Art journaling with watercolour pencils

There's no denying - art journaling is certainly very trendy at the moment. I'm showing you a couple of pages I have created recently using an X-Press It Mixed Media Journal.

The first thing I noticed was how lovely and thick the pages are - they can take a lot of water/media without buckling, tearing, pilling or any other disaster I have created in other lower quality journals.

I wanted to play with my beautiful Bruynzeel Design Aquarel Pencils in my journal, and because they are new to me, I created a colour chart of sorts to see how they behave on this type of paper. I started by colouring squares through a stencil:

 Then I added water to spread the colour a little:

I can see where more pencil/water needed to be added, but overall it made a nice background for a short quote using a Molotow marker:

I dried this page off, then started on another one. First I stamped a couple of Darkroom Door coffee stains using Memento ink:

 Then I coloured a scrap of paper (cut from a page torn from the Mixed Media journal).

 I added water to blend the colours and when I was happy, I dried it off with a heat gun.

 I coloured another smaller scrap with different colours:

 I added a lot of water, then sprinkled rock salt on top. The salt pushes the colour back as it dissolves,

 leaving a lovely pattern:

When dry, I stuck these in place on my page using Tripletac:

I traced around these pieces with the black Bruynzeel pencil:

and spread the colour out a little with a water brush:

I put a few drops of water onto an acrylic block, then scribbled the black pencil into it to create a pool of black:

I used a plastic pipette to pick some of the black up, and added a large drop to the top of one of the panels. I tilted the journal forward to allow the drop to drip downwards:

 and I used a paintbrush to pick up some more of the black to add some fine spatter:

I added a piece of Hazel & Ruby washi tape to finish the page off. It's minimalist, but messy at the same time and this style is making my heart sing lately:

The thing I love about art journaling is that anything goes - nothing is incorrect, and it's more about the playing and less about the finished product.

I hope I have inspired you to go forth and create....but first, do yourself a favour and start with a quality journal!

Mini Greeting Cards with Hazel & Ruby

Hello everyone! It’s Robyn with you today sharing a project featuring the wonderful Hazel & Ruby products. I was so pleased to get a bunch of these products in my design team welcome pack and am enjoying using them. My project is a set of mini greeting cards and uses a pack of premade scalloped cards from the local $2 shop – they measure 7.5 cm square and came with matching envelopes but you could easily make something similar from cardstock instead.

My first card features a stencilled zigzag and handmade flower.

The zigzag was done by laying two strips of the chevron stencil mask from the Hazel & Ruby Everyday Shapes sheet and sponging with white paint.

The flower was created by layering a number of punched flower shapes, spritzing with water and then folding them into the centre – once the flower is dry the petals can be opened to create a lovely crinkly flower. I used Hazel & Ruby Wrap It Up Crazy for Chevy – Teals paper, the chevron is a bit hard to define in the finished flower but gives a wonderful texture effect! Pop it onto the card with a stamped greeting from Darkroom Door, a tiny button and it is done.

This cute ‘Hello!’ card was created by painting the card front with a mix of pink and white paint to give a mottled look.

The greeting was trimmed from a roll of the Hazel & Ruby Chalk It Up Fat Roll Washi Tape – the word was simply written on with a white Molotow pen. A handwritten greeting is so easy to customise. Strips of X-Press It Foam tape give the greeting some dimension as it sits over a strip of Hazel & Ruby Swanky Solids Washi Tape. I thought the colours of the two pieces of washi tape blended perfectly!

My next two cards feature stencilled butterflies. The Hazel & Ruby Stencil Masks are perfect for using in this way as they stick closely to the cardstock surface, preventing any bleed through of colour to the card base.

I selected one of the bigger butterflies and placed it at an angle on the card front, painted a mixed of blues over the top and allowed it to dry before removing the mask. The stamped greeting from Darkroom Door was then embellished with a few lines of white Molotow paint pen to make it stand out a little.

The second butterfly card uses a pair of images already placed together on the mask sheet – the scalloped, open circle and a teensy butterfly.

I layered them onto a small square of white cardstock and sponged with two different colours of Distress ink. Simple layering with ribbon and a printed greeting finished it off.
Supplies -
Hazel & Ruby Stencil Mask – Everyday Shapes
Hazel & Ruby Wrap It Up Crazy for Chevy – Teals paper roll
Hazel & Ruby Chalk It Up Fat Roll Washi Tape
Hazel & Ruby Swanky Solids Scallop Washi Tape
X-Press It Foam Tape
X-Press It Double Sided Tape
X-Press It Clear Gel Glue
Atelier Free Flow Artist’s Acrylic – Titanium White, Quinacridone Magenta, Pthalo Blue (Red Shade) & Cobalt Turquoise Light
White Molotow Paint pen
Ranger Distress Ink – Squeezed Lemonade & Ripe Persimmon
Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink
Darkroom Door Wordstrip & Simple Sayings stamp set
I hope you have enjoyed learning how I created this little set of mini greetings! It’s so easy to change out the stamps, masks and colours to suit what supplies you have. Don’t forget we always love to see your projects so please share them to the Inspiration Lane Facebook page or stop by my blog and say hi!
Robyn

Flow with whatever may happen….

Zhuangzi has a fabulous quote that reads, "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be FREE.  Stay centred by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate!"  Nothing more could be true when working with Atelier FREE Flow Paints, they have the most fluid of consistencies, creamy in their natural form, allowing transparency when used wet or dry, and running wild when mixed with water… all great characteristics for working with paper.

