Congratulations Kim & Robbie..

You are Grandparents!

Below is the card I made for them.

 I used Popping In stamp set by Waffle Flower

& the coordinating dies.

I love these Big Bear & Bird designs.

 I coloured them with copic markers.

The images were them adhered to an

embossed piece of card which was a gorgeous

heart framed folder, free with issue 142 of

Papercraft Essentials magazine.

Computer generated You're Grandparents.

Inside the card is stamped quite simply.

I used the Congratulations stamp from the same

Waffle Flower set & the two cute Teddy Bears

are from the MFT Snuggle Bunnies set.

 

 

Helen's Retirement Card

Helen employed me 10 years ago,

when the office was known as Smart & Cook.

We went through the Bluefin rebranding,

 the sale to Marsh & the new name of Jelf. 

She was Office Manager & over the years, 

both Operations Manager & Regional Director.

While wearing many hats, she was also

a strong woman in what used to be,

very much a man's world.

What she has achieved is both admirable

& enviable, I know I could not have done her job.

When a few of us were made redundant, she managed

the situation far better than others higher up did.

As of the end of this month,

she is retiring from the business, to spend

quality time with her spouse, Chris.

I made her this card to wish her well.

Materials used;

Carabelle Studios Background Horloges,

Distress Inks; Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry 

& Twisted Citron, ink smooshing tehnique.

Added words from a Creative Stamping set issue 54,

along with an arrow saying this way.

Added brads to the clock centres.

Sentiment from same set.

Colour Exploration - Page Four

Page Four, so I am behind.

I had planned one page a week,

back in January!

Page Four - Give Yourself Time

This is more personal.

Give myself time to play, I can't job search

24 hours a day it is distressing!

 

Discordant Colour Scheme

To create this page I had to mix up some of my own colours.

To do this I spent an afternoon working

with the colour wheel & my supplies.

I drew wheels & filled them in using my own paints.

I will get round to sharing them at some stage.

I will also share my Layer Maps at a later date.

I mixed Rose & Cerulean Blue for a Red Violet,

for the coloured stenciling, I mixed

Peeled Paint & Twisted Citron distress re-iners into

gel medium. I wish I had made it a little brighter.

For my Red-Orange colour - I used;

Altenew Ink Autumn Blaze.

Stamps;

Heidi Swapp, Crafty Individuals

My observations;

Initially I disliked this from the point of view,

the green stenciling was too pale.

Truth, I loved the purple background so much,

I felt I spoiled it adding the green.

I love the stamping peeking through

& when I did the reduction technique,

the blue from my mix had stained the gesso

underneath a very pale blue. Liked that.

I like my focal point but if I did it again I would choose

a better stencil for the silhouette

& keep it white. The clocks

had already been stamped with the

French imagery from CI, so i just coloured them.

Once I outlined everything it popped.

Still got a visual triangle & strong focal point!

 

Colour Exploration - Page Three

I have to say straight off, I LOVE this page!

It has so much going for it after the disaster of page one!

Page Three - I have absolutely no desire to fit in

bit of fun with this one, & we all know there are no rules 

in art journaling :)

Triadic Scheme

Acrylic Paint;

Rose by Crawford & Black

Turquoise by Reeves

Yellow- Orange - a Derwent Inktense Pencil

Birds, stencil & other stamping

- free with Simply Cards & Papercraft 186.

Words - Tim Holtz

My observations;

Absolutely love it! The mix of the rose & turquoise is so pretty.

The visual triangle is clear also replication

of the same image works with the rule of 3's, 

but with one  image slightly different to stand out.

I like the book text on the birds.

The white spaces calms the chaos of the colour explosion.

I can glimpse some of the lower  layers

through the stencil reduction technique (Dina Wakley)

Must find a way to utilise this better.

I've still a way to go, but already finding

I am making better colour choices & my focal points

are no longer weak. I am taking time to

consider placement & design

instead of leaping straight in.

I love that I can see progress so soon.

Happy Birthday

Not only is it my birthday today,

it is also Laura's birthday.

Here is the card I made for her.

She is a Spa Therapist at

Queen Bee Salon, Scunthorpe.

The background is Lil' Inkers swirls cover up die,

the technique is copied from Jennifer Mcguire.

Stamp is Spabella - Stamping Bella

Coloured with Copic Markers

Birthday sentiment stamped on scraps.

Colour Exploration Page Two Dreams Take Flight

Now, page two was created, following lessons learned from page one!

