Summer of Color 5 Begins this Week

Summer of Color 5 - Color By Number begins this week. I have participated the last two years and have had so much fun.  This is truly a mixed media event. Last year there were people who did sewing, embroidery, canvases, art journals and much more. It was very cool to see the same colors used in so many different mediums. This is also an event that many people do with there children.                                                                                                                                       There are Giveaways each week and the whole event is free.  Be sure to check out Kristen's Blog Twinkle, Twinkle .                                                         

In honor of Summer of Color 5, I decided to post this very colorful page I did in my art journal. I think I used every color of the rainbow.  The flowers are cut using a Sizzix die and old encyclopedia pages painted with inexpensive craft paint.  The background is a stamp from Club Stamp and Archival ink. The centers of the flowers are done with glitter clue.

I really encourage you to participate in Summer of Color.  I have been a crafter in many years so I have a lot of different supplies. I am thinking many of you may also have a lot of things you haven't used.  Why don't you give Summer of Color a try? You could use some of your stash!

Summer of Color 5, Paint Party Friday, Mixed Media Monthly Challenge

Snowman

Journal 52's prompt this week was make a snowman.

This page is done in my altered Recipe book. The background has blue, magenta and pink paint on it.

I wanted him to be a little 3D so I used embossing paste and a palette knife to make him.

I love how he's not completely round. Using a palette knife was not so easy for me but I think it gave him the look of a real snowman. 

My embossing paste was a odd blue color because it was left over from another project. I painted over the paste with gesso and while it was wet I pressed black round disks into him for his buttons. Then I let it dry for 24 hours.  I put a coat of Artist Loft iridescent paint on him to give him a little shine.

His hat is a piece of fabric that I cut with pinking shears. The ball and fluff on his hat are made from a cotton ball.  His arms are the branch from the Sizzix Bird Branch die painted with gold paint.  The little bird is a stamp from a set I purchased at Tuesday Morning. This face is black sharpie paint pen and a orange paint pen.

I made the background snow by mixing a bit of metallic white paint with water and splattered it with a paint brush.

My friend Bibi at Rubber Dance is having a blue, pink and purple challenge on her blog. I thought I'd link to it too.  She is also having a sale on her stamps because December is her birthday month. Check it out. She has wonderful stamps.

Link: Journal 52, Paint Party Friday, Artist Play Room, Rubber Dance Challenge

I Love Cotton!

I grew up in the south. I remember seeing fields of cotton growing when we left the city for vacation. I still see cotton fields from time to time when I visit my home town.  A cotton field is beautiful. It looks like a field of snow in the middle of the summer. This page is done for the Journal 52 Fashion Challenge. I didn't want to do clothing... instead I wanted to do fabric.  Cotton is my favorite fabric. 95% of my clothes are made of cotton. I love the soft, smooth feel of cotton. It is not scratchy against my skin. I own a ton of cotton knit items... T Shirts, capri pants, sweats and of course cotton jammies of all kinds.  What could be better than a comfortable pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt on a cold day?  I could go on and on but I think you get the point... I love cotton.

This page is done in my recycled WordPerfect manual. The background is painted with green craft paint and then I journaled in huge scribbly writing with a green/red crayola colored pencil. (I called this type of writing my Carolyn Dube Scribble writing.)  I went through my dust cloths to find a pieces of plaid flannel and denim. I glued the fabric to discarded pieces of card stock to give them a little stiffness. I used a Sizzix die to cut the flowers. I found green brads in my stash for the centers of the flowers.  

Next I used one of the pieces left from cutting the flowers as a stencil and stenciled matching flowers in blue on the background of my page. The word Cotton was cut from a 1.5 inch set of dies from Sizzix compliments of my neighbor who bought that alphabet last winter.  The letters are cut from chip board and painted with watered down red craft paint. I used a small piece of a credit card to make the designs on the letters as well as the marks on the background. The letters are glued down with heavy duty double stick tape.

