DIY Art Journal Book (Part 2) - Creative Team Thursday with Denise Alloca

Finishing the book!  In today's Creative Team Post I picked up where I left off; the inside of the book.  You can see Part I here!   

Watch as I fumble my way through completing my book.  Using Jessica’s stencil Hearts Flowers and More,  I cleaned up the inside of my book creating end pages.  A few finishing touches and it was done!  

Now there are completed pages and pages ready for more of Jessica Sporn’s stencils and stamps!  SO enjoy the process, and create a mess!  See what happens when you're not afraid to make mistakes!  Or watch me make a few!

Supplies:

Hearts Flowers and More Stencil

Assorted Papers

Deco Arts Matte Medium

Double Stick Tape

Deco Arts Interference Gold

Acrylic Paint

            Titan Buff

            White

            Teal

With a passion for art from an early age, Denise Alloca turned her interest to photography and later art education. Through her diverse exposure to various art forms, she found her way to mixed media art, where she currently showcases her work on her blog.  Denise has been a Design Team member for Donna Downey’s Artist Gang, creating instructional videos showcasing various mixed media techniques.  Denise's work has also been published in Art Journal Kickstarter, which offers advice and techniques for art journaling enthusiasts.

Thanks for this great tutorial Denise!  

Make sure to check out all of the Creative Team's wonderful creations and inspiration.

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

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DIY - Painting on Porcelain

I've experimented with decorating white porcelain plates with sharpies before.

But my experiments were always in black and white.  I decided to do another experiment with color.

Here's a super short time-lapse video of how it all started ...

Steps:  Make sure to wash your plates first, to make sure there is no residue.   I find it's easier to cut up my stencils (GASP!) to make it easier to lay the motifs on the plates.   (Note that the 4 x 4" stencils from Stencil Club are perfect - no cutting needed!  The orange/yellow middle swirl flower was designed by Maria McGuire for March 2017.    All of the other elements are from my designs for November 2016.  (If you don't know about Stencil Girl's Stencil Club - check it out here.))

I sketched in the motifs (plus some doodles), using regular Sharpie markers.  (The recommendation you'll find on the internet is to use oil paint markers.  But I used regular Sharpies and the result was good.  It was good to have both the fine and extra fine tips depending on the size of the opening of the stencil.)

Once I had all the designs drawn in, I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.  (you can find varying instructions on Pinterest.  Some say 150 degrees, others 450.  I went in the middle, which turned out to be fine.)  I've washed these with soap and water and a scrubby sponge - and they're holding up just fine.  (I haven't put them in the dishwasher.)

Quick and easy, one-of-a-kind gifts for summer entertaining!

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

Thank You!

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

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DIY: What to do with all those plastic eggs!

With Spring in full swing (for most of us) and those infamous Easter egg hunts just around the corner, I rummaged through my posts and came across this gem.  Here are some great ideas on what to do with all those leftover plastic eggs... and if you have some wooden spools hiding in your stash, you can use those too!

Years ago when my oldest daughter Mariel was little, we hosted an Easter egg hunt in our backyard.  I never threw away those plastic eggs, but I also never again filled them with candy.  They sat, empty, for more than 16 years, and were moved to two different houses.

and hiding in my stash were a bunch of vintage wood spools (I love these!)...

Looking at them side by side, I remembered the Faberge Eggs and their elaborate stands.     

I decided to make a mixed media version of these classic eggs.

1.  I pierced little holes in the tops of the eggs.I threaded a piece of string inside, so that I could hang them to dry.

2.  I got out my collection of scraps, and randomly adhered the scraps to the eggs with Matte Medium.  Then I dabbed all of them with Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Indian Hue Fluid Acrylic paint to unify them a bit.  Here's how they looked:

3.  To give them some individual character, I dabbed them with different colors of craft paint, mixed with glazing medium.

4.  I stenciled different color flowers onto a sheet of deli paper, using the Garden Flowers and Leaves stencil.  It's very springy, don't you think? 

5.  I cut out the flowers and leaves, and adhered them to the eggs.  The parts of the deli paper where I did not add color "melted" into the background, making it look as if I had stenciled directly onto the eggs!

6.  Using Iridescent Gold Paint (Golden Fluid Acrylics), I stenciled the Five Hamsas onto white tissue paper.  I "cut" them up using a thin wet brush, and adhered the bits to the eggs.  I also stenciled some of the borders from the Stitch a Greek Border Stencil in gold as well.

7.  I painted the spools either gold or black, and adhered the borders to them.

(Hint:  This is why stamping or stenciling onto tissue paper is such a cool technique.  I NEVER could have gotten such crisp images on the spools if I tried to stencil directly onto them.  But with the tissue paper, the un-stamped or stenciled parts become translucent as the matte medium dries, leaving a crisp image!)

8.  Using black paint and white tissue paper, I stenciled "Now is the Time" words.  I adhered the words onto the spools and eggs too.

 (I used Weldbond glue, which eventually became transparent after I took the pictures, but a glue gun would have worked too!)

I'm in love with these eggs.  I think they look classic, yet fresh and whimsical.  Here's my Pinterest board with other egg-alicious ideas.   Are you doing any spring-inspired art or craft?  Share your links in the comments. 

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can. 

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!

Five Ways to Rescue an Art Journal Page

If you're like me, you sometimes abandon an art journal page or project because you think it can't be saved.  Recently, I had just such a page, and searched "ways to rescue an art journal page."  Funny enough, the search led me to MY OWN POST from about a year ago!

Since I didn't even remember I had created it, I thought it would be useful to repost it!  Enjoy.

We all have pages in our journals that we hate.  Either the page didn't turn out as we planned, or we had an "accident" on it - something spilled or a product was expired and didn't react as it was supposed to.  Here are five ways you can take such a page and turn it around. 

1.  Make your background your foreground.  Use gel medium through a stencil, let it dry, and then gesso over the rest of the page.  Wipe the gesso from the gel'd areas with a baby wipe, leaving your background peeking through.  You can add journaling over the gesso, or just keep going with another technique.   

You can watch a video of this process here by Peerless Designs.

Stencil used: Eastern Lotus and Leaf Repeat

 2.  Add lots of layers using the same stencil or stamp.  Using the same stamp or stencil, first do a layer of really dark color.  Then use a lighter or neutral color.  Finally, use a very light color, like a Titan Buff or white.  You will get lots of depth using one tool.  Then add a sentiment or embellishment, and voila!

Stencil used:  Herbs and Doors & Windows

3.  Tease out hidden elements.  Hold your page far away from you and squint.  Are any hidden shapes peeking through?  Bring them out.   Here, I saw a face peeking through the leaves and brought her to the front.  (For more on this technique, as well as my tips and tricks for painting faces, check out my online class - Facing Faces!)

Stencil Used:  Curvy Stems by Terri Stegmiller

4.  Push your page to the background by adding elements in complimentary colors.  See how the orange flowers seem to jump forward?  You can do this with paint, ink or collage.  (This page is a demo from one of my Floral Canvas Class.)

5.   Just keep going.  Keep adding layers.  Remind yourself that no effort you make in your artwork is ever wasted.  Something you initially dislike may hold the kernels of something you may eventually love.   That's what happened for me with this 2013 journal page.  

Here's a video of how it happened. 

You can also watch Rescuing a Journal Page on YouTube.

Here's what my worktable looked like as I experimented with all these techniques!

I leave you with these words from one of my favorite books - The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster:

“You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.”

Words to live by! 

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!