Mine! Mine! Mine!

The newest Pink Ninjas prompt is "Selfish". 

As you may know, I've been having a great time over the last month or so taking a couple paint technique classes (Big Picture Scrapbooking @ Home with Claudine Hellmuth & a class at my LSS with Bethany Kartchner).  I'm nearing the end of my trusty sketch book and thought how fun to make another using paint and this prompt since the sketch book is just creative ideas for me. 

I LOVE the way this came out.  It's so touchable, too.  Lots of texture within the paint.

Can you see the relief?  I just want to run my fingers over it.

I decided to call this my "Junque Journal".  I was inspired by the one Bethany Kartchner made.

Even the title is all touchy-feely with Tim Holtz distressed Stickles.

I had to include a paint transfer.  I am so in love with this technique.  It's so cool to take any image and make it part of the paint. 

And here it is, in its entirety.  Can you see the two masks I used, too, sprayed with mist?  There's a giant old-fashioned looking clock near the title and stars at the top.

This journal is made out of one of those black and white composition books.  Can't beat that with all the back-to-school sales right now!  I think it was 50 cents.  I bought a bunch.

I plan to fill this baby with sketches, prompts, colors, clippings, and varied ephemera I want to incorporate into my projects.

Check out what the rest of the Pink Ninjas made for the "Selfish" prompt.  We all had a great time playing. 

Why don't you show us how you're selfish?

Ingredients:  Making Memories paint; Maya & Glimmer Mist; Tim Holtz & Crafter's Workshop masks; Heidi Swapp chipboard alpha; Cosmo Cricket Tiny Alpha; 7Gypsies stamp; Tim Holtz Distressed Stickles; Dymo labeler; Target $1 Spot flair; Michaels ribbon; nest image from Claudine Hellmuth; Elmer's glue; gesso; composition book.

Poe & Sunshine

Is it already August??!!!  Didn't we just start this year?  I always look at my son's birthday as the official start to the holiday season because it's non-stop birthdays, vacations, and holidays from there until January.  His birthday is just a little over a month away!  Aaaaaagh!!!!!!

OK, I'm a little slow on these two layouts.  Both went live yesterday, 8/1. 

The current Scrap That Poetry poem is "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe.  Such a beautiful poem of love.  My mom requested I create something special for my step-brother and his wife and this is what I came up with, using a picture from their wedding:

The frame is a crochet hoop.  I got the idea for this from the Big Picture Scrapbooking Claudine Hellmuth class I'm taking.  The coolest part...the background fabric...

It began life as some Prima patterned paper!!!!!  I transferred it to some of Claudine Hellmuth's sticky back canvas!!!!

As you can see, it lost a little brightness of color but still!!!  It's so cool, right?  I have so many more ideas for this technique!!!!

If you're familiar with the poem "Annabel Lee" you know it's quite a long one so I only extracted one part for this hanging.  And I took a little bit of creative license with it and changed it slightly.  The original line was, "Can ever dissever my soul from the soul, Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."  Well, of course neither of my subject's names were Annabel Lee (how incovenient, lol!) so I changed it to, "Can ever dissever my soul from thee."  Hey, it rhymes, right?  Hope Mr. Poe doesn't cringe!

I filled in the bookplate with a crackle medium to further the antique-iness of the piece.

Actually, truth be told I futzed with a couple things on this piece.  I cut and pasted the Prima pearl flourish to fit within the circle. And although I had the Jenni Bowlin cardstock butterflies on hand, I liked the pattern on the Prima packaging better for this piece so I traced the Jenni Bowlin butterfly and added my own pearls. 

One other thing I did on this piece that you can't see on the pictures is I painted on their pictures with acrylic paint.  I painted their cheeks, lips, and hair.  I also painted all her jewelry with pearlized paint. 

Being the first of the month,  I also have a Category Stories layout for you, too.  This month's prompt is "_________ is my sunshine."

