10-Day Gratitude Journal Video Tutorial

This blog post is late. Very late. But too late? Nah, probably not, right?
I have been missing from posting here, but I haven't stopped art journaling and other creating.

Back in November 2017 I created a fun little gratitude journal with Paperbag Studio stamps and Roben-Marie Smith's gorgeous artPops, and I have a video tutorial to show you the step by step. Click HERE to see! 

Have a great day!

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥

Black Grungy Art Video Tutorial

Hello all! 

I'm back for a bit here, linking you to a video tutorial I made for Roben-Marie Smith's design team. It's my first project as design team member, and I'm very excited about it! 

Watch me how I use black cardstock to make the pages, create cute pockets for each signature, decorate the Art Pop cards for tags, create the cover and stitch the pages together and more. 

It'll be fun! (And not hard!) 

Check it out here: Roben-Marie Smith's Blog

Lots of happy metallic thread peeking out!

Luscious yarn for the tags.

If you make your own, I'd love to see them on Instagram! Tag it with #blackgrungyartjournal

Have a great day!

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥

28 Patterns

Hello peeps! Thanks for visiting me here! :)

I started a creative project by Balzer Designs on February 1st, called 28 Patterns. 

See HERE for link to her blog. 

Create a pattern every day for the month of February, hashtag it with #28Patterns, and share on Instagram. I'm having great fun with it. I'm a little behind, as I was busy with my art class, so now I'm catching up. 

So, counting down to the first of February, here are the first half of the patterns I painted, drew, doodled or stamped.

Day 14

Watercolor paper

Winsor and Newton Artists' Water Colours in Opera Rose and Permanent Rose for the painting of circles and hearts with an old paint brush.Staz On black ink applied with a cosmetic sponge through a Memory Box texture stencil for the dots.

A black Stabilo All watercolor pencil and ultra-fine Sharpie marker for the outlining around hearts and circles.

A yummy length of magenta-colored glittered ribbon. 

Day 13

I used my handmade dirty stencil for my template, the round eraser of a pencil as my stamp, Tim Holtz Distress Ink for the stamping, and a Tim Holtz water brush for the outlining of each circle grouping.

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Day 12

For pattern No.12, I simply drew different sizes of circles with a drafting circle template, then filled in with various shades of color with Crayola pencil crayons. This is on a lined index card.

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Day 11

I used this pattern I made with paper towels and Neocolors2 for my sweater tree. See my previous blog post. :)

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Day 10

Made a simple pattern using one of my new hand-carved stamps. I masked off the area so I could overlap the flower in places. The mask was simply the flower stamped on a scrap piece of paper, cut out, and placed over top the previous-stamped flower on the canvas where I stamped again. Not sure I explained that correctly...LOL 

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Day 9

Playing with my newly carved stamps. Neocolor2 background.

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Day 8

A doodle for today's pattern. 

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Day 7

My idea starter was the paper napkin my water jar is sitting on as seen in photo. 

First I roughly drew some diamonds with the black Stabilo All on watercolor paper.

Painted in lines with wet brush. 
Next adding in color shapes to the black ones, filling in each diamond, and adding more diamonds in white areas. 
Alternated the three Neocolors2, filling in all the white areas, sometimes adding more layers of color to the existing areas and blending as well. 
Lastly, I splattered color on top, going with the messy look.

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Day 6

Prepared the book page with clear gesso.

Drew a grid with a ruler and a black Stabillo All watercolor pencil.
Used a brush to paint the grid lines, rounding the corners.

Stamped an image into the squares. Clear stamps and clear blocks makes it super easy.
Used different colored watercolor crayons (I used my Neocolors2) to color in the images in rows, and splattered a bit of the paint to make it look a little messy. 

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Day 5

Stamped a grid using a journaling lines clear stamp (yes, I know, my stamp looks awfully stained, but they work nice 😋).

Colored in each square using a water brush filled with Dylusions ink and also different green Neocolors2. To get the colors blending, I used a water brush that is filled with plain water. These are Tim Holtz brushes, and are my favorite so far. 

To clean brush to switch colors, I added more painterly effects to my previously made pattern. 

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Day 4

 I punched out little circles from book paper for my 2015 DLP calendar and it created a dotty pattern. I simply sprayed ink onto my newly made "stencil" onto watercolor paper, then drew in a quick outline and a heart on each circle.

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Day 3

•index card

•Sharpie metallics in gold, silver and copper

•Dylusions ink sprayed on last. 

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 Day 2

•in my altered Reader's Digest book. 

•Sharpie ultra-fine marker

•neon pink marker

•tangle called cruffles from www.tanglepatterns.com 

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Day 1

•Index card

•Dylusions ink - Bubblegum Pink and Cherry Pie

•Sharpie Metallic markers - Silver, Bronze and Gold

And there you have it: my first 14 patterns for the #28patterns challenge by Balzer Designs.

Have a great day!

My Coptic Stitch bound DLP Journal

It's nearing the end of The Documented Life Project 2014! Only two more weeks to go! 

Do not know what this project is about? Do go visit the Art to the 5th blog and Academy! You won't be disapointed!  :)

Art to the 5th blog

Academy

Finally got around to finishing my cover and binding it all together! I'm very pleased with the results. I really like how it all lies so nice and flat no matter where you are in the book.

I used a cheap, SEE-THROUGH, plastic, thin, flexible cutting-board for my front and back covers. I decorated it using paints, gesso, stencils, Tulip fabric paint sprays, and simple white letter stickers.

Two volumes: One bound in pink embroidery floss, the other in yellow. I used all six threads that make up embroidery floss and covered it with beeswax. Next time I will use less threads, as it got a little thick. There are gaps between each signature for that reason, I believe.

Yellow thread stitching in the middle of the September signature...:)

To see what materials I used inside the book, and how I put it together, and links to Youtube videos for the Coptic Stitch method, go to my older blog post here: 

My handmade Journal for DLP

Thanks so much for stopping by!