WOYWW #390: Yet another altered box

Hello lovely people of  WOYWW. Another Wednesday, another desk tour to find out what other crafters and artists have been busy doing in the past week. This shot of my desk was taken a few days ago. Since then I have finished altering that box you can see there, which is what I'm going to show you today. I tested the process on a notebook cover, so now I have a matching journal to go with my box!

Originally, the box came filled with goodies from CraftBox. Some of you might be familiar with this service - you can either subscribe or buy the boxes individually. I don't think I will subscribe, but I'm sure I will buy again occasionally. It's a good way to expand your stash and treat yourself from time to time. The box was screaming out to be altered, so this is what I did with it:

First, I covered it with thin dictionary paper, so it would take the paint better.

Then I stuck some die-cut shapes on it, cut from textured cardstock and covered it entirely with gesso, followed by a layer of blue acrylics. 

Finally, I added a layer of raw umber and partially removed it with a wet wipe before it was completely dry, which resulted in an aged, distressed look. I like how the brown paint emphasizes the die-cut shapes on the surface of the box. The only problem is that the magnetic closure has stopped working under the layers of paper and paint, but I think I can add some magnets to solve this.

Here's the notebook I practiced on. It matches the box nicely. 

I will close this post with a photo of Oreo that I took exactly a year ago - a few days after we got him when he was just 8 weeks old. He was a scruffy little thing back then and it amazes me how much he has grown, though he's remained just as silly and playful!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Wishing you a wonderful week filled with creativity!

LifeBook Week47: Inspiration Bundles

I've skipped a few recent LifeBook lessons as I had lots of other projects going on. I may or may not do them at a later date - I like to leave my options open without committing myself. However, for this week, I did not one but two pages! The lesson was taught by Tracy Verdugo - whose intuitive style I have always adored but still can't replicate. Anyway, the aim of this lesson wasn't to replicate her project, but to find inspiration in various imagery. Tracy calls these "inspiration bundles". Mine came from a Vogue magazine, but you can use any images that you find inspiring. It can be just one image or a whole bunch of them.

Here are the pages I created and the inspiration bundles they stemmed from. My first page also had a dictionary page in its bundle, which I physically incorporated in the painting, but forgot to take a photo of.  It was a page with the word and image of  a 'keystone' on it, which became the theme for my picture. A 'keystone' is both "a central stone at the summit of an arch" and - figuratively speaking -  "a central principle on which all else depends". I like the symbolic nature of this. You could argue that your basic principles can make you blind to see anything else around you, which is what my page is trying to depict. I fingerpainted the deep violet flowers and used the graffiti image as inspiration for the stencilling. I planned to use the same colours (pink, red, orange) over the white letters and numbers, but in the end I preferred to leave them white.

My second page is less philosophical. It was inspired by the clean lines and colours of an advert and a woman's silhouette, which I used as a stencil (or rather the negative shape of it). The duct tape came into the picture at a later stage when I was looking for something to emanate the geometrical nature of the black and white lines. I used a permanent Sharpie pen to introduce the red colour. The bright green is an oil pastel.

Creating with these inspiration bundles was a real eye-opener for me. I like how these seemingly unrelated visuals can come together on a single page and create meaning or an atmosphere. I will definitely remember to use this technique in my journalling when I need inspiration.

WOYWW #389: Painted leaves, a journal page and pet shaming

Good morning deskers! Boy, hasn't the past week gone fast! In some respects it did - in other respects, it's gone very slowly. I find it hard to believe, it's only been a week since the US election shock results - perhaps because there's so much going on in the news and on the net - it makes time seem go slower. But let's get away from all that carry-on, shall we, and visit some arty-crafty desks around the world courtesy of WOYWW.

Here's my desk a few days ago. I was working on  a LifeBook bonus lesson painting leaves. It's quite fun - try it! If you look close enough, perhaps you'll spot Oreo with his white whiskers overseeing the proceedings. He just has to be in the middle of the action all the time.

Here are some of the leaves I created:

I also have a quick journal page to share. This was a prompt for my Wanderlust book: if you could be an animal, what animal would you like to be? The obvious answer would have been a cat (lazy, selfish, independent LOL), but I went for something more deserving: an elephant for his strength, wisdom and loyalty. (But between you and me, I would really just want to be a spoilt cat!)

Talking of cats, have you ever seen those pet shaming photos on the internet? All you need is a mug shot of your pet and a written confession. We decided to do our own version and didn't have to wait too long for the photo op to present itself. Oreo is looking suitably sheepish, LOL! The photo credits go to my son. 

Thanks a bunch for visiting! 

Hope you're having a good week!

Wanderlust Week 46: Rag Journal

I will admit that I haven't been working on my online lessons as diligently as I did in the first part of the year, but once in a while a lesson comes along that makes me drop everything and dive in straight away. This is what happened with this week's Wanderlust lesson by Susie LaFond, who showed us how she makes her dreamy journals out of scrap fabric.

