Happy Mother's Day!

Between preparing for a huge yard sale on Saturday, and trying to get the plants that I bought recently in the ground, I made two Mother's Day cards; one for my mother, and one for my mother-in-law.  They live far away so I had to make sure they were mailed early this week.

I used the embossing resist technique and the big Doily and Medallion stamps by Stampin' Up!  I LOVE these stamps, and they are perfect for using this technique.

I can't get enough of watercolors lately! I started with thick watercolor paper, cut to 5.5" x 4.25",  and embossed the stamped image with Versamark ink and clear embossing powder. I then saturated the paper with water and added watercolors, letting them pool up in areas and dry naturally. I used a dry cloth to wipe away any color that pooled onto the stamped images.  I mounted the card front onto an A2 size card and finished them off with fibers, sequins, and sentiments.  I also used the same stamps on the envelopes.  I really love how they turned out and I hope my moms will love them too.  I also added a restaurant gift card inside.  I know they will love that!  Thanks for visiting my blog and leave a comment below!  Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!  

Painting Class

Recently I signed up for an online class called, "8 Great Paintings." 

Link: https://julie-prichard.squarespace.com/8-great-paintings

I want to learn new techniques and expand my knowledge of acrylic painting and I like that the paintings are small, no larger than 12 x 12 and somewhat abstract.  I'm currently on the second painting and they are far from masterpieces but I'm learning new techniques I will use in future projects.

#1 is 9 x 12 and all about layering techniques. Although it's suppose to be abstract, somehow, I made it into a grungy urban landscape. I grew up in a large city and have been a suburbanite for many years. So I guess I gave meaning to an otherwise meaningless painting.  I do like to give my work some sort of meaning, so it works for me!

#1 detail showing lots of layers.

#2 incorporates collage elements and black and white paint to start. I like it so far.

More layering so that almost all the collage elements are covered.  This one is not done yet.

#2 detail

I'm finding that the lack of color in these paintings is out of my comfort zone and making me not want to finish #2.  So I've decided to add lots of color to the following lessons.  I may come back to #1 and 2 and do the same.  I need to make them mine and not just copy my teacher!  

Twinkling H2Os

The other day something prompted me to get out my much neglected LuminArte Twinkling H2Os, which are watercolors with shimmer.

I made the following two Easter cards using those little pots of shimmery goodness!

I used nice sturdy watercolor paper. 

I sprayed the paper with water then added the H2Os and let them kind of bleed together. My paint brush barely touches the paper.

Mostly I let them air dry but sometimes I can direct the colors by using my heat tool.  I also use similar colors together, then dry them before I add complementary colors (orange and blue, red and green, yellow and violet) so as not to make a muddy mess.

I wish you could see the shimmer that they create!  

I wanted to contrast the bright colors with simple white die-cuts made using my Silhouette Cameo and stamped sentiments.  Here are a few more...........

Now go get your watercolors out and see what you can create!  I love comments so don't be shy!  Happy Easter!

Painted iPad Cover

I recently had to part with my iPad for a few weeks while it was repaired.  I've wanted to paint the cover and decided this was the time.  It's black leather so I started with a base of black gesso to give the paint something to stick to.  Then.....what color?  Well, of course, my favorite, blue and turquoise.  After I had the background the way I wanted it,  I used The Crafter's Workshop stencil, Corn Flowers (TClW375) and painted a layer of white gesso through the stencil before I painted the red flowers and green stems and leaves.  This made the flower colors really pop against the blue background.    

After I was all finished, I put 3 coats of Golden GAC-100  Multi-Purpose Acrylic Polymer so that it would create a durable finish.  It added a bit of shine too.  Now I just need my iPad back!! 

Click on the links for the stencil and the Golden acrylic polymer and it will take you to where you can purchase them. Hope you enjoyed this post and if you have any questions or comments, please enter them below!  

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of this day of love, I wanted to share some festive journal pages and cards. Some of them are oldies but goodies!  Hope everyone has someone to snuggle up with today!!

Flowers in Winter

I was inspired by one of Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesdays where she took scrapbook flowers, glued them in her art journal, and painted over them.  I liked the idea so much that I made 3 canvases using the same idea. This is a great way to use your scrapbook supplies in a new way.

Purple Flower Canvas

Detail

I glued 9 various sized flowers to an 8x8 canvas, and covered the whole thing with gesso. Since I can't seem to complete any project without using molding paste, I added it to the sides and background of the canvas. After it was dry, (it was so hard to wait!) I added turquoise and magenta paint and it started looking purple. So I let everything dry and added glazing medium to the subsequent paint layers to create depth of color.  I ended by splattering some bright pink all over it.  After everything dried completely, I painted embossing ink randomly on the canvas and sprinkled ultra-thick embossing powder all over, then heated to reveal random shiny areas that look kinda like dew or raindrops. The pictures don't do it justice!  It looks so cool!!

Pink Flower Canvas

Detail

Turquoise Flowers

  

Detail

Detail

The turquoise is my favorite canvas.  The colors in the detail photos are more true to the real canvas. I couldn't seem to get a good photo of the whole canvas and wasn't willing to go out in the freezing rain for natural light!  I added gold metallic paint to the petals and that really brought out the flowers' details.    

I am entering these canvases in the Scrap Around the World blog challenge for February. Here is the link to their website:  http://scraparoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2014/02/january-2014-wall-of-fame-our-first.html

February Mood Board 

I LOVE the bright, springy colors in their mood board this month and that is what inspired me to enter my canvases.  Thanks for visiting and please let me know what you think in comments below.

Art Journaling

I've been working a lot in my art journal lately and wanted to share some finished entries.  I love the idea of an art journal and strongly believe every creative person should have one. This is the place where I play with new techniques and different color combinations, or try a new products, without the pressure of a canvas or scrapbook page. I have at least 2 art journals going at the same time because many times I have extra paint that I don't want to waste, or stencils that I clean off on one journal while working in another journal.  I've worked in Strathmore Mixed Media spiral bound journals but more recently love working in the Ranger Dylusions journal.   Ok, enough jibber jabber!  

Strathmore journal cover that I altered.

My altered Dylusions journal cover.  I highly recommend this journal since the pages lay flat giving me a larger area to work with since it is not spiral. Sometimes I tape the middle to keep the paint from seeping through to the other pages.  You can buy them here:

 http://store.scrapbook.com/pp-dr-dyj34100.html.

                        

 

I used my January Stencil Club peacock stencils to create these pages in my Strathmore journal.  Such beautiful stencils!! Here is a link for more info on Stencil Girl art stencils.  http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/Default.asp

Below I used a The Crafter's Workshop arrow stencil.  

Ride

The bicycles are napkins that I glued to the painted background using  matte medium. Then used molding paste with the arrow stencil and glazed over the whole thing with Cobalt Teal Golden paint.

I started with a very colorful background and used a gate stamp and Dylusions vine stamps.  LOVE how this one turned out!

Used the December (I think) Stencil Girl stencils to record our freezing weather we had a few weeks ago.  It was below 10 degrees and our heat stopped working in the middle of the night!!! We had it working by the next day but I froze my tail off!!!   Record lows for South Carolina!

So, what do you think?  Let me know below.........