Canvas

Here's a canvas I decorated, I had quite a few books for Christmas to take some inspiration from and so this is a bit of experimentation.

So basically there's a whole bunch of paint, gel medium, modelling paste, grunge paste, mod podge, collage, Dylusions, pebeo, stencilling, gilding wax, scratching and probably some things I've forgotten.....

Journey

At last.....I've been wanting to sneak a Batman quote into this challenge and finally I've done it....the words this time for the Craft Barn challenge were friendship or journey. I found this quote from the 1960s Batman and even better it's one of Robins holy.....

It is Holy Journey to the Centre of the Earth

I used a big and juicy ink pad in the background and then I mod podged on the picture of Batman and Robin with glossy mod podge. Then I sprayed on the some gold colour bloom spray and I wrote the quote on with a white Posca pen and once it had dried I added some purple rub on paint around the edge of the picture.

Cards

Helloo....

Here are a couple of cards I made....

The first one is an Indigo Blu stamp coloured in with wink of stella pens and with a few swipes of tango and london bus fresco paints in the background and I stamped on the bird stamp. I used part of a tree stencil from Splodgeaway and a little distress around the edge.

 The second on I got a piece of material and frayed the edges and added some alcohol inks and then gloss mod podged it down accentuating the brush lines which also ran into the ink, before it dried I stamped the map on some paper and then stuck it on top and added a bit more mod podge and little of the ink bled through on to the map. The greeting is a Craftwork cards one.

Music - Ode to a Nightingale

Just got this one done in time........the latest craft barn words are passion or music, as usual I spent a while looking for something to inspire me.....and eventually settled on Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats. Here's my page....

I used three distress stains for the background. The branch is a JoFY stamp from Paper Artsy and a printed off a picture of a nightingale and gloss mod podged that on. I used a posca pen for the letters and outlined them with a brown wink of stella pen. Finally I stamped on some music notes.

Knowledge

Here is the next craft barn Q&L challenge the words this time are knowledge or hurt. Well I spent absolutely ages searching for a poem I liked and I couldn't find anything that caught my eye. In the end I went for this Albert Einstein quote.

I used three paint dabbers mostly through the sponge dabber so that I left some of the pattern from the sponge . Once that had dried I mod podged down a picture of Einstein and then wrote on the quote with a black Sharpie. Then I drew on the border in a Zentangle inspired way. Finally I added a touch of dusty concord distress ink.

Just One More Thing....

Well let me tell you I can't explain how my brain works.....but anyhoooo after I made my Q&L page earlier I'd used the opposite page to spray the little man and it had left a brilliant outline....all I could think of was the chalk outlines on police shows and of course that led me to Columbo, so I created a Columbo page!!

In addition to the Dylusions that were already on the page, I added some pastels and some washi tape, and just in case you were wondering the blood is liquid pearls. I cut out a picture of the man himself and mod podged him down and wrote his famous catchphrase at the top.

Somewhere beyond the sea...

Hello!

Well it's my birthday and of course that meant new craft goodies.....so here's a little creation I made mostly playing with new stencils to create the background......using various mediums - texture paste, paint, distress ink and Dylusions sprays. I cut the pictures out of a magazine and used gloss mod podge to glue them down - haven't used glossy in a while and I keep seeing things on other blogs where people use things out of magazines and then I forget to try it out and I finally remembered.
 I also used some gilding wax on the turtle. Finally I stamped various stamps and added a touch of white gel pen here and there. Really love Stencil Girl designs - and when I saw Seth Apter had designed some a few month's ago I couldn't wait to get hold of one - just my cup of tea.

Up

Helloooo! Well one challenge ends and another begins.....the new Craft Barn challenge has been announced....this time it's all about quotes and song lyrics featuring certain words.

This time the words were smile or up.

Well I thought for a while what to do......I don't really use quotes that often and there are so many songs I felt like I could be there for a year choosing something as nothing came to mind to inspire me. So instead I've decided to go down the route of taking quotes from poems and limericks - well at least that's what I've done this time I guess it will depend on what the words are each time, but I rather like nonsense verse so I may continue with that theme. I also decided to create pages in my art journal (this is just a random art book that I create pages of various things like my chemical elements pages so this won't be a completely separate project just forming part of the whole book instead). I have to say it was good to be able to work on a large flat surface rather than trying to hold open the little dictionary to work on.

Here is the finished piece.

