Little Critters have BIG Dreams!

Happy Monday, friends! We have a new challenge for you this week - Little Critters. I think you can have a lot of fun with this one, and I bet we get a lot of cuteness! I have been waiting for the opportunity to use my cute little Lovebirds stamp, and I thought this was the perfect time, so I created a tag for them. 

I added a few more colors to my stash of Distress Oxide inks, and wanted to learn a bit more about using them. So, I watched a couple of videos while I played. Tim Holtz has a great demo at Creativation 2017 and Jennifer McGuire has a good one too, where she demos backgrounds and cards. 

So, using my fave color palette, I blended a bit of the distress oxides onto the tag.

Here's how it looks after spritzing with water and drying.

Then, I rubbed the colors onto the craft sheet, spritzed with water and lay the tag into it several times, drying between each layer. Since I had a lot left on the craft mat, I used a piece of watercolor paper to pick it up - why waste any, right?

Next step, stamping with water...yes, you heard me correctly! I spritzed water onto the stamp, stamped off once, then stamped directly onto the tag to get a subtle design. 

As you can see, I add a bit of orange, then using my MISTI, I stamped the saying with the purple, moved the tag slightly and stamped with the black - I was aiming for a shadow effect.

Closeup details with a bit of doodling to show the amazing texture distress oxides create.

A mix of lovely fibers to tie on the tag, two sweet lovebird popped up - remember I told you I put the leftover ink onto the watercolor paper? It worked perfectly to stamp my birds on!

Turn your cant's into CANS and your DREAMS into PLANS! I like this motto!!

I hope you've enjoyed my quick and easy tag, and try out some distress inks yourself. I know I have a lot more to learn about them, but I am having fun playing right now. Hope you will join us this week in our Little Critters challenge! 

Simon Says Stamp offers a $50 voucher to one participant!

SUPPLIES:

                                       

                                       

A great place to shop - fast and friendly!!

Simon is on Instagram! Use hashtag #sssmchallenge

I wonder what kind of little critters the design team has hold of this week? Let's head on over and check it out!

Strolling through the "Hood"

Hello Friends!

Starting May 10, there is a wonderful challenge for this next month with Nathalie Kalbach in celebration of her new book! 

So, how well do you think you know your neighborhood? I bet once this challenge is finished, you will be looking around you with a new lens. I am sure we live in all different types of neighborhoods, so it will be fun to share and learn a bit more about where we live. I am planning to join in the fun as much as I can, and I hope you will too!! It's all free, and will be a whole lot of fun! Let's help Nat celebrate her new book!

Here's a description from Nathalie about the challenge, and the LINK to head to the classroom! Head on over and sign up for free!

"What is the Stroll Challenge? Go on an Artful Adventure with us! Find inspiration by taking a “Stroll Through The Hood” and observing the details of the world around you. Anyone can join in on the fun by following the list of daily prompts. Each day you will have a new word to inspire you. Go for a stroll outside, snap a photo of something that you feel illustrates the word of the day, and build a collection of visual material to inspire your artwork, art journaling, and mixed media projects. Along the way you’ll discover things about your Hood that you may have never noticed before, and you’ll learn to find inspiration just outside your door. Use #ArtfulAdventures on social media and share your photos and the projects you were inspired to make. Join the FREE classroom for several tutorials, projects from Surprise Guests, comments from fellow Artful Adventurers, and chances to win copies of Nat's new book Artful Adventures in Mixed Media."

It's All About the Numbers!

Creative Carte Blanche is having a Numbers challenge this month. I jumped at the chance to use a new stencil I have and work in my art journal. Also, my inner scientist came alive for this one! (retired science teacher...it never goes away)

I started off with several fluid acrylics creating an ombre type of effect for the background - darkest blue on the bottom to lightest blue-green at the top. 

Next, to add in a fun layer, I used the bubble stencil and randomly dabbed in the Purple Rain with a sponge.

Time for this fantastic fossil stencil by Andy Skinner - used my palette knife and filled it in with Modeling Paste. While that was drying, I searched my stash for numbers, and used my Paper Artsy stamps to add the word extinction, because Ammonites went extinct 66 million years ago. I used a stencil for the "mya", then went around the words with a white pen, not too worried about it leaving partial lines. 

