Ready for a Fantastic Convention.....

I know I've been absent quite a bit lately - only posting for the challenges that I'm on the design team for......I don't really like that.....I'd love to be posting every day.  However, I haven't been in my stamping room since the end of school - but I have not had idle hands.  I've been working in my art journal and doing an "index card a day" just to keep the creativity flowing.

Right now, I'm in Salt Lake City - gearing up for the opening of the 25th Anniversary Stampin'Up! Convention tomorrow.  I can't wait - it's going to be so exciting!

I returned from Ottawa  yesterday, Tuesday, - getting home at about 8:00pm and then I was in the air again this morning at 6:00am.  There were delays, so it was relaxing and now I'm getting ready for an early night so I can enjoy tomorrow to it's fullest.

Thought I would share a picture I took out the plane window this morning and a handful of the index cards that I've been working on the past little while - 

Stay creative - no matter what the medium!

Thanks for dropping by.

Joan

Another quick post today - I made this card quite a while ago - I love how this butterfly works with this layering technique.  

To create the shading on the butterfly, I inked the whole stamp up with Wisteria Wonder and then sponged on Rich Razzleberry and Elegant Eggplant.

Hope you're having a marvelous day....

Time to share another Mandala - it's the one I created New Years Eve....

Hope you have a great end to your week -

Thanks for dropping by

Joan

Merry Monday Chickadee

I haven't used this chickadee for along time - I don't even think he came out to play during this past holiday season - so he's gearing up for 2013!  The sketch from Merry Monday was clean and simple and once I decided on the chickadee it really didn't take me long to decide on the rest - which is a good thing on a busy evening.  I used watercolour paper for the base of the chickadee using the aquapainter to colour him in.

Stamp Set - Beautiful Season

Paper - Very Vanilla,  Be of Good Cheer DSP, Watercolour Paper

Ink - Black Staz-On, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Soft Suede, Sahara Sand, So Saffron, Basic Gray

Tools - Decorative Label Punch, Aqua Painter

Embellishments - Natural Trim, Designer Vintage Faceted Buttons, Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine, Dimensionals

Here's one of my favorite mandalas in my altered book.  I sponged the entire page with Tempting Turquoise before drawing the mandala and I coloured in the spots with our white gel pen.  Let me say - I think our gel pens really are the best.  I have the most success with them!

I'm off to do more arting and crafting.  I'm almost ready to create the cover for this little book.  I'm a bit scared about it - but ya gotta jump in.

Hope your week is off to a great start.  Thanks for stopping by.

Joan

More Altered Pages....

One thing I'm enjoying about creating these altered books/art journals - is that I can use up bits and pieces of images or paper that I've kept....This "Favorite Teddy" - really was a favorite of mine.  I had done up a number of them for a scrapbook page a couple of years ago, and since then this little guy has been living in the bottom of a drawer, just waiting to be used.  

The "wet ink" marks were not there initially - I had spritzed this page with colour, and on THIS page I  added water making the inks bleed through.....

I love using the little bits of left over DSP on these pages too.....this book is only 5 1/4 X 7 1/4".

One of my favorite colour combinations for card projects is black, white and red......this is one of my favorite pages too.  I drew with Watercolour Wonder Crayons around the outside of the mandala and spread it with the aqua painter.  I will be journaling on these pages eventually so like having the empty space.

Well, that's it for today - gotta get ready for a class Friday afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by - if the weather in your area is cold, cold, cold I hope you are staying warm.

Joan

More Altered Journal Pages

I've been working in my altered book almost everyday - experimenting with different things.  I drew in these flowers first and then I covered the page with our Watercolor Wonder Crayons and used the aqua painter to blend in the colour.  I suppose the crayons would react differently depending on what kind of paper the book was made from...I was happy with this result.

I must admit I used regular sharpies for this page - I stuck my ipad music on shuffle and incorporated the names of the artists within the doodles.  My main objective for this page was to practice my swirls.  They still need work.

I used the brayer and ink pads for the base of this page...going from Summer Starfruit, Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango up to Cajun Craze.  Sharpie was used for the Mandala.

Hope you have a creative day - Thanks for stopping by.

Joan

Altered Books - A new obsession

I mentioned on Sunday that I had found a new passion - First let me say that altered books were introduced to me at the Stampin'Up! convention this summer.  I thought - cool, I could do that!  I finally went out and found a little book at the beginning of October and replaced the end pages at the front of the book.  Then life got busy and I set it aside.

This past weekend, I had a table set up at the Fine Arts Conference in Edmonton.  Two tables away from me there was a woman set up with a number of her personal altered journals and some books her daughter had bound using "found papers".  What talented women.  The light bulb went on in my head and I finally understood the whole concept and the magnitude of directions I could go in.

I will be sharing the pages I create on this blog because I'm intending to use Stampin'Up products as much as possible in my altering of the pages.  I've used sponge daubers with our inks for these first three pages and incorporated the Faux Layer Tearing technique on the "Inspired" page (which has actually evolved a bit further than what you see here.

Emily also introduced me to the mandalas, and I'm hooked on creating them.  They take the doodling I've done in the past to a whole other level!

That's it for today - I have a whole whack of classes coming up in November - so there's a lot of prep involved.

Hope you have things keeping you busy and out of trouble.

Thanks for visiting.

Joan