music music

Sweet friends,

I'm playing along @ Art Journal Cafe's latest challenge; Music Music. I LOVE John Denver's song as much as I love Colorado :). I remembered watching his special concert on Rocky Mountain PBS that was recorded before his tragic flying accident. He sang songs on rock cliffs and river bed, in khakis, barefoot with a guitar. The eagle roamed the sky, beautiful country. 

Here's "Take Me Home, Country Road".

Colorful tissue papers making up the background. I smudged various shades of blue soft pastel as the sky and sea. Doors and walls from tissue papers too.

I wrote parts of the lyrics on both pages with black sharpie.

My journal is getting too thick now I could barely close, LOL. Anyway, soon I'll start a new one :). Enjoy your weekend!.

Hugs.

wandering Alice

Hello,

I made Alice In Wonderland pages today. Although, I took the dark path rather than the pastel whimsical lane :). 

I used complimentary colors to the classic movie. For instance, the bleeding red (Red Queen roses), minty green (Cheshire cat), aqua blue (Alice's dress), and black/white stripes (twin fat boys' tops & Alice's socks). And lots of hearts of course.

I first covered all the pages with printed tissue papers. I made paper hearts templates, adhered to the page with re-position tapes. Then painted over them with red acrylic paint and red water-soluble crayon. I used black FolkArt stain to outline each heart. When that dried, removed hearts and wrote " Down The Rabbit Hole, You're Late" in black india ink. Did some stamping and doodling.

Simply curious, don't you think?.

Have a great week :).

Hugs.

persevere

Sweet friends,

I have taken a short break since the day I ruined my blog header, LOL. So I made these self-soothe pages;

I'm using washi tapes and old page from a storybook as background. Didn't use paint, just yellow wax crayon, red glimmer  mist and black india ink for colors. Scribbled a little bit with blue pen & black sharpie.

I hope you could see the ink-soaked paper doily there :).

Tomorrow, I'll announce two lucky new owners of my watercolor postcards. Good luck everyone :). See you then!.

Hugs.

over the rainbow

Hello,

This rainbow quote from G.K Chesterton is brightly true, and I was inspired to capture its essence in my journal.

I realized that when things get tough, I just have to smile and take a deep breath for a while, and then I begin to feel slightly better :). Better enough to stop me from self-pity. Better enough to make me think of only goodness in a bad situation and start to work making it better. This is the WILL that we all posses. Blessed with. 

The ideas flow freely when I was making this :). I want the quote to be the focus while the rainbow background gives off a cheery mood. I started with aligning masking tapes on the pages as the base to write the quote. Then drawing over the pages with rainbow colored soft pastels. Finger-smudged with water to blend all the colors and let dry. Then peeled off the masking tapes and wrote the quote on the white spaces with sharpie pens. Added masking tapes here and there and outlined the alphabets with glitter gel pen for some variety.

This is surely a fun, simple journal :). The most important thing is the message I like to share with all you, dear ones.

Hugs.

it's all about blue

Dear friends;

my art journal pages today was inspired by my previous robin-egg blue post. One photo in particular, that cute postcard pouch ... really talking to me :).

So I decided to create a rather romantic looking pages. Tried to limit to a few blue shades and a light yellow colors. Save the pink roses, I must have them :). I used soft pastel sticks, wax crayons and aqua acrylic paint for the background and circles.

 

A collage of decoupaged tissue paper hearts & roses, paper doily postage stamp and typewriter number rub-ons. And a random rambling on the color blue :). Added number leather thickers for dimension.

This was a quick page since I did minimum painting & drying. I should try play with mediums next. Enjoy the rest of Monday!. 

Hugs.

bittersweet september

Sweet friends,

how is September treating you?. I imagine the colors are rapidly changing and the air is cooler. Not too cold perhaps to enjoy fire camp outside at nights, grilling S'mores and marshmallow on fire and stargazing under warm blankets. Only, I'm on the other side of the world enjoying hot & humid weather all year :). And I must create a spread to celebrate Fall and all it's glory. 

These pages are inspired from a stroll with Dawn in her beautiful pumpkin patch and garden!. You can come visit too, HERE. 

Yup, pumpkin pages!. And gold glitters. Comforting orange & black colors.

I used shredded orange tissue papers as background. Glued them down, layer by layer to give that pumpkin ridges look. Then sketched a pumpkin silhouette on a paper and secured down to the page. Dabbed black gesso over alphabet stencil & pumpkin mask. Finger-smudged a wee bit of green acrylic paint on the ridges while spritzing some water.