Today I wanted to use red, brown and white to build different shades of red/pink, and use the paints in different densities across a canvas…. here is what I started with:

I used sections of old book paper directly onto the canvas with X-Press It TripleTac Glue, being careful to place the paper on top of brushed on glue, without sealing over the top as you normally would in a mixed media piece.  There are lots of joins in the paper, and I wanted the matt finish of the paper to absorb the paint that follows, and for the joins to catch pieces of paint to add more texture….

Next I mixed three shades of pink/red paint mixing up the density of red, white and brown in each cup.

Then I took to the face of the canvas with a stencil and dry stipple brush, adding in random dots concentrating on the bottom and working upwards.  Most of this will be covered in later steps so I haven't worried too much about placement or keeping exactly within the boundaries of the stencil.  You can see the paper has picked up the paint, but still has transparency…

I also stamped a triple flower image in black ink onto book pages, fussy cutting the image ready to add colour…

I used the same colours of paint as mixed above and used throughout to colour the flowers, adding green for the stemware…

Next I loaded the top of the canvas with the three different shades of paint, and sprayed with water to create drips down the front an across the sides of the canvas, so now we have the same three shades in different textures to the original dry stencilled circles….

I let this dry overnight, but you can hit with a heat gun if you want to keep moving forward straight away… the next step is all about my FAVOURITE Hazel & Ruby Masks…. CONFETTI!!  I placed the masks randomly across the background, being careful to pic up interesting sections of the paint, and covering them with the mask, so that later they would shine on through...

I have mixed up a cream Free Flow Paint with white and touches of brown, and then diluted it a little in a spray bottle with water… and then I sprayed the paint atop the mask being careful to leave peeks of the paper and paint background.  Because the paint is transparent this muted the background in some sections, and also emphasises the seams in the original paper layers…. and continues the circle theme.

Then it was all about adding finishing touches to the flowers with more of the same paints… deepening left over cream to make a beige shadow for the outside of the flowers…. the finishing flower outline and dots were made with a Molotow Paint Pen, the 207 skin pastel is a great all around pink!

Here are the X-Press It Products I used in today's tutorial

Atelier Free Flow Paints

Burnt Umber

Pyrrole Red

Titanium White

X-Press It TripleTac

X-Press It Canvas

Hazel & Ruby Confetti Masks

Molotow Paint Pen 207 Skin Pastel

I hope this has inspired you to flow free with paints, and accept that where you start will be so different from where you began… in such a good way!  Enjoy….

Blog Hop Winners

Well that was a fun blog hop - thank you all so much for getting involved!! We know you have all been waiting for it, so here are the lucky winners!

The winners of the following pack are:

Inspiration Lane Instagram – Natalie Price

Copic Oz  - Connie Cox

The X-Press It Blog - Michelle Logan

The Inspiration Lane Blog - Roguethreads

Kate's Blog  - Cathie Borowski 

Kathy's Blog   – Marissa 

Edna's Blog - Baukje 

Teresa's Blog  -  Nattyboots 

Sharmaine's Blog - Melinda Sweetman 

And the winner of the major prize (both packs!!) fom The Inspiration Lane facebook page is:

Casey Elliot!!

If you are one of the lucky winners, please send an email to inspirationlane@xpressgraphx.com.au with your postal details! 

Have a great day!!

Photo cushion with Lumi

Hello crafty people! I sure hope you enjoyed our blog hop - it was great fun to put on from our end :)



Today I have a crafty project to share that uses the awesome range of Lumi Inkodye products. This is a fun and fabulous way to print onto fabrics - the colour develops in sunlight, and it's permanent so washing isn't an issue. I made a cushion that has a photo of my daughters printed on it:
 

The process has a few steps, but they're simple and if I can do it, anyone can!  Here's how I did it:

I chose a photo and cropped it reasonably tight. I didn't want a complicated background in it:

Next I converted it to black and white with a photo editing program:

Then I converted it to a negative:

 If you don't have a photo editing program, all of this can be done through the Lumi website.

I printed this image onto a sheet of Lumi Inkofilm, which is an inkjet transparency. I printed it on the highest quality because the black bits have to be really black and opaque.

I found a piece of calico fabric (any natural fibre will work eg cotton t-shirt), and covered it with Lumi Inkodye.  The snap packs made it really easy to apply - I used the opened pack to spread the Inkodye over the whole piece of fabric, then used paper towel to mop up the excess:

Here's the Inkofilm transparency clipped in place onto my cutting mat:

Up until now, all of this has taken place inside. Now it's time to go outside for some sunshine. I was disappointed to find it was the cloudiest, most overcast day ever in Melbourne. At least it wasn't raining! I know the Lumi Inkodye only takes about 10 minutes to react on a sunny day, so I figured it would take about 30 on such an overcast day, so I left it on the bonnet of my car and went inside for a cup of tea.

I came out to check it and this is how it looked:

Good definition of the image, but the colour wasn't quite what I expected. I needn't have worried! This is how it looked after a minute or two in Lumi Inkowash:

Aaaah - there are my girls! I left it to soak for a few hours to deactivate all of the photosensitive molecules, and then washed the fabric piece in the washing machine.

I don't really know how to sew, but when the fabric piece dried, I layered it onto some denim from some old jeans and made a little cushion out of it. Voila! A gift for someone who thought they had everything!

The potential for the Lumi Inkodye range is endless! I'm seeing home-made merchandise, funny t-shirts for special events (eg buck's/hen's nights, birthdays), personalised aprons and shopping bags, business cards, gifts for grandparents, invitations for kitchen teas, baby showers etc etc. With a range of nine colours, there's sure to be one to suit.

Ooooh - now I'm getting excited! I hope I've inspired you to create something too.




PS- Make sure you pop back tomorrow morning to see if you were one of our lucky blog hop winners!!