This one was so fun!   The challenge by Michelle Ward on the GPP Street Team for this month is to tear strips of paper and use them in a journal page.

I tried one and attempted to use alcohol inks in a spray bottle over stencils and it made sort of a mess.  It’s fine to write on, but I decided to try it again.

I used a wall chart that is something about a graph of the history of man.  I tore pieced from that chart and glued them over a gessoed page.  Then I applied more gesso with a credit card.  I added brown paint around the strips and them sort of smushed it with a rag.   Then I added more gesso with a credit card.  I glued the angel in and accented some of her with watercolor pencils.

You might be surprised to know how many times I come to my blog, open up the editor and begin to write a post, only to give up in frustration.  Not because I don’t want to write.  But because I want to write so much.  It is difficult to know how much is okay to share in a blog.  Trying to select the most interesting, timely or entertaining things out of all I want to share becomes too daunting so I give up.

I read a lot of other blogs and I long for the ability to say the right thing and choose the right pictures to have an interesting and helpful blog.  I feel that my hit and miss ramblings are useless to anyone but me.  The solution to this eludes me, but I am going to try to just blog whatever I want to when the mood strikes.  I’ll see how that feels and try to quit over thinking it.

I want to know how people do those collages or mosaics of small pictures in their blog posts.  I usually see them on blogger blogs, so I suspect that might be a feature of blogger.

For my latest journal I wanted to work on loose pages, rather than a bound book.  I cut 9 1/2 x 14 in. watercolor paper in half to use for the pages, but it’s really too small for me.  I’ve done enough pages to bind into a book.  I like working on loose pages, but I need to use the full size sheets rather than the half size.  Here are a few of the pages I did on the small size.

I’ve been playing with different styles and ideas.  I’m layering paint and paper more than usual.  I just got a new dip pen and some new ink.  I’m loving playing with them.  I am mostly liking romantic, cream and pink, victorian looking pages.  So I want to use the dip pen and ink to write on them.  It seems fitting that a page with antique lace or paper that looks like Victorian wall paper, should have old fashioned ink to write the words.

I am still working on the new website, but as you know if you’ve ever built a site, nothing ever goes as planned and dates must be flexible to deal with problems.  So, while I wanted to launch the site this week, it isn’t happening.  But I promise it will be worth waiting for!

I feel so blessed this mother’s day.  I now have another son, Randy’s son Tyler.  He and his fiancee gave me such great Mother’s Day gifts.  This is a fabric covered sewing box.  It’s perfect because I am working on a fabric journal cover and I can keep all my stuff in there.

And they also gave me this cool mug!!!!  And a sweet little book called “I Prayed for You Today.”

My two boys called me early this morning to wish me a happy Mother’s Day.  They are so good to me.  Every day!  I’m a very blessed mama!!!

Yesterday I spent the entire day making a journal.  I found these great vintage looking pages at Sausan Designs.   When I saw them I wanted to make a journal with them.  There are 5 different pages and they’re all old and used looking.  Aren’t they great?  I printed them out and glued them onto manilla folders.  Then cut the folder down to the page size.

I used some game boards I got at the thrift store for the covers.  Yes, I put the covers on upside down.     I sewed the signatures onto some sturdy, stuff fabric.  Then I used black duct tape to attach the covers to that fabric and pull it all together.

I reinforced the attachment by putting the duct tape inside each of the covers as well.

I’m really into making books right now.  I may never buy a journal again.  Hopefully, I’ll learn to get the covers on right side up eventually!

The challenge this month from Michelle Ward’s GPP Street Team Crusade 38 is to paint tissue paper with gesso and acrylic while you are doing the same on your journal pages, then apply the tissue paper layers.

I admit I did three spreads before I got one I liked.  The first two just didn’t look like my work.    I had not painted tissue paper before so I was just trying to follow directions.  When I wasn’t successful, I stopped and thought about the process.  I asked myself, “why are we using tissue paper?”,  “why do I want to do this?”.  Then I realized it was a way to add color and layers.  I’ve done this often with painted and printed papers, so I approached it the third time like I would if I were using paper instead of tissue.  And, I like this final spread.

I painted the pages gold and while it was drying I painted a piece of white tissue paper with red, lime green and gold.  Then I glued down some pink and brown polka dot tissue and pink and brown striped tissue.  I covered that with white acrylic spread on with a credit card.  Over that I used pink acrylic on a checkered rubber stamp, and lime green acrylic on a homemade foam stamp.  I cut a heart from my painted tissue and glued it on the left page.  I stamped a foam heart-in-a-square stamp with white acrylic and glued it on the right page.  I tore random pieces from the painted tissue and glued them on the bottom of the pages.  Lastly I scribbled randomly with a graphite pencil.

I am enjoying these challenges very much.  Thank you, Michelle!

Remember last month when I did my first GPP Street team challenge and tried to cut snowflakes?  That was a disaster.  This month the crusade is to create a journal page (actually I think it said spread, but I misread it and only did a page) with X’s and O’s.  Here is my page.  I’m not thrilled with it, but I rarely ever am when I know people are going to be looking at it.  But I’m really pushing myself this year to share my art whether I think it’s “good enough” or not, so here it is:

There are several crackle products available and art and craft stores. The one I use is by Plaid.

The first step is to paint your page.  You will need two colors for the crackle to show up.  The bottom coat is what will show up through the cracks of the top color.  I painted the first coat black.  I am not precise or patient with anything I do, so I used a heat gun to hurry up the drying process.

When the first coat is completely dry, apply a coat of the crackle medium with a brush.  Put it on fairly thickly.  If you want neat, uniform cracks, apply it evenly. I don’t because I like it to look more natural.  Again, I use a heat gun to hurry up the process.   Dry it until it is tacky, but not completely dry.

When it just feels sticky to the touch, but isn’t wet, apply your second coat of paint.  You can dry this coat with a heat gun, too.

As you dry, you will see the cracks begin to form.

Close up of the cracks

You can use this as a background for gluing paper items, painting or writing.  Keep in mind that the surface is not smooth when you write, though.  You’ll need a pretty substantial marker.

Just before I decided to focus on art to sell rather than more e-products, I had started writing a book on creating art journal backgrounds.  I’ve decided to share these techniques with my readers as tutorials.  Here is the first one using cut-out letters on your background.

Cut out letters

Materials needed:
•    magazines
•    letter stencils or die-cut letters
•    craft knife or scissors
•    acrylic paint
•    water soluble crayons ,oil pastels, watercolor pencils, or plain colored pencils
•    baby wipes or damp cloth
•    glue stick

1.    Select magazine pages that have interesting patterns, color or text.

2.    Trace the outline of each letter you’ll be spelling onto different magazine images you have chosen.

If you don’t want the lines of the pen or pencil you are using to trace, showing up on the front of your letters, trace them backwards on the back of the page.

3.    When all the letters are traced, cut each one out, using a craft knife.  You can use scissors if you prefer.

4.    Select an acrylic paint that goes with the magazine patterns you have chosen for you letters. Paint a page in your journal with the one solid color.

5.    Create a simple image on the page.  I made a bird silhouette and colored it in with water soluble oil pastels, but you could use watercolor crayons, watercolor pencils or just plain colored pencils if you want.  After I colored it with the pastels, I used a baby wipe to smooth the pastels around for a smoother look.

If you’d like to use a bird, also, you can click on this picture and it will take you to the original image that you can download.

6.    Decide how you want to arrange your cut-out letters on the page.  Once you’ve made this decision, glue them on with a glue stick.