/* */ Beulah Bee

April 25, 2015

All the Flowers

A day spent gardening has produced this journal page
made with stencils, stamps and paint.

Click to Enlarge

It was good exercise, too. Each time I placed an image, I had to go to the sink to wash the paint off my implements and, as you can see by the number of impressions, I made a lot of trips!


The lettering was done with Sakura gelly roll pens which work well over acrylic paint and I highly recommend the Bright White 0.4 mm (medium) point.

One thing's for certain, this type of garden won't ever need water again and my blossoms should last a lifetime.

I'm linking to Art Journal Journey where this month's theme is favorite poems and quotes.

April 24, 2015

Due Date


... and I'm running out of time.

I'm linking this to Simon's Monday Blog Challenge where this week's theme is due date (stamp credits: Tim Holtz and La Blanche).

Here's how I added the text:

I typed the statement in Photoshop, reversed the image and printed it on plain paper. I cut it out, covered it with gel medium, then laid it face-down onto the tag. I let it dry then rubbed off the paper to reveal the transferred text.

For more information on my image transfer techniques, see this post.

April 17, 2015

Freestyle


I have finally tried out the last of the six flowers you get in the Tim Holtz Flower Garden stamp set. I think it's another Peony and it's been altered somewhat (more about this later).

Click to Enlarge
I call this tag Freestyle because that was the attitude I had while making it. I had no plan--I just starting doing stuff.

A bigger bottle would've been better (to keep the proportions right) but it was the only one I had and, anyway, a bigger bottle might mean a bigger tag and then where would it end?

I rather like the overall appearance though and discovered some interesting techniques that are sure to be useful in another project.

I thought I'd share exactly what I did so fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

  1. I covered the tag with a page from an old dictionary.
  2. I stamped the bottle, flower and stem with black archival ink keeping ink off one of the large petals near the base to make the flower smaller.
  3. I used colored pencils to create a rainbow-effect in the background.
  4. I used off-white to paint over the text inside the flower petals with a tiny brush.
  5. I stenciled some large script on a piece of deli-paper with black paint.
  6. I laid the deli-paper over the tag, traced the outline of the bottle and flower, cut it out, then pasted the remainder on the tag (leaving the bottle, etc., exposed).
  7. I used a harlequin stamp and archival ink on the background by using the cut-out scraps from my deli paper as a mask.
  8. I softened the edges of the impression with a bit of hand-sanitizer (which works great as an archival ink eraser on non-porous surfaces).
  9. I tinted the flower with dye ink and a water brush and added a light wash of white to the bottle and stem.
  10. I used black and white gel pens to make dots for accent. The black ones didn't dry so I used clear embossing power on them to speed things up and keep them permanent.
  11. I used my Exacto-knife to scrape the edges of the tag, wet them with a brush and then applied black dye ink.
Perhaps a word about deli-paper is in order. I use it for all kinds of things and it makes great paper for collages because it is thin and durable. It reminds me a lot of the same type of paper Tim uses for his tissue wrap.

Now that I've used all the Flower Garden stamps individually, I guess it's time to plant a garden but I'll definitely need to use something larger than a tag. I think I see a journal page in my future!

I'm linking to the Wednesday blog challenge at SSS where this week's theme is make your own background.