I still used Dylusions paints over gesso, 

but scraped them on to get a totally different look,

while maintaining most of the vibrancy of the colours.

This was half of the other previously ugly page,

that was covered over!

Page Two - Dreams Take Flight

My dreams of exploring colour is happening.

Analogous Colour Scheme

Dylusions paint;

London Blue, Crushed Grape

& Vibrant Turquoise.

Tim Holtz Stencils & words.

Free Feather stamp & die set.

My observations;

I love my colour choice!

I love how the three shades blended to make a fourth.

I do feel this is lacking a visual triangle,

unless you consider the placement of the feathers

& the words to be a very small triangle.

Three feathers gives repetition, as

does the silver thread behind them &

tying them together, along with the silver leaf.

More white space, always a bonus!

Much happier with this.

Added bonus, one ugly page covered over

& made into two new pages,

(even if i think the first one yuck!)

Colour Exploration Journal - First Page

As I mentioned on 07 March, I began working on a new art journal. Today I share the first page.

If you recall, I do not like this!! But, I will share good or bad. It's a warts & all series!!

First Page - Hopeful

I am hopeful this exercise will grow my skills

& turn into a very positive series of art.

Complementary Colour Scheme

Blue & Orange - (not my favourite combination)

Paint - Dylusions;

London Blue & Squeezed Orange

Tim Holtz Stencils & Words

Memory Box Butterfly die

Basic Grey Tag.

 

 My observations;

I'm not enthralled!

The page improved once I had highlighted the three dotted

ares of stenciling to form a visual triangle. 

Drawing the border on the word helped it pop.

Dylusions paints don't work over gesso well,

but this was a previous page that I hated & needed to cover.

It was seriously ugly & took too coats!

Had I remembered Dylusions & gesso are not

a good fit, I would have selected a brighter orange

& used another blue from my stash.

But, learning is what this is about & I think

lesson learned.

Not hugely successful, but shared anyway.

 

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today is dad's birthday!

I saw several card designs

floating around Pinterest that I liked.

I decided to have a go at this one.

It is not great, structurally it is flimsy.

But, handmade is never perfect!

Here is the front.

Papermania Home to Nest

Slight decoupaged bird box.

The greeting doesn't look straight

in the photo, but it is!!

This view is a sneaky peek at inside.

It was too bulky to close fully.

 

Here is the inside.

A potting bench in the garden shed.

The legs are far too flimsy

& when I finally managed to get the decoupaged window

box stuck to the bench, it won't stand straight either!

Plus, I should have made a taller card,

so you could see out the window better. 

This final image is a close up

showing the top of the bench.

I had planned to stick pots to the legs

but knew it would cause problems.

Plus the paper pack only had vegetable seed

packets to cut out & Dad only grows flowers.

 

But, I am still pleased with it!

It isn't even the original design I planned.

I am saving that one for Father's Day in June.

New Art Coming Soon.

I have been a little absent from the blog recently, but it is due to the creation of a new art project.

I will be sharing the project soon, I just wanted to get a few started so that I had enough to blog for a few dates. This year I am going back to basics. 

I have made countless journal pages. Some I love, some I like & some.... well, let's just say they were ugly & have never seen the light of day! Even the ones I really love are lacking that little something. Having thought about it a while, I realise that they have poor composition, weak focal points & I could have made better colour choices. Having read both my Dina Wakley books, I knew it was time to re-think my work & take it up a notch!

Armed with a shiny new colour wheel, I aim to make at least one piece of art a week, the emphasis being on my colour choices, composition & focal points. I want to work with my supplies to make better use of them.

I plan to explore all different backgrounds such as Complementary colours, Triadic schemes & to stop covering the entire page in colour. Leave a bit of "white" space to stop the work looking flat. As a scrapbooker & minibook maker, I never had a problem with white space, so I need to re-train myself to use it in my journals.

I plan to explore, get messy & give myself permission to do whatever I like. I will share the good & the bad as I travel this journey & it will be fun. Probably the best fun I have had in ages because I have banned all rules. No need to conform in my creative space!

Some of the pages will be coming soon. The first one is awful! Blue & Orange, not my favourite combination & it sucks, but I am sharing anyway warts & all!

To finish I will leave you with a sympathy card,

I had to make recently for an ex work colleague

Lorraine, who sadly lost her father last month.

He used to keep the outside of the office tidy &

was regularly seen clearing the car park.

Fitting that I should share it now,

as today marks the 45th anniversary 

of losing mum.