REDEEMED Mixed Media Scrapbook Layout with a Time-Lapse Video

Hello, peeps! Today I've got a time lapse video for you! Tap/click HERE. It will take you toYouTube. 

This layout's home is in my 2018 unPlanner. To see more of my unPlanner - this year and the years previously, see the tabs at the top of my blog.

Scroll down past the video to see the supplies used and tips and tricks, and observations I made in the process of watching back the video. I hope you enjoy! :)

See my time-lapse video HERE!

Supplies Used (In the order I use them in the video, mostly) 

- Mixed media paper

- pencil

- A fat round paint brush (I like the ones that hold lots of paint and water for this technique.) Using fingers to paint might work fine too.)

- water

- heat gun (optional)

- acrylic paint (Permanent Violet Dark by Golden, Bahama Blue by Deco Art, Americana line, Deco Art Phthalo Turquoise and Phthalo Green-Blue, Artist's Loft Neon Pink and white)

- Various doodled-style stamps (I used Paperbag Studios rubber stamps Doodles and Daters and others.)

- Distress Oxide Inks by Ranger (Use inks that show up well on dark paper and paint.)

- Staz-On black ink

black cardstock

- sewing machine (or hand stitch some touches? Or have you seen the Sew Easy tool? So fun - comes in lots of different designs, too!)

- metallic pink thread

- double-sided scotch tape

- photo

- acrylic block

- dictionary paper

- scissors

- word art (I made my own) Scrapbooking 3d letters would look great too. Love THESE.

- glue stick

- black Sharpie (or some other permanent black marker) - extra fine tip 

- Scrapbook paper for the tag, or make your own paper, or use those delectable artPOPS by Kristin Peterson of AlteredStatesStudio.

- reinforcement stickers

- sari ribbon 

- paper clip with fabric ribbon: you can get my Roses Dreaming Planner Clips  from my Etsy shop HERE.

- flower diecut (Purple Roses Printable 8.5x11" sheet HERE!)

- glue dots (or other strong glue)

- washi tapes (Roses Dreaming Washi Tape - 20mm wide HERE)

- paint pens or opaque gel pens

- Last, but not the least, my journaling bible.

Tips and observations about my project: 

- When applying colour, add dimension by creating darker shades and lighter ones of the same base colour. (For this layout, I chose dark purple as my main colour, adding water or white paint to lighten up the colour.)  

- Using black elements or other contrasting colours is always an easy trick when creating a focal point. Having a focus point helps our eyes to zoom in on one thing first, then to the secondary and further elements. Our brain likes the order it brings.

- Stamp clusters of detail in three spots (triangular formation) over the two-page layout. If you're creating a similar design just on one square sheet of paper, you can still apply this rule of thirds and clustering trick. 

- I use double-sided scotch tape to easily attach unmounted rubber stamps to an acrylic block.

- Apply white paint or bright colours in areas where it feels too dark or muddy. It brightens things up.

- To choose stamps, think what you want to portray, but also the scale and pattern of each, I like to use some intricate designs, paired with bolder and larger. Also think stripes, circles, triangles. Opposites.

- Baby wipes are a fast and easy way to quickly clean your stamps, or smudge areas you want blended in more, or to pick up too much colour in places.

- I had trouble with the neon pink not popping enough on those finger-painted circles, so I should have put down a white paint first. My experience with neon paints is that they are quite transparent. If you know of a paint that is opaque, message me. I'd love to find some! 

***Warning ahead: reading further might cause you to go down a rabbit hole. Yep. Classic Alice. 

As I typed my tip above, I googled "opaque flourescent acrylic paint", and discovered an amazing article about some tricks to create an opaque look! See HERE! It does seem like a lot of work, haha, so, let's just get a product that does everything for us, correct? ;)

- Use an apron or old clothes when you do the splattering. I got my favorite summer dress full of paint, and my glasses as well...lol

- I got my bible out, finger-painted around the bible verse I'm meditating on, and then copied the words to the back of the journaling spot that sits under the photo.

And that is that! What enormous fun I've had in creating the project, the video, this blog post, everything. Now back to my house, which has suffered a little in the past few days...Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the project, or if you have any questions. I welcome all feedback. Or just comment to say hi! :) 

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥

iCreate Collective Guest Post - Being Intentional

Intentional 

is my word for 2017. 

Hello friends! I am privileged to be a guest designer in an art group of ladies of Christian faith called iCreate Collective. Do check out my post HERE!

I share a little of my journey of living intentionally.

♥♥♥  Happy Creating!  ♥♥♥

Anna

Doodles, Watercolors and a Butterfly

My first pic is a little blurry, sorry. Daylight hours are gone, or I would retake this picture. This one will have to do.  Had lots of room to play with the first week of March, as the first landed on a Saturday. (Why did I set it up like this?! Grrrr... )

I just love cabbage roses. My take is somewhat juvenile, but this is a work in progress. After all, it's an ART JOURNAL. Come with me on a little rabbit trail here...

The definition of an ART JOURNAL:

1. It's an artist's journal.
2. It's an illustrated diary.
3. Debbie Hodge says, "Simply put, an art journal is a journal in which you combine art and words to express yourself".
4. It's a playground.
5. It's a place where you can put down your thoughts and questions.
6. It's a place where you can experiment with new techniques and new mediums. 
7. A place where you can learn something new.

