Balance- Art Journal Page

Now that I've been experimenting with different techniques for the past few weeks- I look at this page and think it's lacking some detail. But- details come with confidence! That, I'm learning too. For this page, I used Tim Holtz's Distress Stains. If you have any of these stains, you know that they come in a bottle with a "dabber"/ applicator top. This is amazing for quickly covering a background and give it a water-colored look.

Did you know you can paint with the stain, too? Tip your bottle upside-down, over a paint dish and use a small paint brush to push the dabber in, releasing the stain into the dish. All you need is a drop or two; it goes a long way. Once it's in your dish, you can paint with it like water-colors.  How fun is that?! Now, you can use your stains for smaller details- not just large backgrounds!

Graduation Day

 Ella receiving her diploma.

 Hugging her teacher.

 Cohen cheering for his sister. He jumped up and down and yelled Ella's name after name was called and she walked across the stage. It was neat to see him proud of his big sister.

 When he wasn't cheering, he stayed busy with his Cars and his Cars coloring book. Luckily, the whole ceremony was about 30 minutes.

 The graduate and her Daddy. I really love this picture.  (They don't look anything alike, do they! :))

Graduation Day! Our little girl has received her Preschool Diploma! It's been three long, gruelling years of her little life...all to prepare her for the next 12 years of schooling before heading out into the real world.

Here are Ella's future plans:

"When I'm a really big kid I'm going to go to college. But I'm going to stay close to my house."

"When I grow up, I'm going to be everything. And I'm going to works on Mondays. Every Monday, I will work at a different place and those are the days my Daddy will stay home from work."

Best of luck to you, Little Miss Mae. Mommy and Daddy love you lots and we're so proud of you.

PB&J~ Basic Grey

 Good Morning! Have you noticed one of Basic Grey's newest lines, PB&J, yet? It's one of the first lines you'll see when you walk in the front door at VIP. Did you love the bright, summery colors, but were a bit intimidated by the busy patterns? Did you think the picnic theme was adorable....but weren't sure how you'd use picnic themed embellishments on your pages? I thought the same thing....at first!

My husband took Ella camping last week, for the first time. And Cohen and I joined them for supper and fishing before heading home to our own, bug-free beds.

Because this was a first for our family, capturing the kids' excitement over each little aspect of camping was very important to me. The tent going up was no exception.

 This log was directly behind the camp site, and just behind that is the Whitewater River. We had just arrived when I got this picture of the kids. It's so sweet, even though they are both too pre-occupied to look and smile at the camera. That's okay- because that's part of the memory.

Oh, and Ella wouldn't typically look like she's ready for a fashion shoot in the wilderness, but (as luck would have it :)) we picked her up from school and then headed straight to the campsite.

Some of my favorite pictures were of the 15 minutes we spent in the river "fishing". I'll scrap a bunch of these photos because they turned out so good! The title of this one is "Taking your Own Path."  And my journaling says "taking your own path, that is so you, sweetie." It really is! I was helping Cohen and when I looked up, Ella was well on her way to finding her own fishing spot. Brave as could be....until it was time to re-trace her steps and get back to us!

So, as you can see, "PB&J" is perfect for camping photos, too. I also think it would be perfect for carnival or fair pictures. I can't wait to scrap the rest of my camping pictures- I may have enough pages to make it a camping album.

Thanks for stopping by! I have art journal pictures to share next time. See you then!

Art Journal

As I mentioned in my last post, starting an art journal is something I've wanted to do for a while. Once I got all of my stamps, stencils, inks, paints, brushes and old books (to use the pages) all in one spot- I was ready to go. It was well worth the time it took, because once an idea hits, everything I need is all together.

I started with a journal made specifically for Mixed Media (meaning the paper is perfect for acrylics, water colors and stains and spray inks. The cardinal page was my first page. The journaling has been in my head for a while: "Dear Mr. Red Bird, I love hearing your springtime song." I used Tim Holtz's Distress stains to color the background, the leaves and the bird's nest. I have a bird book that I looked at to first sketch the cardinal before painting it. I used regular watercolors to paint him.

I used rubber stamps for the top and bottom background, using Ranger's Archival ink. It's waterproof, so perfect to watercolor over without worrying about the ink bleeding. To make the leaves and bird nest, I cut the shapes from music sheets that I found at Goodwill. I added a half of a paper doily and the red chipboard piece is from Crate Paper's "Story Teller" line.

I used alpha stamps for "dear mister red bird" and with a black waterproof marker, I free-handed three wavy lines and then wrote in cursive, with the exception of the worh "hearing" which is also stamped.
I'm really happy with my first page. But, I've done a page or two since that I'm not super excited about. The truth is, I have no idea what I'm doing- I'm actually pretty "technique-challenged" when it comes to Tim Holtz's distress inks and stains. This is the best way to figure it out- just get your supplies out and play. If you don't like something you make- don't feel discouraged! Every artist have both hits and misses. An art journal is the perfect place to play and practice your art- there's no commitment...if you really dislike a page or mess up, just tear the page out and start fresh!

a little change...

 A few weeks ago, I was having a bit of a dry spell. I felt uninspired and suddenly I felt my head, once full with creative ideas, blank. The right thing to do is not force it and just wait for inspiration to hit. I'm not good at that- I tend to try to work through it. So, I decided to really change things up and started with an 8 1/2 X 11 inch page instead of 12X12. That was all it took...the ideas started puring out.

 I also wanted to be a little more artsy on my pages- so I got out my water colors and painted the inside of my stamped letters (from Studio Calico).  I typically love using just one photo- and the smaller size paper made it really easy to for my layouts to come together.

 Because I typically use some of the same elements in all of my layouts: shipping tags, paper doilies and alpha stamps, my pages still felt like "my style".  Even more so, really!

 But, that's not to say I'll never use 12X12 inch paper again. For right now, this was the exact change I needed.

All of these pages were made using Crate Paper's "Story Teller." Having a great line to work with helps with inspiration, too!

And because I was so intent on sparking some creativity and trying something new, I started an art journal where I'll make mixed-media art. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I have a lot of supplies that I knew would be great for mixed-media, but they were all spread out throughout my craft room. So first things first, I spent two days reorganizing my art supplies, stamps and stencils into a designated space just for mixed-media! How great is that?! My hubby keeps calling it my "multi-purpose" space because he can't remember "mixed-media." LOL.

I'll share pictures of my space and my work soon. It's been so much fun to do something new!