Artsydori Love and a GIVEAWAY!

A big welcome to all of you who have come from the StencilGirl Talk blog! 

If you haven't been at StencilGirl Talk, you need to! I wrote a guest post there, and it was all about how I made an Artsydori and another project in my unPlanner using StencilGirl stencils.

You have come to the right place! I am hosting a GIVEAWAY!!

Yes, I will give away one of these Artsydori sets to one lucky person in celebration of my new adventure with the StencilGirl Creative Team!
See the details at the end of this post.

Artsydori #1 is on StencilGirl Talk blog, so you need to go visit me there to see it. :)

Artsydori Set  #2

 the Artsydori

It measures like the original Traveler's Notebook by Midori: approximately 9 inches (23cm) tall and about 5 1/4 inches (23cm) wide

funky stitching, generous and well-placed pen loop

The inside with aqua coloured quality elastic.

The Artsydori fits four of my generously sized notebooks inside.

Four coordinating hand bound notebooks to go inside. These are funky machine stitched with matching thread. The inside pages are plain white cardstock.

All the designs are made using StencilGirl stencils!

Links to the stencils used to make this Artsydori and coordinating notebooks:

Ornamental Petals Screen

Kilim Patterns

Geometric Sky

To make your own Artsydori, do check out this great class where I learned to make them!!

JunqueArt

Here I have another one that I just made last week.

Artsydori #3

And here is the dori with the coordinating notebooks which I had fun making with gelliprints and StencilGirl stencils!

Some funky notebooks. I love these new stencils I used for this, designed by Mary Beth Shaw!

April 2016 Club stencils

The coloring was hard to capture on this one. The pink and black should look more purple, and the yellow is actually more of a green color.

Artsydori #4

I used the amazing new stencils by Mary Beth Shaw. They come in the

April StencilGirl Club set.

I highly recommend this club! You get exclusive stencils every month. Check it out HERE.

I also used stencils from two previous club month sets:

September 2015

February 2016

I don't have the matching notebooks for the above dori, so if you win, and this one is your favorite, it'll just be the dori, not a set.

I have started to make some to sell from time to time, so if you see one that you'd like to purchase, please email me.

customscrapbooksbyanna (at) gmail (dot) com

This one is sold, so you can't pick this one as your favorite (#1,2,3 or 4), but I wanted to show this one to you too.

Here are the instructions to enter the giveway:

How: In the comment section, tell me which Artsydori is your favorite. You can choose the one on the StencilGirl Talk blog as well. In order to contact you if you are the winner, leave your email address like this: customscrapbooksbyanna (at) gmail (dot) com. If you are uncomfortable leaving your address, you can email me as well. My email address is the one I just mentioned. :)

When: I will draw randomly from all the comments and emails on Friday, May 5th, 2016 at noon.

This giveaway is open to anyone in Canada or USA. So sorry about those overseas. Shipping would kill me. :(

Why: to celebrate my new adventure with the Stencil Girl Creative Team! :) Whoot!!
To see more Artsydori posts see here:

Artsydori Land

Inspiration Wednesday 2016 Week One

Inspiration Wednesday Handmade Journal

So happy that you chose to visit me here!

Bless you!

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥

DLP Week 35: Self-Portrait

I record all the DLP challenges in a Traveler's Notebook insert. As soon as the new challenge is on the Art 5 blog, I grab my Confettidori that houses this notebook, and I quickly jot down the challenge and prompt. Easy peasy.

Squirrel!!! ::  I purchased the sweet insert shown above ^^^^^ from Natalie at her Etsy shop, ArtichokesElephants! It's a collection of one of three notebooks called Summer Sips. Do check out the goodies in her shop. All items are lovingly made by a beautiful and sweet woman! Her store hasn't been open for a very long time yet, so she deserves a SHOUT OUT!! :) 

Anyway, back to this project at hand. Week 35, August 29th art Challenge was to do a self-portrait. EGADDD!! I like to doodle, but to do a self-portrait?!?! Not on my list of comforts, that's for sure. When I first read all the Art5 ladies' ideas and the guest artist's ideas, I thought, I can do this! I can paint like Pam! (Check out her tutorial for this prompt, it's wonderful! I felt emboldened to try it myself...then a few days passed, then a week...and I wasn't any closer to trying it. Then the next week's DLP prompt came, and it was TRANSFERRING photos! Ooh, I have wanted to try that for a long time, so I quickly started! See below.

The page I put this in was full of painty goodness from playing with my Dylusions paints, just like Ms. Reaveley suggests. It was fun. And busy.

I printed off a photo of me in black and white, then I used a Stabilo All black watercolor pencil to color in the black areas of the photocopy. I couldn't find my Acrylic glazing medium at the time, so I used Decou-Page by DecoArt, and covered my Dylusions page with it, over all the painty stuff, then placed the photocopy face down in the wet medium. I added water and more Decou-Page, let it sit, then slowly pulled it off the page. It had dried a little by this time, so some of the paper stayed behind. That sounds like a failure, but I liked the extra texture and messiness it gave me. BUUUUUUT.....the eyes did not transfer. NOOOOOOO!!! The hardest part!!! The most important part for a portrait to have, right? My brain thought that anyway. LOL! Seriously, I totally winged this thing. I ignored all I had learned about transferring images, and just did my own thing. I'm a rebel, I know. 

Firstly, let me say, I should have stopped at this point. Just like a previous DLP challenge had us do...

Soooo, I needed eyes and more of the glasses. So, I printed off another copy of the photo, and colored in with the Stabilo All to try it again. By this time, I found my acrylic glaze, so I did the same method as the first time, and I achieved a bit more success. Still, the eyes weren't very bold in my piece, but it'll have to be okay. Next came painting. I don't want to describe to you how I painted it, as I have no method, and it didn't work out. I look like I just came off the circus circuit. I guess my life is similar to a circus, so I'll go with it.  I can't work on it anymore, I am too mad at my results, so I'll just leave as is. Maybe in a few years, after I have learned how to actually paint faces, I can come back to it, right? Right? :)

e

And a few days later...

I'm calling it done. It kind of looks half done, but I did want some of the painty background showing in the end. LOL It really doesn't look like me, but it's an attempt. My daughter says I should have added my hair, but I like this funky look. The eyelashes and eye lines look too black and the nose wonky, but it'll have to do. :)

Back to more art journaling with a friend of mine! You should see my art "studio"! That gives you me an idea. I'll take a photo of the artsy chaos that is supposed to be our dining room/kitchen...

here it is...

Have a great day! 

Anna