So, even if I can't make roses like I'd like to, I can sure practice. That is part of the purpose of my art journal. :) No demand for perfection allowed!

Oh, and the "March" title is driving me crazy, because it's crookedly cut and crookedly mounted on the page. 

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

Oh, sorry! Got distracted...

I added some doodles and stuff to see if I could make it look like it was on purpose. I think I was half successful. Tee hee! Oh, and the letter H I managed to not draw as tall as the other letters, had to improvise. so another imperfection. ;)

About the butterfly. I love it. It's a Tattered Angels stencil that I've had for ages. I simply placed it down on the page, masked off the other areas where I didn't want color, and proceeded to spray with three different colors of Dylusions Ink. They kinda blended together, and I really really like it. I might add colorful ombre sequins to the body of the butterfly yet. We'll see.

Next, I dropped droplets of water onto the color in random areas, creating this pooled watercolor look, which makes the colors brighter. 

I really like the washi tape there on the left edge...Each page of this art journal has a washi tape edge, in the spirit of The Documented Life Project.

This page spread is really FULL. I like to doodle while I listen to sermons at church. In this case, we did church at home this last Sunday. Made some notes while listening to a QandA session with Tim Keller. Those notes probably don't make a lot of sense to anyone but those that actually listened to it, but that's okay. It's my journal, my diary. :) Later, I added more doodles to fill out the page. The white paper is the top side of a flap.

I added many flaps to this side of the spread, as you will see in the next few photos. One of the challenges in the DLP was to make a flap on a flap. Not sure which number of challenge that was, but here it is. I am not following the challenges chronologically with this project, I'm all over the map. But that's okay. That's how I roll. My main goal is to document my every day, not necessarily the artsy part. It's a side benefit. Whoo hoo!

See the bright pink dots paper, with the words "about me"? That is another flap, but accordion-folded.

I created those circles using my Copic markers. Did that a long time ago, when I first had the markers. Saved the page in one of my sketch books, and finally gave it a real home in this art journal. Some of my own handwriting paired with some Basic Grey letter stickers, and we're good to go. Week 10 of the DLP was to creat a list of what makes me, ME. It was funny. I had just completed this list on a Friday, and the next day I read the challenge, and it fit exactly. It's not really a list of EXACTLY what makes me, ME, but it's a li'l list of little details about me. Figured that was close enough. :)

Saturday, the first of March was a crazy day of hubby helping me clean. Not my favoritist memory, 'cause he was a tad disgusted at my lack of deep cleaning...I can laugh about it now, but I was really mad at him for about a day. #maritalbliss But now, I have no dust on my fridge, no dust on my microwave, etc, etc. Was it worth it really? Not sure. Tee hee!

The map revealed under the first flap is one I tore out of a vintage atlas. Yummy. Love me some maps.

Let me tell you all about The Book Thief. If you loooove books, you gotta read this one and watch the movie. It's so sweet! (And sad.) I watched the movie first, then went out and bought the book. Not sure which to do first. Maybe...watch the movie first. The book is written in a really unique format, but it might be quite confusing if you hadn't watched the movie. It leaps from place to place. It reads just like the way I think: in a spaghetti-like fashion. LOL!

ANYWAYS...the quote above is one of the many juicy ways the author used to explain physical settings. Very very cool. Never thought of clouds "making room for each other" before! It's a literary genius! Couldn't stop thinking of this description. Hubby wasn't very interested, my twin wasn't really either, but the pages of my gesso-ed up art journal sure were all ears! Like I said earlier, an art journal can be so many things. I love writing down quotes. It's a perfect place for them.

I joined a postcard swap, and this is a lovely, lovely one I got blessed with.  My very first art postcard swap. Definitely want to do more of them! I think the squares are from a Gelli-print. It's darling! Thank you Melissa Schroeder! I attached it to another flap. So, flap on a flap - I did it! *The challenge, that is.)

I am learning so much about drawing since I started Zentangling! Love me some doodles.

 I got a little carried away with my ten things, and ended up with eleven. What can I say. So, every flap I make, I use washi tape. Simple simple. Nothing fancy. Simple.

Well, that's enough of my jabbing at you. 

adieu

goodbye

auf wiedersehen

au revoir

Faithbooking

"In that day," declares the Lord,

"You will call me 'my husband';

you will no longer call me 'my master'"

(Hosea 2:16).

My relationship with The Prince of Peace needed to be documented. How could I not? It's the most important aspect in my life. If anything I do is good, it is because of HIM. After all, He created me and called it very, very good.

I flocked the swirl stamps on the large chipboard letters with a light purple. You probably can't see it, but it's true. LOL 

The day after I created this layout, I had a grand mal seizure, and poor hubby didn't know what was happening to me. He thought I was dying.

Stampin' Up cardstock, ink and flowery stamps

K&Co. rubons

Ziage card stock letters (large ones)

Queen and Co. smaller chipboard letters, painted with MM paint

Maya Road chipboard swirls and tags

Magnetic Poetry letter stamps

Rebecca Sower mini letter stamps

Autumn Leaves swirl and stitching stamps

Prima flowers (I think)

Heidi Swapp bling

Making Memories staples