Congratulations Colleague

This card was made for a colleague who was married yesterday and was signed by the staff of the school where we work.  I hope that she and her new husband had a fabulous day. 

Art Journal Prompts Week 5: Take Two

I decided to start another art journal in my bargain buy from The Works; an 8" x 8" wire bound kraft card scrapbook.  It only cost me £3 so I've decided to work on every other page and glue the sheets together to make them more robust.  This journal will be used for the weekly 'art journal prompts' from the Facebook group of the same name.  As I'm late for the party this year, I decided to dip in and have actually started with week 5: Take Two.
As the pages are made from kraft card, I decided to gesso the centre of the page, but deliberately left the edges bare.  This would allow me to add colour without the base showing through and keep the interest of the kraft card border.




The next step was to stamp the focal point.  I have had this stamp set for quite a while; it is from the Little Bit Sketchy range designed by Sheena Douglass and is called 'Just the Two of Us'.  Although the image is of a boy and a girl, I have a twin sister and there are photos of us sitting on the beach together wearing our red swimming costumes when we were little.  Although the photos I have are in black and white, both the prompt and the image brought back memories.  The image was stamped using Jet Black Archival ink and then painted over with Pebeo drawing gum to protect it while I worked on the background.
For the sand I used Fossilized Amber and Mustard Seed distress paint.  Once some had been dabbed on, I moved the paint around with my fingers, blending it out over the gessoed area onto the bare kraft card.  For the sky, I used Sailboat Blue and Cloudy Blue Adirondack paint and the same method to create the blend that I wanted.  Where the gesso showed through it was perfect to give the feeling of sky.  Once the background had been dried off, I used a Versamark ink pad and detail white embossing powder to add the sentiment from the same stamp set.  I then rubbed the drawing gum off the focal image.
I usually use distress markers or pens with a water brush to colour my stamped images, but I wasn't happy with the effect on gessoed kraft card.  Instead I decided to use Distress and Adirondack paints. I gave the little boy a slight touch of the sun by going over the intitial layer of Antique Linen and Tattered Rose mixed together with some areas using Worn Lipstick.  He is wearing Candied Apple trunks and his hair is a blend of Gathered Twigs and Ground Espresso (as is the girl's skin).  The girl's hair is a blend of Fossilized Amber and Mustard Seed to match the sand and she is wearing a Sailboat Blue swimming costume to tie in with the sky.  I considered the page finished at this point.

Journal52 #7: Dawn

As soon as I saw the prompt for this, I immediately had the song from the musical 'Hair' in my head.  It didn't take long to decide what the layout would be.  I tried out my new collection of Aqua Tints for the background; gorgeous colours which go a long way!

First Anniversary - Rainbow Wedding

One year on from the wedding, I really enjoyed making a bespoke anniversary card; after all the first anniversary is paper!

Chill - Life's a Beach!

Here's another card to remind us of summer.  I thought I'd enter it into the Countryview August Challenge as the topic was Summertime.
I was inspired for the background by an idea used by Barbara Gray in her 'Strength Always' New Design Stencil Club 14 booklet.  The combination of distress ink colours that she used gave such an impression of summer and the beach - Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmelade.  I had had the Sheena Douglas Laguna Surf and Endless Summer stamp sets for a few weeks and thought that they would make the perfect combination with the background.  I also decided to use pearlescent white card to add shimmer.