Believe that you can and you will!

Hello and let me start by saying how much I appreciate all of you who drop in here! Those of you who come by every time I post something and those who just drop in occasionally alike. We are all so busy, so thank you for taking the time.
Today I want to share my latest journal spread.

I love to see all of the amazing Valentines pieces out there, but this year I have not been in the mood to do the usual red with roses type Valentines, so this is my alternative Valentines piece for this year.

I wanted a wintry feel to this spread and took out the Lynne Perella stamps my daughter gave me for Christmas, they had never been inked yet....

I started by  spreading heavy gesso with a palette knife and then added colour with 3 colours of Distress paint: Antique Linen, Weathered Wood and Pumice stone, spreading it on with a brush and baby wipe and then creating some texture with a crumpled piece of kitchen roll. When the paint was dry I added the snowflake detail with the help of a Dylusions stencil and Ranger Texture paste. While that was still wet I sprinkled on some Rockcandy Distress Glitter, which like usual does not show up on the photo sadly, because it looks lovely and wintry IRL
. I also added a few spritzes of the same colours of Distress Spray.

 Next came the stamps. I stamped them onto tissue paper in Wateringcan Archival. I had planned to use a smokey grey Versafine ink, but it proved too oily, and the images did not have the clearness I normally get when using black Versa fine. I have had this pad for years and not used it, so maybe that was the reason....

Here are a couple of close ups, I adhered the images to my page with Ranger Matte medium and then lightly dabbed on some more paint with my fingers to blend them into the background.

The heart was next, after all, this was meant to be a Valentines piece....

I glued some old text paper to a piece of card. Then hand drew a heart and cut it out, making sure the aperture was just big enough show the believe sentiment, (part of a larger stamp in this set). The rest of the text is computer generated.

After it was glued in place I went over it with Glue n Seal and then added shadows with Faber Castell Big Brush pens, they blend wonderfully over the Glue n Seal and when dry are totally permanent (unlike Distress markers for instance).

A bit of background stamping finished it all off.

Having been really busy with other things behind the scenes it was great to have some hours to just play in my journal. I love this message, it can have so many connotations with Valentines day, - from being desperately in love and keeping fingers crossed it will work out, - to like in my own case having been married for 40 years to a wonderful man (whose birthday is actually on Valentines day). We believed we could those 40 years ago and we did it!

I am going to add this to the Artist Trading Post challenge 9 "Love is in the Air", and also to the Inspiration Journal challenge where the theme is also Love is in the air.

Well, that's it from me today, thank you for dropping by! I'll be back soon and look forward to seeing you somewhere around in crafty blogland!