Sand & Sea Treasure Box

In my quest to refuse to let go of summer I have created this treasure box with some great products by Canvas Corp Brands and 7Gypsies. The best part - this will be the project for my first travel class!!! I will be teaching Oct. 4th from 1-4pm at The Paper Inn in Bradenton, FL. You can email them at thepaperinn@yahoo.com or call 941-904-0061 . 

We will be making this fun box using Eileen Hull' Designs Train Case by Sizzix.

You can use it for photos, recipes, stamped images, lists, addresses... the potential is endless! Makes a great gift too. As I am refusing to let summer go I am also ignoring that other big holiday that involves lots of gifts in December, but I have family that will love this handmade gem. Canvas Corp Brands products are beautiful and easy to work with.  We will also be adding color and glimmer with the Tattered Angels products of paints. I hope to see you there!!!

DLP#11 Borderline

I was on a trip while making Documented life Project #11 which brought a few challenges. The main one being I didn't have unlimited supplies and ephemera to work with. Here is the theme the gals came up with this week.

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 14
Art Challenge:  Borders
Journal Prompt:  "Borderline feels like I'm going to lose my mind."

The next page in my journal had some texture beads already on it. I had brought dylusions paints with me, using the dabber sponge applicator made it easy to apply paint while sitting in the passenger seat.

 For the borders I added the black through a Tim Holtz stencil and once dry a few dots with a sharpie paint pen. The title was also with a TH stencil but this time I used archival black ink. Again I added some dots with my sharpie. I had this tag with me that was just paint & stencil with colors that looked good on the page so on it went. I seem to be in a -main feature smack dab in the middle mode- which is odd for me but I am going with it. TIP: When I travel with limited supplies I usually bring pre-stamped card stock so I am not hauling stamp sets. Dina Wakley's cute owl, hearts & saying did the trick. For these I used distress stains to paint the owl and hearts. 

As I was in Dina mode I decided to do my journaling in rough pen. It is the first time I have done this but I kinda like it as I got a lot of writing in but it doesn't detract from the page. I wrote about what was going on at the time of the prompt when life was busy, and crazy. I did feel like I had to make a determined effort not to lost my mind so this prompt was perfect. That is the beauty of art journal, I didn't have to journal about the now, just whatever writing fit the prompt. If you like this page please leave me a comment! Art on!

DLP#12 Coming into Focus

Soooooo I am back from my most awesome adventure with Eileen Hull on #paprtrail6. I will post about that in a few days but today I had to get back to being inky! I am soooo far behind on Documented Life Project  (Art to the 5th) but I knew this would happen & I have ever intention of catching up. Yesterday I had fun playing on my deck and worked on #10 and finished #12 ironically about focus however I missed #11-opps. I will just do them out of order- I know how flexible right! Here we go-it's good to be back...

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 21
Art Challenge:  As a Focal Point
Journal Prompt:  Coming into Focus

Here is my take on the prompt. I started with the intent that "coming into focus" would be about my recent experience at the PaperArts show and how that really has helped me decide to move onto a travel teaching business. 

I was feeling very "Dylusional" so i started with her paints for my background  and a mix of stencils. These paints are so rich, creamy & vibrant! As I am totally addicted to this blue/green combo I will be making an attempt at changing up my color palette in the future. My caption was painted and than stamped, added a bit of doodling around for fun.  I decided to add a border and had an opps while lining it up. As you can see above I simply moved my title to cover it up-yes very sneaky.

 While deciding what the "art as a focal point" would be. I got off track looking at the cool guest artist blog of Danny Gregory. I do not draw-I suck at it but I also recognize that I have the ability to learn to draw just not the patience for it right now. My brain moves at 1000 miles an hour and for right now lacks the zen I feel is necessary. It is on my list of things to learn. 

Motivated by Lorraine Bell & Danny I drew!!! Using pen on watercolor paper and painted using distress stains and sprays. My camera did start all grey but I HAD to add color. Again with the blue and green...the camera is a tad lopsided and simple but as it may be my first real attempt at pen and watercolor I will take it. My brain was refusing to "see" the camera and wanted to make up the outline on it's own (not helpful) but I forced it into line. I wasn't happy that my frame (dylusion stamps) made my camera lay flat on the page so I added some color to help make the frame pop. Looking back at it I would move the frame a bit farther out to show it more but...

The frame does help the camera to pop and the white gel pen words do as well. Now for the journaling. I pulled out some of the new Heidi Swapp for Project Life cards from her brand new kit Picturesque Edition, which I had to buy cause I NEED to own ALL of them. It was at this point I realized my entire page had gone - left- and that my title- "focus" was none existent. So I added 2 journal cards one with the story of the end result and one how I had lost focus...actually all very appropriate with the theme! I turned my camera into a pocket, wrote out my cards, added color with markers to the title "laugh". As I went I used the excess paint on my dabbers to color another card:

I did want to add some random stamping to the page but held off as there is a lot going on, wouldn't want to detract from my lovely drawing (insert hurumpf). That is it, come join us at Documented Life Project!!! Ps:

Arting on the deck outside is really fun!