ATC: Poppy Fields

April showers and May brings flowers... at least that is the theory, because it still showers in this part of the world! Well, there are a lot of flower ATC's going on on Swap-Bot and this is the one I sent to my partner for a Mixed Media flower swap. I sorta cheated... or well, made creative use of what I had, because.... doesn't the above image look familiar to you?

Maybe now it does... It's a piece from my processing poppies experiment I did a while back. A part of it became this journal page and I still had a piece left over. I ran in through my cuttle bug with an ATC die, some white splatters over it and matted on black card stock and it's done. Creating ATC's from left over Art Journal pages like that is great way to use up your left overs, isn't it?

I'd like to enter this ATC in the following challenges:

Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge #26 - Anything goes
Time out Challenge #82- Flowers with optional kissing technique
Mixed Media World #24 - Anything Mixed Media goes with optional watercolors
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Hint of Pink
Make My Monday #45 - May Flowers

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Art Journal: Live Like Tomorrow Doesn't Exist

Yesterday I showed you the process of the poppies and now it's time to show you the journal spread I made with them.

This journal page is inspired by this month's Our Mixed Media Mood board created by Dee Dee Catron and Jenn Engle. Glad to be participating in the challenge this month.

 

This is the mood board. So many beautiful imagery to get inspired from, but what inspired me most is the red/orange color on the top left, the flowers and cascading rectangles. In the journal page I also added the element of wings by choosing the Dragonfly designed  by Jo Capper-Sandon for Stampotique. It's one of my absolute faves of Stampotique Originals, so I'm also entering this in the #SCD265 Your fave stamp challenge as well. On a holiday in Sweden I had two dragonfly friends that came by and they were just pure magic to watch. I tried to capture a bit of the magic in this journal spread.

To accentuate the poppies I used a muji brush pen and a water brush to create some shading. I spattered some Liquitex Inks! in black, white and gold over the overall image.

The Dragonfly was stamped on light weight tracing paper, Embossed with black and violet interference WOW embossing powder and adhered with Art Basics soft matte gel medium. I then accentuated it with wink of stella yellow. There is a bit of crackle due to the fold in the journal. Which kind of also works for the crackle image on the top right in the mood board :) 

The sentiment "live like tomorrow doesn't exist" is from visible image and stamped on black card stock and embossed with white WOW embossing powder. I thought it would be fitting to the page as I tried to convey a Mayfly, because for them, tomorrow doesn't exist. So enjoy life and smell the roses (poppies) when you can :)

I'm also entering this journal spread in The Craft Stamper's February "take it, make it" Challenge. 

Materials used: 

Basic Grey Scrap book paper 

Crafter's Workshop Gold Gesso; modeling paste 

Finnabair Soft matte Gel medium

Amsterdam heavy matte Gel Medium; red paint 

Crafter's workshop Oblong stencil 

Donna Doney Poppy Forest Stencil 

Distress stains: fired brick, worn lipstick, barn door, twisted citrus, mowed lawn 

Liquitex INKS! white, black, gold 

Aileen's Paper glaze

WOW embossing powder black, interference violet, white

Dragonfly stamp by Stampotique Originals

Wink of stella yellow 

Muji black brush pen 

Water brush 

Stamper Anonymous Tim Holtz numbers reflections stamps 

Visible image Live like tomorrow doesn't exist sentiment stamp

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

WIP: Processing Poppies

Recently I have joined this amazing facebook group, Our Mixed Media Moods, to get inspired for doing some more mixed media work. The group is run by these talented ladies Dee Dee Catron & Jenn Engle and they share a mood board every 20th of each month to inspire people to create/dabble more in Mixed Media. The current mood board really inspired me to try and participate. The gorgeous wine color, flowers and cascading squares/rectangles inspired me most. I made a journal page for it, but before I share that, I wanted to share the process up to that page with you first. It's mostly picture heavy to show you the evolution of the process of these wonderful poppies which I made using Donna Downey's Poppy Forest stencil.

I started off with a piece of scrap book paper prepped with gold gesso. It already had some cascading rectangles on it so it was a perfect place to start on. I brayered on a couple of different paints (fresco and distress paints) and wiped/rubbed places with a wet wipe. Then got my poppy stencil, mixed some modeling paste with a dab of red paint and stamped into the paste when it was semi dry.

I wanted the numbers from the Tim Holtz stamp stand out more and I saw this video by Dee Dee in how she made the black glaze and I gave it a go myself. I used liquitex INK! in black and paper glaze.

Wanted to add more color to the poppies and finger painted the flowers with red distress stains.

Added color to the stems the same way with green distress inks.

Then added some color on the background with pearl rubs in pink and green. But the more I did this the more I started to hate it. The black accents were also gone and the colors were just too bright. So I got a wet wipe and started to wipe some background color away.

Then I got more black glaze and dry brushed it in the stamped parts of the stencil to get the darker accents back. It was still too bright so I wanted to tone the colors down a bit.

I poured the black glaze fluid over the piece and wiped it out. Now this was getting to where I wanted it to go, finally...

Trimmed a piece for my pocket journal, stamped on it with a script stamp and some open rounds and it was ready for the next stage in my art journal.

A couple of detail shots of the poppies in this end stage. Stamping in modeling paste is so much fun and I will definitely do this technique again. 

Tomorrow I will share the finished journal page, hope you will stop by to see the final stage. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Three times a poppy!

As you can probably tell from my blog back ground, I like poppies. I like them a lot. Ever since I saw the poppy fields in the Wizard of OZ. They are such beautiful flowers and I love the symbolism of them. Recently I found a wonderful clear stamp by Joy Crafts Silhouette Poppies and I was so inspired I created a few cards with them right away.

The poppies stamp you can see on the top right corner. I stamped it first on a white background (actually on the envelope it came with) to see the details and then on water colored backgrounds I made.A few close ups of the end results.

This was stamped on the envelope to test. I colored the poppies in with pro markers and used blue fountain pen ink to color the background (diluted Iroshizuku Kon Peki ink). The saying 'Each flower is a soul opening up to nature" is from the flower rubber stamp set I got from The Octopode Factory a long while ago. Seemed like a good fit for this card. I had bought a bunch of 'frame note cards' in a sale lot and I just ripped the colored image off the envelope, placed it the way I liked it in the frame and sealed the back of the image with some thicker tracing paper. The border stamp is from Dylusions and I accentuated it with a copper metallic gell pen.

These two are 'day and night' cards. The background is Maruman watercolor paper from Zuan B5 Sketchbook and I used Pelikan aquarell watercolors to paint on them. The paper holds up REALLY well, no bleed through or warping! The 'day' card I used diamine shimmertastic inks to color the flowers with and on the 'night' card I splattered some of that shimmertastic ink after I colored the flowers with promarkers. I like the effect it gives on both cards. I matted the cards on black card stock and then fixed them onto a red double sided note card. 

It's definitely a fun and versatile rubber stamp image to play around with. I used a few other joy craft stamps in my watercolor cards in combination with Diamine shimmertastic inks before. Definitely a fan of that flower/letters series. I will send these cards to people who can use a 'pick me up' .

Hope this inspires you to create some cards this weekend :)

Thanks for stopping by! 

namaste