Family celebrations

Posted: February 27, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Ciao Bella, Darkroom Door, global postmarks, rice papers | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

We recently enjoyed an exciting weekend as a family celebrating a birthday and a premiere. I used rice papers, sheet music and dictionary pages to create two custom cards. If you have done any of my online classes you might know my son is a videographer. He filmed my five classes for me but most of his time is spent on very different projects. Over the last few years he has been working on his first movie length documentary. It premiered in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago and our family along, with an excited crowd, were blown away by ‘City Limits: Ottawa’s Hip Hop History’.

I had a lovely time creating a celebratory card using a sheet of Ciao Bella’s rice paper. I have a little stash of Ciao Bella papers that I hadn’t dipped into and this was definitely the right occasion. The paper is aptly called ‘The director‘. I cut a large section to be the card front, tore a corner featuring film reels to go inside and transformed two small bits into faux stamps for the envelope. I am a little obsessed with faux stamps at present and like to make them realistic with the Darkroom Door global postmarks stamp set.

I used a couple of dictionary pages to add to the overall theme. Behind the projector panel is a dictionary page featuring the word ‘film’ and you can see the torn section of the ‘documentary’ page below.

We celebrated my husband’s birthday the same weekend and I paired the CiaoBella blue note cards rice paper panel this time with sheet music, being that my husband is a guitarist. The rice paper already had a tiny music print on it but the music paper I glued behind had a larger staff. I used it inside the card and under the greeting as well.

And yes, he did sight read the little segment I glued inside the card; he’s a musician!

This post includes affiliate links from Ecstasy Crafts where you can find these beautiful rice papers and many more. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The Wheels are Always Turning

Posted: August 25, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: 6"x 6" journal, Art Journal, Ciao Bella, clockwork stencil, mechanical dies | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Not a leaf, tree or flower in sight on this journal page but it was made my me, just in case you are wondering. The day I created this page I claimed to have come over all Tim Holtzish; you can probably see the connection.

I began with a few strips of Ciao Bella rice paper glued to the left and right edges of the the journal pages. Over the rice paper I added texture paste through the Tim Holtz ‘clockwork’ stencil then filled the rest of the background with brown and black distress inks and sprays.

I cut a stack of gears from black and olive cardstock then arranged them both flat and stacked across the pages. The stars of this double page spread for me were the Finnabair metallic waxes. I applied them over the gear die-cuts and the stencilled clockfaces creating metallic edges and highlights. Adding old silver wax over black cardstock transforms it immediately.

To complete the page I cut a couple of labels from black cardstock and rubbed wax on the edges. I used some little typewriter letters stamps to stamp, ‘the wheels are always turning’. When it comes to art journal pages and creating in general, my wheels are indeed always turning. Hope you have a creative day!

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp and Ecstasy Crafts)

Home is… journal page

Posted: June 17, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: alphabet medley, Art Journal, Darkroom Door, gel press, polka dot stencil, remington lowercase alphabet | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

The shenanigans continue in my Art Journal Adventures workshops. Last month the theme was collage & texture and the range of pages was amazing. We all chose different papers, colours and focal images but followed a similar method to put them together.

For this spread I relied heavily on my growing collection of gel prints. The little cottage picture is from a greeting card and I used it as a starting point when settling on colours. All the papers you can see are gel prints I made except for one kraft scrap down the bottom with text stamped on it. I added gesso as well as texture using modeling paste through the Ciao Bella patchwork stencil.

During each session of the class it was definitely a treat to walk around and be inspired by the ideas coming to life on all the pages. Some participants had their own stash of gel prints to draw from, others used some of mine. It was fun to see my prints pop up on other people’s pages. I loved it!

This week we are working on Tea and Coffee themed pages and next month it will be texture & movement. If you are close by and haven’t tried gel printing, I’m teaching another introductory class on July 9.

The sweet cottage with sheep at the gate looks nothing like my house! I do grow morning glory but that is about the only similarity. Home is definitely where my people are which means I have two homes very far apart. Although very much at home in Canada I claim Australia as home too, how could I not, some of my favourite people are there!

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Gel printing & a new crafty crush

Posted: February 28, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Ciao Bella, Darkroom Door, gel press, patchwork, Penny Black, tall flowers | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

I had a couple of opportunities to gel print last week and it was, as always, most enjoyable. The prints did not all work out but I have a couple that made me very happy.

Now would be the time to tell you I have a new crafty crush! Not a crafter, a craft company. I have fallen for the beautiful stamps, stencils and papers from Ciao Bella. The stencil I used to create today’s prints is called ‘patchwork’. I bought it because it features eleven different patterns that will be good for adding texture to art journal pages. I had no idea how beautiful it would look when I printed it as a whole! (Both Crop A While and Ecstasy Crafts carry Ciao Bella products; if you shop from Ecstasy make sure you use my link to get there and the discount code heathertecs10 for a 10% discount at checkout.)

I brayered some blues and browns on my gel plate then placed the stencil over the top followed by a piece of paper so I could remove some of the paint. When the first layer was dry I brayered a layer of white over the top and pulled the print. This is only a small section of the stencil but it was the best part of the print. I used adhesive sheets to attach it to the card base then added three Penny Black ‘tall flowers’ die cuts.

I used browns and black for the base of this print then light browns and white for the second layer before pulling the print. (yes I will do a video sometime soon)

The sentiment is from the Darkroom Door ‘long distance’ sentiment stamp.

I have no immediate use for many of the prints but they will go in my collage collection for now because they might come in handy for art journalling.

I taught the first Art Journal Adventure workshop on Saturday and enjoyed it so much. The workshop was held at Crop A While; there are spaces in the Friday workshop this week, March 4, and the Saturday March 12 workshop.

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