Cards made with my new Sin City Stamps images

I have been playing with the journaling stamps from Sin City Stamps for a couple of months now and I really like them.  There are so many stamps in their collection that I want that it is very hard to decide what to add to my stash first!  So last month I decided to order their 1 lb. grab bag and let fate decide which stamps I get to play with next.  I like to order stamps this way from time to time because it’s an envelope full of surprises!  And who doesn’t like a good surprise, right?

This package had stamps of backgrounds (fabulous for journaling), children & silhouettes (always fun for Mother’s Day, etc) and…Halloween!  And not the happy-funny-smiley Halloween either!  MY kind of Halloween!  I have always made my Halloween cards dark and scary. To me, that is the best kind of Halloween.  When I saw this graveyard stamp I couldn’t wait to play with it.  And I love the spooky font on the Oct 31 stamp.

I started by choosing bold colors.  I love how orange and blue look together and every spooky Halloween deserves a big bright moon so I added a vibrant yellow.  Then I stamped all of my images in all of the colors so I could play around and get the right combination of layers. 

It’s a scary card that can even go to the young people on my holiday card list because the colors are bright and bold and the coffin isn’t too scary.  

Of course, I couldn’t resist playing with the coffin on another card.  I used the direct-to-paper method and my little mini inkpads to get a nice background going.  I stamped some texture images around the sides and randomly in the middle before placing the main image on the card.  

A little coloring and then I sponged more ink around everywhere except the moon. The gray is a chalk ink and gave it a nice muted effect.

Two very different cards with one stamp – those are my favorites!  I love stamps that can be used over and over again without repeating a design. 

Thanks for stopping by and following me on this creative journey.  Please feel free to leave me a comment or like/follow my page.  Happy stamping!

Stop and smell the roses

The roses in this case are napkins and they help bring my Garden of Dreams layout to life.

This double page features a lot of greens and browns.  I made this background knowing that one of the techniques that Terri Sproul highlighted in this lesson was using napkins to enhance the page.  But when I was done with the painted background I thought it was going to be too dark and too busy.  In the past, I would have scrapped the idea and made another but I really wanted to see where this would take me.  Before the paint could dry I added a sprinkling of gold Mica D'Lights so the page would have a very light sparkle.

I started my napkin collage with a tan and cream floral napkin to try and soften up some of the dark swirls.  Some of the pieces of this pattern and one of the large flowers were stamped with a handwriting image and allowed to dry before being decoupaged onto the page.  These were the napkins I chose.

After the tan floral, I added two of the large lilies and two roses.  A marble pattern was stamped in gold to add a little depth to the background.  I wanted more of a garden feel to the page and because of the dark background the napkins weren't as prominent as I'd hoped.  No problem!  I grabbed a stencil and some of my USArt Quest 101 Light and added some vines.  While the paste was still wet I sprinkled Mica Delights in ruby and green.

A green Bic Mark-It was used to highlight the vine and a red one was used to highlight the circles to match the mica used on each.  After that, I stamped bees in cream colored acrylic paint and dragonflies using a brown Faber-Castell Gelato.

Terri's original theme was "Dream Big" but it just didn't seem to fit my page so I changed the title to "Garden of Dreams".  I chose a font from my computer and printed it out to use as a guide for how to draw each letter.  The same Bic Mark-It that was used on the vine was used for the letters.  And voila!

Thanks for joining me once again!  Please drop me a line or use one of the links to follow my blog journey or add me to your Google circle!  Have a wonderful day!

Be Brave in your art journal

Be Brave and Take a Chance was the theme of this next layout.  My bravery on this layout was mainly the use of mustard yellow!  That color took me out of my comfort zone.  There were a lot of techniques going on for this layout.  Hey, you can catch Terri Sproul's art journal tutorial #3 over on YouTube if you'd like to play along on Tuesdays and make your own brave layout!

