Journal Journeys Challenge 19

Its 'Birds' this month over on Journal Journeys this month so here's my offering.

I started by scribbling Derwent ArtBars (in Spearmint, Honeycomb, Pacific Blue and Allzarin) in blocks all over the page.  I used a paintbrush with water to blend them together.  This is the first time I've used the ArtBars and I *love* them.  They're like water soluble wax crayons (and we all know how much we love wax crayons!!).

Next I tore some pages from a bird book  and stuck them on with gel medium.  Then I put some Claudine Hellmuth Blank Canvas paint on top of them with my finger and scrubbed it off with kitchen towel to blend them in with the page.


I used a Stewart Gill stencil of a Peacock Feather and sponged Landscape Green and Yellow Pastel through it.  After that I really looked at the background and realised that there was pink and blue in there so I sponged Painterly Pink and Sky Blue through small sequin waste and scrubbed some into the background with my finger.


Ages ago Jo and I were in The Works at the Metro Centre and we came across a book in the sale called Fotolog.  Its a book jam packed full of all kinds of photos on everything imaginable.  Well at a fiver who could resist....  I used 4 unusual photos of birds on the page and scratched into them using Stampbord tools.  I used the same colours of ArtBars to scribble round the edge of each photo and then outlined them with black pen.

I googled bird quotes and found the 2 I've used.  I thought because my photos are a bit dark, the quotes needed to be deep.  





I hand wrote them using a black pen, first going over it in black then in pink to accentuate it.  I don't hand write in my finished pages very often but I think this page benefits from it.




I used a Tim Holtz clear flock of birds stamp with Sweet Plum Memento ink randomly on the page.  Memento doesn't dry too well over acrylic paint and gel medium so I used a heat gun to dry it and scrubbed any damp ink into the page with a kitchen towel.

So here is my finished page.

Its something completely different for me but I'm really please with it!

Thanks for organising this Dawn :-)

Journal Journeys Challenge 18

Dawn has set us the challenge of 'quotes' on Journal Journeys this month.  I love quotes so for me the only challenge was which one to use.

I started off with a page in my Moleskine that I'd previously written on and then gesso'd over the top and used a plastic fork to draw lines into it.  I write in my journal a lot and then paint over what I've written.  Its my way of drawing a line under whatever has been bothering me.  Only I know what is under the paint, or in this case have forgotten what is under the paint ;-)

I've just treated myself to some new Crafter's Workshop stencils and decided to try them out.  I like the texture so much that I didn't want to just cover it over completely so I used some acrylic paint through the mini splat stencil using a make-up sponge to apply it.  I buy cheap  make-up sponges and use them for painting.  Certainly a lot cheaper than buying the proper tools and I just throw them away afterwards.  No cleaning....which works for me!!!

Next I used the mini rain stencil and used yellow acrylic through it but it looks like lime green in the photo.  To bring it altogether I used black through small sequin waste just randomly over the page.

The quote I have chosen came from a poster on the wall of the Pain Clinic when I was there a couple of weeks ago.  It was all about the 5 steps to healthy living and under one of the steps it said 

Take Notice. Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual.  

This just spoke to me for some reason especially with this challenge in mind.

So here is my finished page.

It wasn't til after I'd finished it I thought that it might've looked really good if I'd used a graffiti-style font, but hey-ho.  I'm happy with how its turned out!

Thanks for organising this again Dawn.

Journal Journeys Challenge 15

Dawn set us the challenge of 'new' on Journal Journeys this month.  Cos my Muse still isn't working to her full potential its taken me all month to think of something I wanted to do.  I decided to use new stash that I've either just got or things I haven't used yet and lets be honest we've all got things we haven't used yet ;)

I used a Splodge Away mat that I bought last year but as I'd bought one for Jo for Christmas I didn't dare use it in case I told her about it!  I used DI in Antique Linen and Spun Sugar which are 2 colours I can't remember ever using to make a pale background.

Then I used my new Dylusions Around the Edge stamps that I got from QVC Last Clicks Clearance.  I decided to use every stamp on the plate and built up a sort of 'garden' scene.  I used Memento ink in Tuxedo Black, Rhubarb Stalk, Dandelion, Lilac Posies, Tangelo, Pear Tart, Grape Jelly, Lady Bug and Bahama Blue.  I then coloured in some of the leaves and spaces in the stamped images with a Picket Fence Distress Marker that I got for my birthday.

I didn't take any photos as I went this time as its a very simple page but I'm really happy with it.