Used my beloved batiks for this purpose, although I found it almost painful to cut into my fat quarters. Luckily, I already photographed most of them for this post, so I can still marvel at them digitally in their full glory. I dusted off my sewing machine too. As you know, I'm not much of a seamstress, but this sort of messy sewing I can do! In fact, it was invented especially for me! The messier the better, and I'm really good at that, LOL!  Here are some shots of the completed cover, front and back:

I used a piece of dyed fabric for the ties, Initially, I cut the cloth for the inside cover, not realizing just how much it will shrink in the process. So I used another piece of patterned fabric instead to line the inside of the cover. I sewed some Khadi textured cotton paper into the middle (just simply machine stitched a signature of three sheets down the spine). All the pages have fold-out flaps for addition interest. I will use this as a collage journal I think. 

This journal is a simplified version of the one shown in Susie's lesson, which has a fold-out cover with pockets. I will definitely do one of those later. I just couldn't wait to finish this to see what it looks like. I love it and can't wait to fill it with yummy collages! Watch this space! 

Thanks so much for visiting! In honour of Remembrance Sunday, I will now observe a minute silence, remembering the young lives lost in WWI, whichever side they were on. I find it unbelievable that some of those lads were just a couple of years older than my own son now. Let's hope that something like that will never ever happen again. 

WOYWW #388: My first ATB and altered bottle

I'm a bit late with my WOYWW post this Wednesday as I've been glued to the telly watching the results of the US elections unfold. Whichever way you guys in the US voted, I think we all have to support the will of the majority of the American people and let's be cautiously optimistic. I don't think I would have voted Trump, but now I want nothing more than for him to prove me wrong. Now let's take a look around my desk this week, as that's what WOYWW is all about!

I've been working on my first ever ATB and my first ever altered bottle. I moved my work station into the kitchen to be closer to the sink. Here it is in action a couple of days ago:

I had just applied a layer of raw umber on the bottle waiting for it to dry a little before partially removing the top layer with a wet wipe. This is a very similar process to the one I used for my altered boxes in my previous post. The difference is that I used a crackle medium to crack the underlying layer of blue. Those of you in the UK might recognize this bottle! Let me know in the comments if you do! Hint; the night before it had stood on our dinner table to go with our sausages! And no, it's not ketchup!

Here are a few shots of the process and the final look against the backdrop of our autumn garden now full of colour of the fallen leaves.

The other project I want to share today is this MDF Artist Trading Block. First, I completely covered it with dictionary paper and then collaged some whimsy houses with my palette paper and painted the background with fluid acrylics. It looked a bit barren, so I splattered some white ink all over each side, which pulled it together a bit more. (Click on the photo to see the full size image.)

I also managed to catch Oreo in the garden and take this new shot, though it's very similar to the one I shared last week. He's checking out the birds on the trees again. There's nothing he loves more than doing that!

Thanks for coming over!

I will be visiting as many of you as I can!

WOYWW #387: Altered boxes

Brrr, isn't it chilly out there this Wednesday morning? Luckily, no frost yet in my neck of the woods and the sun is shining in the cloudless sky. But I know you're not here for a weather report, so let's get down to business showing you my desk for this week's WOYWW.  It is very much staged, as you can no doubt tell - I'll just quickly show you what I've been working on, along with a few new purchases.

I've been altering some boxes: painting them to make them look weathered and distressed. The best way to do this is to give them a base paint of a bright(ish) colour - I really like a middle shade of blue or orange - and when that layer is completely dry, paint over it with raw umber, letting it dry a little before removing most of it with a wet baby wipe. The secret is to let it dry long enough but not too long. This technique also works with cardboard mailers for mail art. You can then stamp, collage or stencil images on these later if you want. For now, I'll just enjoy them as they are.

You can also see a bunch of MDF stuff on my desk. I ordered these from Calico Craft Parts. It went missing in the post for two weeks because it was delivered to the wrong address miles away! How annoying, but all's well that ends well. I received it on Monday and immediately started with the ATB, now fully assembled and gessoed. I chose Gorilla glue to stick it together, which perhaps wasn't the best choice. I'm not one to read instructions and I ended up with VERY sticky hands. Things got even worse when I tried to wash them with water!  Next time, I'll try something else.

Another one of my new purchases is this wonderful book - very much an impulse buy, but I'm so glad I have it. I was so impressed with it, I even wrote a review about it on Amazon. It has a lot of interesting ideas and step-by-step techniques to explore, and it's printed as if it's on old paper. Just full of loveliness!

I won't keep you up much longer, promise! Here's a shot of Oreo in the garden yesterday - if anything he seems to enjoy the garden now in the autumn more than he did back in the summer. 

And finally, a photo of a leaf that I found lying around. I just love these warm, autumn colours, don't you? 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Enjoy the colours all around you!