LIM DT: One layer card – ‘hello sunshine’

It’s a one-layer challenge over at Less is More clean and simple card-making challenge blog. Don’t forget that one layer means just that… everything has to be on the card blank. No die cuts, no matting and very minimal, if any, embellishments. The theme is ‘hello sunshine’. I have tried to emulate a sunrise with my design team card:

hello sunshine card with blended stencilled sunrise
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Altered Art: Tealight Holders Part II

I previously posted an advert for October’s workshop in The Studio featuring an altered MDF tealight holders Now, it’s that time of year when the church Christmas Fayre is just ten days away. I still have a box full of holders left over. So, over the last couple of days I’ve been sponging acrylics, metallics and glass paints over MDF and acetate and waiting for spray gloss varnish to stop being tacky. I’m now making bespoke packaging for each of these individual gifts:

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Art Journal Page: Retro

Retro

I started this page with no real idea of where it was going to end up – scraping the paint on with an old gift card was the start of the background, before I added the retro oblongs using one of the same colours. The rest built up from there using the stamp set as inspiration.

Used on this page:

  • Frisk LayFlat Sketch Pad (small)
  • Royal Talens Amsterdam Standard acrylic paints (24 pack)
  • Woodware clear stamp set: Retro
  • Woodware Mask-It sheet
  • Royal Talens Amsterdam Gesso: White
  • Ranger Stickles: Stardust
  • Uniball Signo Broad: White

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Art Journal Page: Try Something New

New

I love the translucency of a thin coat of gesso – pop that over a pointillistic background and I can almost imagine it’s a frosted glass panel. Reversing the stencil  direction and moving it into the spaces of the previous colour developed the pattern over a sprayed page. I sealed the Distress Sprays with the solvent based spray varnish – it doesn’t move the water-reactive inks and stabilises them enough to work over them with waterbased media.

For this layout:

  • Frisk LayFlat Sketch Pad (small)
  • Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Sprays
  • DecoArt Americana Sealer/Finisher Spray: Matte
  • Royal Talens Amsterdam Standard acrylic paints (24 pack)
  • Dutch Doobadoo Stencil: Faded Dots
  • Royal Talens Amsterdam Gesso: White
  • Woodware Mask-It sheet

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Art Journal Pages: Colour Or Black and White?

I’m busy prepping for my next shows on Hochanda, which will be introducing art journaling, on 16th June. I’ve already shown you the test pages in the journals that will be available, but here are two sneaky peek pages featuring products available to buy during the shows. There will be more sneaky peeks on Hochanda’s social media feeds during the coming week.

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Art Journal Pages: Testing A Potential Journal

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So you have grand plans to start art journaling, and you’re wondering what your first step should be? It’s important to find a journal that will take all that you throw at it. It has to be able to take wet media without the pages getting flimsy or buckling. It has to be able to lie flat so that you can work in it. You don’t want pages easily detaching, nor a wire-o spine stopping you getting to the middle of the spread. Pages shouldn’t be too absorbent, or too smooth – or be able to take a layer of gesso if they are. Hardback or soft cover – well that’s down to personal preference. Here’s a couple of pages I’ve done this afternoon whilst testing a new journal. Above – Dylusions Paints. Below – Distress Sprays/Inks and pigment inks.

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