Double art journal page - Under the golden sun

Hi and welcome :0) Today I have two smaller pages 7" x 5" (cca 17,5 x 13 cm). They are my entry for Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge Anything goes.

Because I love how my last denim tags turned out, I decided to use another fabric as the base. I glued a Tim Holtz´s linen textile surfaces on the cardstock and and frayed the edges. I stenciled on it with a very old brown Memento marker, so the color is quite muted. Than I drew a circle and applied the gilding glue  from Stamperia and golden flakes on it. For my focal collage I used elements from Kate Curry´s collage books and from sticker book I found in my stash (I glued the stickers and other images on the cardstock before I fussy cut them, so they are much sturdier). I´m so happy with the outcome - I love the look of the final pieces and feel of the real linen fabric :0)

Thank you for your visit and have a very nice day :0)

5. 5. 2025 Under the golden sun

Scrap art journal 4 - Dragonflies

"Dragonflies" - 4th page in my Scrap art journal series (square 28 x 28 cm /cca 11" x 11").

The journey out of my comfort zone continues :0)...
This time I wanted to transform the scrap papers in a new way. The original paper was brown with colored dots. I embossed it with an embossing folder and carefully used a darker brown Distress ink over the page. The ink hit the embossed parts mostly, so the new leaves design has nicely appeared. I used the same technique with the green scrap paper, which I cut in squares then and framed with brown Distress ink.
Newly I also used a cotton rag paper, which is a rough hand made paper from India and it's very firm and beautifully textured. I used it for the moon (together with a silver foil leafing technique) and the maple leaves. Although I used a lot of liquids on those elements, the texture of the paper is still there and I love it a lot.

The dragonflies were stamped on a transparency with Staz-On ink and colored from the reverse side with a green alcohol marker. For the silver shine on the wings I used a silver Krylon pen - again from the reverse side, so the black stamping is still visible. I tried to use just a thin layer of the silver pen, so the wing are a bit transparent at the end.
Leaves were stamped on the colored cotton rag paper with silver pigment ink and embossed with Ranger detail silver embossing powder. And the white-silver string was over-painted with silver Distress paint.
As I final touch I used the silver and gold mirrored stars all over the background - after all, it is a night scene still, right? :0)

Thank you again for stopping by, have a great days and "see" you next time :0)

15.7.2017 Scrap art journal 4 - Dragonflies

Distress oxides first look - backgrounds and stamped tags

This weekend I opened my new Distress oxide inks. I tried them a bit, just to know how they look like alone, in the combination with traditional Distress inks or stamped and misted.  So I made just a few small tags.

They are nice to play with, I need to say, although if you want to make a nice combo of Distress inks and Distress oxides, it is better to be a careful with the oxides. Too much oxides can hide the vibrant colors of Distress inks and make all background too dull. And also some oxides seem to be stronger than others e.g. brown ones, so put pink oxide over the larger spot of brown one is a bit difficult, after water mist pink oxide kind of soaked into the brown one and disappeared. But maybe I need just try more :0)

And for the water mists I prefer older Ranger Mister bottle to a newer Distress Sprayer one, because with the mister you have a better control over the water amount and it is really just the water mist and no big droplets of water, so oxides start to shine but they don't bleed too much (for me, this is important when I stamp with oxides).

But mostly (and with a bit of practice) they make a very nice and unusual backgrounds and I really love the combo with Distress inks. The contrast of the matte and bright colors is incredible and sooooo nice :0)

So here they are - the first tags I made, for more detailed look open every image in a new tab:

1) Distress inks and Distress oxides combo: 

a) first tag is Broken china Distress oxide over Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade Distress inks 

b) second tag Fossilized amber, Spiced marmalade and Vintage photo Distress oxides over Salty ocean and Mermaid lagoon Distress inks

2) combo and mix:

a) first tag is a combo of Broken china and Vintage photo Distress oxides over Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade Distress inks

b) second one is a pure Distress oxides mix - Fossilized amber, Mustard seed and Broken china distress oxides

3) Distress oxides mix: 

a) first tag Broken china, Wilted violet and Faded jeans Distress oxides 

b) second tag Worn lipstick, Wilted violet and Faded jeans Distress oxides

4) stamping with Distress oxides on white and kraft cardstock. Both sprayed with water more times - sprayed, dry with heat tool, sprayed, dry, sprayed, dry... .0). Bleeding of the blue colors on the kraft cardstock is not much visible, after the paper is dry.

a) Vintage photo and Walnut stain Distress oxides on the white tag 

b) Broken china and Faded jeans Distress oxides on the kraft cardstock 

5) background of all this tags made with Wild honey, Vintage photo and Ground espresso Distress inks and images are stamped over with 

a) Faded jeans Distress oxide (tulips) and Pumice stone Distress oxide (crackled pattern). I also covered this tag with liquid gloss acrylic medium, so all colors are more vibrant and have more depth - the tag resemble a glass tile. 

b) Broken china Distress oxide

c) Worn lipstick Distress oxide

Every tag is misted with water more times till the dye part of oxides started to bleed into the background colors. Especially on the third tag the Worn lipstick made a nice darker pink halo effect around the stamped image. On other two tags I used a glue stick and gold foil on the borders.

Playful art journal page 7

Playing with Pan pastels is fun still, so this journal page has a whole background made with Pan pastels, Finnabairs clear gesso and stencils in Seawhite hardcover art journal (25x19 cm / 10"x7.5") :0).
At first I used foam applicator with light blue Pan pastel for whole background, than I used a waved stencil from Simon says stamp with darker blue pastel and than I covered whole page with two layers of clear gesso (just to be sure that I will not destroy my thinner journal paper later). Finnabair's gesso is quite smooth, so I could easily used it for my next step - I covered whole page with third - darkest - blue color of Pan pastel. Clear gesso holds pastel beautifully, but I was still able to remove some of this third color layer with wet baby wipe through circle stencil. Final result are the lighter circles with visible wavy pattern from first two layers of Pan pastel.
Then I used Tim Holtz white texture paste with TCW Nautilus stencil and I reduced the shine of the white color with light blue pastel applied with brush. The structure of the paste is a little bit rough, so I didn't want to use my foam applicator for it and I had a better blending possibility.
At the end I embellished whole background and shells with Indigoblu gilding flakes and I wanted to have at least the central circle a little bit dimensional, not just flat. Here I found out one important thing (for next time), that I really don't like the Indigoblu special gilding glue for this kind of gilding. Maybe it was because of the layers of Pan pastel, but it did not hold the flakes well when I brushed the excess flakes off (some parts ended scraped, although I did use a quite soft brush) and on some spots it left some "rubbery" sticky lumps....so for example the gold circle I gilded three times and rest of the page two times. In the end, for the last trial I used Design-Metall liquid gilding milk from Efco instead (you can use any gilding liquid). You can put the leaves on it in 15 minutes after application, it holds the leaves with no problems and with no sticky residue. I also applied the protective varnish for metal leaves from the same company, so it could keep the shine of the metal leaves and protect them from scratches for a longer time (unfortunately metal leaves are not the real gold, so they will not stay shiny forever). Outcome of this experience is, that next time I will use the white gesso or a texture paste to build a dimensional objects and than lay the metal leaves on gilding milk.
The sea horse was stamped with Indigoblu gilding glue, gilded and colored with Dylusions sprays in waterbrush. I also re-gilded some parts of it with gilding milk and used the gilding varnish.

At the end I must say, that this page was a great creative adventure and I really enjoyed all new techniques, although it was a bit difficult in a few moments :0) 

2.4.2016 Playful journal page 7