I dressed the pumpkin pages with gold glitters, some doodling (with blue sharpie), linen cloth, gold leaves and a few strings of fibers. And lastly, wrote a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge along the perimeter of the pages. It says;

" The one red leaf, the last of the clan,

that dances as often as dance it can,

hanging so light and hanging so high,

on top most twig,

that looks up at the sky "

So that's it. My reminiscence of beautiful Fall days. I feel comforted just thinking about the season :). 
Hugs.

tear those washi

Hello,

I saw Donna Downey torn pattern papers for her beautiful journal pages on Collage Monday earlier this week. Inspired, but I like to use washi tapes and circles instead. Here is my interpretation;

It feels like I'm under a Christmas tree, looking up at those happy decorations and berry twigs!. I didn't use paint for the background at all. The pages were covered in masking tapes, various torn washi tapes and colorful cupcake wrappers. I used plastic alphabets for a change. And drew circles with wax crayons over cupcake wrappers.

I went crazy drawing circles with black india ink. At this point I thought, man ... it's ruined!. I walked away, checked my email, had dinner and then came back to the pages. Then I added the aqua circles by stamping acrylic paint with a bottle lid and a wooden bead :). I think my pages are saved!.

Layers upon layers of washi tapes. Happiness.

It's really therapeutic to tear washi tapes!. Tear them very slowly and just enjoy the moment :). Hugs.

P/s: I'm sharing this journal spread over at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Everyday this week :). 

cupcakes aplenty - 1st tutorial ever!

source

Dear ones,

are these cupcakes delightful or what?. I thought I wanted to play a bit with the pastel colors in my journal today. And using cupcake wrappers. White ones.

Like these;

#1: Used some kite papers (or rice papers).

#2: Blank journal pages.

#3: Simply spread some gel medium over the pages.

Dabbed down crumpled kite papers. let dry. 

#4: Meanwhile, flattened a couple of cupcake wrappers together. Make 12 sets of these. you may use coffee filters too. 

#5: Finger-paint green acrylic on them.

#6: Repeat with pink acrylic paint. let dry.

#7: Now they are ready for stamping and embellishments.
#8: Decoupaged some roses from tissue papers.

#9: Keep paint gunk from bottle caps. They make cute roses.

#10: Now all the wrappers are properly dressed. They are ready to go on the journal pages.

So if you are stuck at some point ... just look around (or go pinning), you would see prettiness everywhere. And then start working :).

Hugs.

save your page!

Dear ones,

I have to smile at the newest post of Art Journal Cafe today :). I have LOTS of PAGES needed saving! lol. The challenge inspires me to try save one spread I'm not the least happy with. 

Ouch. I do not like it.

With one intention in mind, I gave some happy thoughts and started to work. In about 2 hours, they became these;

I sponged all over some pink acrylic paint, stenciled patterns with aqua acrylic paint and then stamped large circles with various sizes of can lids. Then I wrote beautiful teachings from the internet with a little paint brush dipped in black india ink.

It is ALL about LOVE. Have you heard that, the scientists were able to determine the force holding all galaxies, stars, planets which we called 'gravity' is in truth; is COMPASSION??. But of course, the Tibetan monks knew this thousands of years before :).

Love the woven texture from the underlying scrap paper. I let part of the older mossy background shown through the new coats of paint. Simply because I LOVE Donna Downey's velvet iron-on words so much!.

That's it. One journal spread is saved. Ten more to go?. With this, I leave you another beautiful thoughts;

LOVE is the answer of all sufferings. 

Never cease to LOVE one another.

Hugs.

seeing red ...

Hi,

Red, red and more red. I'm using my favorite red masking tapes to cover up the journal pages!. Minimal paint today. See if you can pick the photos I was inspired by in 'decidedly red' post here. 

Yup, no surprise I was inspired by;

* Wooden panels & heart ribbons: used red masking tapes to achieved that red barn wooden panels. Heart ribbons from decoupaged tissue paper. 

* White chandeliers: a little stamping with white gesso.

* Aqua letters: stenciled 'A B C E' with aqua acrylic paint.

* Black spray-paint graffiti: I wrote quote with black india ink instead.

A page with little work but marvelous texture. I used very little paint since the masking tapes are already so gorgeously red!. LOVING it.

