Vacation Mode: Travel Bag

I'm up on Nathalie Kalbach's blog today for the Creative Squad.  I up cycled a canvas bag and turned it into a travel bag for our March theme - Vacation Mode. You can read all about it HERE.

And, in case you missed it, here is my February project.

When I saw this month’s theme, I immediately thought of my Turquoise Adirondack chairs on our deck. I am so lucky to have a wonderful view in my work area looking out on our deck, and the Adirondack Mountains. I printed up a photo I had taken in summer of one of our chairs with it’s bright pillow, and used these colors as my inspiration in my art journal. I started off thinking I would create a frame for the photo, but as often happens, my Muse took me on a slightly different path with three pages instead.

I’m using a Dina Wakley Media Journal which has a mix of pages in it, including canvas. I started by using the Crackle stencil and bright orange, yellow and green paints. I use cosmetic sponges to dab my paint into the stencil. (Tip - you can reuse these when they dry, just cut off the colored end, and you have a fresh sponge)   

Next, I sponged on some Peacock Feathers Distress ink with a mini blender in the areas without a stencil design.  

While the paint was drying on the canvas, I stamped the Adirondack Chairs onto watercolor paper, using archival ink. Once the ink was dry, I went in and added some color with a Tombow marker and went over the color with a water brush.    

The next page in the journal was a watercolor page, and I used mini blenders and Distress Oxide inks in pink and orange to cover the background. Next, I spritzed it with water, and dabbed it dry.     

I laid the Toledo Stencil over the inked page, and using a cosmetic sponge, I dabbed on the turquoise and lime paints.   

I glued the photo of my Adirondack chair onto this page, then went around it with a Stabilo graphite pencil and then a water brush to make a frame. Once that dried, I added a bit of white highlights on the page with a Posca white paint pen.  

For my final steps, I went back to the canvas and cut out the center for the photo to show through. Since I had printed my photo from the computer, I used the copy paper I had cut it out from as a template for cutting, and made a few more snips as needed. On the back of the canvas, I cut the square in four and glued these to the corners, and wrote around the opening with a Pitt pen “ Home is where the Adirondack chairs are”. I used the Mark stamps and went around the frame on both sides of the canvas.    

Details

Nathalie’s Adirondack chair stamps were the perfect match to my chairs, and I had fun coloring them turquoise just like mine! When I was looking for pillows for my chairs, I found these which have wonderful contrasting colors that I took as my inspiration for the pages. Truly, home IS where my Adirondack chairs are!