In Someone's Dream

Sometimes, I like to break the rules and venture away from the mainstream. This unconventional collaged tag represents an art format that really appeals to me.

I have a tin box that contains bits and pieces of hand-cut ephemera prepared for various projects but never used. Today I dug in and pulled out a few pieces and turned them into this tag.

I'm linking to Simon's Monday challenge, Thinking of You, because clearly these ladies are pondering something.

Caring Hearts

A first for me--mass production of Christmas cards (25 to be exact)--what an experience!!

In the process, I learned what an A2 card size is (an 8-1/2" x 11" page cut in-half) and how to make my own envelopes. Woo-hoo!

I kept things simple by using animal images from a winter holiday paper pack and embellished them with dimensional paint and glitter glue.

All for a good cause as I'm forwarding them to the Caring Hearts Card Drive where they will be distributed to nursing home residents around the country.

The deadline was this Friday so I finished just in time!

Unrequited Love

I've got a lot of pics to share today that illustrate the steps I took to create this journal page made for Simon's Monday challenge this week.

Art journaling can be/should be somewhat spontaneous and you'll see by the process that unfolded for this page, nothing was set in stone and I changed directions a few times.

Being flexible and just "going with the flow" is what makes the experience fun. Not to mention what you might learn along the way!

I began with transcribing a document then pasted word strips cut from it onto the page.

I covered the page with gesso and tinted some sections with gray then sanded it a bit.

I transcribed the last paragraph of my document over the top using a Fude Ball 1.5 pen.

The ink was taking FOREVER to dry so I sprinkled clear embossing powder on it and heat-set. It was messy but did the trick and I like the emphasis and durability it provided.

I used a vintage stamping set (circa 2008) and applied the flowers with black archival ink.

I wanted to create the illusion of flowers growing over and around a brick wall so I printed a photo of some brick, tore out sections and used my image transfer technique.

As you can see, the wall was modified quite a bit later in the process but proved to be a good jumping-off point which was just what I needed.

I used shades of gray to blend in the wall and began to tint the page with craft paints.

I didn't worry too much about "staying inside the lines" but the paint did blur the stamping so I went over the lines with a black pen marker.

Here's the finished product--it's a two-page spread in a Ranger Dylusions journal (8" x 11"):

Some details I didn't photograph but are worth mentioning: I used the Dot Fade stencil and white paint to unify the page and added the butterfly (cut from Tissue Wrap) along with some Collage Paper leaves (Tim Holtz products).