Have a good weekend everyone!. Wonder what would be the next color inspiration?. Come by Sunday :). 

Hugs.

patina & denim pages

Hi there,
Today is Malaysia's 55th Independence Day!. Or we called it Merdeka Day. Everyone is in joyous mood celebrating all the peace and prosperity that we had been enjoying since 1957. My cats weren't amused with last night's loud fireworks from nearby stadium, LOL. I don't like being in crowded place much, so I chose to stay at home and watched everything on the telly :). 

Remember about the denim & patina inspirations that I posted here recently?. Lucky I was able to squeeze them in one journal spread!. I promised myself that if I was going to really spent a lot of time pinning away these lovelies, I MUST at least create journal pages out of these photos. 

So, armed with denim & corrugated chipboard, I set to work. Here's the result;

Patina & denim pages!.

Corrugated chipboard makes the best wall!. I torn one layer of the corrugated paper off an old package and glued it down to the journal. Exposed that yummy wavy surface :). I primed it with gesso first, dried and gave a few spritz of green pearl glimmer mist. Sprayed some water to dilute it a bit. 

Then I just play with browns, yellow, mossy green pastels as well as some antique brown Stazon and tear drop gold ink in order to get that copper patina. I still didn't like it though :(. Must learn how to do this.

Then came the most fun part. Spread the denim!. I used mostly gel medium to glued it down to the page. Stapled here and there for additional support. I added some washi tapes & masking tapes for more colors. The metal ring was a cool find at the hardware store. 

I hope you'd enjoy another grungy page from me :). It really is thick. Beginning to worry that my journal would not close, with all those chunky goodness!. LOL.

Have a good long weekend!. And Happy Merdeka Day, Malaysians!. 

LOVE is all we need

Hi there,

I've been playing with simple watercolor sketches lately, and I thought I should create a journal spread in watercolor too. Some splashes of sweet colors will do for a start :). Here is what I ended up with;

 A few color splashes, minimal collage and doodling. I glued down tissue paper hearts onto the gentleman and wrote 'AWE' above him. He's definitely a lost man!. LOVE how my watercolor pom poms set the overall mood for my pages. A fun party, couple's dancing and lots of LOVE :). I traced the dancing couple from '150 Silhouette Design Book' onto an old storybook page. 

Added a couple of cupcake wraps for her skirt. Wrote bold letters with a maroon sharpie and scribble love quotes with a black pen. 

That's it. Simple pages made me happy too :). See you soon. 

Hugs.

trust and a little pixie dust

Sweet friends,

Tell me I'm crazy but whenever I'm creating, I know that my art angels are working with me. Beside me. A little help goes along way :). I feel grateful for this. I wished it, though. Hard enough and it is given. I believe we all could ask for a little help every now and then :). For it to work, we must TRUST our heart & go with what we feel like creating. Maybe, it's their magic dust that makes it all better. LOL.

My friend Sharon Y. is brilliant with words and has good eye for beautiful quotes.  This particular one struck a chord. I LOVE it and is perfect for my heavenly little friends :).

It says;

 "All you need is trust, and a little pixie dust" - Peter Pan.

For these pages, I skipped layers and heavy collage. Instead, I made circles on wet gesso with my finger to create texture. I washed the embossed pattern paper on opposite page with gesso as well. Dried the pages before coloring them with red pan pastel.

Super excited to see 'CAUTION' tapes on my pages!. White dots as magic dust, besides silver sequins and snowflakes.

Embossed pattern paper as background. Close up of the circles from pattern paper. Lastly, scribbled 'trust' with white gel pen.

These pages were sprinkled with LOVE, to be sure :). 

Until next, good night!. Have a great day tomorrow :). 
Hugs.

envelopes ... envelopes!

Hi,

Two days ago I did another mini clean up in my craft room. It was all about envelopes and up-cycling. I kept a big box full of old envelopes (pretty ones AND the ugly ones too). I just don't have the heart to discard them, you see. Until two days ago, I threw a few that had 'no artsy potential' and used some on my new project. How about art journal pages with lots of old envelopes on them??. F.U.N.

See if you could spot those envelopes here;

Love the peek-a-boo pocket from one of them. I wrote 'POSTAGE' on a piece of paper, inserted in before adhering the envelope to the page. I squeezed 7 old envelopes in there!. Simply glued them to the page with gel medium and covered generously with gesso. While the gesso was drying, I freely imprinted the pages with a stamp (with no ink). This would give beautiful texture on the pages when smudged with thin aqua paint later :).

