Art Journal ? - Swirlydoos Round 5 Project

Our assignment this past week was to create an art journal.

I'm not an artist. I don't draw, and I don't see art in my head.  I love to scrapbook because it allows me to create a beautiful art project with limited artistic skill.  

I had a good go at it, and more importantly, I had LOADS of fun.  My whole journal, however, ended up looking like a 6th grade art project.  I kept hearing, "it's YOUR art..." and, well, I DO teach 6th grade...

I'm pretty sure I'll get kicked this week.  I'm not kidding when I tell you that I really, REALLY did not have clue ONE about what I was doing.  And the other projects were SO incredible, it's fair I should go... 

I have to say, though, that this will probably be something I'll continue to play with because it really IS a lot of fun, and since I'm not a card maker, I might as well be an art journalist.  

This was one of three page spreads I did. It was my favorite of the week, so I figured I'd load it and share it here.  

I mean - it's ART, right? 

The sand is bead gel with paint. The bricks are modeling paste with metallic paint. The wind - that's just a doodle around a mask with some stickles to bling it up a bit. The water is done with a scallop punch and layers of paper.   The sailboat is some paper piecework.  I used a clip art shape as a model and some old canvas paper for the sails.  The wave is a chippie, colored with some Lindy's Mist.  I do love Lindy and her mists!  The clouds are gesso.  And yes, that's a toothpick you see on the bow of that boat.    


If you want to see what a REAL art journal looks like, go take a peek in the Week 5 Contest Gallery at Swirlydoos.  There are some AMAZING projects over there.  

Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge - Week 5 Gallery

Canvas Art - Swirlydoos Round 4 Project

So, as promised, here's my canvas project from last week's Swirlydoos Ultimate Designer Challenge.  

I've never even attempted such a project before, but Lisa is an awesome teacher and the video tutorials that she put up were AMAZINGly helpful for a total novice like me. It's a credit to HER that I was able to create this piece of pretty.  Thanks so much Lisa, for helping me get this project out of my head onto the canvas. 

Before I explain HOW I did it, let me tell you what it is and WHY I did it...

This canvas is a gift for my mother.

I am one of five children, four living. My parents lost a baby to SIDS at nine days old. Her name was Amy Susan and she died the day before my fifth birthday. She would be 52 this year. My younger daughter is named after her.

She was here such a brief time and it was so long ago that it's almost like she was never here at all. We never mention her, and yet her small but short life made a major impact on my parents.

My mother was 23 years old, my dad 31. Daddy was a US Marine, a fighter pilot, in charge of a squadron of other pilots, competent and sure of everything. Mom was busy keeping house and raising children, teaching Sunday School, hosting teas for other officer's wives.

Before Amy, my parents had a very clear idea how things were supposed to be. They expected life to follow certain rules and order. They had plans for the future - both theirs and their children's. After Amy, they both realized that sometimes children don't live to grow up. Their perspective about the future changed, and they both became better parents. My 'father' became my 'daddy,' and my mother found time to sit and play and hug us every opportunity she had.

As my mom has gotten older, she has begun talking about Amy, about how this little angel changed her life - how in one second, everything she knew for sure became nothing for sure at all. How the few short days she was with us changed ALL of us for the better, in spite of the incredible pain of loss.

There are no photographs of my second sister. The only mementos of her life are a photo of her grave and a small piece of ribbon, left over from the dress my mother buried her in.  A few years ago, I asked my mother for the ribbon from that dress. 

I had this idea in my head - just an idea really, nothing solid or formed - but some way to create a small memory of a short life that was part of my life, just for a few days, but made everything about the way I grew up different than it might have been if she had lived.

So to start, I chose a small canvas (8x8) to create my project - as a symbol of a small life, gone much too soon, before it even had a chance to BE a life really.  The ribbon on the bottom is the ribbon from her dress. And on the back, just for my mom to read, are these words...

What kind of place would heaven be with all its streets of gold,

if all the souls, that dwell up there like yours and mine were old?

How strange would heaven’s music sound when harps begin to ring,

if children were not gathered round to help the angels sing.

The children that God sends to us are only just a loan,

He knows we need their sunshine to make the house a home.

We need the inspiration of a baby’s blessed smile,

He doesn’t say they’ve come to stay, just lends them for awhile.

Sometimes it takes them years to do the work for which they come.

Sometimes in just a day or two our Father calls them home.

I like to think some souls up there bear not one sinful scar.

I like to think of heaven as a place where babies are.

**********

Now, here's how I did it. 

I prepped the canvas with glimmer mist in Snow Angel, Sunkissed Peach, Frost, and Patina. I was going for an "earth to heaven" color blend. 

I used molding paste for the wings, created with a stencil. The stuff on the bottom is called glass bead gel, bought at Michaels in the art and paint section. It's my NEW favorite goop!

I set it aside for the night to dry.

When everything was dry, I dry brushed the wings and the Bead Gel with some Metallic Pearl White paint by Folk Art. I also used some Baby Pink Metallic by Martha Stewart as well.

I stamped the clocks and embossed them with a soft peach embossing enamel. The cherub is a transparency print. I knew it would bleed a bit when I sealed the canvas, but I think that I like the way it ended up, soft at the bottom and clear at the top.

