Nevermore

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Things With Wings

I started with an 8x10 canvas board, using a piece of plastic netting from an onion bag I sprayed some of Tim Holtz spray stain through the netting. Put strips of washi tape across the back. The steam punk paper I layered on a piece of random lettered paper, then I used a piece of string mesh paper with the frayed edges under that. I added the small orange raven staring into the face of the girl, the black raven coming off the page, and the word nevermore was done with Tim Holtz letter tiles, an honor to my love for Edgar Allan Poe. The wooden butterfly added nice depth. I put the brass gears and clock up the side, colored a flower for the bottom gear, and used a metal flower in the second one up. I am not usually a fan of using humans in my art, but I absolutely love how this turned out! Might just have to keep it for myself.

When The Last Petal Falls

Simon Says : Layer It Up. My wonderful partner took me on a date Monday night to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie. In honor of that amazing date and movie I decided that for this weeks art journal spread I was doing Beauty and the Beast. The background started with old dictionary pages (hard to see through the photos, but slightly noticeable in person). I went over them with distress oxide inks, sprayed the page and let it dry. Then I went over it with soft body blue acrylic that had been slightly watered down. I added the random french book pages, went over the whole thing with a muddy gray dirty wash. Then I used the Inky Blue Vivid ink pad and stenciled some random clocks and shapes. Finally I took some watered down white gesso and splattered the page. I layered all the photos onto a rose patterned card stock. I tucked our movie tickets into little windows. Then printed the words "Until the last petal falls" tore them out and used a red permanent marker to highlight the edges in red. I used some red musical tape under the top right picture just for the effect, then I put it all together. I am very happy with how it turned out and am looking forward to having this tangible piece of memory from this amazing movie and date for years to come.

Create

 This week Simon Says: Make Your Own Background. So at the center it started with a piece of mixed media paper torn from a dilusions journal. Dilusions paints were applied with a sponge, then using the same colors again I applied them through stencils. Using black dilusions paint through word stencils added fun to the already bright background. I then layered it on black, orange, black, pink, and black again lol. I took an 8x10 canvas board and painted it black. Then over it I used a random rectangles stencil and put transparent glass bead gel through it. Then I waited, a painstakingly long time, which ended up being overnight, for it to dry. I then used ultra heavy gel medium to attatch the matted piece onto the canvas board. I took a boring wooden framed and painted it black, removed the glass and placed my canvas board inside. I am very impressed with how it turned out, and can't wait to see the face of the friend who is going to recieve it.

Dante's Inferno

 This weeks Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Based On A Book. I was very excited about this challenge and immediately wanted to do Dante's Inferno. I went to our "local" half price books for a cheap copy of the book to use as part of my layout. This may be my favorite art journal page yet!!! Hope you all enjoy.

Star Trek

This weeks Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Transport It, provided me with the perfect oportunity to finally do a Star Trek layout. I love it, and hope you all will too.

The background was fun. Black gesso mixed with DecoArt pearlizing medium at the base. Tim Holtz blue watercolor crayon was scribbled over it next and then washed out to provide just a hint of blue. Then white and blue soft body acrylic splattered over that. After that it was a mash up of stenciling with paste, cardboard cutouts, letters, embellishments and gems with some photos of the Starship Enterprise.

Family

 This weeks Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Young At Heart. I had random ideas floating through my head and then I came across this set of photos of my family and decided that since my family keeps me young at heart it would be perfect. The background started with pink and orange dillusions paint, once dried I used clear embossing paste through a flowery stencil. I loved the texture it provided but unless you were staring at it you couldn't really see it so I used Tim Holtz purple spray stain, sprayed over where I stenciled and then buffed it with a paper towel leaving a light trace of purple where the flower voids were from the stencil. I then used thinned down acrylic white paint and splattered it on the pages, sprinkled silver heart confetti and black glitter over the wet paint. I layered the photos on textured white cardstock that I had stuck down where I wanted it. I used the same purple spray stain on cardboard letters for the word family and then used extra heavy gel medium to stick it down. I used black lava paint through a stencil for the LOVE and MEMORIES. Used metal embellishments next to the pictures of the kids. I'm really proud of the way this turned out. I love my family!!

Xander

This weeks Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Pets Corner. So I of course got excited at the prospect of the number of journal pages I could do, given the whole plethora of pets in my house. However when we got down to it I only had enough time to complete one. So this little guy is my wife's Chihuahua, Xander, he is about 10 weeks old in these pictures of him and weights roughly 1.5 pounds. He is now four years old and weights a whole total of 6 pounds, but he looks and acts just like he did back then.

The background is archival reinkers mixed with rubbing alcohol in spray bottles, then I used ink through gear stenciles, and the light spots are where i used addition rubbing alcohol through the same stencils. The raised gears on the right side are made with fiber paste through a different gear stencil. I used water downed black paint to splatter on the background. I layered up the two pictures of Xander with matching textured cardstock. Added the paw print ribbons, stuck down the pictures. I stamped the sentiment and cut it out and added it over the top. Found some fun letters to put his name at the bottom which added the finishing touches.