January pages in my unPlanner

The Documented Life Project 2016 : The unPlanner

My first post about this year's DLP here on my blog, but I've spent many a happy hour working on this binder. This is a completely new thing for me - working in a binder. I think this the perfect combination of calendar/art journal for me. It requires quite a bit of fiddling and back and forth with paper, but I love it. :) 

At the end of this post, I have a flip-through video. Yes, I recorded a video, and it's uploaded to Youtube! Whoot!

See DLP project details HERE.

January's theme was all about Out on a Limb, which means a tree, right? So I did my own wacky version. :) Layered burlap pieces on mixed media paper, added Dylusions ink sprays, paper punches, a stencil, modeling paste, and more. 

Page 2 and 3: 

With the DLP kit that was an optional addition to the project, you receive these great decorated cardstock planner pages, Some have lines, some are blank, and my favorite has graph lines. So I listed the projects I'm working on this year, and added my signature pinks and aubergines to it. The tags are colored in with a waterbrush and the pigments.

The lyrics to one of my favorite songs appeared on my Facebook a few days ago, so printed it off and added it to this page.

For page 3, which is the back of my watercolor calendar you'll see next, I glued on my first page of the 18/52 Project I'm part of. I added the calligraphy "fabulous" to it after,

Bottom right corner of above photo is an edge I crocheted with aubergine variagated wool. 

Page 4 and 5:

Page 4 is Week 2 of the 18/52 project and on the right is a bookmark that came with the kit, which I decorating using stencils, modeling paste, Posca marker, Fluid acrylic flourescent pink by Golden, adding some stamping for extra detail.  

Page 7 is home to the monthly tab, where I painted in calligraphy with a waterbrush, on watercolor paper, cutting out the month and gluing to the weekly view page. 

STRENGTH: my Word of the Year. On the back I wrote in the bible verse I want to meditate on all year long. (Along with other verses that I plan to study in depth this year.)

The flower on the bookmark is a stamp handcarved by me, decorated with paints and doodles until it looked right. :)

With the very small membership fee, you get great downloads to use with your planner. For the monthly view, I chose to use the same style I used the first year of DLP, in 2014. I created the calendar on watercolor paper, sized in such a way that it folds in. I felt the need to have a larger calendar than was offered. Since I technically don't use it as a planner, rather a diary of sorts, I went with daily doodle practice. There are several of us of the 2,800 members that are doing the same. :)

If you are familiar with my blog, you probably know of my aubergine color obsession! What is aubergine? Well, it's a really deep, almost black violet eggplant color. See my Pinterest board where I gather lots of inspiration for this color! It's right HERE. :) I'm using the same color scheme for a different project I'm doing as well.

For my weekly view, I am using one of the downloads, and decorating with stencils and painting. Doodling as well, of course. :)

I watercolored in the empty areas with Neocolors2 and Lindy's Gang pigments. Such a rich purple-y pink color!

Used a fun stencil set by Seth Apter for Stencil Girl is the main feature of my weekly view page. Additional stencils by Stencil Girl are also used.

Work in progress shots: Sharpie marker, fine line for the doodling.

Pages 8 and 9:

Week 3 of 18/52

close-up

Dare2B pocket on page 9. I used a piece of dyed burlap for the pocket. I was practicing the calligraphy shown on a scrap piece of paper, and decided it would add a nice detail to the pocket.

The polka dotted paper that backs this pocket is a big neon/kraft set I purchased from Micheals. Sewing? Yes, of course I have sewing. Actually there are stitches on every page of this project. :)

Page 10 and 11:

List 10 on page 11, backed with a black tag that came in kit, decorating with paint and stencils by Stencil Girl.

I kept on moving elements around all month, until it all worked the way I wanted it. This was part of the fun! :)

I love how this looks, with a different element (my week 2 PAC) peeking out past the pages. :)

Page 12 and 13:

On the back of the black tag, I glued an envelope, decorated with stamps and washi tape, and created a pocket for one of my PACS. White ribbon from kit ties it together. The weekly view is stamped first, then some Dylusions paint added. The fun number flower stamps by Rae that came in the kit feature the days of the week. I painted the petals in with pink paint. FUN! I gessoed the outline and sewed as well.

