Treasure Life's Wonders

I have been missing from the blog for quite a while, but am still making art. Loving all the Pinterest images, and tutorial...so much inspiration right at your fingertips.
Here is a page from my art journal...I do try to indulge in some sort of artwork every day - it keeps me sane!
The gold rose is Viva Inka Gold pushed through a stencil.

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Ledger Art Journal pages

Here are a couple of simple pages from my ledger art journal.
Did I ever mention that I work in quite a few types of books? I love to experiment with a variety of substrates, and book pages can vary so much....such fun!

This background was made when I was trying out my new Inka Gold colors.
I did some random stamping, then made a mask from a postcard of a lady, then used a sponge to paint around her shape. I have wanted to try this technique for ages, and will do some larger masks in the future. I was considering outlining her in black ink - what do you think?
The butterfly is chipboard, and the quote at the bottom is "Friendship is the only rose without thorns".

 

A flower blooms once.



I drew her face on sewing tissue, glued it to the page with gel medium, then drew some more, and colored her a bit. I left the face unpainted. The base page was pre-painted some time before (as usual!).

 



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Handmade books

Here are two small books I made using caulking and paints for the covers. The butterfly is a chipboard piece. I went through my stash of papers and cards which I used for doing samples, techniques, and experiments and came up with quite a bit that I could use for the pages in these two journals. They were fun to make:

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A Little Birdie told me

I had started this page a year ago, playing with gesso, acrylic and watercolor backgrounds.
I then drew a woman's face, glued down parts of a garden napkin, and finished it up.
Sometimes I don't finish a page for ages, as I love to make backgrounds...and have lots in my books, just waiting for the perfect image or whatever it calls for.

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Altered Art Journals

 These spreads were finished recently - just having fun with paints, stencils and rubber stamps (and anything that gets in the way whilst I am altering!)

These images are from an old French textbook. Watercolor background, plus some anaglypta wallpaper, a few stickers and background stencils.

A soft ghosty image of a little girl, rubber stamps, stickers, and watercolors. Here I used Portfolios and some Gelatos. yummy!

This spread holds a myriad of technique pieces, collaged. Just playing around with paints, stamps, embossing powder (top left)

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Small leather journal

I have been following Shirley's Three Part tutorial for making/binding a journal - she has a wonderful website that you might like to take a look at. Super instructions! Thank you, Shirley.
I made a small book using a variety of papers - scrap and watercolor leftovers, with a leather cover. The ornament is made with cardboard and metal pieces glued to a drink coaster, covered with aluminum tape, and painted with Lumieres.

You can see my end-papers here, first time for me!

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All Ablaze

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You are Here

Playing in my art journal - again inspired by JournalArtista's Ustream.
Sometimes my 'layers' get to be layers because I need to delete and cover up bad pages...lol.

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It's all in the Eyes

Here I go with another drawing - trying my 'hand' at faces again. She is colored with watercolor pencils.

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Art Journal Gypsies Cover

This is the cover I made for my AJG Journal. It started with some molding paste, then colored with inks and acrylics. When dry I splotched on some Glass Bead gel from Golden products. I colored some places with alcohol inks. The plaque is made from air-dry clay, rolled thin and pressed over a carved jewelry box of mine, to get the bird image, then painted with H2O's. The oval glass over its face is also covered with glass bead gel. The flourish is Tim Holtz grungeboard. Oh yes! - this cover was a lot of fun to play with!

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Cup of Home

This is a spread for the Art Journal Gypsies group. It has a Fall theme with a depiction of Home and cozy!

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HEROIC DREAMS

Here is another spread in Juliet's journal. I am a comic book lover, along with paper dolls. Such wonderful fantasy!

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FASHION SHOES and HATS

This is another spread in Juliet's journal. Fabric was used to cover the pages, then some dyed lace added.

The images are from The 1921 Philipsborn's Catalog

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ZIP A DEE DO DAH

I am currently working on journal pages in Juliet's Calendar journal.
The left page is done with Cedar Canyon rubbing plates, and Shiva Paintstiks.

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NATURAL BALANCE

I really enjoyed creating this page, it came together rather easily.
The left page is simply layers of acrylic paints; the right background is, once again, painted used dryer sheets.
These sheets come in many varieties, giving lots of variations for altering.
Over the word Natural is a piece of wall repair tape. It is sticky back and the color can be changed simply by smooshing with a stamp pad. Gauze ribbon covers 'Balance'.

YOU AND ME TOGETHER

This background is made by ironing crumpled wax paper over the pages, and then smooshing the page with three colours of Distress Inks. I still love this technique!
The vine is stencilled using Distress Ink in Chipped Sapphire.
All diecuts and the image outlined with markers.

100 POSTS

WOOHOO!! 1OO POSTS!! Who knew??
For my 101st post I am showing my first contributions to a Calendar Journal Round Robin that I am involved in. Here are my first four pages done in Patty's journal, for March 2010.

KNOCK THREE TIMES

Here is another page in my RR Calendar Journal. A variety of napkins, some journalling - added to a background of painted stamps and distress ink pads.

CALENDAR JOURNAL RR PAGES IN MY BOOK