I incorporated techniques from both the Claudine Hellmuth class AND a class I took last weekend at my LSS with Bethany Kartchner into this.  (BTW, I am so stinkin proud of the mini book I made in Bethany's class and will be sharing that just as soon as I get it filled with some pictures - which will hopefully be asap.)  I am star-struck at having met and played along with Bethany in person.  This woman is ooooooooozing creativity.  I've already signed up for her next class at my LSS which is an art journaling class (with my other amazingly creative friend, Julie, who imparted that she's a bit trepidatious about art journaling but I know she'll make something completely fabulous!).  If you happen to be in the Mesa, AZ area on 8/28, sign up for this class!  It's going to be so much messy fun!  Oh, you should've seen me in the class last week.  I was COVERED with paint...ask Julie.  I am NOT prissy when it comes to paint.  I think it's usually much easier applied by hand. 

First, the picture of my little rays of sunshine is a packing tape transfer (which is indirectly a techinique I learned from Claudine Hellmuth...I already knew the basics of the technique but refined it with her tips). 

~picture detail~
Bethany's class was all about getting messy with paint, mists, and oil pastels and I incorporated all three here!  The sun rays are misted and then accented with oil pastels. 

The sky is a faux woodgrain paint technique that gives a great streaky effect.  I also misted a bit in the sky, too, and topped it off with some painted clouds using a Heidi Swapp mask (which, truthfully, I wish I hadn't done but oh, well). 

The butterfly and alpha silhouettes are created with Heidi Swapp masks and oil pastels. 

~title detail~


Finally, I used an actual Jenni Bowlin butterfly this time, but sprayed it wish mist (thanks Diana for that idea!) and topped it with some Ranger Perfect Pearls (Claudine, again!). 

~butterfly detail~


I really hope you like my project and PLEASE come play along with us!!!  Just click on the links for each above!

I'm off to my craft room.  I'm in a creatin' mood now!

Heidi

Let Your Dreams Fly

Once again this month we have Scrap That Poetry's poem debut coinciding with Sketchy Thursdays so of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to blend them, especially since they were really rather complementary.

These pictures are from the last time I had my daughter professionally photographed.  She's 4 months in these pics...she's almost 5-years-old now.  Maybe it's time to get some more pics done, eh?

STP's challenge #20 poem is "Dreams" by Langston Hughes.  I chose to interpret the poem for my title "Let Your Dreams Fly". 

~flower trim detail pic~

Oh, that Webster's Pages flower trim is so dreamy!  And check out that frame.  It's from Pink Paislee and I have absolutely no idea what material it is made out of but it's gorgeous.  It's like super soft taffy that doesn't lose its shape.  It comes "naked", kind of a manilla color.  I sprayed it with some lime Maya Mist and rubbed a bit of it off so that the surface is just subtley green while much of the color pooled in the crevices. 

~pebble detail pic~

And how stinkin cute is that Prima pebble with the little bonneted girl? I layered it on top of a digi stamp flower from Digi Doodle Shop, this week's Sketchy Thursdays sponsor. There's another one in the picture below. On both I printed them out, colored them in with colored pencils, and sprayed them with some pearl Glimmer Mist.

~flowers detail pic~

Into my second week in the Claudine Hellmuth online techniques class and had to incorporate some newly acquired acrylic paint techniques.  Here I used watermark resist with an acrylic paint wash and acrylic paint stamping on some French text paper I got from Diana's etsy shop. 

~book page detail~

With the exception of the French paper, digi stamps, and the Webster's trim, everything on this layout is from the Ninja Addicts kit "Thrift Shoppe Junkie".  Such a gorgeous kit!!!

I would love to see you play along with us on both Sketchy Thursdays and Scrap That Poetry!!!

Off to check out what's in store for week 3 in the Claudine Hellmuth class, put some finishing touches on some other things I've made for it so far, and to enjoy the official last week of my son's summer vacation.  I think I may break out the huge roll of butcher paper today and see what they create. 

Heidi