Wish You were Here - VLVS! July challenge Inspiration

Hi everyone! I have a post over at Viva Las VegaStamps! blog as a bit of inspiration for our July challenge. I have made the above ICAD (index card a day is a challenge that runs every summer in June and July) and while I am not participating this year, our challenge inspiration prompt is summer and the ICAD is always a summer activity so I thought it would be fitting to make one :) 

I have also filmed the process, so be sure to check out that video as well to see how I created this piece. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you have an awesome day!

MailART Monday: May Showers - VLVS! (+published in MixedUP Mag!)

Hey everyone! A little something special for this weeks Mail Art Monday! I'm over at Viva las VegaStamps! blog with a tutorial on these mail art envies I made.

And it's not just a tutorial, it's a video tutorial where you can see exactly how I created these envies :) So hop on over my VLVS! blogpost to check it out and to read which lush VLVS! rubber stamps I used.

In other good news, I've got a 4 page article in the new "musings" section on my Mail Art published in the June/July issue of MixedUpMag, which I am super excited about! It's a digital magazine and available for you to read on any multimedia format via pocketmags. I've showcased some work, talked about how i got started and also listed some tips on how you van get started in Mail Art as well, so be sure to check that out :) Here's a little sneaky for you what is in issue 7:

If you've read my article/seen the video, let me know what you think :) 

Thanks again for stopping by and your support means a lot to me!

Have a wonderful day!

WIP: Processing Poppies

Recently I have joined this amazing facebook group, Our Mixed Media Moods, to get inspired for doing some more mixed media work. The group is run by these talented ladies Dee Dee Catron & Jenn Engle and they share a mood board every 20th of each month to inspire people to create/dabble more in Mixed Media. The current mood board really inspired me to try and participate. The gorgeous wine color, flowers and cascading squares/rectangles inspired me most. I made a journal page for it, but before I share that, I wanted to share the process up to that page with you first. It's mostly picture heavy to show you the evolution of the process of these wonderful poppies which I made using Donna Downey's Poppy Forest stencil.

I started off with a piece of scrap book paper prepped with gold gesso. It already had some cascading rectangles on it so it was a perfect place to start on. I brayered on a couple of different paints (fresco and distress paints) and wiped/rubbed places with a wet wipe. Then got my poppy stencil, mixed some modeling paste with a dab of red paint and stamped into the paste when it was semi dry.

I wanted the numbers from the Tim Holtz stamp stand out more and I saw this video by Dee Dee in how she made the black glaze and I gave it a go myself. I used liquitex INK! in black and paper glaze.

Wanted to add more color to the poppies and finger painted the flowers with red distress stains.

Added color to the stems the same way with green distress inks.

Then added some color on the background with pearl rubs in pink and green. But the more I did this the more I started to hate it. The black accents were also gone and the colors were just too bright. So I got a wet wipe and started to wipe some background color away.

Then I got more black glaze and dry brushed it in the stamped parts of the stencil to get the darker accents back. It was still too bright so I wanted to tone the colors down a bit.

I poured the black glaze fluid over the piece and wiped it out. Now this was getting to where I wanted it to go, finally...

Trimmed a piece for my pocket journal, stamped on it with a script stamp and some open rounds and it was ready for the next stage in my art journal.

A couple of detail shots of the poppies in this end stage. Stamping in modeling paste is so much fun and I will definitely do this technique again. 

Tomorrow I will share the finished journal page, hope you will stop by to see the final stage. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!