Celebrating Life

The new challenge is up over at Southern Girls Challenge and this time it is all about Celebrations.

For my Design Team Project this time I have made an Art Journal.  I am joining in with an art journal circle swap that begins in the New Year and as part of the swap I needed to make a journal that I could send around to everyone in the swap so they can complete a page in my journal and in return I get to do pages in everyone else's journals. We each have to pick a theme for our journal and even though I have headed this post Celebrating Life that is not my theme. I have not done a lot of Art Journaling so this is really stepping out of my comfort zone and the Art Journal I have made is celebrating the fact that I am going to celebrate each and every day and each and every challenge that comes my way.  The only way to grow as an artist and a person is to try new things. 

So here is the front cover:

and here is the back cover:

To begin the journal I took an old A4 book and pulled out the pages leaving the covers and the spine.  This bookswas an illustrated book of cats.

I then tore off some textured wallper and glued it to the covers.  Once that was done I used a stencil and some texture paste to add some dimension to the piece.

I then added some more texture paste through another stencil and glued in some chipboard and wooden pieces.  I then covered everything with gesso.

Once the gesso dried I covered the whole thing with a wash of blue paint and I then drybrushed colour over selected areas of the cover.

I covered chipboard flower shapes with dictionary paper and then inked them with distress inks. I added a doily and some can tabs to the large purple flower and a cabochon with a dragonfly into the centre of the sun.

I glued chipboard letters to pieces of card and then coloured them using gesso and acrylic paint.

I covered the bird, butterfly and lizard with embossing powder and heat embossed them.

 

 

I really enjoyed making this journal and I am looking forward to sending it off and eventually getting it back full of gorgeousness.

I hope you are encouraged to join in the challenge at Southern Girls Challenge and I look forward to seeing your creations.  Please check out the other projects from the girls on the Design Team.

A Tale of Three Tags

Welcome to the latest blog hop for Imagine If.  Once again you can begin this journey at the Imagine If blog.  If you have arrived here via  Lillian's blog then can you can follow on by heading over to  Tash's blog. This week I have made three Christmas tags using some of the amazing chipboard pieces from Imagine If.

Here are the three completed tags:

Here is how I made the tags.  Tag 1 - Joy

Firstly I covered a tag with Kaisercraft paper. 

Then I added a lace rub on up one side of the tag.  I painted up one of the Imagine If reindeer and added a bell around its neck.  I also painted one of the chipboard Christmas trees and covered two of the chipboard presents with more scrapbook paper.  I then took one of the circle frames and painted it brown, used crackle medium and then finished it off with cream paint.

 



I used the cuttlebug snowflake embossing album to emboss a circle of acetate.  I put this behind the circle frame and then glued the other pieces over the top.

 

 

 

 

 

I then added one of the Imagine If bows and a candy cane.  I painted the flourish the same as the frame and then painted up three of the little stockings.

 

 

 

 

I hung the stockings using bakers twine and added a sticker.      

To finish it off I added a piece of white ribbon using a Christmas staple from the Fastenator range.

 

 

 

 

Tag 2 - Steampunk Angel.

 

Here are the pieces I used for the second tag.

 

These pieces are the bits left over from the Advent Calendar project.

 

I painted the tag, gears and the offcuts from the Advent Calendar with black acrylic paint.  I then ran the offcuts through the Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder and dry brushed the pieces with silver paint.  I cut the pieces to fit on the tag and added the sprockets. 

 

 

I painted the torso black and then using tissue paper and red paint I covered parts of the torso.  I added white paint to the bodice and the skirt of the torso.  Once this was done I die cut wings using the Cheerly Lynn steampunk wings die and added them to the torso.

 

 

I finished off the tag with some silver snowflakes and white snowflake buttons, an Imagine If Merry Christmas chipboard and some silver flourishes.  I threaded white ribbon through the hole at the top of the tag and added an Imagine If chipboard bow to the waist of the torso. For the buttons on the front of the torso I used a spiral paperclip and glitter gems.

 

 

 

Tag 3: Santa is coming

 

 I painted the tag with green acrylic paint and ran it through a Craft Concepts Christmas Vine embossing folder and then dry brushed it with brown acrylic paint.

