January 2014 Calendar

Goodness Gracious. Time is flying by...zip, zip. Three years ago this month (also rather alarming since it certainly doesn't seem that long ago) I stumbled upon Kate Crane's calendar challenge and fell in love. Each month we make a calendar page - no theme, just the month - and use it how we want. I jot down little notes about the days.

This page turned out a lot differently than I had imagined. And I am sorry I don't have a better photo because it does look pretty cool in person. I knew I wanted to use the moon and the stars. We're all about lots of night time this time of year, and I was a bit tired of the snow theme. 

I made a background by fan folding wax paper and laying it on a piece of Bristol paper and pouring severly watered down acrylic paint down the page. I was hoping for water but what I got was ice (you know, in my mind) so I've been keeping it handy since October. I gave it a good spray of Perfect Pearls Mist in Pearl to add a little - okay - a lot of sparkle. That's one reason it was hard to photograph. 

Next I cut some large stars out of a Tim Holtz die and colored them with alcohol inks. Inside my container of alcohol inks was these bits of plaid paper I had made on glossy card stock a couple of years ago. 

I decided to use the blue, white, and pink plaid which took me in a whole other direction. 

I found a smaller sheet of of a pink plaid - so I made some more pink plaid and combined the two in the title. The journaling squares started as very light pink Dylusions spray but the fact of the matter is I'm not really a pink kinda girl. Out came the purple and turquoise along with the amazing white Dylusions ink and after about 7 or 8 layers I had something I liked AND something that reminds me of the arctic sky.

I'm happy to have had a fun and restful December, and be moving onto a new year!

Best wishes for a Happy New Year and thanks so much for stopping by the Fun Room!

2013 - Bring It On!!

It's gonna be a great year. And one of the reasons I know is because I like my January calendar page. What 's a calendar page you ask? Well, the talented and beautiful Kate Crane came up with a lovely little challenge which you can find on her blog, The Kathryn Wheel, three years ago. Each month you make a page with a place to make art, or notations every day, and we all link up here. It's a great way to keep track of things, try new ideas, etc, etc, etc.

I was new at this last year and used little squares all the time, so my goal this year is to play around with daily shapes and layouts and see what I like. Small problem though, can't count, so the middle row/week has eight days. Whoops.

So voila! I have a bonus entry for the new year. Lol. I wanted the page to reflect the blues that are so prevalent in the Alaskan winter skies this time of year. I also want SNOW - badly. Today it was 38 and raining. Bummer.

My background started with gesso, and then a layer of London Blue Dylusions Ink and Tattered Angel blue of some sort with lots of water. I let it sit for a bit and then wiped it off with paper towels. A layer or two of Picket Fence Stain, a bit of an accent here and there with Shaded Lilac Stain and then white acrylic paint through one of Dyan Reavely's fabulous stencils. Actually white acrylic paint through a couple of Dyan's stencils. I thought it needed a border so I just drew a couple of lines with dashes and dots with a gel pen.

The tickets were made pretty much the same way but with some added extra Evergreen Bough Ranger stain applied in many ways, including plobbing it down a few times to get splash marks. I cut the tickets out with a Tim Holtz Sizzix die,  and a nod to Marjie Kemper who really opened my eyes to the possibilities with a ticket. I mean, who knew?

Lastly the snowflakes had to bring some glitz, and some of the purple back in by applying the Shaded Lilac ink pad directly onto grunge paper covered with Picket Fences Crackle Paint. I also took the Dusty Concord Distress marker to the top of the flakes.

This seems more me, than my December. But I still loved HAVING a December...

That's us dancing in the upper right corner....you can tell right?

Here's the rest of my year.

January Calendar Tag

One day at lunch I was cruising through some website and came across Laura Deninson's Follow the Paper Trail and she was hosting a calendar tag project. You make 12 of one month, keep one, send her 11, and then get 11 other months back. That sounded like a good idea in November. By the first week in December I was wondering if I was crazy. Never having made 12 of the same thing, I didn't really understand how long it would take me.

 

But I got them done, mailed them off - one small problem, I forgot to include my name and address in the package...they're signed and I'll send her an email but I might not be cut out for something like this!

I did pretty much like how the tag turned out though.

I started with a print stamp, sprayed London Blue Dylusions Ink and Tumbled Glass Distress Stain on the tag, then three coats of Picket Fence distress stain - drying each layer in-between. Next I took a Tim Holtz snowflake stamp and stamped the tag a few times and then bounced blue perfect pearls on the damp ink. Pouncing is definitely the way to go (she says after much trial error). I used the Dylsuions snowflake stencil and a white gel pen to outline snowflakes some open areas on the tag. Next I used Iced Spruce distress ink and the blue print snowflake stamp --a new favorite--and went over THAT with silver stickler. A couple of coats of white paint, metallic silver, and clear rock candy stickles were applied to the snowflake on the edge die. I used the word play die and the movers and shapers snowflake with some metallic white paper. Some ribbon and a new tag on the back and I was done.....

Looking forward to getting the rest of the tags...

December 2012 Calendar Page

It was just about a year ago that I discovered Kate Crane's wonderful blog The Kathryn Wheel. She is an amazing artist who has opened my eyes to lots of new adventures. One of her ongoing projects is the  calendar project which is to inspire us to make art every day...366 days this year to be exact.

