UKScrappers Challenge - Who Me? Spoilt

The challenge was to use the word "Who" in the title, use red and or earth tones and scrap about something new. My experiments with my birthday stash seemed ideal. The background was an old piece of paper I had had for ages, the journalling block was from 7 Gypsies, I painted and then embossed old chipboard letters and Jill Bean Soup Corrugated letters, photos mounted on coredinations card. Image of boy angel with wings from Stampotique stamped and coloured with pro markers and then I added firebrick red distress ink.

Stampotique Challenge 23 - Orange and Turquoise

When I was browsing through blogs I like I saw this challenge on the Stampotique challenge blog and as I needed to make some thank you cards for all my lovely presents and I happen to love this colour combo I made this card. As you can see cards are not really my thing but I will keep trying.

Lush Birthday Stash - I love it!

My new stamp

My wonderful birthday stash

I had been trying to ignore my birthday as my brain was refusing to process my age - I normally (except when had flu) feel about 10 years younger than my actual age - plus I had been feeling so horrible that I didn't feel up to celebrating. However I began to feel a little better on Wednesday and when my birthday dawned the next day I was still feeling okay - 2 days in a row - a bit of a record for this month. I had a quiet day and was able to enjoy dinner with the family in the evening cooked by Lens Guy. I had left a  list of crafty supplies I was lusting after on my iphone and they checked it out, so I was delighted. I was trying out my new Boy Angel with Wings Stampotique stamp on scrap paper and decided to emboss him with mahogany distress powder and then colour him with my new pro markers and distress the background with new firebrick red distress ink. Then I was thinking of walls and making your own stamps so tried sketching a very vague brick shape on foam and defining it with a biro. I think this would work as a background.

Foam drawn into with a biro

It's rough and ready but I think it will make a goo background - very potato print like

Can you spot the luscious dylusion paints and red heart that shows I bought this from the wonderful Art from the Heart store. I am hoping to play with my new paints and other bits and pieces this afternoon but my lovely mum is coming for a visit so I might not get any time. I have also had to run around the house frantically cleaning so she won't mutter about the state of my house. How old am I?

pro markers

Wonderful packaging

There is coredinations card there too and a white gel pen to try

Art Journal Sweets

Week 4 - Sweets

Two posts in one day - I keep thinking I should spread things out so it was more even but it's done now. I blogged about this earlier this week here and showed you my sweet paper (the inked bag). This is how I did the page and it did not turn out like I originally thought but that is the nature of this kind of thing I think. I was trying to stick to the sweet colours of red, purple/black, citrus green/yellow which is a very in your face colour combination. My five sweets were: cinnamon balls, sherbet fountains, rhubarb and custard, sherbet lemons and pear drops (I can't count!)

I began with a soft yellow watercolour wash and whilst this was drying I found copyright free images of sixpence and thru'pence and turned them into digital looking stamps.

Images made to look like digital stamps

 These were stuck onto the page and I added some pearl dabber to them. I also printed some of the journalling from the earlier blog and cut it up and stuck it on. I then put yellow acrylic paint on but it was a bit yikes so washed white water colour over the top. At this point it went a little green in places as the ink from the ink jet prints bled blue.

Evening light as well which makes things such a strange colour

 I stamped Sweets onto the paper bag and coloured it in and then tore the bag to make a border and some vaguely sweet like shapes. I then added another layer of journaling between the typed one using sakura glitter gel pens. It's very in your face but then so are sweets.

2 levels of journalling

Purple for journalling, red for the sweet names

Experiments with backgrounds: My Play School Moments

Splodges become flowers?

Paper Bag for Sweets Page and some alcohol inks

Kitchen towels and watercolours

 Lots of photos in this post - may be slow ...

Sometimes what I love the most is just playing with my materials and seeing what might happen. Sometimes it works and sometimes it is a disaster - I think of this time as my play school moments as there are no restrictions, no rights or wrongs and it is just for fun which is what we used to be taught at Play School (Kindergarten) before some government inspector and politician decided we should restrict and monitor and evaluate everything. After all that is why most of us do this, isn't it?

The paper in the bag seemed to almost stop the inks blending - I was thinking of rhubarb rock and cinnamon balls here

I also played with those cheap Lidl pearl acrylic paints. I had been painting some backgrounds and using a piece of card as a palette when I decided to see what would happen when I put some acetate onto the paint. Oh that was fun and the only acetate I had to hand was box lids for flowers.

I had downloaded the document about mixed media backgrounds from Cloth, Paper, Scissors and decided to try using water colours and kitchen rolls. I love the bright colours and will hopefully use these papers in a project soon.

