Winner of Journal Give-a-way!!!!

Random Generator chose a winner for my journal give-a-way….   And the winner is……………

Kathy Abraham….. congratulations!!!!   send me your address at judysheart@gmail.com and I’ll get it right out to you.. and of course I have some other goodies to add to it.  How excited are you?

Ok.. ready for the next give away?   It’s this handmade journal.  Here is how I made it.  But below, is how it came out in the end.  With handmade polymer clay “button n’bellishments” and the paper beads on the edge.

1, 2, 3 go………..

Thanks for stopping by and please pray for Boston that they catch the 2nd bomber brother. PLEASE CATCH HIM!!!!!

Judy ♥

Cleaning & Give-a-way #1

Spring is tickling us here in New England. Let’s hope this nice weather sticks around now.

Speaking of Spring, let’s talk about Spring cleaning, shall we?  Specifically, my art studio. I said to myself.. “self, you are gonna get this studio into shape and you’re gonna purge your heart out”.  So, I began the process last weekend.  Put on my Bruno Mars CD and got to work.  Where do I begin? It was so overwhelming, to say the least.  Really, I’m being honest.  Why do I have so much stuff?  Why did I have a plastic elephant and an old tampon box.. why I ask you… why? That’s it, no more incoming supplies or junk will enter my studio. I have vowed to buy NO MORE ART SUPPLIES unless Jeffrey Dean Morgan tells me to.  I kid I kid.

And.. magazines and books?  Fuhgeddaboudit!  Too many that have been collected.  Well, time to donate and throw away.  I filled up my car and brought a load down to our local recycle station.  What a good feeling.  But, hey, I’m not even done.  I have more to go through. I’m sick.  I admit it. There I said it. I feel better now.  C’mon who’s with me here? Feel the same way?

I am ripping down the wallpaper (ahem.. clear throat here), I should say my husband is taking down the paper and we’ll paint the room (I hate painting).  C’mon, Judy snap out of it.. chop chop.

Another reason I”m doing this is …. we may be selling the house.  We’ve been thinking about it for the past several years.  So, this is what we need to do. Prepare.  They say that selling a house is one of the most stressful things you can do… right up there next to divorce.  Well, I say if I can get through this process without clobbering hubbie on the noggin, I don’t have to worry about the latter.

Why am I sharing my boring story with you?  Well, there is a reason.  As I go through some of my art projects and supplies, I realized what better way to share a piece of me than by giving it away.

Sooooooooooo, what that being said.. I’m having a GIVE-A-WAY!

My first give-a-way will be this journal I made with Jessica Sporn’s Starry Night stencil with Stencil Girl Products.

You can see how I made the journal here.

So, you ready?  Leave a comment here and like this post on Facebook; and I’ll select a winner by Friday, April 19th.

I’ll do a few of these give a ways as the weeks go on.  They’ll either be art supplies, ephemera or smaller fun works of mine.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  If you have any suggestions for organizing, please let me know. I would love to hear about what you’ve done.

Judy ♥

Stencil Test Drive – Starry Night – Stencil Girl Products

Well, it’s my turn again to test out one of Jessica Sporn’s new stencils called Starry Night by Stencil Girl Products. This time around, I used the stencil creating two pieces.  I didn’t start out thinking I would do two, but it just seemed to fall into place that way.

PART 1 – First, I’ll show you my collage. I took Bristol Paper and made a paste of Super Heavy Gesso and Hansa Yellow Medium acrylic paint by Golden. Then I used the stencil to push the yellow paste through it onto the paper.  Let dry.

 

The result is below left.  Then I took Patina Green Glaze by Golden and spread it over the textured page.  

Now, let’s start collaging.  I added some lace ribbon down the left side and then did a leaf stencil with the heavy gesso on the bottom right.

 

I had put some of the same stencil on other cardstock (as you’ll see in my next project), painted it blue and ripped it, and put gold leaf pen on ripped section then put down the right side.  Now, I’m adding more papers and fabric and end with one of my polymer clay “bellishments”; I chose Mr. Moon. Here’s how it developed
I pounced some titan buff acrylic paint through some dry wall tape.  Love the dots.
Added some rhinestones on the pink paper; fabric under Mr. Moon.  Store bought embellishment on top of the gold embossed paper.  Made the embellishment a flower with lace stem and magazine paper leaves.  Added another “bellishment” at the bottom right.  I like the orange contrast with the rest of the collage.

Final collage.

