Monthly Archives: August 2011

Art journal week 33 Spiritual

week33SpritualSml

Week 33 for the ukstampers challenge is Spiritual:

  • are you a spiritual person, what do you believe, are you a work in progress?
  • use a quote on your page
  • stamp some symbols that have meaning to you on your page

What a big subject to tackle – I am basically a spiritual person (I believe every one is to some extent) but do I believe in one particular religion over others? – well no.  I take the bits out of various religions that I like and that I think help make me a better person in some way. Actually I don’t know that much about any religion, so I am a work in progress. Is that hedging my bets – maybe?  I am however drawn to this symbol and whether it is called yin yang or Dao or Tao I like what it stands for and instead of using a quote I have included the three jewels of the Dao: Compassion, moderation and humility.

Inks:  acrylic paints and Distress ink Black soot, black document ink
Card:  watercolour card
Stamps:  yin yang symbol (unknown)
Other:  black, white and silver pens, small piece of patterned paper

Cheers! birthday card

cheersSml

Here is an easel card I made a few days ago for someone who likes their beer.  I painted a beer mat to prime it before I stamped the images.  The beer glass has glossy accents on it to make it look like glass and the froth is liquid appliqué.  I bashed a bottle cap then added the greeting and more glossy accents.  The background words were  made on the computer using different fonts, colours and some international ways of saying cheers.

Inks:  Distress inks Antique linen and Frayed burlap, Black document ink
Card:  ivory card, Basicgrey, Hang 10
Stamps:  Stampin up Circle of friendship, Personal impressions Mens1, Dimension Fourth bubbles stamp
Other:  bottle cap, glossy accents, beer mat, brads, liquid appliqué, gold pen, black gloss pen

Art journal week 32 Sport

week32SportSml

For week 32 of the ukstampers challenge the prompt is sport:

  • are you sporty? love it or hate it? have a favourite sport?
  • what sport if any would you love to try?
  • stamp some circles/rings on your page

I kind of went over sport a bit when I did my hobbies page so for this page I have chosen Martial arts as the sport I would love to try.  I did dabble in judo for a very short while but that all came to a halt when my pal hurt her knee very badly then the classes stopped, then I moved home etc etc.  If my circumstances were different I would love to try out different martial arts as there are quite a few out there.  It would be a fantastic way to keep fit with discipline and self defence.

Inks/paint:  Black document ink, red, gold, white and moss acrylic paints
Card:  white card, copy paper, Yuzen Chiyogami paper
Stamps:  Calligraphy (Ying-courage), Elusive images Dragon, Non-sequitur Oriental love letters, English stamp Co. Oriental set3, Paperbag studios Scrap journal
Other:  Copic pens green and red, Pearl ex-press watercolours metallic, embossing pen, Moss and gold embossing powder, gold and white pens, coin
The pearl ex-press watercolours give a nice shimmer to the dragon and the sprinkled embossing powders give a nice texture to the page.

Art journal week 15 Travel

week15TravelSml

Week 15 – yeh I know from ages ago but I kept putting this one off.  I am not a big fan of travelling and now when we do go anywhere we take sooooo much stuff!!  The image on my background page is from a card Harry gave me a short while back and I love it.  Thank goodness for estate cars with top-boxes is all I can say.  For ukstamper’s week 15 challenge we had to include:

  •  travel – love it or hate it?
  • where are the best and worst places you have travelled?
  • use an old map on your background

We tend to just travel around Britain and we haven’t really been to any bad places but a few of our favourite places include Aviemore, Cornwall and Wales.  I love woodlands and forested places whereas Harry likes open rolling fields. Whenever we do go out and about we have to plan out route carefully for good accessible toilets for me and plenty of nice places for our dog to stretch his legs.  The map is a scan from an old Roadfinder atlas.  I tore it in strips before pasting to the background then sprayed the whole lot.  To make it a bit more visible I outlined it roughly with a pink pen then white dots.
You can’t tell from the main photo but you might be able to see in the closer shot that there is a nice shimmer on the background.

