Concertina Book WIP

Hi everyone, I wanted to share a concertina book with you that I'm making in Joanne Sharpe's "Art Sparks 2: Color. Collage. Concertina." class over on Ruzuku.com.  It is too much fun; watercolour and acrylic paints, collage, lettering, doodling ... this class has it all!  I only have one side finished so far but am loving the results.  My theme is flowers :O)

Page one is the inside of the front cover, I added a little pocket to tuck my watercoloured posies into.

Page two.

Page 3, the large flower flips open to reveal more flowers behind with a spot for journaling on the back of the big flower.

Page four, the half sunflower on the right side flips open as well.

Page five.

And finally page six, which is the inside of the back cover.  I adore how that big bold flower came out!

So now on to the other side of the concertina book pages and the covers, I'll be back to share it with you once it's completed and hope to get a flip through of the completed book filmed for you as well.  I would highly recommend Joanne's class, lots of fun and it is a very, very reasonable price and part of a series of classes that she is doing during the pandemic.  Hope to maybe see you over there and thanks so much for stopping by,

Deb xo

The Earth Laughs In Flowers Watercolour Tag For A Vintage Journey

Hello everyone, it's the fifth Friday of the month so that means it's time for another Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey.  In every month with five Fridays, the Creative Guides get to design a tag in any style that they'd like and for July's Tag Friday I decided to create a watercolour tag in keeping with this month's challenge theme of Watercolour Wonders (psssst, you have until Thursday August 6th to enter our Watercolour Wonders challenge).

I started our with a piece of 120 lb cold press watercolour paper and added some embossed elements (Distress Damask stamp with white embossing powder and AAll & Create #10 stamp with clear embossing powder).

I then added washes of watercolour paint in shades of blue and green, adding clear water to allow the paint colours to run and blend into each other.  Love how the watercolour pools around and into the embossed areas!

A #10 size tag was cut from the watercolour paper after the paint had dried and I added some spatters of watercolour paint here and there to the tag.

To add more interest to the background I stamped some dots with embossing ink and brushed Perfect Pearls over top here and there.

And then to add some more texture I stenciled Opaque Matte Texture paste onto the tag through a piece of sequin waste.

While the texture paste dried I stamped flowers onto a piece of Mixed Media Heavystock with embossing ink and embossed them with a fine line white embossing powder.  I then watercoloured the embossed flowers with Spun Sugar Distress Ink and a waterbrush.

The watercoloured flowers were then die cut with the accompanying dies.  I used a technique I learned from Jennifer McGuire to die cut the stamped flowers; cut the dies from pieces of scrap cardstock and then position the appropriate die cut template over your stamped image, lining it up perfectly through the opening.  Tape it into place and then fit the die inside the template (it clicks in kind of like a puzzle piece) and then die cut the whole assembly.  Perfectly die cut stamped images every time!  I just keep my die cut templates in the pouch with the dies for easy access each time I need them.

The sentiment was added onto the tag, backed with a piece of silver Metallic Kraftstock.  I just printed the sentiment out on the computer but you could also hand letter or stamp it.

The die cut flowers were arranged onto the tag and popped up on some white foam squares.

A couple of pieces of ink stained ribbon were added to the top of the tag and held in place with a piece of curled silver wire and the tag was done.  Here are some closeups of the finished tag.

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing how my watercolour tag came together.  If you have made any tags in the month of July, we'd love to see them.  Just head on over to A Vintage Journey to link them up and be sure to take a peek at the tags that the other Creative Guides made to inspire you while you are there!

Thanks as always for stopping by today and happy creating,

Deb xo

A To Z Of Inspirational Words Art Journal - A Collaboration Challenge With Tina Walker And StencilGirl Products

Hello everyone, I am so excited to share an art journal with you today that I've been working on for months in collaboration with Tina Walker of A Dog's Life and StencilGirl Products.

Way back in January Tina posted a call for folks interested in working on one of her amazing StencilGirl Talk collaborative projects and I was thrilled to be able to join in the fun.  The premise was to create 26 art journal pages, each based on a letter of the alphabet, using StencilGirl Products stencils exclusively.  We could choose any theme that we wanted for our A To Z art journals but each participant had to choose a different theme so make sure to visit the StencilGirl Talk's blog post  to see what everyone created!

I chose inspirational words as my theme and have had so much fun creating it over the last few months, it's been a labour of love.  I made a flip through video of the entire art journal which you can watch on YouTube or you can also watch it here on my blog at the bottom of this post.  I've also made an itemized list of all of the StencilGirl Products stencils that I used in my art journal, you can download the .pdf from Dropbox by clicking here.  I used 44 different stencils in all!

Here are a few pictures of some of my favourite pages.

A is for Ascend.

This was the first page that I created (I didn't necessarily go in alphabetical order) and it's definitely one of my favourites.  I used multiple stencils on this page: Open Buildings (S191), Union Small (S196), Rembrandt Words Small (S262), Alpha Drips (S435), Beautiful Halo (S543), Circles Circles (L301), Now Is The Time (L317) and Leafy Trees Arch (L634).  Love, love, love all the layers!

F is for Fearless.