This is the PAC for week 2, but I didn't follow the prompt. This was actually done in my junque journal, but I accidentally cut apart the paper, so I made it the PAC. The other parts are added as embellishments and the spine by the hole reinforcements. The reinforcement on the PAC was from the kit. I stamped a portion of the sheet of reinforcements with a word find stamp by Stampin'Up. Old, old stamp, now put to use. So happy to use old stuff! Metallic pink thread for the stitching of the black tag.

I dyed some of the ribbon with Bubblegum Pink Dylusions spray.

See the adorable silver number 3 paper clip? I'm in love. :)

I had fun decorating the reinforcements for each hole.

Pages 14 and 15:

After much deliberation, I glued a page protector to the back of page 13. I first cut it down so it fits the binder, and sewed the edges shut. These pockets are full of extra happy mail I have made and sent in the past. A ticket from a theatre production we went to also is included. Tucked in behind the "Be free" quote are two of the PACS.

The weekly view on the right (page 15): I punched out circles from gelli prints for the numbers, and doodled in the numbers and petals.

The white paper snippets are the Facebook memories that pop up in my feed. I screenshot my favorites when I see them and print them off. Coupled with memories like that and present-day happenings, and my weekly views get filled up!

PACS from Week 4 and 5 are above. The barcodes are from Michaels coupons I accumulated over the month of January. LOL I glued one down, sewed, then layered another, sewing again. Repeat.

The one on the right: you can't see, but I collaged some of my daughter's art onto the PAC. I didn't like how I had put it together, so I started adding paint and stenciling. Now it ends up like this. LOL

My favorite spread are pages 16 and 17: week 4 and 5 weekly views.

I drew in the numbers, doodled circles around each one, filled in the areas with black, filled in the numbers with white paint, and added squiggles around each number.

I sprayed Dylusions Bubblegum pink ink spray through a Tim Holtz stencil, then smudged white Dylusions paint with my fingers around the numbers, over the stencilled pink areas, around the edges, and moving into the middle. In bottom right corner, I added another layer of pink paint with the same stencil.

While spraying the weekly view, my underpaper got decorated as well, so I cut out a half-circle and glued to the kraft paper, which I doodled around.

Pages 16 and 17:

Week 3 PAC: watercolor dots, and words from a flyer, found poetry documenting my faith.

Week 1 PAC: I used modeling paste through a stencil, and added paint with fingers. Found the "sixteen" in an old book, sewn onto a piece of pink burlap. Of course, sewing around the edges in black finishes everything off. :)

Found this lovely kraft paper decorated with gorgeous images at my friend's scrapbook store. It's a BoBunny pack. Stitched around with metallic pink thread, glueing the last bit in a little cluster.

Pages 18 and 19:

This photo does not record the real depth of this piece. I call this Blooms at Midnight. This was part of the 18/52 Journal project by Miranda Banks at Clare Plantation. I'm incorperating those pieces into my unPlanner here. For the background detail, I used a stencil by MaryBeth Shaw, part of the December Stencil Girl Club collection. I attempted the violet-black for the background, but you can't really see the true color here. :(

Pages 20 and 21:

Last week view for January. I glued a pocket full of snail mail goodies to this page. I have a tutorial here on my blog on how I made those flowers and pockets. Interested? See HERE.

Page 21 is a simple page made with my digital scrapbooking software. The photos are some of my favorite pics I took this month: my daughter and niece being crazy. :)

I am finished with this VERY. LONG. POST. In conclusion, I offer you a video of a flip-through of the above pages. Enjoy! Thanks for sticking with me to the end!

Do you want to know more about this project? Check out the deets HERE. It's a project that Lorraine Bell, Rae Missigman and Sandi Keene, of the Art5 group have come up with. :)

This is my third year of The Documented Life Project, and I am so pleased the lovely artists have continued it for another year! :) 

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥

Yarn Bombing , the Ents and Lots of Gesso

Week 5 of The Documented Life Project 2015 - The Journal. 

See here for more information. Art to the 5th Academy

January Theme
The Blank Page and How to Face It!
January 31
Art Challenge:  Under Paper (paper on your work table that gets all inky while you work)
Journal Prompt:  What Lies Beneath?