I finger-painted over the envelopes some aqua acrylic, applied thicker paint around the envelopes. Spritzed on the wet aqua paint with water at random so I could clearly stamp some flowers with leftover aqua paint. When dried, inked the edges with brown Stazon. That fern-like design is actually stamped imprint, washed with acrylic paint. I doodled and collaged on the envelopes as I would to my else, flat journal pages. Wrote quotes from Jane Austen's  book, Pride and Prejudice with a black pigment pen. I am such a fan!.

More envelopes. And postage stamps too, of course!. I chose stamps depicted a lady (Juliette), a man (but he's too old to be Romeo), an owl (the messenger) and some green landscape. I cheekily named my pages today "Letter for Juliette, just for fun.

See, you could up-cycle envelopes even on journal pages :).

Here's a chance for you to play along with LESSology Challenge #17:Fun With Envelope. Come join in the fun and you may be a winner of a $25 gift certificate to Gauche Alchemy!. 

And, I'm linking my pages to Art Journal Everyday this week :).

Have a good week end.

Hugs.

twine weeds are a curious thing!

Hello,

I've been enjoying myself on Pinterest lately, admiring so many colors and creativity. To balance that out, I made dark mysterious journal pages about a girl who wanders in the dark :). I guess she is checking out the curious twine weeds!

I cut some twines, arranged and glued them to the pages like weeds. I hand-stitched the other one with black thread. Now it gets weirder. On opposite page, I made thicker weeds using some pumice gel (colored with red acrylic paint) by simply applied the gel over a chevron stencil to mimic the other weeds. Let dry for sometime.

Then dropped some black india ink over the page at random while generously sprayed with water (to spread the ink). Let the weeds be diluted in black ink as well. Also added some red acrylic ink into the mixture. Last I stamped a girl and doodled around her some assuring words with white gel pen. And some around the weeds. The quote seemed perfect for the mysterious pages, I think.

Basically, I just used a 2 color-combo for these pages. Black & red. Could be easily mistaken for a 'vampire' theme page!. Though too early for Halloween. I hope you'd be playing with twines too. 

Have a good Friday!. 
Hugs.

crushed rock for my pages?

Dear friends,

don't you just love rocks?. pretty stones. beach pebbles?.

As for me, it is only natural to use crushed volcanic rocks (pumice) on my journal pages. I'm a geologist after all :). 

Recently, I played with Golden Pumice Gel over stencil and pan pastels. I wasn't too sure when smearing the gritty texture on my page however, after it dried I kind of liked it.

I didn't add any colors to the pumice gel as the pan pastel background was already too colorful. I love how the red diamond stencil graded into coarse pumice :). My page has become a nice scrubber!. LOL. Thick pumice gel is surprisingly quick to dry :).

 I also stamped and added pieces of rice paper and fabric to the page. Drew circles with black india ink and some doodling to finish the pages off. The circles resemble the sun, and the pen nibs are tall buildings silhouette at sunset :). I just made that up, of course.

I'm liking pan pastel a lot, so easy to apply & mix colors on the page. Dry or with wet sponge. Best thing, you won't get your fingers too dirty. I hope you get the chance to play with them!. Happy Wednesday.

grungy stamps make me happy

Hello,

I like to share another old pages I did several days ago. I was merely playing with stencils and cool Tim Holtz stamps. Sharon Yong of Scrappingville owns many great artsy stamps and I often play with them after preparing class kits at the store :). When I first saw these stamps, I immediately knew I had to create earthy steampunk pages!. The glasses and the funky numbers stamps remind me of 'Sherlock Holmes' movie :).

On the left, I adhered embossed card stock as background before applied gesso on. Then I finger-painted all over the pages with brown, copper and blue acrylic paint. Did you notice I mistakenly stamped 'Not all who wondered are lost' upside down?. [*wink wink; see the little inclusion]. 

I love doodling using correction pen. The lollipop 'fireworks' add depth to my rather blend page, I think. They also resemble ideas which constantly popping in my mind. You still could see (and feel) the floral patterns from the embossed card stock, even after the pages were heavily primed with gesso and painted on with acrylic paint.

 Miscellaneous bits and pieces like torn page from storybook, a canvas tag and tulle scrap give dimensions to the page.

There you have it. Layering is so much fun!. 

See you soon :).