11 February 2013

Messy Textured Journal page


This page is for Lens Guy who puts up with a lot and as I don't do Valentine's this is it and he really is "For Keeps and Forever". It is my entry into the Stampotique Challenge SDC86 Red, Pink and White and the Simon Says Have a Heart Challenge. I am fascinated by creating texture on my art journal pages at the minute so I began with some texture paste through chipboard waste and by splodging a heart shape on the facing page with my finger.
 I then pressed a sheet of corrugated card on top to create ridges (and impatiently waited for it to dry and getting fed up I sprayed some Dylusions inks onto the damp paste). There was also some alphabet stencils under the heart in gesso from a previous use up of waste paint.
As I had been sewing I decided to sew a border onto the page as well. I stuck masking tape down the centre, a tip I picked up from Donna Downey as many of my previous pages have ink incursions from later pages and this helps contain seepage between pages and is hidden once the page is finished.
I then used 3 dylusion heart stamps on the page facing the big heart and as a border round both pages which I highlighted with more watercolour paint in red and pink, ink and white acrylic paint. I then stamped Oh My Deer and Eric (from Stampotique) 3 times onto white tissue paper and glued them onto the page. For two of the images I went in with red and pink watercolours and blended them into the page and the third one I left the stamped images uncoloured and ghost like.
Close up showing stitching, doodles and traces of the alphabet stencil.

Lots of hearts and texture.

Thank you for dropping by.






3 February 2013

Journal Page SDC85 Whatever Makes You Happy




Kaz created the challenge for this week's Stampotique challenge;"We all have our problems in life, but life is short and we should all find something to put a smile on our faces as often as we can. So whether you choose 'happy' as your theme, your word or you use a technique that makes you smile, show me your little bit of HAPPY!"

I did wonder about this as I am normally pretty happy but the last few months have been tough. Then middle son's motivating phrase "Positive Mental Attitude (PMA)" which is a family joke came to mind and the song lyrics "Be happy, don't worry". Lying in my sick bed I had been rereading some old magazines and in August 2012 Craft Stamper; Jaine Drake had an article about using old pieces of chipboard and texture paste as the base for a journal page. As one of my intentions this year is to use up arty and fabric stashes this seemed like a great way to use some of those early purchases like peel offs...
I found some peel offs, chipboard and letters and added them to a gesso base. I then put texture paste on top of these pieces and more gesso followed by some dylusion inks and distress stain.
At this point I was pleased although those large letters don't really keep their appearance with layers and the peel offs were much better. Then it went wrong...
I had an idea about using glossy accents and embossing powder and I hated it. I grabbed some alcohol thinner and rubbed it off (was not set yet) and gessoed over the offending pieces. I then added stamps from a number of Dylusions' sets that I stamped on dictionary pages and card,  journalling and more doodles. It was still a bit lacking in cohesion so I stamped Claudine Hellmuth dots over the whole page. When I was sticking the stamps on the page I used Golden Soft Gel medium (semi gloss) as it was all I had and noticed it made the colour much brighter and reacted with the distress. In the end I used my finger to add gel medium all over the page. I added journalling on waste sprayed paper and finished my page. It does show that if you make a hideous mistake in a journal you just get the gesso out and keep going until you are happy...
I had taken more photos but the gel medium has a slight sheen and the close up pictures did not really work.


2 February 2013

Scrappy Trip Along, Slowly moving on


Six blocks done and I think this will be called the yellow diamond quilt.




Lots of strips cut at 19 inches and pinned by a safety pin in sets of 7. The fabric I am using is made up of my giveaway win from Maureen Cracknell's blog and the Intrepid Thread supplemented with additional colours from my stash. There is another giveaway on Maureen Cracknell's blog if you can get in there by Monday. Yellow is not a colour I would normally use but I love how bright and sunny this is as it slowly grows. 
Due to my inability to count as explained in previous post I am now making blocks with 7 strips at 19 inches. I have decided yellow will the long diagonal and there must also be a solid in each block but that is as planned as it gets.

I have added a darker green to the strips and at present in the set of 6 at the top it looks a little wonky but I hope as it is spread out around quilt, or perhaps grouped together it will work. 
I have finished another block but it was too dark and repetitive too photograph but I do love the infinite possibilities of this block.
In other news mum is still at home waiting hipless and waiting for the new hip and becoming more and more immobile and depressed. She was meant to have the op last week but it nows involves grafting bone onto the area that was cut out due to infection and this will be a long op and they are now worried about heart murmurs. More tests next week and fingers crossed she will have by end of February. I can't believe she first fell and broke this hip on 12 September, it's been a long hard slog for us all. Probably because I have been trying to convince myself that I can manage my demanding job, family life, looking after mum and having some time for me I have come grinding to a halt. I have spent last 8 days in bed with a severe infection and still can't manage more than 3 hours out of bed before exhaustion sets in again. Hopefully I am starting to improve and I really must try and get this work, life, carer, mum, wife balance more sorted.