Art Journal Challenge Using Ann Butler Designs.

Today I am playing with Colorbox Crafter's stamp pads & Unity stamps both by designer Ann Butler. Her ink pads are unique as they are designed to work with fabric, wood & more. I of course must try & play to see what else they can do. I wanted to use them on paper but was in a mood for watercolor. What if I used them completely differently then what they were designed for? I was in for a pleasant surprise.  First here is my art journal page.

 The journaling is about our lack of planting this year. We have had a small veggie garden for the last 4ish years but realized that we tend to take vacation during the main harvest days. This spring we were super busy & decided to take the year off. In the end we couldn't take vacation- brilliant planning! This did make me realize just how tasty our homegrown tomatoes are and I really missed the ability to just go pick what we wanted for dinner. I am entering this page in the Word's & Paintery challenge (info at end of post). My photo journaling has the colors & quote from the challenge in it.

 Quickie tutorial. I took the back page of an art journal piece that had a newspaper base. Glued down pieces of paper that came home from school with Korean writing on it. Selected Colorbox colors that were similar to the challenge. What was awesome is even though these colors were not quite right when I mixed the brights with Desert Sand color they were exactly like the ones in the challenge!

I swiped the ink pad on a piece of deli paper & misted some water to use the inks as a watercolor. The technique worked surprisingly well and created a total watercolor look that was BONUS... waterproof when dry! The great advantage to this for future consideration is being able to have a permanent water color base on a project -hummmmm. To darken the colors just dry & add another layer of color or add less water to start with. 

For my embellies I simply stamped a few of Ann's 1" Diamonds & Plaid stamps by Unity onto book paper & punched a circle out of them. These were adhered & edged with distress crayon. Add some random stamping & finish off the piece with faux stitching. I wanted to stitch but that would have ruined the art work on the back of the piece so I heat embossed another of Ann's stamps with black and voila stitching!

My colors & theme were inspired by the Words & Paintery September Challenge. If you want to play along click on the above link, you have until the 15th of October to join in. Happy crafting!!!