Crafting with Love and Fairy Dust: February 2018

Friday, 23 February 2018

The sweetest nectar ....

Hello,

I've just bought my first dylusions art journal with black pages and couldn't wait to have a play in it.

I had been watching Gerda Van Dijk's You tube channel and she creates some fantastic journal pages in her black journal, so I just had to get one and have a try.

Here's my first 2 page spread inspired from her work;

The birds and flower stamps are from Sheena Douglas stamp sets, stamped onto Sheena card, coloured with Spectrum Aqua and sparkle pens from Crafters Companion, then cut out and glued on.

The background was created using gesso, paints and stamps - Limor circles from IndigoBlu and wording stamps from Visible Image.

Then finished off with some doodling and highlighting using a white posca pen.

Challenges;

Stamps and stencils - Off to collage challenge

Creative artiste mixed media - #35 challenge

Art journal journey - A-z animals ( hope that includes birds)

Make my Monday challenge #65 Messy backgrounds

Simon says stamp- monday challenge- Grunge it up

We love 2 create- Anything mixed media

Monday, 19 February 2018

Happiness in dark times

I'd like to share with you the latest page in my art journal.

As some of you might know, I've had to take the last 6 weeks off work to move in with and care for my parents. I'm not going to go into details here but suffice it to say its been a stressful time, with little or no time left for art or creating at all.
I did manage to paint this journal page which lifted my spirits some what. I thought the words were quite fitting for me at the moment, although I'm having a hard time finding the light switch ;)

I used Golden high flow colours for the background and light burst, along with a sun ray stencil and a stars stencil, which you can just about see.

I coloured an IndigoBlu lightbulb stamp with Spectrum sparkle pens and a Posca white pen for the highlights, cut it out and glued it on.

I stamped the words from the same IndigoBlu stamp set and cut them out line by line and after trying them out in different positions settled on this layout.

I do hope any of you who feel you are in a dark place at the moment, soon find your light switch :)

I'm entering these challenges;
Stamps and stencils monthly challenge
Creative artiste mixed media challenge #35
We love 2 create - anything mixed media

Thanks for looking
Hugs Sue xx

Saturday, 17 February 2018

Believe in the Magic

Good evening / morning/ afternoon depending on where you are :)

I'm back after a little break due to family illness and accidents, and I'd like to share a journal page I've been working on.
It took me a few days as I've had very little time for any art over the passed few weeks and I felt that I'd lost my mojo.
I got inspiration from watching a wonderful art journal and mixed media artist on You tube called Gerda Van Dijk.

Here's a quick rundown of how I created it, any questions please feel free to ask in the comments. :)

I started with the background, using distress oxides, in blue, pink and green. I used a deeper blue through a Indigo Blu circles stencil.
I stamped the mushroom house and fantasy pod houses from Crafters Companion on to seperate card and water coloured them, using Spectrum Noir glitter pens, then cut them out and glued onto my journal page.

The wording came from one of the same stamp sets.

I painted the bottom of the page with Indigo Blu paint and then used markers in black and white to draw the decorative edge, which I decided to carry on up the stems of the pod houses and around the windows too.

I stamped the leaves, again from a Crafters Companion set, directly on the page across the top, and painted them in with watered down acrylics. I edged each leaf with a posca pen in green and used a white one to draw in a few highlights.