Art Journaling for Beginners 2

Like waiting for buses art journaling classes came along two at once.  After Sharon's on Friday afternoon, Saturday morning saw me sat waiting at my desk for a class with Tracy Scott (of Paperartsy fame).

Wow o wow was this fun.  I had paint everywhere and in the end had to stop and watch the rest of the class as I had bits of work everywhere and nowhere to actually work.

Again, like Sharon, Tracy is a great demonstrator and teacher and makes you believe in yourself.  Tracy is returning to the Forget me not Kraft Kabin at the end of July and I will be signing up for that class as well.

Art Journaling for Beginners 1

After many years of asking 'Why?' when encouraged to try art journaling I have finally been bitten by the bug and have attended a couple of online classes.  Friday afternoon saw me with the second of these classes live with Sharon Everett from The Forget me not Kraft Kabin https://www.theforgetmenotkraftkabin.co.uk/

Sharon is good at demonstrating and teaching at the same time and makes me feel capable of doing what she is demonstrating - which is no mean feat in itself.

A lovely afternoon using Jofy stamps and lots of ink - perfect!

Zoom Playtime

Friday morning saw my first virtual playtime with my friend, Sandra.  Since lockdown we have only managed a socially distanced coffee face to face, but have had lots of chats on the phone and in our zoom craft group on a Wednesday.  This week we went one further and had a zoom craft session for just the two of us. 

When lockdown started we began working our way through our Clarity Club folders and completing the same month's cards at the same time.  This worked well for a while and then we got bored and tried different things.  So for Friday we decided to return to the Clarity Challenge and agreed which project we were going to do and away we went.

Zoom was very kind to us and didn't end after 40 minutes and we had over two and a half hours before we called it a day.  We both completed the two cards and caught up on all sorts of news whilst we crafted away.  Just what we both needed, and two more cards ready for use.

A prize winning card

Yesterday I entered the Facebook competition at Crafting with John Next Door and won!!

I never win competitions or raffles so am shocked as well as pleased.  I'm also amazed as the card is not one of my neatest by far.  In fact it's a happy accident of lots of paint and a big smile.

The theme for the competition was Red and Pink and you have to use something from the John Next Door range.  I decided to use the large media plate and John's new Calyspo flower stamps and die.  These are lovely as they are overlay stamps so you get a good graduation of colour and like John's other flower stamps and dies they match easily for cutting out.

I used many different pinks and reds on the media plate without much success - I have a lot of backgrounds to work on... I was trying to use the media plate like a gelli plate and it's a very different beast.  In the end I used two reds and a bright pink and stamped onto the media plate and got a good pull which I thought would make a good card base.  A frame, flowers, leaves were added and because I thought it a happy card a big smile sentiment.  The lines on the card base are where I dropped the acrylic block when stamping - a very happy accident!

I have sent this card to a friend who I don't see very often just to say hello, I'm hoping the leaves aren't too bashed when it arrives.

JOFY likes it!

Last week I took possession of one of the latest Jofy stamps, Jofy90.  I had admired other peoples work which showed a very large flower but couldn't find the stamp, and then I realised the stamp was five individual petals as the flower when put together is too large for a single stamp.  Once I realised this my order was in straight away and my fingers itched until I was able to sit and play with it.

I thought I'd just do a simple flower to start with just to get the feel of the stamp.  Wow is it large!  Like all Paperartsy stamps it is real quality to use.  I made a background on 7 inch Clarity stencil card using iced spruce and weathered wood distress inks. 

The background is far more textured than in the photo - I had a choice in the photo between background or foreground and couldn't have them both!  I stamped the flower on watercolour card that had previously had black soot distress ink washed over it.  Because of the texture of the paper I had to colour in the solid black areas and use my white gel pen for highlights.  The circles are Decoarts neon pink that I have had for ages and never used. To pull the background and foreground together I stamped another Jofy stamp in neon on the background.  I matted onto black to frame the work.

I posted this on Facebook and Jo herself said she liked it  - my cup runneth over!

I'm going to give this card to my daughter for her upcoming birthday as she's always had a thing for neon pink.  Fingers crossed that by July 4th I might be able to give it too her in person.

Starting on Christmas in June

Another meeting that needed a displacement activity last night, so I continued with my use of the Crafter's Companion layering stencils and made some Christmas cards.  Again I used the Timeless Lilies stencil but this time turned it into a poinsettia.  I had to move the stencil around to make another leaf for balance, but this was easy to do.  I stencilled straight onto the card blank so very easy for batch making cards, and cheaper to post. 

The sentiment is an old one from a magazine which I stamped in Watering Can Archival as I wanted something softer than black. 

A lovely time getting inky fingers

Yesterday I had a lovely time in an online class run by Maxine Payne at Maximum Crafts.  Maxine runs these by Zoom monthly and sends you the kit needed before each class.

Yesterday we used the Crafter's Companion layering stencils.  I had the Timeless Lilies and the Perfect Peonies stencils.  Both were easy to use but with the Lilies stencil I got a better finish by using the stencils in a different order than suggested.  I used a mixture of Distress Inks, Distress Oxides and Izinks.  My hands looked like I'd had a wonderful time when the class finished.  Happy Days indeed.

After the class in the evening I had a rather boring Zoom meeting to attend, so continued stencilling through it as a displacement activity whilst listening to a lot of boring speakers.  I reached up to the shelf in front of me for my Peeled Paint Distress ink and pulled the whole unit and 64 inks down with an almighty clatter.  I certainly had everyone's attention.  Whoops!

I haven't added sentiments to the Lily cards yet as I'm waiting to see what I use them for.

Catching up with the past!

I couldn't think of what card to do next and after much deliberating involving coffee and cake I decided that I would have a go at working through the pile of crafting magazines that are on the one day pile.  I've started with Creative Stamping Issue 67, so goodness knows how old this is!

In the magazine Tracy Evans is a guest designer and as she is someone whose work I admire I have followed instructions for one of her cards and am very pleased with how it has come out.  I haven't put a sentiment on it as I will be using it as a notelet to an old friend whose husband has just been admitted to a care home from hospital.  In these scary times she is obviously very worried by this. 

Starting Over

When I started this blog I had great hopes and plans for keeping it up to date and posting regularly.  Ha! Life certainly leads in you ways you didn't plan to go and hence I've only played with the blog, but know I feel well enough and have enough time to get going again.  SO.... here I am :)

This card used a PaperArtsy stamp set by JOFY.  (JOFY93) that I bought for an upcoming art journal workshop and I fell in love with it straight away and had to use it.

Very easy background of Tumbled Glass and Broken China distress inks, with main stamp and sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black.  Coloured in with pencils and hilights added with Sakura gel pen.  I then added the background stamps to add depth and texture and sprayed with an old shimmer mist spray that I've decanted into another bottle.  Unfortunately or fortunately the mist blobbed rather than misted but I like the end effect very much.  I know I shall be using this stamp set a lot in the future.