Link: Journal 52, Carolyn Dube, Artist Play Room

Life is Like a Patchwork Quilt

A piece like this has been rummaging around in my head for a while.  It's inspired by several different artists. Tim Holtz and his patchwork pieces, Marjie Kemper's recent post with the lady, Shelly Hickox and her embossing.  

I like to try out new ideas in this altered book.  I think one similar to this might end up on canvas soon.  I already see things I'll do different next time.  I'd also like to make it more 3D with trinkets and things hanging off of it.    

It was made by embossing cereal and cracker boxes and then embossing them with the Big Shot.  The embossing folders were made by Sizzix, Stampin Up, Paper Studio and Cuddle Bug.  I painted the embossed cardboard and some of them I sanded to distress them a bit.  I painted a few of them with Perfect Pearls.  They are not shiny because I decided to put a Golden's Titan Buff wash over the whole page and the dulled the finish on the Perfect Pearls.  

I'm one day behind on posting my art each day for November. This is day 3's project.

Link:  Art Everyday for a Month

Art and Friends Equal a Wonderful Day

I spent a few hours with my friend, Theresa today.  I took my Gelli Plate to her house and we had a fine time playing with Slick Paint or Fabric Paint and the Gelli Plate.  We are both huge fans of Carolyn Dube and I saw Carolyn do this cool technique using fabric paint to make star bursts. I called T and said, "Get that fabric paint out of the cabinet... we need it!  Carolyn Dube's got another great idea."  Click on Carolyn's name to see the technique we used to make that cool star burst at the bottom right.   

I had a great day.  I spent time with Theresa and we had so much fun with the gelli plate.  Most of the prints we did together.  I'm work from one end of the plate and she's work from the other.  It was cool to work that way.  We both love art journaling and altered books and yet our work is so different.  It was good for me to see how she mixes colors.  I usually go for brighter primary colors and she goes for shades of purple and pink.  We pulled at least 20 prints with lots of colors and designs.  Our friend, Dot, arrived just in time to see our negotiation of who got which print.  With the slick paint you get two excellent prints and then at least one of the fun unexpected variety.  You would think we were trading gold. :).  All and all, it was a great day that ended with Mike, T's DH, bringing us pizza!!   Life is good.

June's Gelli Party, Creative Everyday Mandarin Orange Monday

Dreaming in Color

Also know as Umbrella Man without the umbrella

I had absolutely no idea where this page was going when I started it.  I've not been feeling well this week so I haven't been very creative.  Last night the art table was calling me by name...

I began by picking up pieces of paper that were laying around on my work space and randomly gluing them to my art journal page. This shows you how much "stuff" was laying around.  

Then I used a homemade stencil and sprayed dylunsions ink.  I'm not going to win an award for using those inks.  I have a better image on my palm where I pressed the stencil down than I do on this page.  Oh well... solution... spray a second color.  That didn't help so I spritzed the whole page with so much water that my drips all ran together.  Then I had to walk away because it was so wet I couldn't work on it.

A good night's sleep had me thinking it could be about dreaming.  The man may look familiar.  That the Tim Holtz Umbrella man minus the umbrella and with a *different right arm.  A little writing and doodling and my page was born.   
     

Split Personality

Sometimes I feel like I may have a split personality.  I make these grungy art journal pages and then I make a "cute" owl card.  Cute dog cards always call me.  So do birthday cards that have balloons.  The thing about cards is that sometimes I make a card with someone in mind.  I made a cool card a while back with an old Vet on it.  It was the perfect card for my friend, Mink.  

Not Quite so Cute

Cute

I bought this Sizzix owl die back in November and then I never used it. Recently, I finally used him on an AB page and I grunged him up a bit. These two are my latest owls.  One is cute and one leans toward artsy. It's amazing how a bit of paper will change the look of something so much.

The words background in both is by Stampendous.

Link to Creative Everyday