Art Journal Journey - Wings (Herbalums)

Jeudi Journal - Wrinkles

 "Wrinkles are hereditary.  People get them from their children." is today's quote from Wendy and so my journal page for Art Journal Journey is below and the story to explain it follows on.  As you can see there are birds in the sky and she is wearing a fascinator of a butterfly so that it works with the challenge "It Must Have Wings" that I set for the month of May.

"It was a beautiful spring day, the swallows swooped high in the sky and the sun shone brightly.  Bella had been to the beauty salon in the village where they had been trying different styles of make up for her impending wedding to Peter.  She wanted a fairly simple look, no startling eye shadow and certainly not a red lipstick.  She wanted it to be reminiscent of spring time as she and Peter enjoyed the countryside and the wedding was to be simple rather than lavish.

Peter was waiting outside for her and as she walked out the door of the salon he swelled with pride, she looked so beautiful.

"Hello darling" he greeted her, "have you decided on what you want now?  It's only around the corner, two weeks to be precise."

"I have" she replied as she reached up to plant a kiss on his cheek, "but it is going to be a secret as you are not to know anything about my dress, my hair or even my make up."

"I see they have put a butterfly in your hair today.  Is that something you are considering?"

"No" replied Bella, "it is for mum to consider, it's known as a fascinator and they wondered if she would like one for her hair on the day."

Just then a little girl walked past them and turned to look at the butterfly in Bella's hair.  She gave a little smile and told her mummy she wanted a butterfly for her hair too.

Peter thought this was rather sweet and he turned to Bella and said "Just think in a year or two we could be parents, have a little girl like that, or even a boy."

"Err, excuse me, I am not sure I want children just yet.  Let's wait until we are older and have done things with our lives.  Besides which I overheard someone in the salon saying wrinkles are hereditary, people get them from their children and I certainly don't want any until I am about forty.  Wrinkles that is."

"Oh right," said Peter, "we are having a family though, we did talk about it and if you look at your sister she has no wrinkles but she has two boys."

"Mmm" said Bella, "I'm only kidding, but not about the wrinkles so you had better play your part in bringing up any children we might have."

WOYWW 833

What a lovely week it has been with post dropping through the door.  Thank you to Mary Anne first of all who sent me an atc which arrived the day before the anniversary but I didn't want to show it in case I spoiled it for everyone.  Then to Angela who was my Pif for her lovely bookmark - and finally to Jan who sent me one of hers just because ...  Here they are for you all to enjoy and thank you very much ladies.  They brightened my day.

Angela's bookmark, Mary Ann's atc & Jan's lovely card

Some of you know I was hoping to get a new hip soon, well last week I found it won't be happening.  I am too high risk with my heart failure etc.  I've been like a child who has lost her favourite toy since hearing this but please do not feel sorry for me or I'll set off again.  I'll be ok when I get used to it not happening.

Anyway, my lovely friend Ann took me off to a workshop on Saturday, to take my mind off things, with people I don't know and here are a few of the toppers we made.

The green ones are not finished both need words and a butterfly

The blue ones need words on yet

These all fit into a little concertina book and Ann and I are going to continue making two more pages each fortnight until we complete it.  It has 18 pages in all but we could even decorate the back as well - depends on how thick it gets with just one side.  Or if we run out of ideas!  (18 + 16 = 34 pages)

So that's it for this week, hope you all enjoyed the sunny weather again but it's about time we had some rain. The gardens and reservoirs need it and the poor farmers ....

Art Journal Journey - Secret Garden

This page features Gus sitting on the signpost for the Secret Garden but I hope you find it quite different to the previous owl one with a totally different background colour.  For this page I wanted to use some bold flowers and so I chose to use dandelions.  I love them when they are fluffy balls before the seeds float so effortlessly on the breeze (spreading themselves about to reseed).

Because the page was smaller in width than my journal page, remember I often make a journal page on plain cardstock and then stick it in my journal because the pages in my Lavinia Journal do not take kindly to some stamps, I did some stencilling on the sides and extended just a little of the flower stamping very slowly and carefully.  I was pleased with my matching up of the dandelions, just a slight hitch upwards with the one on the left.  Again I used my Elements for the background, Versafine Clair Nocturne for the stamping and Inktense pencils for the colouring.