If you want to learn how to make my handmade polymer clay “Buttons n’bellishments”, come join us in my online class that starts in February on Joggles.com

PART 2 – Handmade Journal

I started out with other 1/2 of the Bristol Paper from my collage. I used my palette knife and spread extra heavy gesso all over it and let it dry.  I love the texture this gesso leaves.

Then I took Ultramarine Blue acrylic paint by Golden and scraped it on the gessoed paper with a old credit card.  Just look at that texture.  It almost looks 3D.   Just beautiful for any texture queen.  Click on the pictures for a closer look.  Hard to believe it’s just a piece of paper.  My daughter thought it looked like denim.   
Then I took the same yellow paste I made above with the heavy gesso and the yellow acrylic paint and used a palette knife to push the paste through the Starry Night stencil.  Helloooo.. is this cute or what?
I took Liquid Laminate and brushed a layer over the entire page to give it a shine and strength.  You’ll notice that I only covered 1/2 of the page.  Once the laminate dried, I took some lace paper and put a few of my favorite spirals on the back then took a black sharpie pen and outlined the stars and swirls.  See the shine?  
I took Wausau paper (cardstock like) that I got at an office supply store and made one signature of 5 pages.  I ripped around the edges for two reasons.. one to make them smaller than the cover pages and two, to give them a roughed up
look.
.

Now, it’s time to sew the pages and cover together.  As I told you in my last post, I am not a journal maker. This is basic in one hole and out the other sewing.  I used black wax thread.  Then I sewed one of my polymer clay buttons to the cover.  Sprayed some Dylusions Ink to the front and back covers pounced some titan buff paint through the stencil and
called it done.   Badda Bing.. Badda Boom!

   

Front and back cover

Well, that was fun.  I’ve never been sad doing art.

Check out Jessica’s post this week test driving her stencil.  Then go check out my partners in stencil crime, Maggie Nemetz and Revlie Schuit and see what they did with the Starry Night Stencil. Here are the Stencil Test Drive players:

December 6: Hebrew Calligraphy

Carolyn Dube and Michelle Rydell

December 20: Medieval Leaves

Carolyn Dube, Corrine Gilman, Maria McGuire and Ronda Palazzari

January 23: Random Squares

Seth Apter, Kristin Dudish,  Corrine Gilman, and Diana Trout

February 27: Fun Borders

Marjie Kemper,  Nataša May, Maggie Nemetz and Christy Tomlinson

March 14: Retro Flowers & Circles

Nataša May and Maria McGuire

April 2: Embrace the Rain

Carolyn Dube, Marjie Kemper, Nataša May, Michelle Rydell, and Revlie Schuit

April 18: Flying Tulips

Kristin Dudish and Carol Merveille

May 2: Cascading Leaves

Nathalie Kalbach,  Michelle Rydell, Judy Shea, and Roben-Marie Smith

May 16: Apples & Pomegranates

Carolyn Dube and Revlie Schuit

June 6: Dots & Dashes

Jane Davies, Maria McGuire and Carol MerveilleThank you, Jessica, for inviting me to be part of the drive.

Thanks for stopping by and I would love to hear from you.
Judy ♥

More Gelli Plate Fun & a Gelli Journal Give-a-way!!!

Hey, I’m back with another video on some gelli’ing.  It’s now the end of the Gelli Print Party with Carolyn Dube, but I’m just loving the prints and making some cool art from them.  Go check out Carolyn’s blog and see her videos, then check out her linkys to see what others are doing. 

Now, check out my latest video.

In my last video, I took some of my favorite prints and made nice strips with them.  Maybe bookmarks? Click picture for close up.

   

As much as I love my prints, what am I going to do with them all?  I’m going to make a journal with them and give it away, that’s what.  Yahoo!!!

First, let me be clear…. I am NOT, I repeat AM NOT a journal maker.  So, I am just taking the pages and sewing them together.  Nothing fancy.  Make one signature, sew it to a cover and then they can be journaled on with backgrounds already for you.  Thanks to my friend, Raine, for showing me how to do this a long time ago.  She makes amazing journals.  I don’t even know the name of the stitch I’m using, that’s how much of an non-journaler I am.  In and out, that’s what it’s called.. the “in and out” stitch.  No, not really.  I kid, I kid.

So, here is the journal I stitched together.  Simple, not fancy and ready for your mixed media fun and journaling, collaging or whatever you want to do with it.  You could glue a blank page to an inside page and journal on that OR paint some squares of lighter paint to write on.  So many ideas.