In this crazy year of moving, moving, moving, packing, packing, unpacking, etc.  my monthly pages are one of the few things I've been able to keep up on - well almost (missed July). And I was super excited to do my December page after my horrid November. Check out Kate's page for her November page and links to other followers!

I used Dylusions spray inks in red, pink, and yellow for the background, and then the greens on a piece of bristol board that had a coat of gesso on it. This was a happy surprise ---when i mopped up with the kitchen roll, a lot of the color came off which I find easier to write on. And then I put a bit of glaze over the page because I find it easier to write on. 

The last blog post had the empty August, so here's the completed version. 

September was the month we moved into the new house and I think the first thing I actually did in the new, smaller, more compact Craft Room. 

October reminds me of growing up in Pennsylvania with beautiful blue skies and red and orange and brown and green leaves...alas we don't have that here in Alaska....but old habits die hard. Tee Hee.

And I kept hoping for snow so of course I had to try out the new Dylusions snow stencil. Actually we are still waiting for snow; very unusual we don't have any at this time of year. Lots of cold and plenty of wind, but no snow. Kind of weird....

And this is November. A good idea, gone bad. But this fall I just don't seem to have much time so I used it.

I am so thankful for Kate's great idea and look forward to new techniques and ideas next year. 

All Things Seem Possible in May

Ah, the beginning of a new month. And here in Alaska I could actually see little, tiny, leaf buds on the trees today. Cause for great excitement!!. After all the cold and snow we had this winter, many of us thought spring would be a long time coming, but this is almost early for us.

The lovely, talented, and Ranger U educated Kate Crane invites us to her blog, The Kathryn Wheel  each month to post our on-going calendars. Kate has been hosting this challenge for a few years and it's a fabulous journey. I use it to record my artistic endeavors of the month, what I'm working on, sometimes why I'm not working on anything, what I'm doing, etc. For May I'm celebrating green!

I played with my Dylusions spray inks....what a gas. Such vibrant, sassy, amazing colors. Just love 'em. I've found that a coat of glaze on top of the finished piece makes writing oh, so smooth. So after I spritzed, misted with water, dried, and used a touch of black paint with a very dry paint brush, I put a quick little coat of glaze on top of the background.

The design is pretty basic...please note my ode to the mosquito (got my first one today!). All the little white dots and the bird are Ranger white enamel which I like a lot...very glossy...comes in white and black - the black is way cool around Halloween. The bird was a bit too white though, so I popped a bunch of seed beads in its tail and body. This is all a result of thinking about the design for about, oh, maybe a fraction of a second. It started to rain this afternoon...so I used the umbrella. One of those things.

I had the most fun with the journal blocks. Dylusions spray inks again, but in lighter colors, more water, and more blotting. I used Gesso instead of white acrylic on top of the stencils, and liked that technique better.

In the end I have to say, May looks more like me. I love that I got a nice, light, creamy yellow for April because I tried pretty darn hard to do that, but I just couldn't use one ink color for journaling and had to put some pictures in from my trip to Los Angeles. It got a bit busier than I kind of pledged to do at the beginning of the month...oh well.

Hope you all have a great month of May!!

Full Spectrum Watercolor Words

Over at Simon Says Stamp this week, the challenge was show us your favorite word. Because I've had a lot of time on my hands, I thought about this for a while. But in the end, it comes back to the truths we know. There is nothing I would rather do than

Laughter to me is full of color, life, and spirit, so I decided to use my new Dylusions dye inks as a medium. Because my new friend Marjie Kemper blogged about filling water pens with the inks , I thought, hmmm, since I don't have that many water brushes, why not just spray some into a palette and paint from there? Which is exactly what I did. What amazingly LUSCIOUS colors.

Here's the low down on how I made the piece. The base is watercolor paper which I sprayed with purple and pink Dylusions Ink, and then dry brushed over that with white acrylic paint. Some of the inks reacted, some didn't; I was fine with that. I bounced some white and black paint over it for interest. I folded it like an accordion card. The cactus looking things, the girl parts, and the border were all painted on cover stock and adhered to grunge paper for support before I cut them out. The letters are grunge board, covered with two coats of picket fence stains, and then covered with a pink copic marker, edged in black. Once that was dry (or almost) I used some Stardust Stickles on top for the glitz. (I tried out a gazillion different ways of doing the letters and probably would just paint them white the next time with acrylic before adding color, but by that point I didn't have the right letters left any more).

I used a Fiskars postage stamp punch on black paper, and added the white dots with an opaque pencil for interest. I put the pink letters on that, and then mounted the whole thing on mini Popsicle sticks, which I had covered in black marker. There are slits in the back section of the base, into which I pushed the Popsicle stick.

I was really happy with the way this turned out and can see making more with different words. I want to futz around with the accordion fold because I would have liked the layers a little closer I think, but I was running out of time. And the second time I do something is always better anyway. I just wish someone had told me in high school that I really should pay attention to algebra and geometry!! Angles and dangles are definitely a hit and miss thing with me.

Another of my favorite places is Inspiration Emporium and their challenge this month is watercolors. I'm thinking this qualifies - I used them with water, mixed, and painted, so I'm posting there too. If I'm off the mark there, please forgive me.

Enjoy a laugh today!!