Art is an Adventure Journal page for MMM

Hello friends, welcome and happy March to you all. I can't wait for Spring to show it's lovely face.
The first of the month means a new challenge at Mixed Media Monthly.
Our theme this month is Buttons, and our sponsor is May Flaum, who is also our guest designer this month..
Here is what I made:

As you can probably see, I have made a selection of buttons the main focal point of this journal spread.

You can find all the details of our challenge HERE and if you decide to play in our challenge, make sure to use our graphic in your post to be in with a chance to win!

Below a few close ups and an outline of how I put my spread together.

I created my background with the help of Gelatos in green and yellow tones over a gessoed double page. Background stamping using Tim Holtz and Paper Artsy stamps with Forget Me Not Archival ink and some washi tape added more texture

An Indigo Blu stamp, stamped on tissue paper and then merged into the background using gel medium, added some further interest.

And then of course the buttons. To be honest, I rarely use buttons in my crafting but our lovely Design Team leader Donna Bowman sent me a whole packet of multi coloured buttons (thanks so much Donna!!!) and I chose a selection matching my chosen colour palette.

More background work with a selection of different stencils, texture paste and ink.

Some foiling here and there, using a glue stick and Ranger gold foil sheets.

And finally a computer generated sentiment. Using buttons was somewhat of an adventure for me, but nothing like a challenge right?

Well, I hope you will look out your buttons and decide to join in our challenge. Do hop over to see what my talented teamies have made and to get all the details of the challenge!

Thanks so much for your visit and see you next time

xxxxx

Silver and Gold for Mixed Media Monthly with Indigo Blu

Hello dear visitors and Mixed Media Monthly friends. Happy December first of all!
At Mixed Media Monthly we are being sponsored for the second month by Indigo Blu, and our theme this month is Silver and Gold.

I made a little textured canvas, using some of their papers, stamps and awesome Megaflakes, in gold.

I went on quite a journey with this canvas and it landed up in a very different place from my original idea, but as these are busy times, I will keep my post as short as possible.
I started with one of Indigo Blu's super mixed media ephemera papers  and sanded it down for a shabby effect:

I stamped my stamp in Flitterglue and then used the gold flakes, then tore around the edges and adhered it to my canvas..

Next I added various textures, using Tim Holtz Layering Stencils, going over my paper as shown. I then started to add colour and background stamping to my canvas, and that's where it all started to go wrong really. The delicate image on the paper got completely lost on the background....

So here is where I then changed tack. I stamped the image in the same way again, but this time on black card stock and carefully fussy cut around it. Now at least it was clearly visible. Not the delicate shabby chic canvas I had originally in mind, but at least I had a focal point....
Below are some close ups of the background still.

I  added background stamping using one of my favourite Indigo Blu background stamps.

A couple of large word stickers finished it all off.

I added a tiny bit of detail to my stamped image still with a fine line black pen. The girl is not exactly the subtle delicate lady I had in mind, but at least she can be seen and like me (and you I hope) she is full of happy thoughts!

Hope you will hop over to our challenge blog to see the inspiration pieces my team mates have created, and of course we all hope you will play along with our challenge even though this is going to be a busy month....

Thank you so much for visiting. My earlier project for today can be seen here

Mixed Media Monthly Texture with Indigo Blu

Hello all and thanks for dropping in, possibly even for the second time....

If you are interested my first project today can be found HERE

This project, - a card and matching tag, was created for the Mixed Media Monthly challenge blog where our theme is "texture".

 What's more,  Indigo Blu,  are our incredibly generous sponsors this month! 

And just look at what you could win if you play!!!

Well, on to my project, - here it is.

I'll give you a quick explanation and some step by step photos of how I put this together.

I took a 6 x 6 piece of card and did a gelli print using three colours from the Indigo Blu paint range, Frosty Sky, Hot Cocoa and Townhouse Teal. I also added a tiny bit of gold paint from my stash.