       

I gathered all the Gelli papers together and ripped them down to size with a metal ruler and just pulling strips off so they would have torn edges.  A few pages are smaller than the others, just for fun.  Then I made a cover page and coated with Liquid Laminate (love that stuff) to seal.  I made 3 holes in the binder and used wax thread and an upholstry needle to sew all the pages together.  Again, in one hole, out the other until I used up the thread and the pages were nice and snug.  Strung some fabric beads I had made on the binder edge and added one of my “buttons n’bellishments” to the cover.  If you want to learn how to make one of these embellishements, take a look at my online class and join us.

I hope you enjoyed our party.  Thank you, Carolyn, for a great Gelli Print Party!!!

If you want to win this Gelli Journal, leave me a comment here and then if you have a Facebook page, like and share my post there.   I’ll pick a winner this Friday, 1/11.

Thank you for stopping by, as always.  I love to hearing from you.

Judy ♥

Art Page Re-make – little handmade journal/book

Hello there friendly people…. I sure hope that everyone is getting some relief from this heat we’ve been having across the country.  It has just been perfect here in Mass. these last two days….  dry, sunny and breezy.. about mid 70′s..  You can begin to smell the fall coming.  I remember the days when I was a kid in school and you knew school was about to start; it was fall and you could smell it in the air.  Funny how things stay with you like that.

Ok.. moving on to some art sharing.

Remember this page I did with Portfolio Oil Patels?  Click here to jog your memory

Well, it was pretty, but I did nothing for me.  The smooshed beads all over the place?; it just needed something else.  SOOOOOOOOOO….I made it into a journal and embellished the front with my handmade polymer clay  “buttons n ‘bellishments”.  Size 5 1/2 x 7.  CLICK FOR LARGER PICTURES.

This is much better, don’t you think?

Inside covers are glued scrapbook paper.

 

The inside pages are made from poster board and each page is gessoed and ready to add mixed media love to it.

While I was making this one, I took the left over torn pages and made a small journal (5×3).  Front and back is covered with decorated duct tape (have you seen all the new styles yet?), some black trim across and a beaded thingamajig.  Inside covers is more old scrapbook paper I had. I used two polymer clay beads I made holding the sewn binding in place.  Made a nice big knot so they wouldn’t move.

I’m always happy to see a Friday come along after a long week of work.   Everyone needs a break.. don’t we?

Thanks, all, for stopping by.  I’ll be doing a give-away next week.. stay tuned.

Judy ♥

Snow, Fabric Dying and Journals

Well, here it is April Fool’s Day and that’s what we got here in Massachusetts.. a big ole fat April Fool’s prank by Mother Nature…  I’ll leave you with this… and we’ll move on to art.

Last week, I showed you some fabric dying with beet juice.  This weekend, I was making some pancakes with blueberries.. wait.. blueberries?  I have to give it a try.   All I did was take hot water and threw some blueberries in a container and let them soak for hours.  Then drop in the fabric and let them also sit for hours.

Here are my results on some fabric and lace…  not bad.

‘

One of my readers asked me if they were colorfast.  I didn’t know the answer, but I did find HERE that if you boil the fabric in water and vinegar before the dying process, it will keep them colorfast.

Ok.. so once again, I refer you to one of my recent posts on my large journal covers, I started to create.  I’m happy to say that I have completed the book and it’s ready for art making.

I used my awl to make four holes for metal binder rings, spray painted the rings white, then smooshed them with some teal paint. I used a lot of the Portfolio Watersoluble Oil Pastel crayons… creamy, smoothy goodness.  I did all my shadowing with them.  Also, included on these pages are polymer clay, ink jet transfers, stencils, metal embellishments, rubber stamping and lots of layers on the bottom using paint, gesso, pastes.   I stained the edges of the inner pages with walnut ink….. LOVE LOVE LOVE ♥

Because I used poster board, one side of each page is a bit glossy.  I think I will need to gesso each page to give it some tooth.  A note about spray paining… I hated it.. the fumes, the smell.. never again.  I even did it outside.  I’ll have to find an alternative.. maybe THIS or THIS.  If they work for fabric, they should work on paper/canvas; unless it needs that absorbancy.   Hmmm.. fabric?  What.. no more beet and blueberry juice?

Here are many pictures of the front, back and closeups.. enjoy.. click to make them bigga…

FRONT COVER – this journal is about 12″ x 16″

DETAILS

BACK COVER

DETAILS

As the Beatles sang.. “All You Need is Love”. ♥  ♥ ♥

There is so much happening on these pages.  I will protect them with PYMII.  Love this stuff.. check it out.

