Christmas Tag Swap

At the Collage Stuff Yahoo Group, the November swap is a Christmas-themed tag swap.  I used number 8 tags.  The backgrounds are scrapbook papers, vintage ledger pages, and some gelli print scraps.  The Santa images are Victorian scrap available at Collage Stuff.  The song image is from Tumble Fish Studio at Mischief Circus.  The labels are from the "Tis the Season" collage sheet from Collage Stuff.  I added bling using the green jewels or Tim Holtz mirror stars.  The ribbons and charms are also available at Collage Stuff.  To finish off the tags, I glued a mica tile over each Santa image.  Thanks for stopping by to see my new tags!

May Tag Swap

The May swap at the Collage Stuff Yahoo Group is a rubber stamped tag swap, meaning to use at least one rubber stamped image in the art.  I made my usual background on vintage text or sheet music using stencils and acrylic paint. I used a text stamp in the background as well.  I used glitter bead gel through stencils as the final background layer, but it's hard to see in the photos.  The stamped images are from Dylusions colored with glaze pens, metallic gelly roll pens and colored pencils.  The stamped image are popped up.  The little flowers are old chipboard buttons from Maya Road embellished with a white Signo pen.  Thanks for coming by my blog today!

Lin's Art Journal

My friend, Lin (click here for Lin's Etsy store) and I are participating in a little art journal round robin - just the two of us.  Here are the first two pages that I've finished in Lin's journal.

The top spread, the birds, was a lesson in how there are no mistakes in art, only opportunities.  I had a perfectly fine background created and messed it up adding more stuff.  I can save just about anything!  I ended up painting over the top of it and trying it again.  I used Dylusions spray inks and rubber stamps.  I used 2 of The Carfter's Workshop templates.  I added texture with modeling paste.  I love the Dina Wakeley "Scribbly Birds" stamps.  I colored the birds and houses with the new Dina Wakely heavy body acrylic paints.  In both spreads, I used a page or part of a page from a vintage children's spelling textbook. 

The second spread uses mostly Victorian scraps available at Collage Stuff.  I love the timeless beauty of these images.  I used lace, a doily, buttons, two items from the Tim Holtz Thrift Shop ephemera pack, Petaloo flowers and lots of butterflies!  I fins some sort of stencil to be a must and used one of The Crafter's Workshop templates - available at Collage Stuff.  For this spread, I also used a paper that I created with my gelli plate.  I toned it down a little with white gesso.

I encourage everyone to art journal.  It's art that you create for yourself.  I love the feeling of artistic freedom that I get from just playing and trying different things.

Thanks for stopping by!