Week 46 : DLP2015

Information about the FREE weekly Documented Life project is HERE. 

I love to carve stamps - you can check out all my posts on that topic HERE. I thought it would be fun to take photos of what I've done in the past :

To make good use of the bases the above are one side carved, and below are the backs also carved :

All my supplies and methods can be found in my first post about stamp carving HERE. 
Check out Michelle Ward's guest post this week HERE (with links to her stamp carving tutorials) and two of my favourite inspiring artists who carve masterfully : Julie Fei-Fan Balzer (with free tutorials on her blog HERE and a peek inside her book via Amazon HERE) and Geninne Zlatkis (and her book).
I always wish I made time to carve more stamps - I am too impatient to carve slowly and carefully, but I like the "naive" and imperfect style I end up with because of that. This week's challenge provided the perfect excuse to try again - I've been interested in carving a stamp that creates a pattern when put together and was able to carve a quarter stamp as one of the options :

I was thinking about the challenge of tapestry, and it brought to mind using a variety of patterning and colours. Decided to try my hand at patterning a simple shape :

I started by using my own stamps to pattern the elephant, and decided I'd like a tree as well - I used my new quarter stamp for the circular centre

I needed to add more complex patterning so used a variety of other stamps to fill in more details - I used Stazon ink throughout because I know I am going to add colour over this and don't want the ink to move

I did some outlining for definition (using a black waterproof pitt pen) and added my journal block with stamping. Now I'm ready for adding colour

I decided to use watercolours, and started with my tree

Then it was time to have some fun with the elephant

I added a few different blues in the sky, and just had to add a bit of extra white stamped detail at the end - note the colour of the stamp pad I used :-)

This spread was a fun way to relax and add colour to a cool and showery afternoon

Click on the photo to enjoy it larger or see it in the Flickr album I've created for all my Documented Life 2015 spreads HERE. You can see all my posts about this project HERE.

Week 17 : DLP 2015

Information about the FREE Documented Life Project is HERE. Since April's theme was revealed 

I've been waiting for this week's challenge

It's no secret that I love using sprays. This post will be the 79th that has Spray as a label! I have a variety of sprays in my stash, and particularly love the vibrancy of the Dylusions sprays which I used in my Dylusions journal for the base of week 3's challenge :

In the Dylusions journal they don't bleed through to other pages and they blend beautifully.
I wanted this week's spread to honour our ANZAC100 year anniversary so that was my starting point.
I decided that I would like to have poppies on my page and have a lovely stencil by Donna Downey. If you want to have a design embossed and you don't have the right colour embossing powder, you can use Ranger Distress Ink pads and then a layer of clear embossing powder. I thought it would be cool to have embossed poppies and then sprays in the background, but I wanted to be sure this would work as a resist technique so tested it first on a manila tag :

The embossing adds lovely dimension and shine as seen in the photo below

and it was really good to do a test first because you can see on the top poppies I didn't quite sprinkle enough embossing powder so will be more careful on the actual page. Also able to experiment with adding black pen detailing. So into the actual journal :

I used distress ink pads in fired brick and peeled paint, applied through the stencil with a cosmetic sponge. I turned the stencil over sometimes so they look more random. I applied the inks a section at a time and then did the clear embossing powder and heated that before moving on to inking another section so the ink was still wet to capture the powder.

Then I sprayed dylusions inks - London Blue over lace, and Dirty Martini, Cut Grass and Fresh Lime randomly behind the poppies. 

I wanted to use the black leaf washi tape because I knew I would add some black paint to my spread. I wanted to keep it fairly simple so sponged black heavy body acrylic paint within a silhouette shape - the poppies even resisted that paint. Really happy with the effect :

Then I added 100 for the anniversary, and the written phrase. Just a few lines of black pen at the base of the poppy heads and I called it done.

So I completely ignored the art prompt this week, but used 2 kinds of ink effects and am really happy with how my spread turned out. Click on the photo to enjoy it larger or see it in the Flickr album I've created for all my Documented Life 2015 spreads HERE. You can see all my posts about this project HERE.

Art journal pages : 74-76

Another 3 pages in my Full Tilt Boogie journal. 

I forgot to take progress shots for the left page : this is it complete below

click on any photo to see it larger

but I did take a photo of the items I used to finish the page when it just needed "something" : stencils and ink pad applied with cosmetic sponge

Remembered to take progress shots of the next pages

Sometimes Often found text is just the right touch for me to finish a page

I enjoyed the effect of pens on flowers so much on pages 64 and 73 that when I put in this gorgeous green gerbera, it had to receive similar treatment

Green Pen : Sakura Gell Roll Moonlight pen

And at other times, once the collaging is done, there's no need for words for me to feel the page is done :-) 

Now those are completed I've only got 15 pages to go! You can see all the Full Tilt Boogie journal pages in my Flickr Set

Card creation

I made a batch of 4 cards at once this time around. Started them with spray and stencils/masks as is often my habit. Sorry, no progress shots with these.

2 bereavement cards

click on any photo to see it larger

2 birthday cards

Here are the four together so you can more easily see the common elements/techniques :

I've stamped with the same turquoise ink, used a cosmetic sponge to apply distress ink pad over the butterfly mask, glued down serviettes, and used found words. The final butterfly/flower one looks a bit like the odd one out, but has the same turquoise stamped butterfly as the one beside it, and the flowers are serviettes. I'm especially sorry to give that final one away.
It was such fun to make these, I may need to make some more....of course I can play similarly with my postcards for iHanna's swap {ideas starting to swirl in my head}



Me Time Messages 3

Over at the blog of Miscanthus Crafts you'll find free instructions for creating envelopes with messages that you personalise. There's going to be 6 week's worth in all, and I thought you might like to see how the demo envelopes differ from my own
Cover :

By Clare Lloyd of Miscanthus Crafts

by me

Envelope 1 : 

by Clare Lloyd

And here's both sides of mine :

I am always fascinated to see how the same instructions can produce such different results! Envelope 2 by Clare Lloyd :

Envelope 2 by me :

Now it's time to share my envelope #3 - instructions HERE
Started with another coloured envelope - a smaller one this time. Ignored the step of applying gesso so I could keep my pink background, and moved to the instruction of applying ink through a stencil - I used a sponge and an ink pad. Loved the effect on the first side

and decided to go for a different and more subtle colour variation on the other side - also loving this

Next step to apply some stamping and embossing

Used Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powders. This yellow colour is Antique Linen and the greyed blue below is Weathered Wood.

This is the same flower stamp I used for Envelope 2. Here the upper flower was indistinct...and I'm not sure about that colour choice. My solution is usually to add more! Used one of my own hand-carved stamps to add embossed feathers

Click on any photo to see the details larger

Liked this much better, so went ahead and added more embossing to the other side

Feeling lots happier. Next instruction was to add some shine and texture - although these embossing powders are not as glitzy as others, they add lots of texture and some glimmer. I decided to add extra shine and texture by stitching around the envelope with metallic thread

Now time to add words and images. My subject for this envelope was to be careful of what I say - sometimes I say too much...with the boys I'm still trying to learn that keeping it brief is most effective. I also need to pick my times to say things - because I'm always ready to receive communications I forget that when they're immersed in something we need them to do, it's not the right time to introduce another subject!
Kept my words on the envelopes to a minimum as well ;-)

Half way through the project

Let me know if you're playing along too - see all my postings from this workshop HERE