revisiting my little orange art journal

  I love this journal.  It's got lots of pages in that I love and feel are very 'me'.

It also has had some pages that I really didn't like so I'm starting to re-work them.

I gessoed over the page on the left.  It had had circular images glued on and these peeled off fairly easy after gessoing which left a nice effect.  I removed the original matching page - it had a number of images attached that were far too small and didn't come off easily.

It was great to play with my new paints and stencils after the weekend's trip to Port Sunlight!

I added stamped, stencilled and rub on letters to link in the pen advert which was original to the page but it was still bugging me.

Happily the 'Chloe Stem' by Memory Box gave the pages a better focal point.  I have a couple more pages to re-work, and one to finish, but I'm much happier with the overall look of this journal now and, who knows, I might even get a whole book finished!

I have found it interesting, looking back through this journal, at how many pages have quotes on them!

PDCC78 - romantic pinks and reds in time for THaT wedding!!!

For those of you who are regulars in the cafe, you will know that these are some of Julie's favourite colours - she's a real pinks and reds girl whereas I lean more towards the teals and blues, but I LoVe, LoVe, LoVe  this colour combo.

These are real Cath Kidston colours :) and bring back great childhood memories for me of blue/pink/red melanine cups with white spots.  They also look fantastic on the Union Jack, which I seem to remember seeing in this colourway in John Lewis but I may be wrong.  Perfect colours I feel for the upcoming Royal Event next week.  Are you celebrating?  I have a tea party and a bbq to go to, and turned down another invite as couldn't fit it in!!!

Apologies for the terrible images today.  I'll change them later when I can get hold of a camera (still no sign of my phone); these are scanned.  I used My Minds Eye papers to decorate a library folder thingamajig ...

...and I decorated the little card inside to match, adding a new Stampotique stamp I got from The Cubby Hole last weekend :)  I'm going to use this piece at the front of a wedding memories book for a friend who has just got engaged.  I'll write in their names and the date of their engagement.

Don't forget to visit the fantastic (and they really are!) projects from our DT and guest designer this week over at The Play Date Cafe, or on their individual blogs ~ have fun creating, and don't forget to let me know what you're doing on the 29th April 2011!

Libby Hickson

Michele Gross

TRacey Kuzniak

Colleen Dietrich 

Julie Ranae 

Savannah O'Gwynn 

Ruby2Shoes 

Andrea Ewen

Fiona Schultz

Jaclyn Miller

Jinny Newlin

and this week's guest designer

Hanna Craner

and huge thanks to this week's sponsor

WOYWW

Have just returned from a wonderful holiday on the Isle of Wight and for the last couple of weeks my 'workdesk' has been my lap, a field, a camping table... and I've been very tidy and kept everything organised and in it's place - cos you have too in a tent lol!

The bag to the right contains my wools and crochet hooks - crochet is very portable (I crocheted some of those flowers whilst standing in a fish and chip shop queue on Cowes night!) so easy to take away on holiday.

My little craft bag is pretty portable too, with pencils, pens, paints and blank ATCs to hand.  What you can't see is the small suitcase filled with other bits n bobs, and the jute bag that contained the little craft bag lol!

I decided to catch up on my ATCs whilst I was away.  These were made using Dyan Reaveley's Altered Originals Spray inks (collection 1).  I sprayed the card, allowed it to dry, then used a watery brush to merge the colours.  The flowers are Daisy Daisy (Stampotiqu) from The Stamp Attic, coloured with a white gel pen.

I also had a bit of a play with my new Stabilo Woody pencils (a watercolour, pencil and wax crayon all in one).  I picked these up in an art shop in London, but you can see them here, they are YuMMY! [think you're gonna love these Sue!!]  

I scribbled with the blue and brown pencils, used a wet brush over them, then a walnut ink spray.  I've wanted a white spray for AgEs and finally tracked one down at The Cubby Hole, Crewe.  It's a Memories Mist in Whipped Cream and I used it with a Tim mask over my coloured card.  A bit of stamping, a touch of collage and the ATCs were done!

Happy WOYWW!  Looking forward to having a sneak at your workdesk, and if you're wondering where all this started, head over to the lovely Julia's Stamping Ground for the info :)

an insightful carrot [or PDCC25!]

Better late than never for my play date cafe design piece!  I so wanted to get a piece done for this week's challenge as my new carrot (from Wendy at The Stamp Attic) stamp was just too appropriate not to use!!!  I had such a busy week last week and into this, so I took some journal time last night to relax.

These pages had pieces of text on them from teaching my Art Journaling 2 class and the text still peeks through the white dabber paint in places.  Tim's clock mask is one of my favourites, along with sequin waste so I happily splooshed and stamped my black and white paints and added the odd hint of orange.

I found the quote after googling 'carrot quotes'.  Who'd have thought Paul Cezanne would have been discussing carrots!

v

 

To colour my carrot boy, I wet my stamp and coloured it with caran d'ache neocolour watersoluble wax pastels.  I then stamped onto dry card and coloured his body in with colour from the pastel on my brush.