Tag with Mona

 Hello

Karolina here. I am sharing a new inspiration.

To create this mixed media project, I used a tag from Chipboard Decorative Tags X Large set.

Bellow you find step by step instruction:

Use a white Gesso to cover both sides of your tag.

Choose some Distress Oxide inks to make a background.

Splash water.

Print any photo you would like to use and cut it out.

Glue the photo onto the tag and start to decorate it using fussy cutting elements as I did.

Use some crayons and stamps to decorate this tag. I used black and gold Distress crayons and stamps to add some texture and make the background more interesting.

Attach a ribbon.

GSL product used:

Chipboard Decorative Tags X Large

Other supply used:

White Gesso, Distress Oxide inks, glue, words, paper embellishments, stamps, gold and black distress crayons and ribbon.

I hope you like my tag, and I cannot wait to see your interpretation of this project. Please share it on the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Craft Group Page on Facebook.

Thank you for stopping by!

Karola

Art Journal Page - Think Like A Queen

Hello everyone!  Today I have the second art journal page I mentioned in the last post, which has been made by following the prompts in the journal cards I made in this post.  

This time, I will keep pulling cards till I feel like the page is finished. I will be drawing one card at a time and obeying it before moving on to the next card.  I shuffled my cards and then drew one prompt card as follows:  SPRAY

I'm not a fan of spraying so I wasn't so happy about drawing this card but I must obey the cards, so I used a Prima Color Bloom spray in Dark Tulip and added some water to make it spread around the page.

After drying with a hairdryer, I shuffled and drew a second card:  COLLAGE

I chose to use these gel printed backgrounds for my collage.


I used matte gel medium to stick everything down on my page.


The next prompt I drew was:  FOCAL POINT

This is something I prefer to add at the end, however, I am obeying the cards so I had to add it to my page now.  I had this image of Marie Antoinette on my desk and also this frame which I had previously painted gold, but the photo is the wrong shape for the frame so it was time to improvise.


I glued the image to the frame and then used the excess to fill in the gaps.

I used some Pitt artist pens to blend it all together and hide the joins in the paper a little bit.



Focal point added, it was time for another card, and this time I drew the COLOUR CARD.  This card has six options and I rolled a 5 which was BLUE.  I was a bit worried about adding blue to this page, but if the cards demand it...

I chose a Prussian Blue heavy body acrylic and painted it carefully around the sides of my page and other places, hoping that they didn't clash too much.



Time for the next prompt and it was another colour card:  BLACK OR WHITE



I chose WHITE and used Titanium White acrylic and a palette knife to apply it randomly over my page.



Once the white paint was dry, it was time to pull another card:  SOMETHING METALLIC

I already had something metallic on my page thanks to the gold frame, but that was not done specifically for this prompt so I decided to add more metallic to the page.  Firstly a Champagne metallic Gelato scribbled across the page on top of the white paint.  Then some gold ink splatters and finally some of the gold leaf collage pieces leftover from making the prompt cards themselves.


Time, for another prompt and this time it was:  MAKE SOME MARKS

I used black pencils to make my marks around the edge of the page and to draw around the gold leaf collage pieces..


No drying time required so time for the next prompt:  BOOK PAPER

I had these scrap squares of book paper on my desk and they were already painted blue, but a different shade of blue to what I used before, but I decided to use them anyway.  So I glued them together to make a larger journalling block and then wrote this quote by Oprah Winfrey in white pen:

Think like a queen.  A queen is not afraid to fail.  Failure is another steppingstone to greatness

So there we have it, after eight prompts, the page feels finished to me so I decided to stop pulling prompt cards and called it done.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Till next time,

Elle
Empire of the Cat

Project Recipe:

Flourished Frame Elizabeth BB66A
In the gel prints: PE126ES Seaweed Circle *coming soon*, PE129ES Oceanic *coming soon*, Leafy Swirl C7G
my art journal, Prima color bloom spray dark tulip, collage materials, gel medium, photo, black pencil, heavy body acrylic, gold ink, PITT pens, gelatos, book paper, white pen, and of course, the journal prompt cards!

Art Journal Page - Off With Their Heads

Hello everyone!  Today I have an art journal spread to share and for my inspiration, I will be using the journal prompt cards that I made in this post.

To make this art journal page, I am going to use the prompt cards I mentioned above. There are many ways to use prompt cards and this is only one way. I will have a second post soon, showing another way to use the cards if you want less control over the process!  So for this exercise, I shuffled my cards and then drew six prompt cards as follows:

This time, I chose to pull all the prompt cards at once and to use them in whatever order I wanted, and not in the order in which they were drawn. 