Bit messy here

Lots of inking and painting going on today and will show all tomorrow as light too poor now. I have also been playing about with my blog's look and trying to simplify the labels for posts - don't recommend you do this retrospectively.
Do you like my steampunk art splatter lady who started off at Graphic Fairy?

Sweets, Memories and senses

This weeks Journal Challenge on UKStampers is Sweets:
List 5 sweets you remember from your childhood.(Did you call them sweets?.. candies? or something else?)
2 Where did you buy them and what did they cost?
3 Include some kind of sweetie wrappers on your page

In a village close to us there is an old fashioned sweet shop so thinking that some fresh air might help banish my flu (it didn't) and to treat DD who is sitting exams at school whilst still also fighting off after effects of flu, we took a short trip. I had done my homework beforehand and knew that I had to ask for 100 grammes and not a quarter. We bought shiny round spicy cinnamon balls, rhubarb rock and old fashioned liquorice. I had been looking for sherbet fountains as I wanted to use that packaging but the shop had none and the lady told me that due to health and safety the packaging is now plastic not paper. 

Paper bags were essential to the buying a quarter experience

I took this photo to remind me that most of the sweets I like have sweet and sour flavours

I think I am going to use these colours on the page

Thinking about sweets I had in my childhood reminded me of the time we lived in the West End of Glasgow and I was given thruppence pocket money which was then increased to sixpence - not sure if that was due to rampaging inflation. I was about six and my brother would have been four and we would walk with my father and mother to the local shop and choose some sweets and another treat. I can imagine that walk vividly: past the bowling green where there were lots of old people dressed in white standing around; down the hill past the terraced houses and then along the main road to the safe place to cross beside the bank. On very special occasions we would visit a cafe and have a Danish pastry - other times we were heading to the launderette. 

Memories are precious and we should record them whether it is in a journal, scrapbook page, blog, diary or in a pile of photos stuffed in a box. After all sometimes all we have left is the memories. Certainly that is true for me as sadly both my father and brother are dead - but I will hold onto their memories and more and more I am trying to capture the happy ones and the everyday mundane parts of our lives.

This post seems to have digressed all over the place but that is life and I do think our memories are triggered by our five senses so back to the senses.

I like the contrast of the sweets in the jar with the jagged cactus which are up high so the puppy does not get stung

I've kept the paper backs and the chocolate is to remind me that nowadays I prefer a bit of dark chocolate when I want to indulge my sweet tooth.

Art Journal School Days

Catching up with art journal challenge week 3. We were challenged to use lined paper, list 10 things about school and have some ink blots. I did not like school much but I still remembered a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly.

DI then watercolour, alcohol ink spots and salt for a weathered feel on the background

Stamped TH Haunted mansion on actetate and coloured with alcohol inks

After the salt

Lists and details

The doodled circles were because I was thinking of the disgusting tapioca

Old bookplate

Tapioca frog spawn and ink splodges

Art Journal - Best Gifts

My best gifts are the small acts of everyday kindness rather than one in particular.

I like the contrast between the cool blues and purples and the hot red and golds

I finished this on Sunday night but was back at work so no daylight - although only managed a couple of days before the evil swine flu came back. It really is a vile virus and I am quite fed up with it. Today I am feeling a little better and able to get out of bed but still so tired and sore.
I did manage to include all the prompt elements in this one as the frame around the heart is recycled packaging from some journalling cards and the first layer was made using tissue paper that covered a gift from eldest DD. I used a mix of yellow, gold and red pearly acrylic paints from Lidl - bargain of the century as they only cost £4.00 for 5 jars and they seem to work a lot like those expensive liquid pearl paints.

Torn up and mod podged down - is that a verb? To Mod Podge...

Once this layer was dry I stamped three border stamps in Adirondack Earth tones Espresso to create areas on the page (I think the stamps are crafters companion but lost packaging...) I printed a photo I had of cupcakes and freehand cut it into a G and then on different cakes wrote about the cakes and tablet (Scottish fudge) that Lens Guy will bring home as a surprise for me. I found three images of teapots and cups on Graphic Fairy and coloured them with promarkers and paint. I added dictionary definitions of gifts and gift horses from dictionaries and also wrote some of them on with a sharpie. I added further definitions around the cardboard frame that was swiped with paint. I doodled and painted the heart and gave it flame like tops to help attach it to the frame.

Recycled packaging for the frame. Paint dots around heart

journalling about the endless cups of tea Lens Guy makes me and some of the borders I stamped

The g was a cupcake photo with extra tiny journalling on the icing.