Just in case you can't read it the quote is "A poor little monkey one morning; complained that the weather was hot; so he ran up a tree in a terrible rage; and tied his long tail in a knot" which is from Nursery Nonsense or Rhymes without Reason by D'Arcy W Thompson

Here's how I made it - I started off using Paper Artsy fresco paints - can't remember the actual colour names but a lime, yellow, bluey selection. On a separate piece of paper I wrote out the poem and cut it out one word at a time and mod podged it down on to the page, I then used some foam to apply some distress inks to the words to match the paint, then I used a craft nib to colour black soot distress ink round the edge of each word. I stamped on a couple of changito monkey stamps from Stampendous, I used a stitches stencil with some distress ink as well. Then I used some lids to stamp black gesso and blue paint, a little silver distress stain here and there and then some white gel pen to brighten it up a bit.

Final alpha challenge....

Phew the alpha challenge is complete - here's the link to the Craft Barn

The final two letters were X and I.....

Now there were about 6 words beginning with X, one of them being the letter X itself so not much choice so in the end I went with Xylophone. There was already a some ink on the page from Y on the next page so I also added some blue paint. I cut out rectangles and glued them down and then made a beater from a pipe cleaner and some card. I stamped a few music notes as well.

 Then for I, I chose a word I found reading the dictionary and that is Ichthyology the scientific study of fish - picture has a little too much reflection in it but the background is distress stain in blue and some silver round the edge and then I stamped some fish on some paper I had already inked and then cut them out and stuck them down and drew on some lines and measurements etc.

 Finally I finished off the front cover by painting it with gesso, then I made use of a few things I had for Christmas one was the cricut mini so I cut out some letters for A2Z and inked over them and I used some gilding wax around the edge, also some distress stain and then I painted the whole thing with gold shimmer mod podge and sprinkled on some glitter before it dried.

Wow and that's the whole year done!!

Card

Here's a card I made for my uncle who collects glass bottles, which is great because it's another excuse to use my poison bottle stamps from Craft Individuals.

I used my ink blending mat to create a background with distress inks, then I used some gloss mod podge through a stencil then once that had dried used some more ink over the top with the mod podge acting as a mask. I stamped the bottles on some separate paper and coloured those with distress ink as well and cut them out, added in a little shading and stamped a birthday greeting and stuck that on too.

Flamingo

Well there's me thinking all day about what word to choose for the next alpha challenge - even whilst staring at Flamingos whilst out and about at Slimbridge today it didn't click.....it was only when we were about half way home I suddenly went "Flamingo!" - no idea why I didn't think of it earlier!

So I was straight to the lap top to print off the pictures of flamingos I took earlier in the day; it couldn't have worked out better!

So firstly I painted the page with a paint dabber in Salmon and whilst that was drying I cut out the flamingo pictures I wanted to use.

Then I mod modged them down using matt mod podge this time, oh and on the two front flamingos I went around the edge with tattered rose distress stain to soften the sharp edges. Then I wrote on Flamingo in pink Sharpie, then I used a fine liner in pink to draw round the edge as well as using some dried marigold and spiced marmalade to stamp some leaves round the edge they didn't come out very defined but add some extra colour. Then I used a stencil and picked raspberry distress ink to make the honeycomb patten. I am wondering if I will ever make anything that doesn't involve distress ink of some kind....it's just too good!! All hail the Holtz!!!

Here's the link to the Craft Barn

Holy Dictionary Batman!

Well it's that time again......another letter in the alpha challenge.....it comes around fast. This week it is R, here is the link.

So what did I choose.....well inspiration struck....what with my current obsession with birds I picked Robin and then double whammy - of course I could bring in Batman and Robin as well!

So I started by painting the background gold with Paper Artsy Fresco - Old Gold and another gold acrylic...then I sprinkled on some Frantage embossing powder - aged copper I think it was and heated that to set.....then to get the picture of the Robin I used a still from Bird Cam (see previous posts) so this is a picture of a Robin that was in our own back garden......and then I printed off a picture of Burt Ward as Robin....as he doesn't hang about in our back garden!

I used Mod Podge gold shimmer to glue them both down to continue with the metallic theme. Then on a separate piece of paper I smeared some Wild Honey distress stain and Brushed Pewter distress stain and wrote on the descriptions. Inadvertently these ended up looking like the boxes in cartoons which was quite good.....oh and I edged them and the pages themselves with Walnut Stain....because it normally has to make an appearance somewhere!