I used one of the Imagine If frames,

and an Imagine If flourish as the main elements of the tag,

and used a couple of palm fronds to add to the flower at the bottom of the tag.

I painted the frame white and then covered it with white embossing powder.  I cut out a picture from the Paper Arts Yuletide 5 paper range and glued it behind the frame.  I then covered the picture with crackle glossy accents.  I also painted the numbers and the star white and then covered then with white embossing powder. I ripped off a piece of paper from the Paper Arts Yuletide 5 paper  and glued it to the top of the tag.  I covered the flourish and the palm fronds with Mahogany Distress Ink and glued them to the tag.

I added a flower and snowflake and small green ribbon along with some pieces from a Christmas ornament I had lying around.

I added a sticker and some white ribbon to finish the tag.

 I hope these tags give you some inspiration and remember to pop over to the Imagine If website to get some of these gorgeous chipboard pieces t make your own Christmas tags or cards.

Imagine If products used:

Tag 1
Flourish from Large Damask Frame
Circle Frame
Reindeer
Christmas Present Time
Christmas Gingerbread and Candy Canes
Set 2 Mini Xmas Trees
Christmas Stockings

Tag 2
Cogs large set
Torso/Mannequin
Merry Christmas small
Christmas Present Time - Bow



Tag 3
Hand Mirror Frame
New Zealand Theme Koru Set
Christmas Stars
Flourish
Paper Arts Yuletide 5 paper

Imagine If - Gothic Sleigh

The project for this week for Imagine if  was a lovely MDF sleigh.  Some of the Design Team made their sleighs for last weeks blog post. You can check these out at Imagine If blog.
The girls have done an amazing job with these little sleighs and I am looking forward to see what the rest of the Design Team do with them this week starting with Tash then following on with Beth. You can find the next step on Beth's blog.  I made a comment to Jo this week that It feels like my dark mojo has disappeared.  Boy was I wrong.  The more I thought about the sleigh and the more I thought what I could differently the more the idea of a Gothic theme began to take hold.  So here is my gothic sleigh.

To begin I painted the pieces of the sleigh black, then I painted them with a dark red that I mixed using black and red acrylic paint.

I took a packet of chipboard Christmas Candles from Imagine If and painted them with the same paint.  I layered the paint on thickly to give the appearance of dripping wax.

 

 

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I then cut up a red Christmas ornament and glued it to the inside back of the sleigh seat. I also added a little black spider.

 

 

 

I then took an Ornate frame which I painted black and cut in half.

 

 

 

 

I then glued a bat, a spider and a red rose on to each piece.

 

 

These were then glued to each side of the sleigh.





For the back of the seat I glued on the candles and part of a skeleton with bat wings. 

 

 

 

 

 

I painted up a couple of chipboard bows from the Present Time packet and glued them to the ends of the frame where I had already glued a candle and added a dark blue flower from Imagine If's range of paper flowers.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

I made my little rats using plastic rats from toys found in my local supermarket over Halloween.  I glued metal wings to each one and added part of a clasp and a jump ring to the necks so that I could add the chains holding them together.

 

 

Using some of Imagine If's Halloween set I covered the gravestones with tissue paper and black gesso.  When that was dry I dry brushed white paint over the top to give the look of stone.

 



 

 

I wanted a little lantern for the hand to hold so I took the top of a chipboard birdcage that I had left over from another project, painted it black and wrapped it around, gluing it at the front. I put another of the chipboard candles inside.

 

 

For the Skeleton Santa I used a skeleton from a Halloween set sold at Spotlight.  I covered him in red cheesecloth added crystals for eyes and glued him into the sleigh.

 

 

 

 

For the base I used an old plaque that I recycled. I painted it black then used crackle coat and a layer of the red paint I had used on the sleigh.  In the middle I used white gesso and tissue to create the illusion of snow on the ground. 

 



 

 

I then added the gravestone and the arm, then the rest of the pieces to complete the project.

 

 

I connected the rats using pieces of chain and added the lantern to the hand on the gravestone.

 

Imagine If products used

3D MDF sleigh

Christmas Candles

Ornate Frame

Halloween Set

Birdcages Set 2

Bows from Present Time set

 

I have entered this project into the challenge over at the  Left of Centre Creative challenge blog