Although I'm enjoying my journey into mixed media and new techniques, sometimes I return to my plain and simple roots.
I'm busy compiling scrapbooks of my favourite family photos from each year - one book per year, 20 pages per book - so I'm limited as to how many photos I can fit in each. I could fill a whole scrapbook with the photos from our amazing trip to New York, and I probably will sometime soon, but for the purposes of my summary-of-the-year book, I needed to limit it to one page. I chose three of my favourite photos and eventually found an arrangement for them that seemed to work.
As the photos are very different styles and colours, and I wanted to include some other memorabilia from the trip, I decided that a fairly plain and simple layout would suit them best. So this time there are no paints, inks, stencils or stamps; I've stuck to papers and simple embellishments. But in this case, it works for me. I'm sure the messy stuff will reappear next time ...
I saw a video on YouTube the other day of a collaged junk journal page being created, so I thought I'd try it out too.
My youngest son bought me a lovely new charm for my Pandora bracelet, and it came with some really pretty packaging - being a crafter, I couldn't throw it away ... so this page contains some of the outside of the bag, some of the pink ribbon that tied the top of the bag together, plus some of the black cord which formed the handles. I rooted through my stash and found a paper pad that I bought several years ago but haven't used for ages, and it had exactly the right colour palette that I needed for this project, so I cut and tore some pieces out of that ...
... add in a couple of charms from my stash and a little distress ink (used to stamp the sentiment and to add some texture to the edges), and you have a page created mostly from junk and leftovers. It was great fun to create and I'll definitely use this style again.
So, having started my junk journal (see previous entry), I've been working on some pages for it. For this page I decided on something in the style of an art journal, reminding me of my increased interest in experimentation in previous months.
I started by using gesso on the page to hide some paint that had been accidentally transferred when working on the previous page (any tips on how to prevent this gratefully received!). Then I added brushos in various colours and let them move around a bit, blotting the excess with some rice paper.Once dry, I added some texture paste through stencils in various places. Once this was dry, I used brushos mixed with water to addd intensity to the colour in a few areas, then I added some random stamping using watered brushos, red paint and gold ink.
Throughout, I was mopping up any excess inks or brushos with rice paper. When the rice paper was dry, I stamped the sentiment on to part of it, tore it out, then adhered it to the page. Finally, I added a photo of a recent piece (documented in my first post in this blog here ) and a little bit of journalling to explain the page.
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating this page and want to work on improving my techniques and composition, but I'll have fun doing it ...
I've discovered the concept of junk journalling. In its purest form, it involves using only junk (leftovers, scraps, found objects etc) to create the book and all its contents, but everyone as their own version of what it means to them. So I joined a group on Facebook, had a look on Youtube and Pinterest, and decided that it was something I wanted to try.
My version is going to be a cross between art journalling, scrapbooking and junk journalling and I'm going to use it to experiment as well as to record events and reactions and store ephemera.
So, I bought a lovely A5 journal blank (from Pink Pig) with really thick, quality art paper inside, and here is my introductory page ...
I found some chipboard letters I forgot I had, plus a frame and a cameo from my stash, glued them down and then covered it all with gesso. Then I mixed a purple colour (I didn't have a suitable one ready made) from pink and dark blue and used it to paint the whole thing. I dry brushed with three different shades (pale pink, black and silver) and then added stencilling and stamping in pink (the same one I used to mix the purple), black and silver. I also used "glue and seal" to attach two small fragments from an old dictionary (bought from a charity shop ages ago to use in my crafting and then forgotten about until now), choosing the sections that defined "junk" and "journal".
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and am looking forward to getting sticky and paint-covered when I produce future pages. This is definitely a craft form that I want to explore further.
I get inspiration from various places, including magazines. In this month's Craft Stamper, there was a lovely example of a stamped resist technique ("Bleached floral", p65 April 2018 issue) which I was keen to try.
I didn't have the specified white embossing powder, so I had to use clear, hoping that the white card underneath would show through and have a similar effect. I didn't have the same stamps used in the example so I chose the nearest I had from my own stash. The end result was fairly pleasing, but not as pretty as the one on the magazine.
So I decided to play around with the technique and use a different colour scheme and a totally different theme. Again, a fairly pleasing result. I will definitely try this again.
I particularly like the idea of taking the background colours and applying a more intense version of them to parts of the stamped images. Taking this aspect of the original card further, I decided to abandon the resist technique, use more vibrant colours and a black embossing powder.
This time I was very pleased with the end result. I will definitely be using these techniques in the future.
A quick summary of the process -
I cut a piece of white cardstock slightly smaller than the card front. I used an ink applicator to add the distress inks (Blueprint Sketch, Dusty Concord, Worn Lipstick and Festive Berries), then I added a spritz of a shimmer mist. I stamped the butterfly image with embossing ink then embossed with black embossing powder. I then used a water brush to apply ink (using three of the colours from the background) more intensely to parts of the butterfly image. I stamped the foliage across the bottom in Hickory Smoke distress ink and then added the sentiment in black Versafine ink. I carefully applied a little water to the sentiment boxes and blotted with a piece of kitchen paper to slightly bleach the background ink in those areas. Finally, I matted it onto black card, with only a very thin edge showing, and adhered it to the front of my card.
I started this layout intending to use plain white card as the background, as I like the clean look of white against bright colours. But once I’d chosen all the embellishments, I thought it looked a little too stark with the plain white ...
... so, I got my paints out. I found some colours that matched the colours in my papers,watered them down a little, and got messy doing some paint spatters all over the paper. It was great fun and I really like the pop of colour it gives to the finished page.
Most of this is from the most recent Quirky Kit. The floral paper, the “enjoy the little things” paper and the assorted word and phrase embellishments are all cut from papers in the kit. The journaling tag is die cut from the reverse of one of the papers (the “noted” section is from a previous kit). Add in some letter stickers (also from a previous kit) and the coloured enamel dots, stick it all down, and it’s done.
And in case you’re wondering, the Barbie in the title refers to a barbecue, not the doll! It was a fancy dress barbecue party for an Australian relative.