I hope you like my Owl page for my challenge, "It Must Have Wings", at Art Journal Journey, so will you be popping over with a Journal page using Wings?  I'd love to see you there.

Art Journal Journey - Butterflies

 For my next journal page with the theme "It Must have Wings" at Art Journal Journey we have a copy of one side of what was originally a double spread in one of my square journals.  This time I only did the one page.  The original was a workshop I did with Tracy Evans a while ago which was in shades of pink and purple.  The stamps are from her collection when she did them for All & Create.

The background was made with smooching Distress Oxides (Salvaged Patina and Wilted Violet) on a piece of acetate, spritzing with water and then lying it down, leaving it for a while and then picking it up.  This was then dried with my heat gun before the next one was done.  For another one I used Twisted Citron and Tumbled Glass.

Using squares of cardstock I repeated as above on those and let them dry before sticking down and stamping the ready reckoner (Digit stamp) on them.  Then I used some white paint and a stencil to put squares on some of the squares on my page.  Using a Quickie Glue pen I drew some squares on the top right of my page and some lines on the squares.  When dry these had silver leaf on them.  

I added some numbers from the Seasons stamp and stamped two hearts and two butterflies which I then embossed with clear ep.  I painted the butterflies with the same colours of Distress Oxides  and cut them out.  These and the word Meadows were then cut out and adhered to the page.  Finally I scribbled some words around the stuck on squares and added a little torn washi tape.

I preferred this page to the one I did with Tracy - maybe just because I tend to go for teal type colours when choosing myself.  I hope you like this page as much as I do.

I've missed this kind of journaling and I think I might go back to it for a change from my Lavinia pages just now and again.

Art Journal Journey - Puffins

 I almost forgot to post this page in my journal and I had specifically wanted to use my puffin stamps to make a page for my theme "It Must Have Wings" at Art Journal Journey.  I made it, scanned it and then put it into the folder for "May" and promptly went on to something else for the same theme.

I just hope I can remember how I made this page now as my memory is dreadful and with so many pages they tend to merge into one.  I have no idea who manufactured the Puffin stamp, it is a polymer one and that is all I can say about it.

The background was made using two stamps that I bought years ago from my friend Mary, in America, but again I do not know who the manufacturer is, all I know is it is grey rubber and the index is coloured.  Mary loved coastal scenes and so I bought quite a few from my many trips to see her in the past.  (Sadly she passed seven years ago on the 26th of this month)

I used my Elements inks (Della Blue and Lime Punch) to create the background and coloured the  lighthouse and the sails with Pastel Pencils.  The birds were coloured (beaks) with Inktense Pencils.  The poor little Puffin on his own at the back looks rather forlorn and not quite as chubby as his two friends.  I do hope he is ok.

Also hope that you are well and ready to join in with the theme at AJJ.  If you do I will do my best to pop along and leave you a comment.

Jeudi Journal - Chocolate

 Today the quote from Wendy is "Save the earth, it's the only one planet with chocolate".  It got me wondering, is it really the only planet with chocolate?  That is something I won't know and I doubt any of you readers will either, unless you are saving up to be part of a rocket launch to some other planet in the universe.  Surely we have enough chocolate on Earth not to need us to find some on Jupiter or Saturn - but we do have Mars bars.

For my picture which had to include something from the challenge at Art Journal Journey I chose to use a black background and, although my planets are not the correct size, I made the two smallest planets, Mercury and Venus, smaller than the others.  It helped with fitting them all around the earth which, in reality, should not be the largest planet.  Here I have used artistic licence.  I am sure you will allow me.

I cut myself a circle around a mat and then punched the others with decorative punches, all were coloured in using promarkers.  The earth was coloured to represent a happy face with both land and sea on it and two birds, (to fulfil the challenge 'it must have wings') from the Dylusion collection were attached either side to look as if they were holding a banner which was made up with three popular chocolate bars in the UK.  

No story today, it is just a self explanatory journal page but does fill the criteria of having something with wings as required by the challenge I am hosting at AJJ.

I'd love to see you make a page with wings, check the main page at AJJ for some ideas and I will leave you a comment if you join in with us with your own interpretation of 'it must have wings'.