Shiny Happy...

The latest challenge over at PartArtsy is Shiny Stuff - metals, mica, beads, wire, jewellery, paint effects, Treasure Gold, in other words, all things shiny, rusty or metallic.   This is waaaay out of my comfort zone but as my learning continues in the world of mixed media I've had a lovely time experimenting. I had some black cloud clay (goodness knows what I bought it for originally) and so inspired by Lin Brown's post played about with that and stamps, perfect pearls and tiny beads. The first couple of attempts were not great but the third one I was happy with - I couldn't decide what to do with it until I found an old wooden block that I'd removed the rubber stamp from (storage issues!!) and this is how it ended up -  

I stamped into the clay with a Stampendous stamp, added some holes for detail and roughed the edges a bit. I applied perfect pearls and then also added some gold leaf (applying a little glue first with my finger tip) and silver Treasure gold and finally some Ranger beadazzles around the edges. 

For the background to my clay piece I stuck a piece of sticky back canvas onto the wooden block and coloured with pumice stone and milled lavender distress stains, then ran picked raspberry and seedless preserve and touch of Treasure Gold (silver) around the edges.  I stamped the feather in Stazon 'ganache' (love this colour - just a bit softer than black) and added more shiny things ! The words are stamped in Stazon (yep Ganache!!) onto strips of silver card.  

This is so far outside of what I normally create and I've loved doing it !! Thanks for stopping by - Happy Crafting....Esther xx

Talk about Last minute !!

I was inspired today to make a Journal page using the technique shown over at PaperArtsy by Clare Lloyd and have just managed by the skin of my teeth to get it together in time to enter it into their Fragile Papers challenge. Clare used tissue paper but I don't have many colours so I used some hand made papers too. I started by gluing them over the journal page - 

The I added a wash of gesso to blend and bring the colours down a bit , followed by more gesso through a stencil and then randomly rubbed some gellatos over. 

I love that this picked up the textures in the papers. 

Then it was a matter of adding the quote and my character. Drawing faces for my art journal pages is a new art adventure for me, this being my first attempt that I've actually used and one I really need to work on but this one will have to do for now. The theme for the page was inspired by the Journal 52 Prompt for this week - Conversation Starters.  I am guilty of sometimes not knowing when to stop talking - hopefully this page will remind me when to keep something to myself.

I'm also sharing this over at Anything but a Card where the theme is 'New Beginnings' (for me this is drawing faces for my Journal pages) Thanks for stopping by....Happy Crafting...Esther xx

PaperArtsy Challenge - Fragile Papers

Over at PaperArtsy they have given their challenge a makeover and the new format is great. Their first topic is Fragile Papers and there are some amazing examples to inspire us.  Now I consider myself to be relatively new to mixed media and Art Journaling even though I've been dabbling for a while.   I'm always on the lookout for new learning opportunities and grabbed at the chance to have a go.  I've joined a couple of Facebook art groups and needed to decorate the cover of a new Art Journal I'm going to be working on over the year following weekly prompts so I did this - 

I started by applying tissue paper (plain and printed) and mulberry paper (with ranger glue 'n' seal) to the cover  which I had first painted with gesso. I added grunge past through a heart stencil and once all this was dry I spritzed with perfect pearls in pink and turquoise - you can see this in the top right corner on the main pic above where the light picks it up. 

I applied distress inks through a stencil I made from a die cut, stamped with PaperArtsy stamp (words2) and randomly applied more distress ink.

I added some script stamping to the background before adding a cluster of bits and pieces - is this called ephemera? The base layer for this is a page from a pocket dictionary (so more fragile paper) coloured with more DI, then there is some lace, burlap ribbon, die cut pieces, an old stamp (which isn't as florescent pink IRL as it looks here!) and some dew drops as well as the title in die cut letters on a piece of distressed corrugated card. 

I finished off by rubbing some Gold wax round the edges of the journal cover and over some areas of the cover to catch some of the texture and adding a strip of washi tape down the left hand side to neaten this edge by the spiral binding.

I loved working on my Journal cover - I have a habit of fixing on the end result and trying to get there as soon as possible  and all in one go (my crafting time is limited) but that often leaves me dissatisfied with the finished work as I usually feel there is something missing. I took my time with this and enjoyed the process rather than just trying to 'get it done' and am happy with the result !  Thanks for stopping by...Happy Crafting..Esther xx

New technique Journal Page

I'm still very much finding my way when it comes to Art Journalling and am really enjoying learning. I've been using the prompts from Journal 52 and am no-where near done for this years, but managed to find time to complete another page today - the prompt is 'Experiment'.  I came across the challenge at PaperArtsy and was inspired by this post from Alison (butterfly). I think my journalling style is still very much developing as I try out new things, I've only ever used grunge paste with a stencil and loved the texture Alison created by sponging with the paste over cheese cloth and gesso so wanted to give it a go myself. 

I've used PaperArtsy stamps (on tissue paper) and added colour with Fresco chalk paint.  You can see the texture of the grunge past in this next picture - now it's finished I think I could have used more paste but I was worried about over doing it and making the page too heavy

I'm sharing this over on the PaperArtsy website in Decembers' challenge.

Thanks for stopping by - Esther xx