As I've been struggling for a while I think a simple page where I just played with new stash was exactly what the doctor ordered.

If this has inspired you to try journaling, hop over to Journal Journeys and come join us in Dawns monthly challenges!

Journal Journeys Challenge 12

Oooh look at me - 6th of the month and I'm already entering the challenge.  Makes a refreshing change!

I've had a few comments thanking me for tutorials.  Tutorials weren't my intention.  I intended to put all of the details in purely to remind myself of how I did something and why.  I'm so pleased that helps other people too!

Dawn over on Journal Journeys gave us the challenge on 'friendship' this month.  Its a special month as its the twelfth challenge Dawn has given us and she will enter everyone who posts a picture of their entry on her blog via linky a chance to win some blog candy!!

I searched the internet again for some inspiration and I found a quote that says everything that I know makes a friendship a great one.  I wanted to get this feeling over on the page so I wanted it to be quiet and not at all busy.  This'll all make sense when you see the finished page.

I started off by gessoing the page to cover up the ink from last months challenge that bled through.  I'm a messy journaler ;)  I started off by blending Shaded Lilac DI onto the page but it was a bit too pale for what I wanted.  So I used Picked Raspberry DI (a yummy berry pink colour if you've not got it) around the edge of one page and Dusty Concord around the other.  As I continued to blend I noticed that there was a heart appearing on the page where I'd left Shaded Lilac.  Its must've been serendipity cos it works perfectly on the page.

I outlined the heart using a Signo uni-ball in black. It mustn't have like working over the gesso and ink cos the ink only flowed intermittently.  It just makes it look even more hand drawn.  I also drew a couple of lines down each edge of the pages too.

I copied the quote into Word and changed the font to Kristen ITC and made it much bigger and printed it off in grey.  I made sure there was plenty of space between each word so I could cut them out.  I stuck the words to the page and drew lines around them with the Signo uni-ball and traced the letters with a Sharpie to make it look more like handwriting.

This is truly how I feel about friendship.  I can think of no better way to enter this challenge.  Also I've never done a journal page where I've made the words the only embellishment.

Thanks for organising this again Dawn :)

Journal Journeys Challenge 10

Over on Journal Journeys Dawn gave us a recipe for our challenge this month - photograph of a person, stamps, design papers (DP's) and Glossy Accents.  I'm struggling with creativity at the moment and although I love this challenge I wanted to do something a bit different (of course!).  I knew which DP's I wanted to use - Artylicious ones I got as a free gift for joining the now defunct Graphicus Guild.  

Then inspiration hit after spending the day with Jo attempting to start and sort her new craft room out.  She had some Simply Stamping Magazines from 2006 / 2007.  I'd never seen these mags as I had real problems stamping when I first tried and was put off completely!  One of the mags had a tutorial on paper weaving and that was me inspired!

I used Mowed Lawn, Squeezed Lemonade, Peeled Paint and Crushed Olive DI's to cover the background of the page in my Moleskine.  I flicked water over page and mopped it up with kitchen towel before drying it with a heat tool.

I chose a script stamp and swirls in various shapes and over stamped them onto the page using Mowed Lawn and Crushed Olive DI's.  I just stamped them randomly cos I knew they'd be mostly covered by the other elements.

I cut the DP's into strips, some with a fancy edge and some with straight edges.  I then followed the instructions in the mag. 

Place the strips on to a Post it note sticky side up and secure them with another Post it on top.

Then its just a case of weaving more strips in and out of the vertical ones.  Continue til you get to the required size.  Now this is where the mag tutorial was a bit vague.  I discovered that the more strips you add the more strength it has when you turn it over to put some glue onto stick it to the background.  

Maybe I should of attached it to some paper before putting it in my journal but I just stuck it (with difficulty) straight in there!

The next stage was photos.  In 2011 some wonderful women in the North West on England decided to do a (tasteful) naked calender to raise funds for the MS Society.  The calendar was a very beautiful and a great success.  If I'd known about it before it was photographed I would quite happily have joined in too.  I wanted to use those images as they celebrate the female form and also (as my Mam said) you tend not to keep calendars but I'll always have my journal!


Now came the difficult part. Dawn had said to use Glossy Accents to highlight our fave bits.  Hmmmm......

I used two main images and then cut the thumbnail size prints from the back of the calendar and highlighted the girls in those photos with Glossy Accents.





I matted all of the photos to pieces of the same DP's I'd used for the weaving and stuck them all on.  And here is the finished page

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out ;)

Thanks for organising this again Dawn.  Please hop over to Journal Journeys to see some lovely journaling and maybe join in next month?