By contrast I only used three stencils on this page but that amazing face stencil (Create Face S646) is so beautiful and powerful that not much more was needed.  Rembrandt Words Small (S262) and Celtic Alphabet Stencil (L765) were the only other stencils used along with some asemic writing.

N is for Nurture.

Nature is where I feel nurtured so that wonderful owl stencil (Three Owls And A Branch L298) was a natural choice for this page along with the Nature's Gathering Stencil (L293) and a wee soupcon of Circles Circles (L301) along with some Wildflower Stems die cuts.

Q is for Quiet.

 As soon as I saw Rae Missigmam's new Botanical stencil and mask collection I was in love and new I had to use them on this page.  Nothing fancy here, I just let those beautiful delicate stencils speak for themselves; I used Botanical Wildflowers L774 along with the Celtic Alphabet stencil L765.

S is for Simplify.

Sometimes simple is good!  Just one stencil was used here, Carved Moon Phases (S498), I stenciled the background repeatedly with several shades of orange/red/purple and then sprayed through the stencil onto a separate sheet of watercolour paper and cut out the individual 'moon phases' to make my flowers.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing some of my favourite pages and if you'd like to see them all you can watch the flip through video below.

Thanks so much to Tina Walker for asking me to be a part of her A To Z StencilGirl Art Journal collaboration challenge and also to StencilGirl Products for making all of those fabulous stencils!  Be sure to visit StencilGirl Talk's blog to see all of the amazing journals created for this collaboration, you are going to love it.  Have a wonderful day everyone and happy creating,

Deb xo

Beautiful Moments Watercolour Tutorial

Hi everyone, just popping in to let you know that I have a tutorial for my little Beautiful Moments floral watercolour study over at A Vintage Journey today.

Head on over for the (easy!) how to and then I hope that you will be inspired to join in our July challenge, Watercolour Wonders, over at AVJ.  Enjoy!

Deb xo

How Does Your Garden Grow Plaque For Therm O Web

Hello everyone, just popping in to let you know that I have a tutorial over on Therm O Web's blog for this little garden inspired mixed media plaque created with their Deco Foil Flock transfer sheets.

I die cut some whimsical flowers from multiple shades of Deco Foil Flock and added some doodles with paint pens and markers.

Some stamping and whimsical watercolour and pen doodled leaves and stems along the bottom with some Deco Foil Green Envy Flock 'grass'!

And then some lettering done with a waterbrush and watercolour paint along the top.

For the complete step by step tutorial head on over to Therm O Web's blog and be sure to visit them all this week as we celebrate 'All Things Summertime!'  See you there,

Deb xo

Listen Art Journal Page

Hi everyone, I finished up an abstract art journal page in one of my book journals that I use to off load paint after making gel plate prints.  All the pages just start out as a mish mash of paint colours and textures and I just let them be until I can see or hear 'something' in them.  This page just told me to shut up and listen and in light of current events around the world I think that is very, very good advice.

Deb xo

Beautiful Moments Watercolour For A Vintage Journey

Hello everyone!  It's the first Friday of the month so that means it is time for another challenge over at A Vintage Journey.  I am hosting this month and have chosen the theme of 'Watercolour Wonders'.  We would love to see any of the watercolour medium projects that you create this month, here is the official brief for our challenge:

This month we want to see what can you create with water reactive mediums. There are lots of options - watercolour paints, dye inks that react with water, or any of those wonderful powders that bloom to life when sprinkled onto a wet surface. Just remember to create your project in one of our preferred styles: vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

I created a little floral watercolour painting for the challenge with watercolour paints and pencils.

It was super easy to do and I will have a step by step tutorial over on A Vintage Journey's blog in a couple of weeks time but till then here are a few closeups.

Make sure to pop by A Vintage Journey to see what the other Creative Guides have made to inspire you for our challenge and I hope that you'll break out your watercolour mediums and join in the fun!  Hope to see you there,

Deb xo

Spring Corrugated Cardboard Art Journal

Hello everyone, I have finally completed the little corrugated cardboard art journal that I have been working on this Spring, unfortunately I didn't get it finished until Summer had arrived but at least I did get it done!

Back in April I had shared a few of the pages with you but I've got it bound and completed now so here's a quick recap of the pages, a couple of which you won't have seen yet.

The 'cover' is just some Wildflower Stems die cuts on a mixed media background, loving the texture!

Rebekah Meier stencil with transparent texture paste and then DecoArt Media Patina Green Antiquing Medium over top.

Flower Garden stamps watercoloured with Distress Inks and popped up on some floral scrapbook paper.

That wonderful Patchwork Bird die, love him!

Wildflower die cuts watercoloured with Distress Inks on a Floral Collage Paper background.

A very old Tattered Angels stamp set, love the butterfly and the sentiment.

This page was strongly influenced by an online course I'm currently taking with Joanne Sharpe called 'Art Sparks: Words and Watercolors' (pssst!  It's only $14.95, head on over to sign up!).  Loving playing with my watercolours again.

And finally some of Dina Wakley's wonderful Scribbly Birds and Scribbly Flowers and Insects stamps coloured with her Scribble Sticks on the back 'cover'.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing how it came together, it was fun to make and think I will now make one for Summer ... hmmm, maybe a seasonal corrugated cardboard art journal series??  I think I may have to do that!  Thanks as always for stopping by today and happy creating,

Deb xo