Off and on the page!

Hello! It's my turn to share a project with you and I thought I'd share a page in my journal that leapt off the page and back on it! It's quite a long journey so make a cup of tea and get ready!

I wanted to emulate the beautiful clean projects that others do and so thought I'd start by creating an interesting background. I used Embossing Paste through a Tim  Holtz stencil. I used Embossing paste because it's white but Grunge Paste will work too!

I then a stamped the ruler stamp from Artful Tools onto some white card and added a picture and some ephemera and glued them all together. At this point I was pretty impressed by how clean and tidy it looked and really how well I managed not to add any Vintage Photo Distress Ink! But then...

... I thought I'd see if I could translate it onto a tag as I do love a tag! But the colours weren't as clean as on the journal page as the tag is manilla so I added Chalk and then Cherry Pie paint to the tag and created a lovely pink! I wiped off excess paint with a baby wipe which gives it an aged look. It looks really bright in the picture - I think my photo editing might have been a little zealous!

I sanded the edges a little and did buckle and add Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the edges! I took the assemblage I'd made for the journal page and added to the tag. I loved the pink behind the sepia colours of the ephemera.

But then I had a idea - what if I combined the two?!

The tag was too long for my page so I chopped the bottom off and now I feel really happy - funny how it took making two separate projects to make one! I hope I still managed to keep the page relatively clean and simple - Let me know which version you prefer!

Gabrielle x

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Textured Monoprinting

Hi Everyone, Jennie here and today I am sharing with you a bit of an experiment, but I think you will like it! I wasn't too sure where this was going but it turned out ok!

Some of you will know that I love to take a few Distress Inks at random and see what happens, so today's pick was:

Mustard Seed (not my favourite but hey ho this is an experiment!)

Mowed Lawn (not had an outing in a while and a new one for me anyway)

Seedless Preserves (always right there in your face colour)

And now for the technique: Tim Holtz Monoprinting with Distress Inks (p48 of the Compendium of Curiosities Volume III)

I applied the three colours randomly straight from the pad onto my Layering Stencil, misted with water and then pressed the stencil onto my tag to transfer the ink colours. Remove the stencil very carefully so as not to smudge the pattern. I was very pleased with the effect and thought the colour combination looked great.

However I did feel it looked a bit flat, so (once it had dried) I decided to reapply the stencil and taped it down with some tape to keep it in place and applied Tim Holtz Texture Paste with a palette knife. I am loving the Texture Paste - it is like a fondant mousse to work with, very light and goes on to the paper very easily with a palette knife.

(No prizes for noticing that I work with my stencils back to front ………)

The effect is fabulous! it really is 3d, in fact if you look at it too long it makes you feel a little giddy!

So that was my experiment but I took it another step further by making some flowers with the Mustard Seed and Seedless Preserves Distress Inks.

Tattered Florals Die Cuts were inked first with the Mustard Seed and then the edges with Seedless Preserves. You can see that I am not particularly careful, it is just about getting the ink on the paper.

Once spritzed with water and scrumpled up around a paintbrush the colours blended beautifully and were beginning to look very autumnal! You can tell I was crafting at night at this point!

I would normally leave them to dry overnight, but I desperately wanted to peep at the colour, so I blitzed them for a while with the heat gun and then carefully opened them out.  You can see that they were still quite damp and I got a few tears.

I gave them another blitz with the heat gun and haphazardly curled the edges. Don't the colours look fabulous! (I am really loving this choice and may feel quite differently about Mustard Seed in future!)

Next was some ribbon which looked better in the Mustard Seed and Seedless Preserves. My first attempt including the Mowed Lawn looked a bit like the inside of the lawnmower box !

And then it was time to put it all together.  I added some lace to the tag and tied the ribbon over the top with a bow to the side.

I added some stamens to the flowers and glued them on top of the ribbon.  I really didn't want to cover up the lovely background, so I just added a sentiment to the bottom of the tag from the Simple Sayings Stamp Set.

I really like this combination of colours and would certainly use them again. And I can't wait to try the technique with another Layering Stencil.

Thank you for joining me today.

Jennie x

Live The Dream

Tags #8, Manila, Approx' 3.2" x 6.4" 8cms x 16cms	Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Seedless preserves	Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Mowed Lawn	Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Mustard seed	Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Woodgrain
Ranger Texture Paste	Tim Holtz Bigz die - Tattered florals	American seam binding - White	Tim Holtz stamps - Simple sayings

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Mixed media Journal Page

Hi it’s Brenda back again today and I am sharing a mixed media piece with you with lots of layers. 

When I began I didn’t have an end product in mind other than it might turn into a card or a journal page, just depended in what direction I went.

I have used autumn colours as these are what I am beginning to see from my workroom window.

I began by using a palette knife to smear on gesso and rusty hinge distress paint and let it dry (I am impatient so I tend to use a heat gun lol).

Next a adhered some bits of music tissue paper and then dabbed and daubed rusty hinge distress stain over it and I also dipped into the distress stain which I had put onto my craft mat and spritzed with water.

I went back to the gesso for the next layer and this time used a piece of kitchen roll to dab it over.

Again when dry, I dipped all of into gathered twigs distress stain this time. When it was dry I sprayed it with a gloss varnish to seal these layers in. (Don’t forget distress products react with water so anymore layering with inks or paints will blend with the layers you have created and you will lose their definition).

I wanted to add more colour at this point so I smooshed mustard seed distress paint on my craft mat, spritzed it with water and dipped the card in and dapped off alot of the paint, just leaving enough to provide more of a glow to the colour range.

Now I added some gesso to lighten it all again.

Then dipped and dripped with the rusty hinge distress stain.

I die-cut some trellis framework, dipped it in the gathered twigs stain and cut it to form a pattern across the card.

I added a sentiment, but this is when I knew it was going to be a journal page as I had to embrace imperfections here with the stamping.

I finished off by adding some of the framework inserts edging them with walnut stain and then giving some of them a shadow using a pastel pencil.

I am rather pleased with this one, I really like the effects of all the layers.

Thanks for stopping  by today to take a look at this project and if it inspires you to have a go at all the layers do let us know.

Enjoy the week.

hugs Brenda xxxx