A sweater (yarn bombed) tree, layers and layers to cover mistakes, a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, and just plain fun.

I combined several things with Week 5 of the Documented Life Project challenge.
Pictured is one of my yarn bombed tree on our property.
I have been meaning to create some art of my trees, and now I had the perfect chance! I am taking Junelle Jacobson's online class called Saturday Mornings 2: Love and Whimsy. The first project was to decorate wooden blocks with these adorable sweater trees. For now, I'll be content with this page in my art journal instead of on a block. 

So....

Layering...

I forgot to take pictures of my process of the VERY BEGINNING. Above photo already has quite a few layers going on.  

You can still a bit of the chevron gelli-print peeking through. ^^

 I started adding some stamped images and blobs of acrylic ink to the under paper, but it looked awful, So, I covered it up with gesso,  running a pencil through the wet gesso in loops at the top left. Then I added splatters of Tulip fabric spray paint, and yellow Prima Bloom ink spray. The gelli-print was printed on white cardstock, and so you can still see the lines of the page. I like that. :) 

The yellow Prima Bloom spray and then blotted with a paper towel, create the texture above. Used partially dried out gesso for the edges of the under paper, so it created some fun lumps. Teehee! ^^ 

Embedded the paper towel for a bit in the wet gesso as seen above. ^^ Added some of that yellow spray here too with some pink Dylusions, making orange. 

 By my calendar, I had doodled with a black Sharpie, but it looked awful too, so I covered most of it with gesso. 

 The circular pattern you can still see through the gesso here was made using one of my hand-carved stamps, in which I had added Neocolors 2 to the middles. Didn't like the effect at all. The pink piece of paper to the right is a piece of cardstock which I deliberated on including on the page. At this point I did not know yet what I was going to create on the page!

Played around with various things by placing things here and there, to see if an idea would come. I went back to it over and over to stare at it for about a week before the idea hit! A tree with a sweater!

On to my tree sweater! 

At the same time as attempting this DLP challenge, I am also trying to keep up with Julie at Balzer Designs #28patterns on Instagram. So I keep a keen eye on anything with a pattern. 

So, with the combination of my mind on patterns, Junelle Jacobson's sweater tree class, the DLP challenge of What Lies Beneath? and making a mess playing with various art supplies, my eyes fell on the patterns of the paper towel...

Lightbulb!

This square-ish pattern would look so cute watercoloured, and cut into squares, mimicking the crochet motifs on my yarn-bombed tree!

I colored in the square using a few different coloured crayons from my Neocolors2 stash, and then wet the towel with a brush. Next, I cut out each square to approximately the same size.

Next came the cutting out of the tree and covering it up with book paper using matte medium.

 I applied a thin layer of Raw Umber acrylic paint to the tree, allowing the book text to still show through.

Next I glued the squares on to the lower half of the tree in a diamond shape configuration. 

Next, some scrapbook paper strips to upper branches.

Next, leaves! This was the hard part. For the background portion (the unfocused leaves) on the tree, I stamped directly to the page. At first they looked like flowers, as I used my new hand-carved flower stamp, For the more "in focus" leaves, I just cut off the petals, making them (kinda) look like leaves. Tried a different stamp too, but the leaves were too large.

Here's a photo of my most recent hand-carved stamps. For the leaves, I used the smallest flower, cutting apart the petals to resemble leaves.

I wrapped the motifs around the tree, and taped them to the back. I figured it would add some dimension to the tree if it was thicker.

Added veins with a Sharpie, and added paint to the leaves. Now they looked more like leaves instead of flower petals.

Loving the luscious painty splats there...^^

Added white modeling paste dots by smoothing it over a stencil on the trunk of the tree. (First I did green dots, didn't like it, so haphazardly put white over the green.)

Added some dots of white paint with a Tim Holtz dot stencil for the negative space.

Added some yellow dots for flowers with Liquitex heavy body paint.

Added quote by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Added some shadowing with a black Stabilo All.

My quote above. ^^

Underneath the warm sweater, is a tree. And it has history, just like the Ents in Lord of the Rings have. ;) 

Some green grass with various watercolours.

And I'm finished!

Hope you enjoyed!

Thank you for stopping by, and have a super day!