Inks:  Memento Tuxedo black, Dylusion ink sprays Post box red and Cyan, Cosmic shimmer mist Aqua lagoon
Card:  water colour paper, torn scanned image on copy paper
Stamp:  Stamps away Arrow
Other:  Tim Holtz tissue tape, black and white image scanned from a card then coloured using copic pens, white, black, pink and blue pens

Art journal week 30 Smell

boringfigureSml(Hill).svg

E.G. Boring’s optical illusion

The young lady’s chin is the old hag’s nose, the old hag’s mouth is the young lady’s choker, and the old hag’s chin is the area under the young lady’s choker.

week30SmellSml

The ukstampers weekly challenge number 30 is about smell:

  • have you got a favourite smell?  is there a smell that reminds you of something – if so, what?
  • add something smelly to your background
  • use a nose image on your page

I have used E.G. Boring’s optical illusion image as my image of a nose.  You either see a young lady looking away or an old hag.   I traced around the image to make 2 pages with one page being not quite a mirror image but almost.  I splodged the paint on with a baby wipe roughly where the dark areas should be then rubbed over the tracing paper to show roughly where to draw the black outlines.  I then went over the darker areas with a grey copic pen to give then a bit more definition.
Smells can bring back memories or people, places, holidays and happy times.  My grandad used to buy blocks of tobacco which he would tease out and rub then dry in front of the fire.  I loved the smell of his tobacco pouch so the smell of tobacco reminds me of him.  The smell of cigars bring back memories of Christmas as my dad would always get cigars as a gift.  Mincemeat, mulled wine and Christmas pudding also remind me of cosy family Christmases.  Some things I just simply like the smell of, like: ferrets, stables, my dog, old books, leather, churches, hippy shops and incense (not the smoke of the incense), open fires especially peat and wood fire, the forest in the rain, coffee, fresh bread, flowers (but not lilies), the pits at motor racing, harbours when they are painting the boats with anti-fouling paint, dewy mornings when camping  and many, many more besides.  Perfumes on the other hand I am pretty fussy about.  I find that a lot of perfumes smell like fly spray and I don’t like perfumes with too much vanilla in them.  My everyday perfume is Paloma Picasso and my good perfume is Chanel No. 19.

Paints:  acrylic paints yellow, purple, red, grey
Card:  watercolour card
Stamps:  Scrollwork stamps Netting
Other:  stickles Starry night, incense sticks Sandalwood and lavender. grey copic pen, black and white pen

Art journal week 29: You

week29YouSml

I really like these colours together and although I made a few mistakes making this art journal page I am actually quite happy with it.  I tried using white rub-on words for ‘my thoughts’ but they didn’t stand out too well so I went over them with a white pen which made it worse so next I tried smudging a little charcoal pencil around the words.  It worked ok but not that great.  For week 29 of the ukstampers challenge the prompts is; You (as in me):

  • describe yourself in 5 words
  • use some stickers or rub-ons
  • include your fingerprint on your page

Do you know just how difficult it is to think of just 5 words to describe yourself?  These were the 5 words I came up with that more or less describes me although I am sure some people may disagree but these are my thoughts, about me, and no-one else’s.

  • Indecisive – I take such a long time to make decisions and I am always worried that I have made the wrong choice.
  • Average – I am pretty average at everything – I have been described before as a Jack of all trades, master of none.
  • Fanciful – whimsical? would love for fairies and ghosts to be real, love fairy tales
  • Nice – I am a nice person, kind, generous and friendly
  • Inquisitive – I love learning new things about everything and I am always asking questions (these days I tend to forget the answers!)

Inks/paint: Acrylic paints: turquoise, rust, white, black, and silver, Inks: Stazon Jet black, Distress inks Tumbled glass and Spun sugar
Card:  water colour card, scrap of silver and white patterned paper
Stamps: Tim Holtz Chronicles ‘i’ and Mini muse, Stampin up Sanded background, Stampotique Gooseneck, English stamp Co. Oriental set 3 (grass), Paperbag studios Scrap journal, Aspects of design Daisy flutters (flower), small alphabet stamps unknown
Other:  BoBunny Whimsy rub-ons, Cosmo cricket rub-ons, Stickles Aqua, shiny butterfly sticker unknown, charcoal pencil and coloured pens
The mouse is my fingerprint.

Getafix card

getafixJakeSml

Jake loves Asterix books so another one is winging it’s way to him for his birthday and to go with it, this Getafix card.  I used a colouring page from the internet and coloured it with Copic pens then printed the greeting.  And before you write in to let me know about the lower-case ‘i’ in birthday – that is how some of the text is in the books!  I was in a hurry again so apologies for the poor photo.