Quickie foam stamps

It was a very cold and rainy day here today, I had a day off work, food shopping could wait one more day....only one thing for it - ART!  This was a rare day of luxury, a day just for me....

I watched some videos from my current course "52 Playdates" by the wonderful Jan Fox. Week 7 video was about DIY foam stamps. Jan was using an idea from Traci Bunkers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2vLin_RQfs to make very easy foam stamps, with a twist...After watching Jan's and then Traci's original videos, I was excited!

The basic concept is that you heat up foam with a heat gun and press the foam onto an object. I didn't have any flip-flops (or similar foam) to cut up but remembered that I had some smooth foam shapes in my stamp box waiting to be used "one day". I ran around the house madly looking for some small textural objects and got to work.

I now have a small collection of fun stamps that took me literally minutes to make. What fun! 

My pretty pretty page

Yet another incident of the magic of Art Journalling!
A fair while ago, I created a "pretty pretty background" in my art journal. I took some background colour block stripes from a fashion catalogue (roughly cut around the model) as my inspiration and created a page around that.
The images were chosen mainly because they coordinated with the colour scheme. There was no reason for the bird-cage apart from the fact that it looked good against the background. I went wild with my Uniball Signo white pen and my dot obsession and created a pretty pretty page. It was so pretty and so clean and perfect, I truly could not imagine I would ever find a suitable topic and was quite prepared just to leave it.

 Well, as it so often happens, after many months, I had a bright and exciting development in my life that I needed to journal about. My oldest child finally has started taking public transport to school - a huge change in our life. I have always driven my kids to and from school as well as any extra-cirricular activities after school. She is now ready to be independent and self-reliant and has confidently "gone out into the world".

Casually leafing through my journal looking for a background, I suddenly stopped on this page - the mood felt right, the amount of available journalling space seemed sufficient...and then it struck me that the cage (with the bird flying out) was utterly perfect for the subject matter!

I so love the spiritual nature of art journalling....Never ceases to amaze me :)

More recent pages

 Ever since I have 'inhabited' the online art-journalling world, I enviously read of the Art Retreats that US ladies partake of, I have held a dream of one day going on some sort of get-away with women where you switch-off from the responsibilities of life, feed off each other's creative energy and just play.

So recently, my dream came true, kind of...I went away on a creative week-end with 3 other women. It wasn't quite what I envisioned. The other ladies were all scrap-bookers, of a rather...umm...functional style....decorating was not a priority....This was not quite a warm fuzzy gathering, Brave Girls-style (if you aren't aware of this, my ultimate dream -http://bravegirlsclub.com/) I was doing my 'arty thing' on my own. It took me a while to get into the flow but I did manage to create something. The 2 spreads below are some of the work I got done that week-end.

This page was built on a very old background early on in this journal. It was blue and green, washed over with gesso and stamped with the swirly stamp. This background was left behind for quite a long time as nothing really suited it until now. On my creative week-end, I had a very limited box of supplies (3 of us car pooled with our respective craft supplies, personal items including bedding and food contribution for the week-end, so space was limited). I have read in the past that it is a good exercise to limit one's materials once in a while so this was my opportunity. Not easy! To my horror I forgot to pack any scrap-booking (printed) papers. Brought a stack of serviettes (my favourite layering element) and my Art Papers (where I use up my paint left overs). Surprisingly, I found this background a 'home' under these limiting circumstances. I had the vintage-looking lady magazine image for a few years. I really liked her dress and overall look. Inspiration struck and she finally made it into my journal. The tulip and the yellow/red/green pieces are a serviette, craft paper strips, script stamp, bubble wrap stamping and doodling. Voila! Very happy with this page as the subject matter is very topical in my life at the moment and it fitted into this page well.

This page was started at the week-end away and finished off at home. I took advantage of being with scrap-booking ladies to borrow their puzzle pieces punch. I used my Art Paper for the pieces as well as the art doll's dress. I also used a discarded  red wavy border card-stock piece and arted it up. I also picked up the white heart punchie off the floor. Love that perverse satisfaction I get from using scraps in mixed media ;)

The original magazine face was way too pretty and a bit soul-less (especially after I decided what this page was going to be about) I'm very happy with the 'improvement'. At home, I doodled, added rub-ons and the quote from my stash of magazine lettering (my husband calls it my "ransom notes") :)

I feel that the lady is a bit unfinished, I think I lost interest in this page and gave myself permission to leave it and move on ;)

Some recent art journalling

A page of many layers. Not a "pretty page", a bit of a hodge-podge of layers over many months. It began as many of my pages do with me randomly spreading left-over paint from other work. There were freehand paint doodles which are now mostly covered up, tissue paper, loosely torn circles with inked edges and stamps. As I came back to this page and added more it didn't get any less chaotic. So recently I decided it was time to finish it off, especially as I had a topic to journal that seemed to suit the page. I added the hand and the butterfly, journalled, added the beautiful quote and decided I was fairly happy with the outcome.

