Gelli Play

 I got to play with a Gelli Plate today :)

I have to say that I hadn't been tempted by one in the slightest...until this week!  I signed up for the '21 Secrets Art Journaling Workshop' a while ago and recently watched Roben-Marie Smith using a Gelli Plate in her journal....and LoVeD it!

 Sue and I had planned a playday today (we've not had one for aaaaaaaaages!) and Sue suggested we play with her Gelli Plate :)  I now need to purchase my own lol

 We spent a couple of hours making papers and printing pages in our journals, stopped for lunch then did some creating with our papers.

[I also got to play with some of Sue's stamps and stencils :)]

I love the textures you can create with the gelli plate.  All I added to this envelope was the flower, the tiny stamped circles and three green paint circles (using the pritt stick lid) and the words 'native graciousness'.

Glassine envelopes are FaB to work with in conjunction with the Gelli Plate :)

 Finally, this envelope came about because Sue found an ant stamp which was just too fun not to use!!

these boots weren't made for walking!

My fab 'jabberwocky' friend Sue and I took a trip out to the depths of Staffordshire on Saturday afternoon to make paper shoes :)   The workshop was run by the very talented Jennifer Collier (check out her paper vintage typewriter!) in her exhibition, workshop and studio space 'unit twelve'.  

The current exhibition is entitled 'the ties that bind' and features an eclectic mix of aprons, including one made from a tin pail!

My favourite one had spoons in its pockets, and I LoVe spoons!  I wasn't surprised to discover it was made by Priscilla Jones, who's one of my very favourite mixed media artists.

Both Sue and I loved the wonderful 'wallpaper' in the exhibition space, created with pieces cut from old dress patterns.

Through the exhibition space is the workshop area and a number of small studio spaces.  

I got myself a couple of Christmas presents (my mother in law has been asking what I would like so she'll be happy she only has to wrap them!) from the very talented Jo Hill, Emily Notman and Louise Wilson.

I had to finish my shoes off at home.  I changed the lace up ones slightly so as they look more like my own, and shortened the alice shoe design.

I added laces made from strips of cotton, lace and organza.

I added stitched flowers to my alice shoes, and press studs.  Not a great photo I'm afraid as the glue was still wet further up!!

I love my paper shoes :)

Inspired by ... [hang on, wasn't that yesterday?]

Sue Roddis and her Stampotique stamps!

Sue brought some of the latest Stampotique stamps with her yesterday [she's on their design team].  How cool is that!!!  Now those of you who know Sue will know she loves these images, and anything halloweeny.  My collection of Stampotique stamps lean to the cuter end.  We didn't have much time to play with them whilst Sue was with us, so we stamped a few up on white paper.

Sue has a bit of a drive to get home from mine so yesterday, Helen and I still had some playtime before tea after Sue had gone! So we carried on playing in our journals.  How fab are those heads?

 

My pages were already coloured, and the blue one was stamped.  The door, cat, angel, heads and odd bloke are all part of the new Stampotique release.  Wendy at The Stamp Attic has got the new release on order and they should be in soon [EDIT: Wendy's expecting them March 6th but you can pre-order them from her HERE].

Inspired by ...

Diana Trout!

For this week's play date, Sue, Helen and I decided to use one of my journalling books for inspiration, and I chose 'Journalling Spilling' by Diana Trout.  I love her splashy, painty way of journalling.  We started by watching one of her art journalling youtube videos:

Then we got out a selection of collage papers and paints

and obediently picked out both paper and paint randomly,

ending up using colour combos we really wouldn't have chosen.

I picked out two reds, a blue and black.  The hardest thing was not reaching for a rubber stamp to add pattern and texture.  I had to make my own with my paintbrush!

And my gel pen.  I love the small circles surrounding the larger one.  I also used a pearlescent paint to add highlights to the page as it was in danger of being too dark.

The words were found in the Radio Times..they seemed rather fitting!!!

Looking after our children at the same time as journalling meant I forgot to take pictures of us ... sorry!  If you missed our last 'inspired by' day, have a look here.

EDIT:  And head here to Sue's blog, Jabberwocky, to see her yummy pages; she's written on hers :)

Inspired by...

Kelly Rae Roberts!

I had a play date on Monday with Sue, the Jabberwocky of blogland, and our friend Helen.  Last week we worked on our 365 calendar pages but decided to try something different this week.  Kelly Rae's book 'Taking Flight' has some great step by step photographs and included some techniques we'd not tried before so we decided to use this as inspiration.

We all used the same background technique on our pieces - layering pieces of scrapbook papers down then brayering over them with acrylic paints.  Helen [above] worked on an angel image to go over her background, whilst Sue added Alice:

I used a circular canvas and drew some flowers, before adding a butterfly made with polymer clay.

[please note that this photo is only here as I know Julie will complain if it isn't!  plus I'm trying to face the reality of the weight I put on last year due to medication!! lol]

Sue's a fast worker so had pretty much finished by the end of the afternoon!  I just had to coat my canvas with gel medium, and add wire antennae to the butterfly.  Helen's angel needed painting still.

Sue stamped into texture paste to give that great effect on Alice's body.  I used the large butterfly from Elusive Images' Patchwork Butterfly plate [also available now at Paddy's Stamping Place]  and stamped it into polymer clay, a technique Kelly Rae shares in her book.

We had a fantastic play date.  Thankyou Kelly Rae for some true inspiration :)