When the paint had dried a gave it a few sprays of Ground Espresso and did some background stamping, both with the teal paint and Ground Espresso Distress ink, using two of Indigo Blu's background stamps, Honey comb and Crackle Glaze. I also added some stencilling using one of their new stencils, Laurel Leaves and some Wendy Vecchi Gold embossing paste.

Next I took one of their Christmas stamps, the Tear Drop Bauble and used it with Flitterglu and Mega flakes on a Teal painted piece of card and a black piece of card.

After they had been stamped and gilded I fussy cut them to use as embellishments for my card.

I also added mega flakes around the edges of my card.

To add more interest to the background I also stamped the large text stamp from the Enjoy Life set, straight on the the background with Flitter Glu and then used the flakes again for that lovely shimmer.

A sentiment stamp from my stash done on black card, finished it all off.

The tag, a size #8 Manila Ranger tag, was done in a very similar way. Again, I did a gelli print and some stencilling and background stamping for the background.

I then finished it off with some more stencilling, using the same stencil and gold embossing plus another bauble and sentiment to finish it off.

Now the great news is, - if you decide to play along with our challenge, you could be in with a chance to win a fantastic selection of Indigo Blu stamps and products, so do check out all the details. There is of course also some fantastic inspiration from my teamies.

Thanks for visiting like always and have a great creative month!!

Words to live by

Hello all and thanks for your visit!
I found myself with a few hours to spare and a wonderful vintage paper collection from Indigo Blu, and so I decided to have a play and create a little 4 x 6 book, - always one of my favourite projects to do.....

The book itself is made from 1 sheet of 12 x 12 scrap card and then I covered each page with some of those yummy papers.

I have explained many times in the past how to construct these little books, so I won't go into much detail here. A more extensive step by step can be found HERE
I have kept this one quite simple, as time was limited, below is a quick run down through the pages:

The actual papers are totally vintage, so I have kept this whole project in monochrome. I sanded each paper a bit, to give the shiny surface more bite and then added stencilling and stamping.

I used a variety of stamps from Indigo Blu, La Blanche and Tim Holtz.

Oh the little typewriter is a little prima stamp, and all the words are from the Tim Holtz Small Talk stickers.

Here's the next double page, both stamps here are from La Blanche. I used mainly Ground Espresso for both my stenciling and stamping, though a few images were stamped with Archival, either in Black or Coffee.

Here is a close up, I just love this steampunky guy with his butterfly wings.....

By using the same stencils on both sides of the double page, they hang together better I think....

And here is the final double page, this time the main stamps are mostly from the Tim Holtz Mercantile set, though there are also a La Blanch and some Indigo Blu stamps in the background.

Making your book like that also gives you two pockets, so I created a couple of very quick tags....

I made a spine from a spare bit of the papers and made a little tag to enhance the front a bit further. The title was  stamped with a little letter set I happen to have.

Well, that's it, time keeps being short at the moment, so I keep hoping that soon I will have the time to create something a bit more elaborate again.....

Anyway, thanks for your visit like always and look after yourselves!

Autumnal splendour

Hello everyone and thanks for dropping in today.
My poor old blog has been rather neglected these last few days as my day job has kept me otherwise occupied, but today I have a card to show you:

It's my daughter's birthday in a few days time, so I just had to make a card.
I basically used whatever was flying around on my desk.
The background was made with Brushos, a number of different sprays and some stamping.

The leaves were die cut  with some Spellbinder leaf dies, I used one of my gelli plate prints.
I then added some ribbon, twine and a little metal leaf, mounted it on black and a piece of scrapbook paper and that was pretty much it....

I added some gilding flakes from Indigo Blu around the edges.

The sentiment was stamped with Flitterglu and gilded with the same flakes. As it was getting a bit lost against the background, I added some shadows around the letters.

Here's a final close up of the whole card. Of course I was messy in my usual way and some of the gilding flakes landed up where they were not meant to be, but I quite liked the effect so decided not to worry...

Well, there you have it. Thanks for visiting like always and I hope you will have a creative week.