New Journal Pages

I just wanted to share a couple of recent journal pages with you.They are similar colour tones but created in two very different ways.

 I usually start with the background and build the page up but this page started out with the sketch of the three mushrooms. I then went in with some distress stains in broken china and peeled paint. The mushrooms were coloured with distress inks and more ink was layered through stencils on the background. A very quick page.

The second page started out totally differently. I used various different washi tapes to cover the page vertically. I really wasn't sure what I was going to do with this background at first, but then I started to see the shapes of the New York skyline in the page.I outlined various shapes in black permanent marker and the 'city' started to come to life. I let the patterns of the tape dictate the shapes and locations of the windows in the buildings and coloured the buildings using black Inktense block. For the sky I used the Inktense blocks also. I scribbled graded colours up the page to create a sunset and then applied water to blend. I love the effect I got. Hope you like the pages. 

"Love" Journalling

Did you see what I did with the title? For this page I played with my new Dylusions sprays. Oh my word are they fab! I used the Bubblegum Pink, Vibrant Turquoise and Crushed Grape. I got the sprays from the lovely Kate at Create with Kate. She has a great range and I believe the new colours will be coming in over the next couple of weeks. I can't wait to get my hands on them, there is a new red and a new pink.

 Anyhow to the page. I spritzed the page liberally with water and then sprayed my three colours onto the page. I then closed my journal and got two pages for the price of one! I rolled off the excess ink with kitchen roll to give a lighter background. I then went back with my turquoise and grape sprays, but this time I didn't spritz the page first and concentrated the sprays at the top of the page. I stood the journal up then to allow the ink to flow down the page.

After drying the page I drew a large heart in the middle of the page and used a thin layer of gesso to fill the centre of the heart. I stamped out the love crafting girl from Stampotique Originals and used an image transfer paste to place her to the left of the heart. I outlined her in white to make her stand out from the background. The heart was outlined firstly with Derwent inktense pencil and blocks and finally with white pen. To finish I used the Dylusions Stars stencil, through which I spritzed water. I ran over this with my kitchen roll to lift some of the ink off the page, dried the page again and outlined the stars in white.

The quote is from Shakespeare.

The Secret Garden - Journal Page

This is my latest journal page. I started with the idea of trying an image transfer. The base page and border were already done when I did a previous page opposite. If you want to check the post out it's here. Well the image transfer went totally wrong, so I ended up printing the image again and colour tinting it with Distress inks. The roses were cut from some old wrapping paper. The leaves were drawn on and coloured with Derwent Inktense blocks. The quotes were taken from the book "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This has to be one of my all time favourite

This is a close-up of the image and text. I have to apologise about the bounce back from the flash. The days are so dull here at the moment there is no decent light to take photos!

Cover of Journal

Journal Progress

I couldn't think how to decorate the front cover of my journal, so I decided to use some of my favourite quotes. I like the result that I got. I feel that I have got past the whole mental block that I think we are presented with when creating the cover for any album or journal. I always make a mistake and hate the result and don't want to use the album then!

This is the overall cover. I was going to paint out the manila colour, but decided to leave it in the end.

A close-up of the lettering. I hi-lighted the lettering with a signo white pen.