This is one of my most favourite pages ever. After a bit of a break from art journalling, I watched some videos by a new artist I discovered via Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Everyday series. Surprisingly, this was the first time I came across the guest artist Janine http://studiojanine.net I'm a visual learner and watching a few of her videos really got my creative juices going. I pretty much replicated some of the elements used in her pages just for the exercise and the fun of breaking out of my usual style. "Discovered" a very simple (but oh so satisfying) technique of putting down a few blobs of paint and using a plastic fork to fan it out in all directions.
Anyway, somehow in this process of trying a different style, I ended up using a colour combination that was not what I would have normally chosen (which incidentally was not at all Janine's colours). Not sure how it happened but this page looks so vibrant and makes me really happy. Unfortunately some of the colour is lost in the pic and I don't use photoshop to be able correct it. 

Another lucky market find

Another shopping morning at the iconic Camberwell market in Melbourne with my vintage obsessed 15 yr old daughter. So much groovy clothing, most of which she is a bit young for and a whole heap of junk (to put it bluntly). I kept thinking, give me someone selling paper or something I can use. There were lots of old sewing pattern packs but I have a few which will last me a while.
All of a sudden, I see a middle aged man selling girly junky toys and stationery items, many with a printed vintage paper doll design. Notebooks, bookmarks, pencil cases etc. I got the distinct impression that he didn't really understand what he was selling ;)
My daughter bought a mouse-pad and the man gave her a bonus bookmark (I think he thought she was cute).

Anyway, among all that, a treasure for me! Woohoo!

Apologies for the quality of the photo (taken with my mobile phone).
I didn't bother asking the man if they were new (look pretty good condition) If anyone knows anything about these ie. are they just antique-style???, I would love some info.
It wasn't much cheaper than I would find at a scrapbooking store but it looks old...and I liked the font...and I don't have a lower case small alphabet set. I'm happy :)

Postcards are ready to go!

Well my postcards for iHanna's DIY Postcard Swap are ready to be mailed tomorrow. I am sending cards to Canada, Slovenia, UK, Sweden and USA. Very exciting. Looking forward to checking my mailbox in the next week or so and to see what I get.

Postcard Swap

I am thrilled to have taken the plunge to participate in iHanna's Postcard Swap http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/2012/02/diy-postcard-swap-2012/ We were to make 10 postcards in any style to send to 10 people around the world. I am so excited to have finished my cards this afternoon! Now just waiting for my addresses.

I haven't blogged about my process until I finished and could show the steps I took to get to the end. So ...I started with hand-cutting hearts from my art paper (papers painted with any left over paint I have on my paint pallet, usually spread with a credit card) 

This is the first art swap I have participated in and feeling sentimental as I started thinking of the creative women around the world that I would be exchanging with, I felt that I wanted to send a message of love. I had a vague idea of using a heart as a focal image and putting it on a shabby chic style background.

 Here just loosely threw them on to see the proportion to the card and to work out the positioning of the hearts.

 Collaged backgrounds with book pages, music paper, sewing paper tissue and serviettes.

 Then I gave them a peach-coloured wash.

 At this stage, I dry brushed some white paint to blend the background in further and stencilled a lace pattern...with...wait for it.....decorative cupcake wraps! My friend brought me a few from a wedding she attended knowing enough of my mixed-media "madness" to realise how much I would appreciate it ;) Then glued on the hearts.

 I then flicked some cream acrylic paint from a paint-brush. Loved the effect, even if it looked a bit like snow :)

 My finished cards! To finish off, I doodled around the hearts, put my favourite quote on and shaded around it with pencil.
Here are some close ups:

Finally I stuck on some postcard backs that iHanna provided for us. Even though I will be sending them in envelopes to protect them, I glued on some used stamps for that authentic postal look and to give a symbolic gift of my country. There will also be a personal message on each card.