I sealed with Martha Stewart's glitter finish, another really COOL goopy item!

And another drying wait.

Then I top dressed the wings again with the Metallic White and finally used a white gelato stick on both the wings and the bead gel.

The chipboard is prepped with DecoArt Metallic Festive Green paint, run through my dotted swiss embossing folder.  Then I sanded the tops down, used some Peeled Paint ink and then some Metallic Chalk Rub to finish.

The fiber is a medical gauze roll. I pulled the fibers apart to make it more wispy and then treated it with a Baby Pink metallic paint wash. I tied the little dress ribbon in a bow, then tacked down the ends, kind of bunching and gluing as I went.

The little crochet butterflies started life white, but I gave them a bit of a dressing with some Picked Raspberry ink. The pearl bling finished everything up and I was done.

I am so pleased with how this turned out. I cannot wait to give it to my mom.

Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge Week 3

Want to see what's been keeping me busy this week?  I mean besides substitute teaching and feeding everything with a mouth around here?

I made the Round 3 cut for the Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge and got to play for another week.  This week's project was courtesy of Miranda - who expected us to ::GASP:: work with METAL!  Oh dear.  Does she not know about my long standing feud with all things steam punky and industrial?  In fact, I have such a hard time with this particular genre' that I've invented my own signature style and named it "Country Punk" just in desperation to prevent being laughed out of next county. 

No matter.  Metal foil tape, embossing, and altered items.  That was the assignment, so up with the rolling of the sleeves, and down with the lump in my throat, and into the mucky mess with my fingers, and out came ....

this.  Which is not so bad, if I say so myself.  Turns out - it really was super fun.  But once again, steam punk and I have agreed to part ways in favor of a more "country" flair.  My signature "Country Punk" strikes again!  

It's a metal coated mini album covered with bits and pieces of things I love and things that I mostly wanted to get out of my bottomless stash of bits and pieces of things.  

The little wood fence lifts up.  Under, there is a little red glittered heart and some ribbon grass.  Eventually, this will have a picture of Cowboy as well. 

The little flower in the heart is one of Amy's earrings.  I found it in the bathroom drawer after she moved out.  There was only one, not a pair, and I could not bear to throw it out.  I knew I'd find a use for it.   Turns out...















The little metal butterfly is tethered to the family word.  I think that's kind of symbolic.  Everyone needs to find their wings, but our family keeps us stable and secure and grounded when the wind gets too strong and we need a safe resting place. 



The feathers are courtesy of my chickens and the bluebirds that live here in the summer.  The bingo numbers - lucked out with those.  They're our house number! 

  

Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge - Week 2

Hi everyone.  

This is my second project for the Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge, which means that I made the first round cut!  I'm so excited - because the competition and talent is FIERCE.  This challenge is definitely a mojo stretching, creativity inspiring, pull out all the stops, pedal to the metal kind of competitive series.    

Our video inspiration tutorial was hosted by Rae this week. Rae is into layers - the more the better. Not surprisingly, our assignment then was to create a layered project. Rae didn't SPECIFY how many, so it turned into a really fun competition between participants of "just how many layers can you GET on that page of yours anyway?"

First item of business, I needed to pick a photo to work with.  

My sister and I went to Italy in October, and we made a point to take a "sister picture" at every major stop. This one is at the tower in Piza. The photo - my sister was my matron of honor and I was hers. We did this same photo at both of our weddings - 25 and 30 years ago. I thought about doing a then and now thing, but this photo is really for my Italy vacation album, so I'll save that idea for another time.

I actually already scrapped this photo once for my mom's mini album. But I wanted to do a layout of it for my own album, so I've been looking for the right set of circumstances to line up. This week, they did.

I'm going to play this project in a couple of additional challenges at Scrapbook.com.  The first is the Book Of Me Challenge which Char hosts.  The assignment this month was to scrap a milestone.  If a trip to Italy for a country girl from Oklahoma isn't a milestone, I'm not sure what is. It was also the first time my sister and I had shared a room since we were kids. It was so fun to find out that we could be friends as well as sisters. I had such a GREAT time. I mean, yeah it was Italy, but I went with my SISTER. How cool is THAT?

And I'm also going to submit it to Kimberly's Stamping On Your Layout Challenge because I did. Honest. I stamped some script writing on these papers in a couple of places - but I don't think that it shows up too well in the photo. Look really hard at the right edge of the brown polka dot paper and MAYBE you can see some of it. There's more, but the dark ink just doesn't show up well on the dark paper. You can see it in the real life version, but its subtle.


*************

TECHNIQUE DETAILS - for inquiring minds...

Day One was all about the papers. First item of business was that BoBunny Weekend Market collection. That was a total no brainer.  As far as I'm concerned, BoBunny knocked it out of the park with this paper line. It's one of my all time favorites - right up there with Kay & Co's Blue Awning.

I stopped counting paper layers at 11 because that's my lucky number, but I think that there actually ARE eleven layers of paper on the basic bones of this project. The mist work on the doily is Lindy's Buccaneer Bay Blue Moon Shadow Mist. (Moon Shadows are my FAVORITE Lindy's product.) 