Journal Journeys Challenge 10

Over on Journal Journeys Dawn gave us the challenge of 'Paris' this month.  Now I could've done a layout about the romance of Paris, but Paris in July only means one thing to me - The Tour de France!!!  I watch it every year and love it but this year was *very* special - we had a British winner in Bradley Wiggins.  So of course my page *had* to be about that.


First a little explanation.  The Tour de France is a bicycle road race around (surprisingly enough) France.  It starts with around a couple of hundred riders and raced over 3,497 km split into 20 stages over 3 weeks.  The final stage every year is ends in Paris with the riders racing down the Champs Elysees and past the Arc de Triomphe.  I find it absolutely exhilarating to watch and I'm constantly in awe of the riders fitness levels!  Bradley Wiggins was the overall winner and received the coveted Yellow Jersey.  Mark Cavendish won the sprint on the Champs Elysees to notch his 4th win there and he's a Brit too!  And so onto the page.

After gessoing the page I scribbled a blue Aquacolour crayon over the page and activated it with gesso to have an almost blue sky look to it.  I took a couple of photos (I know miracle for me!) but the colour didn't show up to well.  I found a free image of the French flag fluttering in the wind on-line and used a glue stick to stick to the page.

I then stamped the bicycle from one of Sir Tim's clear stamp sets around the outside of the page using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and stamped one bicycle in the white portion of the flag in Dandelion Memento ink to signify the Yellow Jersey.





This is when things started to go down hill somewhat and my MS came to play.  I desperately wanted to enter this challenge especially as I was doing a page about the Tour but I sort of struggled from here on in.  So this isn't exactly what was supposed to happen but I think it turned out OK.

I wanted to put the logo for the tour into the page somewhere and found it on-line and sized to what I needed and printed onto tissue paper.  I stuck to the page with Golden Gel Medium (matte).  








Once it was dry I found I stamped the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe from Paris Culture stamp plate by Chocolate Baroque onto the background using Black Archival.  I found some more free images on-line of Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish and the peloton going into Paris.  I printed these out and stuck adhere them with glue stick.  I stamped some bunting and stamped the letters of the riders names into it.  I coloured Brad Wiggins name in Squeezed Lemonade DI as he won the Yellow Jersey and left Cav's white as he is the World Champion at the moment.  I decorated some of the bunting with Union Jacks which I drew free hand with Promarkers and stuck them on with glue stick.  I finished the page off with the 'We'll always have Paris' stamp from the Paris Postcard stamp plate from Chocolate Baroque in Black Archival.

If you like the idea of Journaling, why not come and play with us at Journal Journeys.

Thanks Dawn for organising this again!

Journal Journeys Challenge 09

This month Dawn over on Journal Journeys set us the challenge of 'torn paper'.  I *love* torn paper.  I try to use it on my cards so that when I stick something on wonkily, it doesn't matter ;)


Yet again Dawn made a fabulous page and it took me a while to figure out how to follow it in my own style.  Then I remembered a couple of cards I had made a while ago using mulberry paper and the idea had arrived!


Firstly I tore up red, yellow and orange tissue paper and adhered them to the page with Golden Gel Medium.  Then I dribbled Golden Fluid Acrylic in Phthalo Green (blue Shade) and used a Speedball Brayer to brayer it across the surface.  








The colour was nice but I wanted more depth so I dripped more Golden Fluid Acrylics in Phthalo Blue (green shade), Hansa Yellow Medium and Cobalt Teal separately onto sections of the page and rubbed them in with my finger.  I like the colours much better and it gives it some interest.

Next I searched til I found my stash of Mulberry Paper and drew basic circular flower shapes on various colours with a wet paint brush and tore them out.  Then I drew some centres and leaves and tore them out too.  I stuck them to the page with a Zig glue pen.  Now on the cards I've made before I followed instructions from the PaperCraft Inspirations magazine.  They made poppies with the paper so the glue didn't show through on the black Mulberry but it does on the yellow centres I had so I had to stick some gems on to try and hide it.


I drew stalks on randomly with a dark green Promarker.  It didn't show up to well but I like that.  Black would've have been too harsh and I stuck the leaves on just to fill gaps really!

The top of the page looked a little bare so I tore a butterfly out of the Mulberry Paper and again the glue showed through the lilac wings, so back to the gems.  Gems are just *the* best things for filling up blank space and saving a project like this. 


I drew the antennae on with a black Promarker with the small tip added.