Well, that was fun.. I had some time off from work this week and it was just so nice to not have to worry about anything but me and my art for those hours when the house was quiet.  No running into the home office to check on things.. ahhh.     I’m ready for retirement.  I can dream.

Thanks for stopping by and let’s hope this Fool’s storm is just passing by and will melt real quick

Judy ♥

Beet Juice, Fabric Transfers & Sketching

Remember my post about my roasted veggie salad?  Well, I roasted some beets again… just lovely…. but with the pieces I trimmed off, I boiled in water and made beet juice to dye some fabric pieces in.. check it out…..

Here are some pieces of cotton fabric and lace.. before the dying.

I boiled the beets in water and let it cool.. then stored in a squeeze bottle.  And let me tell you.. this juice has some serious staining going on.  When I was peeling them, my hands were so red.. then I read that in the original Red Velvet cakes, beet juice is where they get the red from.  Who knew?

Even after storing my juice in a container, I put cold water on top of the still remaining pieces and it’s still as red as ever… AND you know what else is pink if you eat a lot of beets?  Well.. never mind.

I put the fabric/lace into an aluminum pie pan and squirted and brush/dabbed on the beet juice.  Using rubber gloves, I squeezed the remaining liquid and let them dry.

These pieces are so pretty… Not sure what I’m going to do yet, but maybe some transfers and some sewing to put on a mixed media piece or on a journal page…

AND….. speaking of transfers, I was playing around with some fabric transfers.

I printed out two pictures of my funky faces I drew and a copyright free photo of a fairy.

These are small pieces of muslin..about 4″x3″.  I printed (ink jet, rough side) on a sheet of transparency film and used Golden Soft Gel Medium to transfer onto the muslin.  I think I’ve mentioned before that the transparency transfer method is my favorite and always works for me.  You can see the colors of these transfers.. almost exact from my printed picture.  They are so vibrant alone.

Click to enlarge pictures.

Once I let them dry, I did a small touch up with some acrylic paints.  On my faces, I painted the lips a bit more with red acrylic and used gold sticky spiral and added gold glitter to some areas.  With the fairy, used the gold spiral and gold glitter to make stars.  Maybe some sewing with gold thread all around the fabric edges?  What do you think?

THEN….Just for fun.. During the American Idol commercials (there so damn many of them), I’ve been sketching some faces without too much thinking.. just going for it…. Here’s a bunch crowded together.  Funny to look at each one.. do they remind you of anyone?

That’s my studio play for now.  Hope you enjoyed the peek.

I’ll be doing an update on my LARGE JOURNAL I’m making.. using the Bold Background pages I made from poster board. They are coming out yummy.  So.. stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by.

Judy ♥

Big Bold Backgrounds

As I continue to do some Spring cleaning in my studio, I took a large piece of Wausau paper out the the wastebasket to give it a new life.  I thought, what kind of Mixed Media Artist would I be to throw this away.

I began to spread paint around with my old gift card, which make great small paint pallets by the way.  Layer after layer of colors.  If I didn’t like a section, I simply painted over it with white paint.  This was a big background about 14″ x 11″.  I love the size and decided that it will become a large journal.   Since I only had the one large sheet, I had to make another to make a book.  I had some white poster board lying around.  Poster board paper.. the kind you used/use in school for projects… takes a lot of abuse with paint, water, gel medium.. really standing up to what I was doing to it.  Actually better than the Wausau paper.  Samantha Kira Harding gave me that tip a long time ago.. Thanks, Samantha!

Here is a look at them so far.  I say “so far”, because I know that I’ll end up putting some fabric on their or some polymer clay pieces.   Click on the picture to enlarge, then click again for details.

Cobalt Teal paint (Golden Fluid Acrylic) played a big part in these pages.  Just my favorite color.  I also used Ranger/Hellmuth Studio’s “landscape green”.  That combo is perfect together.  I used heavy body white acrylic paint to spread through stencils, did some transparency transfers, rubber stamping, charcoal stick.

Few more section shots.. click to enlarge.

I also purchased some dauber bottles for paint… they are actually BINGO ink bottles.   In the past I bought the dauber covers that can go on any basic acrylic paint bottle (ex: “folk art”).. but I did not like those.  I was always banging the bottle to get the paint flowing

Here are 3 that I made.  Cobalt Teal mixure with water and a little Golden Glazing Liquid.  My own version of green and Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold.  All three of these colors are on the pages above.

