This Turned Out Really Cute!

 When I started out with this page I had no idea what I was going to do.  I bought some new stencils and some Tim Holtz paint daubers and I wanted to use them and it just evolved!
 

I started out using Weathered Wood, and blended in some Chipped Sapphire and Broken China acrylic paint daubers.  I helped blend them by adding water with a paint brush. This gave me the base for my background.

 

  
 I stamped the background using Stampabilities, Vintage Compass stamp with black archival ink.  I used Dusty Concord (not shown) with a blending tool through the Tim Holtz, Burlap stencil and Wild Honey with the Prima Crackle stencil.  I also used Picket Fence Distress Paint through a stencil of circles (not shown).

Then I stamped the fish on a sheet of copy paper.  I colored the fish using Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed and Fired Brick Distress markers by rubbing them on my craft mat and picking up the color with a water brush.  After it was colored I cut the fish out.  When I placed it on the page it was swallowed up by the background.  That is when I decided to Paint a layer of Gesso, Stamp it with one of Tim Holtz Phrases stamps and glue the fish in place.  He was still a little lost so I traced around him with a Pitt Pen.

The page still looked like it needed "something".  That is when I thought about a technique I had seen on the Internet and it was perfect for using my new "Rain Drop" Stencil.  I used my "embossing dauber" through the rain drop stencil.  I covered it with Recollections, "Sapphire", embossing powder.  I heated it with a heat gun and had my rain.  I drew around each drop with a Pitt pen and added a white highlight with my Signo pen.  I added some swirls using ColorBox, "Royal Blue" (not shown) on a rubber texture sheet (found in the candle making section).

As I wrote this, I noticed that I didn't take a picture of some of the supplies I used ... oops.  I did include the name of them in the description.

For not having any idea of what I was going to do, I REALLY like this page!  The quote is perfect for it too.

I had a lot of fun trying techniques that I found through Pinterest!

Below are five tags that I made today.

 The background on these two tags were done using Inka-gold metallic rubs.  You can watch the video tutorial here.  The colors made me think of peacocks, which is why I stamped a peacock feather and a peacock on each of the tags.

 This tag was using black gesso as the base.   I stamped a flourish with embossing ink and used Recollections "Glacier" embossing powder.  After I heated the powder with my heat tool, I painted a coat of Americana Acrylic paint (Light Buttermilk) over the whole tag.  Then using a baby wipe, I rubbed most of the paint off giving it a shabby chic look.  You can see the video tutorial for this one here.

 This was a Tim Holtz video.  I must say that my attempt doesn't look half as good as the one that Tim did, BUT, I did have a lot of fun following along and doing all the different layers.  You can view that video tutorial here.

I played with Tim Holtz crackle paints.  For this tag, I painted the whole tag with Americana Acrylic Paint "Heritage Red".  I let that dry completely and then painted the whole tag again with Tim Holtz Crackle Paint, "Picket Fence".  I let the tag dry by itself, which is the recommended method rather than using a heat tool on it

The left side of the tag is the effect of the two paints.  The right side of the tag I used "Tea Dye" distress ink with a blending tool.  This is a good way to tone down the white but is not really needed to see the crackle.  Very, very cool!

This tag I did on my own.  I took a vintage photo from my stash and cut out the little girl.  I then painted her with Tim Holtz Distress paint, "Clear Rock Candy.  You can see the effect on the top photo.  Then I added her to a tag that I colored using distress Ink pads added a couple stamps and outlined the photo to help it pop a little bit more.  Sorry, there isn't a video for this one.

A Very Rainy Weekend Produced Three Sweet Photo Art Cards.

Flaunt Your Colors!

I drew this in pencil and then went over it with my Pitt pens.  It is colored with Derwent Intense Colored Pencils.  I used a water brush over the colors and used my white Signo pen to add the dot details on the wings.

I Love Learning New Techniques!

I am taking an on-line mini Workshop by the very talented Valerie Sjodin.  She shows how to create the beautifully creative edges to her art journals as well as fitting words to spaces and painting with fluid acrylics.  Sooooo much information in a mini workshop.  This is my first journal cover that I created.  I have a lot more practicing to do.  I started out using fluid acrylics on the edge but I didn't like the results I was getting.  I switched to markers and liked the colors a lot better.  Valarie is planning a larger Workshop and I can't wait.  The deadline for this workshop is Sept 1, 2013  and is open until November.  It is SOOOOOOOOOOO worth it,

Stamps and Doodles!

So, I'll start off by saying, I don't like how the background turned out.  But I love everything else.  The flowers are from a single stamp that I stamped three times using a mask.  Then I doodled in the rest.  I colored it in with markers.  Now here is where it went bad...I tried to use water color markers for the background.  I don't think I would get the hang of using them even with a lot of practice.

Gelato Background.

 

This page isn't finished but it is as far as I completed before I became stuck as to what to add to it.  I waited a day or two thinking that something might come to me but it hasn't.  So, when inspiration hits me, I will complete it.

I started out by painting the page with Gesso.  Then I stamped the cone flower three times.  I had to extend the stem of the longest one by using a micron pen.  Then I started coloring the bottom flower to the right with H2O paints.  I felt like I lost a lot of the detail of the flower so I used my Copic markers on the other two.  I still lost detail so I went over it with a black Micron pen.  This still didn't make the flowers stand out so I switched to a white Signo pen.  I scribbled blue, turquoise and yellow Gelatos on the background and then rubbed and blended the colors with my fingers.  I took a black Gelato and scribbled around the flowers and again blended with my fingers.  I added the Dylusions leaf stamp to the flowers and then randomly stamped the background with a circle background stamp.  It definitely needs something above the flowers.  A quote or ...something, but like I said nothing has inspired me so this is it until that happens.