Then I let the project marinate overnight.  It needed a serious time out.  It was arguing with me about flowers.  I wanted to use some fabric burlap and organza ones.  My layout wanted to live with cluny lace and wind up roses.  It was being seriously bossy about it too, and I just couldn't deal, so I left it all by itself overnight to think about the consequences of its choices.    

Day Two - I figured since the project was about layers, and since my project and I were STILL arguing about flowers, I decided the embellishments could stand a little layering too.

First is the little Italy stamp in the memo pin.  I had two of those stamps, so I cut one out with my stamp scissors, put it onto some chipboard, then put that on top of the other stamp, so it's a layered embellishment. The doily clock is another one. The doily is a diecut by StampinUp, cut from a BoBunny Double Dot paper.  Then I used an OLD Heidi Swap clear clock from my stash (Roman Numerals, of course), some metal clock hands (from Michaels sale aisle), and finished with a vintage brad (also StampinUp from my stash). And the little journaling block is also layered. It was a clear sticker which I stuck onto the BoBunny Double Dot, then layered a Tim Holtz tile fragment on top of it.

I did the Dusty Attic flourishes (which are ALSO my favorite) with some modeling paste, brown smooch spritz (Log Cabin) darkened with Walnut Stain reinker, and then some Lindy's mica powder in Tibetan Poppy Teal on top when it was dry.

Day Three - down to the wire. I sat down to have a serious discussion with my project about the floral embellishments.  I tried my very hardest to convince it to play nice with those burlap and organza flowers. I had visions of burlap in my head and I just couldn't understand why my layout didn't share that vision.  But its response went something like, "are you KIDDING? SERIOUSLY?" I whined a little and tried to explain that the cluny lace flowers it wanted me to create were going to be too much work - that they involved needle and thread and figuring out center pieces... My layout didn't care. It said, "this photo - it matters to you. A lot. It really deserves the best you have in your arsenal. Now shut up and get after it."

I've learned never to argue with your project. You can't win. Better to let it be the driver and you just ride shotgun and help it steer.  Cluny lace and wind up roses it is.

The wind up roses are done with Tim Holtz's tattered pinecone die. The big flower is an old Prima, color changed courtesy of the Buccaneer Bay Blue mist. The smaller ones are hand done with cluny lace, colored up with Stormy Sky ink, and then finished with some of the Lindy's Teal mica. I layered those with a couple of metal brad flower enhancements (I'm not sure if that's the right word - they're metal flowers that are designed to have brads stuck into them), then stuck some small stamens in them to make them behave like real flowers. I had to enlarge the hole in the metal with my crop-a-dile for the stamens to fit through. The tiny roses came from the dollar aisle at Michaels. They started their lives white, but once I pull out the Moon Shadow, NOTHING is safe anymore.

Only thing left was the green ferns from a floral stem and some floral stem winds - really small gauge stuff - and it was done.

So, yes, it took days, but you know - sometimes the end result is worth the time investment. This was one of those times. I'm so happy that my layout was so hardheaded about those flowers - because in the end, it really did know what it was talking about.  I could not be more proud of how this project turned out. 

Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge - Week 1

Swirlydoos is having a design challenge for the next six weeks.  The prize package is absolutely over the top, but the main reason I wanted to participate is that Swirlydoos has always been the place I go when I need to feed my creativity.  I was a kit member for a long time, and Krissy is the best when it comes to figuring out what I want before even I know what I want. 

Anyway - the first challenge was to create a  milti-dimensional embellishment.  We had to start with a die cut and then turn that into a usable embellishment using at least two art mediums.  Then we had to display that embellie on a finished project. 

Man.  Talk about creative fun!  

Here's what I came up with for my little embellishment.  

I cut out a bird from the Tim Holtz birdcage die, along with two wings.  Then I covered those with modeling paste, which I textured to look like feathers.  When it was dry, I puddled some shimmer mists onto my craft mat and applied them to my bird with a paintbrush, also adding some Lindy's mica powders to REALLY bump up the shine.  I used a distress marker for the beak, and I added just a tiny drop of dimensional paint to a black bling for the eye. The flowers are from the Tim Holtz tattered flower mini strip, inked with Victorian Velvet ink, then dabbed with glossy accents and dipped in glitter.  The base is cut from a Stampin'Up die, it's just chipboard covered with paper.  Then I used a Tattered Angels stamp, clear embossed it, and covered it with Iced Spuce ink.  

I kept my layout project simple.  I plan to use it as a teaching project, and I know that class time will be taken up with creating the embellishment and flowers, so there will be little time for much else besides paper cutting and distressing.  

It's also going to be a two page layout - something I don't do very often - so that's why it's a little lopsided to the right.  

The photos are from last summer when Tom and I went to Taos.  I'm in the basket - second from the left, and yes, I was PETRIFIED!  It took a while for me to relax and enjoy the ride, but once I got into it, I have to admit that it was really fun.  Definitely a once in a lifetime kind of thing.  I'm glad we did it.  

The right side of this project is still on my craft desk.  I'm trying to get it finished this weekend!