And here is the finished piece.  I really like the texture underneath the paint.

Thanks for organising this again Dawn :)

Journal Journeys CH08

Over on Journal Journeys Dawn set us the challenge of 'Once Upon a Time'.  She had done the most fabulous page and it was a real challenge to follow it.

I first searched on line for 'Once Upon a Time'.  Of course the bulk of the results came back to the TV series being shown on Channel 5 at the moment.  Really unhelpful :(  But there were a couple of possibilities.  One was Once Upon a Time in the West - a 1968 spaghetti western, and also Once Upon a Time in America - a 1984 gangster movie.  Then I found some quotes and one was exacly what I was looking for.

I wanted the page to look like and old book and began by doing a collage of dictionary paper (from one I bought at a church sale for 50p) over the entire page using a glue stick.  I was going to trim the paper that stuck over the edge of the journal but I kinda like it the way it is.  My initial idea was to use lemon juice over the top of it and heat it to make it look even older.  However because the paper is so old its *very* porous and just soaked the juice right up.  Time for a rethink... aha - antique linen DI which I blended all over the page to age it.

I found the perfect image on Joanna Sheen's Dancing with Shadows CD.  I've had a look on her website and I can't find it so it may no longer be available.  I found some long forgotten paper in the back of drawer (come on we've all got stuff like that!!) and ripped it to make a backing for th image.  I used the same paper to print the quote onto from the PC.

The paper was actually a light aqua colour before I got my hands on it (!).  I crumpled all the paper and image and used Antique Linen DI to colour them.  Then I flicked lemon juice onto them and heated it to get age spots on the paper.  Now I've seen this done but never done myself.  So I started to heat it.  They said it smelled nice but didn't warn me about the smoke that eminates from the page.  I had to open the window and had visions of my neighbours calling the Fire Brigade!!!

Once the smoke had cleared (OK it probably wasn't as bad as that) I stuck everything together with good old double sided tape.  Think thats the first time I've used it in my journal.

And here is the completed page.  Because the dictionary paper came from an old book, the whole page smells like old paper and it adds to the way the page feels.

Thanks for organising this Dawn :)

Journal Journeys CH07

Over on Journal Journeys Dawn set us the challenge of April Showers this month.  How apt.  Mind they've not been 'showers' as much as torrential rain at least for us in the North East!!

Dawn made such a wonderful page and it was hard not to copy her idea of the huge rain drops so this is what I came up with.

I coloured the background of my Moleskine by scribbling all over with Derwent Aquatone in kingfisher blue and activated it with a baby wipe.  I dried it with my heat tool and then flicked the same colour blue, zinc yellow and magenta all over the page by using a wet paintbrush and flicking off the end of the Aquatones.  The effect is brillaint and looked just like multicoloured rain.  Of course my camera was downstairs and I was in the 'zone' and forgot to take a photo.

I wanted to make the page seem almost psychadelic and used the Crafty Image Emporium CD from Crafty Computer Paper.  Its one of those CD's that I use time and again when I'm looking for something a little bit different.  I used a section called '1960's' and the small flowers came from a sheet that had loads of embellishments on it.

I used the same CD for the paper for the umbrella.  I found an free umbrella template on-line and fitted the papers into it.  My Mam said it looks like its silk.  I suppose it does a little.

I've realised that there always seems to be a mistake in all of my pages.  This time its the date.  I stamped March instead of April.  See I don't even know what month we're in even though the challenge is 'April Showers'.  You'd think I'd have caught on ;)

To bring it all together I used individual letter stamps to stamp the wording and stamped some flowers along the bottom of the page.  They didn't stand out so well so I coloured them with Spectrum Noir pens.

I also coloured the flowers in the rain with the same pens to make them stand out a little more.


And here is my finished page :)

Journal Journeys Challenge 06

At the beginning of the month Dawn posted the new prompt for the Journal Journeys Challenge.  This time, very appropriately, its 'Spring'.

I knew I wanted the page to be really fresh with lots of greens and yellows.  Now you know me by now.  I either take a glut of pictures or forget to take any.  This is a forget kinda thing!

Here's the finished article.

I did the background at home using Derwent Inktense blocks in 2 shades of green and a yellow.  I smooshed them around with water, dried it and took my journal to the Art Club.

I found the picture of the snowdrop in a Living North magazine that someone gave me.  it has *the* most fanatstic photos and this photo of the snowdrop is perfect as they are truly Spring to me.  I applied the picture and the wording using Golden Gel Medium (matte).

