• Art - Blog - Creativity

    Art for art’s sake

    July 3, 2018 - By 

    Early Sunday morning I sat down to create. Getting my fingers full of paint and glue rejuvenates me. I used what was at hand.

     Scrapbook paper, magazine cuttings, ribbon and washi tape just to name a few.

    After creating this page I notice that the current theme for July on Art Journal Journey is Art for Art’s Sake hosted by Chris of Pearshapedcrafting. Don’t you just love it when things fall into place. It doesn’t always happen that so when it does…woohoo!

    Art Journal Journey

     

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Inspired by Summer

    June 28, 2018 - By 
    As I sat down to create in the midst of a summer that I hadn’t planned, my mind wandered to the beautiful things. The things that make me appreciate summer. Beautiful colors. Flowers. Birds singing. Breeze blowing through open windows.
    All this had me in the mood for an explosion of color. I used my fingers to loosely apply paint in a tribute to a gorgeous sunrise or sunset. The colors were a little too bold. Too in your face so using a baby wipe I blended and softened the page until it made me happy.
    I pressed uninked rubber stamps into the paint to create some interest on the background as the stamps pulled even more of the still wet paint away with them as you can see above with the grid pattern.
    After heat setting the page I used a harlequin stamp with white ink to lightly stamp randomly around the background using white embossing powder over top to provide a little more kick to the white.
    Digging through my stash I found some rub-ons that fit my theme perfectly. The black really pops against the background.
    A canning jar full of flowers screams summer beauty to me, Casual, simple, perfect.
    I really wanted it to appear that these flowers were indeed inside a glass jar. This gave me a bit of a challenge.
    I stamped the jar twice. One was clear embossed for later use. The first was adhered directly to the page. I then stamped my bouquet of flowers onto tissue paper using black Staz-on ink. I adhered the tissue with matte medium and placed on the page, partially “inside” the jar.
    Next I cut out windows in the clear embossed jar. I cut a piece of vellum to fit and gave that a bit of shimmer with clear embossing as well. I carefully stacked and glued the pieces of the jar over the original stamped piece. Much to my great pleasure, the stems of the flowers shone through the “glass” as I had hoped.  I used a Tim Holtz word sticker to sum up my thoughts.
    The jar seemed to be missing something so I thought about the basket of goodies I carried home from a friends house like Little Red Riding Hood.
    The perfect embellishment was right there.
    I’m linking up today with Art Journal Journey for Inspired by… the theme chosen by this months host Gil from gibbyfrogettcraftations.
    Art Journal Journey
  • Around home - Art - Blog - Creativity - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: flora and fauna edition

    May 28, 2018 - By 

    This Memorial day marks one year since I lost my mom. She was on my mind all day. Half way through my first cup of coffee I made the decision not to be sad but to reflect and remember the good things, The funny memories. The things that make me smile.

    As I walked around the yard watering before it got too hot, I thought about her green thumb. She had flowers galore and a big garden. Houseplants too. I guess I’ve taking after her in that way. I love spending time tending to the garden. Making it beautiful and productive,

    My newly sewn and strung garden bunting made me smile. Mom was no seamstress. In fact she hated sewing. She was so happy when I learned how to sew in school and gladly passed all of her supplies on to 13 yr old me.  I’ve never stopped sewing since!

    After finishing the outdoor chores I headed inside to do a bit of art journaling. I was really feeling inspired by nature.

    The background colors I laid down didn’t scream nature. They were the colors that spoke to me though. Sort of a hard edge along with nature.

    Layers upon layers stacked. This fussy cut stamped birds nest was the perfect way to embrace nature. I used watercolor crayons to color the robin eggs then used diamond glaze over top to add dimension. The addition of the thread help sell the idea of the nest for me.

    I added the skeleton leaf for balance.  As soon as I added the leaf, the words “live gently upon the earth” jumped out at me.  This page made me smile.

    Linking up with Art Journal Journey for Flora and Fauna

    Art Journal Journey
    as well as T stands for Tuesday today.
    T stands for Tuesday
    Eight days of school left. Whoop, whoop!
    What are you doing today?