First I tore large sections from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  It was a brown paper with copper hexagons.  The brown paper really drove this layout, which is ironic because I used so much paint that it almost doesn't show.  Only the shiny copper really comes through.  That's a shame because it was wonderful paper. 

After the paper was down I spread on a generous amount of Elmer's glue and a little touch of copper color glitter glue.  You have to let that start to dry and then paint over top.  While the paint and glues dry the paint begins to crack and split.  Because the paint got away from me I tried to wipe some of it off.  A couple of things went wrong at this point.  When you blend the glue and paint it doesn't really crack.  Also, because the paper was saturated with paint, when I began wiping it off I was also wiping off the scrapbook pattern!  So I stopped wiping and decided to go with whatever happened.  I sprinkled on a few of the turquoise mica flakes that came in the mail that day.

 

Because I was being Brave. I wanted to do something different to add interest to the page.  I took my largest mica tile and split it into two pieces so that I could have the same shape on each side of the layout.    The "Be Brave" tile has the yellow paint on the back and the words and my thumbprint on the top.  The "Take A Chance" tile has the yellow paint on top so it's not as shiny.  Both tiles were attached with Helmar 450 glue.

 

After the paint was thoroughly dry I  added a couple sections of USArt Quest's 101 Heavy on two different stencils.  The first was an Asian symbol for energy, which was decorated with their Mica D'Lights.  This wonderful stuff is like glitter, but it's all natural.  It also matched the flakes so I thought it would be a nice burst of color.  I stamped a couple of flowers with glue and added more D'Lights.  Then I added some checkerboard sections just for fun.  I stamped some additional background images and let the whole thing dry...again.

 

So this is my page.  There is a lot going on and it is different than anything I've ever created.  I like it for that reason alone!  One more step along the new creative path I'm taking.  I hope you like it.  

Please leave me a comment or follow my journey using the links here on the page.  Happy creating!

Enjoying the Art Journaling Experience

I was recently chatting with my local stamp store owner about the different types of ink she carries and the many different type of classes she offers.  I brought up the fact that I have recently started journaling and she said that they tried to offer classes in-store but her customers weren't interested.  She said they didn't see the point in it.  I remember thinking the same thing not that long ago.  A lot of her customers are scrapbookers.  And in a way, those are their art journals.  But that got me thinking about why I decided to play along with Terri Sproul for this series of classes. 

When I first started watching Terri's class on Tuesday she was doing a series on altered books.  I love books.  I worked in a library for 14 years and the thought of "destroying" a book just to make art was a little difficult for me to grasp.  But Terri teaches techniques and I can use what I learned in those lessons anytime.  I look forward to her classes and I've enjoyed Tuesday nights even more since I found her online.  And NCIS is on Tuesday so it already had THAT going for it! 

So, why am I making an art journal?

The first reason is that I don't have anything that I've created just for myself.  I'm a card maker so most of the art I've created gets sent away to friends, family and RAK* recipients.  I don't have anything in my own home that I've made for ME.

The second reason is that I really am trying to grow as an artist.  I'm learning techniques, of course, but I'm also learning to be more spontaneous with my projects and to give myself a break for imperfections.  And I've learned the importance of being patient and completing a complex project in stages (without fussing with it while it dries).

This was my second layout in Terri's series titled Plant Positive Seeds.  And what is that you see?  Book pages??!!  That's right.  I've also finally gotten over the idea that tearing pages out of a book is taboo!  I will admit that I held that book in my hand a long time before I could make myself actually rip out a couple.  When it was done, I took a few deep breaths and I was fine. 

The texture on this page comes from several different techniques, including folding the pages together and gently pulling them apart.  I've also made cards in this way and it makes a great textured background.  There are paint drips, stencil patches and a hint of journaling, which was done with mostly stamps.

So now I have art to share with my cards and art to keep in my journal.  Thanks for joining me in another step of my journey.  Now if you'll excuse me, there is some acrylic paint calling my name.

Leave me a comment or follow me using the links on this page.  I'd love to hear from you!

* Random Act of Kindness