So, my next step is to get hold of more poster board paper and make the inner pages… then binding it.  Not my thing, binding/sewing journal pages.  We’ll see how that one goes.  Stay tuned for more…

Thanks for stopping by.

Judy

Final Mixed Media Projects.. and more

Well.. here we are.. 2011.. Happy New Year EVERYONE!!!  What a great year it was and let’s hope that 2011 is even better.

Having the past two weeks off from work have been so refreshing.  Family, friends, art.. what else could a girl ask for?  Food?  Yes.. too much celebrating for sure.  I’m not making any resolutions.. I’ll just do my best each and every day.

Let’s get to some art, shall we?

Remember my mixed media texture on canvas.. here is the before picture:

After… click to see some details…

Well, you recently saw my post on my paper towel journal.  I took my second towel and turned it vertical to make a small/tall journal.  So cute!

Below are some of the steps I took to make it.

Click any picture to see more detail.

As I started to make the journal above, I thought of putting a patchwork fabric piece on the inside cover of the journal.  Well, after sewing and sewing.. I LOVED the result so much that I decided to make another journal out of it.  See below…

I just started to sew pieces of scrap fabric onto a 6×12″ piece of material.

Added more and lace around the edge….

I added more trim, ribbon, lace scraps.  Sewed in watercolor paper signatures, strung some ceramic beads off the binding and that’s it.

I decided to do some cleaning in the studio.  Donating lots of unused crafts that have been sitting around for years.  It feels good to re-energize, clean out and give to others.   It’s a “win win” to me.

What else is new you ask?    Well….

….  also wanted to share with you a few challenges and workshops that I am involved in that are FREE.  They are at your own pace, so no pressure.  I certainly won’t have time to do them consistently, now that I’m back at work.  That’s what I love about it.

1st:  The Sketchbook Challenge.. read all about it HERE.  Great artists hosting each month for the year, you heard me… a year.  One theme per month.

2nd:   Milliande’s Art Journal January

3rd:  Strathmore Visual Journal Online Workshops

Pass the word.. send my post to a friend.

Well, I’ve said a mouthful, don’t you think??? Whew… Lots to share with all of you and it’s all fun and good.

Thanks for stopping by.

Judy ♥

Paper Towel Journal

Remember my last post about the paper towel painted backgrounds?  Well, I decided that I liked them so much, I was going to make something out of them or at least one.

Now mind you, I am not a journal maker or a sewing, so I combined two things I am not good at and here’s what I came up with.

Go ahead and click to see details and close ups.

Lots of trial and error here, my friends…  First off.. paper towels still rip.. Even if they are the “quicker picker upper”… they rip.  I still had fun, cuz it was just plain cool.

So, basically.. took the paper towel and sewed some lace trim around the edges and backed it with another piece of cotton.  I used metallic gold and turquoise thread.. and some beige for some of the inside cover.  I then sewed all around the front with gold swirls.. not as easy as I thought.   Then sewed another piece of fabric for the inside covers to putt batting in.. so it would be a puffy journal…   Sewed 3 sides, slid in the batting and sewed up the fourth side.  I took 4 pieces of watercolor paper and sized them smaller than the book size, which is about 5″ x 6″, closed.  I bound the pages with wax linen thread… put fabric beads I made with some other acrylic beads to dangle on the tail.  Sewed a polymer button I made to the front, highlighted with gold wax.  Made a loop-di-loop string to wrap it from the the back.  Does all that make sense?  Did I mention that paper towels rip?

Badda Bing.. Badda Boom.. there you have it!!  Quick and dirty paper towel journal..  Ok, it wasn’t quick it took me a few hours.. and my back.. oh my back..hanging over the sewing machine… glasses on.. glasses off.. change threads, change bobbins.. dog wants to pee.. string in my hair.. now I gotta pee.  Fuhgedaboudit!!

My thoughts:  I will definitley give this another try.  I wouldn’t use a paper towel again, but there are other non-fabric materials to use.. I think of Tyvek envelope paper for my first thought.  Of course leather is just..well, perfect.

I’m sure the front of this journal will not hold up if I abuse it, but it’s only for play… I think I will try to seal it with gel medium to make it stronger.

I’ve been playing with some used coffee filters.  Oh messy and vintagy.. love it.  I’ll be showing those soon.

I also finished my textured canvas piece that I showed  in the same blog post I linked above; that’s also coming up.

Thanks for stopping by.

Judy