So firstly, I did some journalling on the background for the HANDWRITING prompt.  The journalling is personal, so it is blurred in the photos. 

For my second prompt I chose ADD CRAYON and used neocolours on top of the journalling by scribbling all over the page which also takes care of the MAKE SOME MARKS prompt, then activated them with water to spread the colour over the background. 

At this point I also chose my FOCAL POINT which is this image of Marie Antoinette.


For the COLLAGE prompt I am using some of these gel prints I made using GSL chipboards in this post and some scraps leftover from making the prompt cards.



To make the focal point more of a feature, I thought I would give my regal queen a frame.



This is a two part chipboard frame also from GSL, so I chose two colours to paint it.



I used Pearl Magenta and Pearl Turquoise (I also painted a backup frame in Sunset Gold just in case).

At this point, there is only one of the six prompts left - TEXTURE - so first of all, I used a palette knife to scrape this turquoise heavy body paint across various parts of the page.

Then I added some gold paint splatters that were left over from something else I was working on at the same time. I covered up my focal point so she wouldn't get splattered.  It adds a little more texture and interest to the background.

For more texture, I took some texture paste and mixed it with Magenta heavy body paint.

I used this leftover negative diecut piece of watercolour paper as a stencil and applied my texture paste mixture through it.


Here's a closer look at the magenta paste on the page...



So now we are here and all the prompts are used but is it finished? 

Well it could be, but then I decided to add more collage pieces which were leftovers from this project.

And then for some extra HANDWRITING I added something I could imagine her saying!

xx

So that's the finished page using only six prompts but of course you can use as many as you need, more or less, and stop when you are happy with your page.  Let me know what you think in the comments!

Till next time,

Elle
Empire of the Cat

Project Recipe:

Layer Frame Felicity C58O
In the gel prints: PE126ES Seaweed Circle *coming soon*, PE129ES Oceanic *coming soon*, Leafy Swirl C7G
my art journal, black pencil, neocolours II, heavy body paint, texture paste, gold acrylic ink, collage materials, photo, cardboard scraps used as a stencil, magenta and turquoise metallic paints, glue, gel medium, black pen, and of course, the prompt cards!

Shaker Sewing Cover Cutout Mini Album

 Hi Everyone, 

Today I have this cute little sewing album to share with you and to make it a little more interesting I thought I would give it a shaker cover!

The chipboard album I will be using for this is called Cutout Cover Mini Album Sewing D100F.  Give all the pages a good wipe with a damp cloth to remove the residue left from cutting then give the front cover a coat of gesso. To make the shaker window I am also using a piece of recycled plastic, but you can also use acetate.

As my album is sewing-inspired, I am also using these sewing stamps and paper from Stamperia.

I'm making this album in the same way as I made this little heart book, so you can find more instructions in that post.

Now comes the fun part!  Choose the papers you want to use inside your album and collage them onto the pages using matte gel medium.

Give the cover a coat of lovely cream coloured paint.  I used Fresco Chalk Paint from Paperartsy but you can use any kind of acrylic paint you like.

In addition to using the sewing stamps inside the album, I also used  them to stamp on top of the sewing shapes on the front cover.

Then using a black paint pen, I embellished some of the sewing shapes and coloured others, like the scissors, black.

I selected some small buttons from my stash to go inside the shaker, and I covered the panel with paper that looks like burlap so that would be a nice background showing through the shaker window.

To assemble the shaker window, you can follow the instructions on this Halloween card post from last year as it was done the same way.  Once everything was in place, the final step was to secure the spine with some linen tape.

Here's another look at the finished Sewing Album...

And if you are curious about the inside pages, here's a quick flip-through. I ended up using several different sewing-related papers collaged onto the pages, and then added some black stamping on top of that.  The mini tags and pockets were fussy cut from the same paper packs.  The finishing touch was to add some real lace to all of the pages in various places.

I hope you enjoyed this little sewing-inspired project.  Please let me know in the comments and have a lovely day.

Elle
Empire of the Cat

Project Recipe:
Cutout Cover Mini Album Sewing D100F
white gesso
sewing stamp set and scrapbook papers - Stamperia
matte gel medium

cream acrylic - Paperartsy
black paint pen
black archival ink pad
double-sided foam tape
masking tape
linen tape
buttons and lace
acetate or recycled plastic