The wording is from a short story by Hans Christian Andersen aptly called The Snowdrop.  Its a lovely tale and worth a read.  I printed on tissue paper which I put through my printer taped to an A4 sheet of copier paper.  Because I have a kodak printer and the ink dries incredibly quickly you can put anything wet over it and the ink won't bleed.  Fab for doing gel transfers!

The stamps I used are clear one from...erm...Martha stewart....Anna Griffin...someone like that.  And the word stamp is from Inpression Obsession clingables and suits this page perfectly.  I always wonder how those gorgeous snowdrops manage to bloom in such adverse conditions.  I guess Hans Christian Andersen explains it all

Journal Journeys Challenge #04

This is my journal page for Journal Journeys Challenge # 04.  Dawn gave us the prompt of  Nature & Autumn.  I chose to just do Autumn but I suppose the leaves constitute the 'nature' part of it ;)

I started on a blank page of my Moleskine Journal.  I didn't gesso it before hand but now think I should have as the back of one of the pages is soooo covered in Glimmer Mist and krylon pen!

Anyhoo I decide to use some leaves out of my garden as 'masks- and spray Glimmer Mists through them.  However I chose a piece of conifer which was far too dense (bit like me for choosing it!) and the mask just turned out like a big un-painted blob. 

So to try and save it I just sprayed Glimmer Mist in every autumnal colour I had all over both pages.  They were looking a complete mess, so I decided just to use the rest of leaves as 'stamps' and basically plonked them in to DI's and used my hand the press them onto the pages.  The veins showed up brilliantly.  So I tried stamping the back of leaf.  It worked just as well and I loved the page as it had sooo much texture.  Of course I forgot to take a photo (again!)

I used the Sir Tim of Holtz Tattered Leaves die to cut leaves from book pages, scrunched them up, opened them out and sprayed them with more Glimmer Mist.  Once I dried them they started to look more like Autumn leaves.  I stuck them randomly around the edges of the pages and wanted to write 'Autumn natures last and lovliest smile' in the centre.  But....I spelled lovliest wrong.  Typical.  (note to self - *always* write any words you want to use out in rought first!)  At first I used a black Sharpie to write, but it didn't show up very well and I'd already corrected my spelling mistake so there were 2 lovliest's.  When I decided to use a gold Krylon Pen and realised I could've changed the spelling mistake without anyone knowing.  So 2 lovliest it is!

I'm really happy with the pages and I'm gonna try and do the background again and take a photo this time ;)

Journal Journeys Challenge #2

After taking codeine to help with my painful legs I went on-line and entered myself in the Journal Journeys Fairies Challenge.  I only knew about it when Dawn e-mailed me.  Thanks Dawn :)

For the challenge I decided to do a gel transfer of an image from a CD I've not used before called Victorian Angels and Fairies by Joanna Sheen.  Its not in circulation now sadly but has some fab images on it.  Dawn had used the gel transfer technique in her journal and it gave me the incentive to use it too.  I'd not used one in my journal before and managed to tear my first attempt.  For the second one I applied a bit thicker layer of gel and worked just fine.  I'm sure there'll be videos on YouTube showing how to do it so I won't bore you here ;)

Because the gel was thick the image turned out a little murky and grungy but I like that.  I then painted the back of the transfer with gesso to make the colours pop a little more.  I didn't want to do a pretty, pretty fairy page.  That's just not me.

I coloured the pages with charcoal grey and 2 colours of yellow Inktense Pencils and activated them with gesso - my fave technique at the moment!  I chose these colours to tie in with the image.

Next I Googled Fairy Poems and found this sweet little poem.  The image shows a lady steeping into a fairy ring and all of the fairies dancing and presumably (can't hear them lol!!!) singing.  I copied the poem into MS Word, changed the font and made it larger.  I then printed it out, coloured them with the same charcoal grey Inktense pencil as the background and activated it with gesso again.  I then cu the words up and stuck them to the page and went over the font with a black extra fine Sharpie pen.

I stamped various fairies from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque) onto white sticky labels and cut them out and placed them on the page.  I have to thank Lesley W for showing me this technique.  I'm not that good at planning what I am gonna do with pages so this is sooo much easier than masking for me and means I can do things like these fairies and colour them in afterwards.  I used one of yellow Inktense pencils for their wings and used water to move the colour around.

So here you have it.  My Fairies Journal Page for the challenge on Journal Journeys.

Please join in even if you've never journaled before.  Its a great way to relieve stress can be done with just a few pencils / paints and an old exercise book.  I'll be back for the next one Dawn!