a page from my art journal...

Hello again :) I am making an effort to share more of my creative projects on my blog this year and have been putting my one little word {create} intentions into practice with a bit of art jounral play.

My original plan was to use this bear cutting die on a scrapbook layout, but as much as I liked the concept of using a cool geometric bear on my layout I felt a bit stumped with which photos to use it with, but as with many things the more I looked at it the more potential it seemed to have and some ideas started to form about using it for a page in my art journal. 

I started with a floral background which I lightly covered with gesso using a regular silicone kitchen spatula. I die cut the bear from black cardstock and worked out his placement before applying a few layers of matte acrylic paint in random swipes using the same spatula. I always reach for matte paint for my art journals because it is a lot easier to work over the top and intentionally left a few areas free of paint so that the floral background would still peep through but no longer look so busy.

I added some stamping to the background with an old Kaisercraft texture stamp from my stash. I attached the bear and used a fine point sharpie marker to add the phrase beneath him and applied a sprinkle of metallic gold rub-ons over the stamped areas.

I found a few Crate Paper die cut floral accents in my stash to create a floral crown and used a felt tip pen to outline all of the leaves to help them match the black lines of the bear.

 I selected a larger die cut flower for the bottom of the page but because it had more of a red tone, I used the more of the pink acrylic paint to alter the colour and applied a little bit of tacky glue to accent the flower with a gold foil sheet which I simply placed over the glue and peeled away the excess once it dried. The remainder of the flowers were cut from my original floral background.

Here's a closer look at the fabulous bear Uniquely Creative Geometric Bear which started it all - he can be found through the listed stockists

I love dies that are versatile and have enjoyed using the Uniquely Creative range for a few art journal pages - this one featured the interlocking Scribble Circle dies as a mask along with some fun Wiggle Waves for a decorative element. I'd love to hear what items you are adding to your journals!

Thanks for stopping by xx

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one little word {create}...

Hello again :) I took the plunge and signed up for Ali Edwards' One Little Word workshop in January and am loving the project so far. 

I chose the word CREATE because it felt like a perfect for my life right now and am excited to invite this word into my life and see how the year evolves. 

I am using a 6x8" album for this project and decided to keep things simple with a mainly black & white theme - using a Pretty Little Studio text paper for my cover page with a Heidi Swapp cutting die for the title.

I enjoyed playing with the various digital cards and elements that came with the workshop, and will continue to use them throughout my album.

I decided to use typed responses with the 3x4" card prompts to keep my album looking consistent, but am adding handwritten responses to the more in depth 6x8" prompts and will share how the project is progressing each month.

Are you taking part in One Little Word this year? I'd love to hear which word you have chosen and how it's working for you so far!

Thanks for stopping by xx

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life documented...

Hello again, I'm a little late in starting our project life album this year and I think it's because the thought of creating the cover page always makes me feel a bit overwhelmed - I seem to put extra pressure on myself for the cover page because it will set the tone for the whole year and often feel a little anxious about getting it wrong ;) but I have done it... and am happy with how it has turned out!

I had several ideas of how I wanted to create the cover this year, but the main one that was speaking to me was to use the 'life documented' phrase which I have been using for many of my Instagram posts and with this in mind I thought about what life documented actually meant to me and decided that it was the stories... our story!

It's amazing how things seem to fall into place when you start with a plan and once my theme was set I decided to create a typed background. I used MS Word to type out 'our story 2018' using my favourite Bohemian typewriter font and played around with my printer until I got the placement just right for six 6x4" cards. I printed the text onto plain copy paper and used washi tape to hold my cards in position before feeding the page back through the printer.

I looked for accents that would help to reinforce my theme and what could be better than a cute Simple Stories typewriter image :) The chipboard frames and documented title are also some Simple Stories faves from my stash.

I used black and white to tie everything together (the circle stickers are from Kaisercraft) and repeated little pops of teal, yellow and pink with a mix of products from a range of different manufacturers.

I look forward to filling this album up, and hope you'll come back to see my progress but until then thanks for stopping by xx

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february @kraftplus...

Hi :) A new challenge went live over on the Kraft Plus challenges blog a couple of days ago. The theme is Abba inspired but don't worry if you are not a fan of their music, the challenge graphic has plenty of inspiration. 

I took my inspiration straight from the graphic of the band members and attempted to recreate the same feel with a photo of my boys printed onto a kraft background. 

To get this effect, I searched through my photo gallery until I found some photos of my boys facing in different directions then used a photo editing program to arrange the pics together. I converted the photos to black and white then simply played with the contrast to get the desired effect. I used some of the colours from the graphic, focusing on the orange and yellow tones when adding my layers.

 Check out how the rest of the team have taken on this challenge and as always be sure to upload your projects to the Kraft Plus blog by the end of the month for a chance to win some great prizes.

Thanks for stopping by xx

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