I put the stencil back in place on the dry modeling paste, and dabbed in layers of color - black, brown, and golds.

Then I decided to get out my graphite pencil and go around the fossil, then go over that with a water brush.

Isn't it funny how our minds work sometimes? I was driving to my water yoga class last night thinking about this project, and into my head popped the thought about the extinction of humans. Not soon, I hope!!

Here is the full journal page, inspired by Creative Carte Blanche's challenge about Numbers, Numbers, Numbers.

I must say, I really enjoyed melding my art and science sides together to create this! I hope you have enjoyed it too, and thanks for stopping by! 

I would also like to enter this into the A Vintage Journey "All Aboard" challenge, celebrating their third birthday!

DECOART SUPPLIES

Fluid Acrylics: Prussian Blue Hue, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Turquoise Hue, Blue Green Light, Burnt Umber, Quinacridone Gold, Metallic Gold

Americana Acrylics:  Purple Rain, Lamp Black

Mediums: Modeling Paste

Stencils: Fossil, Typeface, Bubbles

ADDITIONAL SUPPLIES

Paper Artsy EEA05 stamp set

Ranger Archival Jet Black ink

Graphite pencil

 white pen

water brush

palette knife

brush

Dylusions art journal

Heat tool 

sponge

Wanderlust 2016 Thinking of a Song

You know when a song gets stuck in your head, and you wake up in the night and there it is singing away. Well, that is what my art journal page is all about.

I used up some of the papers I had made in several Wanderlust classes. Lots of fun things going on from gelli plate prints, to pastels, to acrylics, to stamping and doodling. Worked on some mark making with my finger too. 

I am also entering this into the December challenge at Creative Carte Blanche. It has been too long since I participated over in that great space! 

Creative Carte Blanche Challenge: Sun, Moon, Stars

I love Sun and Moon designs and knew I had to find time before the end of August to create something for the Creative Carte Blanche challenge! 

I pulled out my pencils, brushes and watercolors and made these quick sketches in my art journal. I started with pencil, added some masking, then got into the colors with my White Nights - love these rich colors!

Added a lot of scribbly lines and words around the Moon and Sun to finish up my pages, as well as some shading with my Stabile pencil.

Moon and Star

Sun

Years ago I remember sketching similar designs, so I think these must be imprinted in my brain.

Wanderlust 2016: Open the Doors...

The July challenge in my Wanderlust class is a collage inspired by this quote by Coco Chanel:

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud."

I recently shared with my art group how to make the mixed media prayer flags that Kasia taught us in our Wanderlust class, and had lots of bits and pieces left over, so on the last two days of July, here I am creating my collage.

I am working in my Dylusions 8x8 art journal. I really like that size format. Last evening, I adhered all of my bits and pieces for the under layer of my collage so it would dry. I included old papers, magazines, sewing patterns, lace, threads, music sheets, scrapbook papers, vellum...lots of goodies.

Time to get painty today on a beautiful rainy day (we really need the rain!). I chose to work mainly with yellow, green and blue, and used a lot of transparent paints so the papers would show through.

Next, I added some darker blue in around the edges and white. Most of this was done with my finger to get that soft edge.

Add another layer with some lovely stamps! I chose the Everything Art stamps, set 2 and a fun set I am loving from Snapping Monsters.

I came across this old photo of a door, and I immediately thought of "open the doors of your mind". There is so much going on around the globe and in my country right now, that I truly believe if we were more open-minded, we would create a better world. I think art can be a wonderful venue to share our beliefs in a unique way.

Ironically, when I turned this photo over, the date stamped on it was September 11, 1934. So many years later on September 11 would come a dark day that would affect many people around the world. I say again, we need to open our minds.

Bits of detail and textures...

Supplies I used:

One of the best decisions I have made was to sign up for this year long course. I have learned so much from Kasia and Jamie and all of the fantastic teachers they have brought on board! I am grateful for this opportunity to learn and to push the boundaries of what I thought I could do. 

Have a beautiful day! 

I am going to go out on a wing and also enter this into Creative Carte Blanche's July challenge - Blossoms and Bookpages. I might be stretching it a bit, but I did use old book pages as collage elements, and the "blossoming of ideas when the mind is opened" is going to be my blossom part, rather than flowers. Art is all about interpretation, right?