Next card making workshop Saturday 13th February 2016

Hi all. Quick samples of my next workshop featuring those fab Time Holtz Crazy Birds and accessories.
Morning session fully booked but 2 places left in the afternoon at 2pm.
Cost is still just £8 including tea/ coffee and biscuits. All equipment provided.

Bluebird for Mum and David Bowie, with words from his last song Lazarus

The idea for project was inspired by the Journal 52 group on FB and by the lyrics of David Bowie's last song and the Winter Wonderland them on the DecoArt Mixed Media Blog. The Journal 52 prompt for the week was David Bowie lyrics after he passed away earlier in the month. My Mum, Rose, also passed away this month, just two days after Bowie. And they shared the same birthday. So when I looked at the lyrics from his last song 'Lazarus' I just loved them and I knew I wanted to make a page dedicated to them both

I looked at pictures of Bluebirds on the tinterweb to help me choose my colours. They were like Robins with blue backs.

 I'm also using the card covers of old unwanted vinyl albums to create journal pages this year. So I gave that a couple of coats of white gesso.

 I wanted to have the bird on a branch so used the DecoArt stencil below to roughly sketch branches with pencil, then I drew my bird onto white card, traced him and roughly positioned him using the tracing paper over the tree area.  I erased the branches around where he would sit. I used the DecoArt Media Fluid acrylics below to paint my Bluebird, the background and the tree. I printed out the lyrics onto copy paper and these I sprayed with DecoArt matte varnish to prepare them for gluing onto the album cover, as I know my printer ink smudges if it gets wet. 

I then glued the bird and lyrics into place. After that I used some Pitt markers to add a little 

depth to the bird and around the words.

 At this point I thought I was finished, but I came back to it the next day and wanted to add a little more interest. So I used more white paint applied with a spatula and credit card around the edges, and added white Glamour dust to the snow areas using Cosmic Shimmer glue.

You can see the glitter detail a little more here. 

 

 I was happier with it, but still felt I needed to change something. I then added a little more black to the eye, then I decided to stop as I was close to making a mistake and ruining it all going overboard!

 These are the items used. I hope you have a go and have fun too. Suz x

A loving thought

It was a difficult week for me last week as my lovely Mum passed away. But the loving messages I had gave me such strengh. Then on the day after she died I found a beautiful little book of poems among her colouring stash, and one in particular summed up just what I felt about all the support I had....so I created a journal page around it and here it is.

Here's the page - I loved making it. 

 This was the actual poem written by Gen Macdonald.

This is the book, written in 1902, which I didn't even know my Mum had.

So thanks for your loving thoughts and I'm sending them right back to you!

Love Suz

xxx

Embrace Your Art wk 1

Hi - Well I'm more shocked thank anyone.... I've managed to finish another project and blog post in 1 week!
So I love the work of a fab artist called Tiare Smith and now she's running a group on Facebook called Embrace Your Art. This weeks prompt was your name and the challenge was to use a wet wipe. I'd already decided to use an old vinyl record as she's using round pages and that just sprang to mind when Tiare called it a Jam!

As you'd imagine, I'd never journaled on vinyl before! It isn't the easiest surface to work on but a good gesso like the DecoArt brand should do the trick. Here is the finished project....along with several others that I did and then went over to reach the finished one!

Wanderlust week 1

Excited to have signed up to the Wanderlust, year long Artfest! First prompt was "one word that describes you today"......completely impossible with the day I'd had. But instead of letting that block me, I let it guide me: how would I describe myself at that moment? Way too complicated! Art journaling is very personal and a great way of letting out and letting go of all those hidden thoughts and feelings. So that's what I did! I wrote a word that summed up what I needed to do that day rather than to describe myself that day -  that was BALANCE and all the feelings that I was trying to do just that with - you know like balance feelings of hope about one area of life V feelings of hopelessness/ helplessness in another area.

In the build up to Wanderlust I also signed up to another two art journaling groups. Journal 52 on Facebook and Embrace Your Art  with Tiare Smith.Tiare . There Taire is using ROUND pages. In a moment of inspiration (madness) I decided to use some of the old, unloved vinyl Albums gathering dust in my loft - the products of a hubby who was a part time DJ for many years back in the day of real records! That meant I would be having a heap of album covers and the funky sleeves to use up to - so they will be my journals. And here is how I've used the first one!

 A TRIBUTE album to Abba - of course I wouldn't have used a real Abba original! Gesso on that then I went wild with the DecoArt media misters. They are permanent when dry so brill for this kind of thing. 

 Played with one of my brush markers (Pentel - beautiful to use) on the sleeve. I couldn't believe how lovely this paper was to play on - I think it must be like the Deli paper I've heard people talk about as it is porous on one side (albeit a bit discoloured) and slightly waxy on the inside.

 On the other side of the sleeve I drew flowers and coloured them in. Then I journaled all my words using the happy ones on the pale pink flowers and unhappy ones on the yellow. I then

 I cut them out and used DecoArt Decoupage Matte glue to stick them all onto my spritzed album cover, applying the glue both to the substrate and the shapes. Worked a treat!

 A bit more writing around the border and some outlining of the main images with my Pitt marker, a fine nib pen and my brush marker again. Final touch was to add something to the middle of the lowers so I used some cosmic shimmer glue and sprinkled on some embossing powder. Finished!!