear and clean but have always admired those who are gifted in just placing things willy-nilly.  This is a total copy of someone else's layout that I cannot find anymore.  if it's yours, let me know!!

Can you notice a difference in my photographs??

Quick triple treat!

Hi all (six of you)

Just a quick post of three more summer tags.

This is probably one of my favourite tags.

 I used the TH dress form die cut and painted it with silver distress stain.  I used some tulle and ribbon to make the skirt and the top is part of a butterfly cut from TH tissue wrap.  The wings are a TH grungeboard piece that I painted with bronze.  Once dry, I sanded the piece and inked the embossed swirls with Peacock Feathers.  The background is a combo of Picked Raspberry, Wild Honey and Mustard Seed distress ink.  Add some stamps to the background and voila!

Tag #2:

 For this one, I was playing around with a sunburst stencil and various inks.  I boxed the quote at the end because it was getting lost in the ink.  I also added the charm on the top just for the heck of it!

I love how tag #4 turned out, but in hindsight, I wish the blue on the birdie matched the blue flowers. I think it looks a little off now that I see the picture.  Oh well, c'est la vie!

Some more summer tags on a rainy WInnipeg day.

Hi all,

This working full time stuff is hard!  I napped for 3 hours today and my week wasn't all that unusually busy!  I'm finding that going back to work after summer break is really cutting in my crafty time!  This week, I finished 3 tags (They were semi complete last week), made one layout for Sassy's album, made 2 identical cards, and started to construct the quiet book I am making for my niece for Xmas.  Writing that it sounds like a lot, but its really not.

Today I'm going to share three more tags from my self imposed summer challenge.

For tag #1, I was experimenting with colouring with distress markers directly on the stamp before stamping.  I like the effect that it made. I suggest using a larger stamp with solid areas as opposed to just an outline stamp.  And since I own my dorkiness, I will admit that the red and white label sticker on the right was to cover up and area that did not stamp well. :oP  I stole the idea from somewhere (sorry if it was you and I can not remember now) to fill the  background with various TH rub on words.

For this tag, there were two things I wanted to try.  The first was inking directly onto a stencil, then pressing it onto the tag…that would be the orange lattice.  On top of that I used a few different stencils in the traditional way.  The other thing I wanted to try was finding a use for the mason jar stamp I for at the Simon Says Stamp workshop I attended in Ohio.  It seems to go well with the flower stamp I also acquired so I put them together.  For the "water in the jar" affect, I stamped the jar onto acetate and then apply blue ink with a watercolour brush.  The blue ink didn't seem to want to dry, so I just put that side down on the tag and let it stick.  I also used some pop dots under the flowers to make them seem a little more 3D.

For this last tag, I wanted to play around with layering of both stamps and stencils…for example, making it look like the "admit one" stamp was stamped under the clock.  This is known as masking in the crafty world.  I think outlining the clock stamp with white as an after thought makes it look funny, but that;s the joy of making tags - who cares!  It's just an experiment in being creative!

If you are crafty, I highly recommend listening the the podcasts by The Scrap Gals. These two southern ladies are so ridiculously funny and inspiring.  I feel like I am just one of their besties sitting around having coffee with them.  I started following both of them on facebook and occasionally I feel like writing something on their wall about a project I'm working on, and then I remember that they don't know me at all!!  I doubt they would give a wicketywhack (Thanks Tracie for adding that word to my vocab) about what I am up to! LOL

A procrastination post!

I am utterly, completely, 100%ly procrastinating from finishing an assignment for my Masters course I am taking this term.  Financial Mathematics - although it is quite interesting (no, really, it is!), I am just not feeling annuities right now.

I'm going to share the mini-album I made for my oldest niece's 5th birthday back in June.  Each year all of my nieces and nephew receive a mini-album chronicaling their last year with their birthday present .  I had wanted to make an explosion box for awhile, and for some unknown reason this paper called for it.

Here is the outside of the box:

I was worried about the paper curly-Qs getting squished in the mail, but they arrived in perfect condition!

On the inside in the middle, I put a vertical piece of cardboard with a photo on each side:

My niece is a real girly girl (she would wear dresses every single day given the choice), so I wanted to use flowers, glitter glue, etc.

Here is my favourite page: Her and her baby sister.  The bows were just too cute not to add.

Although the picture is not great, this is my favourite one.  It shows her cute side.  Those are raspberries on her fingers! :)

Here are some of the other pages:

If you have ever made an explosion box, I'd love to see pics!
~E