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 ♥

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 is YOU…Me… and We!

I’m back from Art is You.  What  a fun time.   As you know, this was my first art retreat.  First ever.. and I went alone.  Yup, just me and my talking GPS who kept me company.  C’mon, raise your hand if you think the GPS is awesome?  Wow, one, two, three… see there are a lot of you out there.  ”Navigator” on my smartphone rocks!  Love her.

This is what we wore around our necks for the weekend.  So fun.  How could you not smile with that on you each day?  Each morning, we were greeted with a wonderful breakfast buffet and the same at lunch.  It really was a sense of community.  You can read about Art is You and about Sallianne and Ellen, it’s creators, HERE.  Thank you, ladies and anyone else involved in helping make the event a success.

Let me start by saying that as soon as I met my roommate, Jessica, I knew we were a good fit.   As soon as I walked in the room and saw that she had her journal pages and her art supplies all over the bed, I said, “ok.. now we’re talkin”.   Miss you JS.  Hey, we have the same initials.. that has to mean something, right? You can read Jessica’s blog post about AiY HERE.  I love it.

Ok Ok.. i’m getting to the fun stuff.

Saturday was a full day workshop with Serena Barton called Waxing Literacy with Charlotte.  We took an old hard cover book and used encaustic wax, creating a display piece.  Serena is such a great teacher and person.

Hi Serena.. our wax queen!

This class was so much fun.  I had never used encaustic wax before, never mind entrapping a book in it.  Serena gave us frozen chartlotte dolls that were going in a niche that we cut out of the book.  (click on any picture for larger image)

    
on right:  this is the inside of Serena’s book.. anything look familiar to you.. on the left in the center…hmmmm? She used one of my ‘bellishments.

  
This is the inside and out side of my book.

More books from the class…..

    
Far right:   I love that Nancy used a small child’s book.

    

Wasn’t that fun??  Thank you, Serena!

Getting ready for vendor night…  This place was packed.  Lots of walking around… my feet are still recovering. : (

  

Now, let’s move on the Sunday’s workshop with Mary Beth Shaw.  What can I say about Mary Beth?  We’ve exchanged emails back and forth about meeting. She’s fun, outgoing and a great teacher; making classes fun… oh and she plays some great music in class.  I’ve been wanting to meet MB and take one of her classes for about 2 years now and both were  more than what I expected.

Mary Beth’s class was called More is Less.  What a journey that was.  Making textures through stencils with paste.. my favorite thing to do.  I wish I had brought smaller substrates.  I worked too big and I think it was a bit overwhelming, to be honest.  So, I finished two.  Fair enough, let’s compromise.

Mary Beth gave me permission to take pictures of her demo.  Here’s a peek.

  
Yummy Wood Icing and pasta, yes pasta!

    

These are mine…

… and some of the rest….

          

..and here are Mary Beth’s 6″x6 boards… beautiful.

Thank you, Mary Beth!!

So, there you have it.. my two classes. Two full days and nights of just fun and camaraderie.  I made new friends and I was able to meet new artists in the mixed media world and say hello to the ones I have taken classes from before.

The ladies in my classes were so talented and fun to be with.  Just imagine being in a place where we all think about art the same, all want to learn and share.  What else could you want?  I plan on keeping in touch with many of my new friends (you know who you are).

..and… can I just say that I need a full body massage now?

Thanks for joining me in this art journey and stopping by.  I love hearing from you.

Judy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 

Dina, Dyan and Away I go……..

Hey there… today I am heading out to Art is You in Stamford, CT.  The days of rain have passed and it’s the most beautiful Fall day.  But,…. before I go, I wanted to share with you a class I took recently at Ink About It with Dina Wakley.  Dina was fun and down to earth.  We had a messy fun time.

Dina started us off with making backgrounds on heavy paper.  A messy background.  Well, you know me.. I love a mess so I got right into it.  Then to make face portrait on top of the mess.  No thinking, just a basic face that she showed you how to do if you didn’t know how and then it took off.

Here are my two faces I made…  crazy, huh?  You can see these are not, by any means, perfect, but still striking, fast and fun.

   and  

Then, I did this one in a separate journal I got, that was created by Dyan Reaveley.  You can see this big beautiful journal HERE.

This is how I decorated the front page of the journal….

So, I’m ready for my trip to CT for a weekend of art… I made new ‘bellishments, attached my new MOO cards and I’m ready to trade.

I’ll be sure to post about the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Judy ♥ ♥ ♥

Give-a-way Winner and some Mixed Media Art

Congratulations, Vivane!!!!  You are the winner of my fabric give-a-way.   WOOT WOOT!!   I’ll be in touch to get your address.

Well, I did get up in the studio this weekend.  I started to play around in one of my small water color notebooks.. about 5″ x 4″.   I smooshed around some paint then added some old dictionary pages to the surface.  I began to draw a face.. nothing fancy, as I am not a good drawer.. just funky fun.. and it grew into this little girl with a dictionary dress and arms.. then I kept going with colors and embellishments.  Look how she turned out..  She a cutie patootie.  I plan on mailing this to a family member of mine… surprise.

This happens to me all the time.  I have a slight plan to start a project then I get up in studio and I do something completely different with no planning whatsoever.   So…. I picked up a large blank pre-made journal (8″ x 11 1/2″).  It was all black and very lonely.  I decided to mix media the heck out of it.

Here’s how it evolved:

Here is the journal.. very basic.. inside is just lined pages.

I began to glue the following:  left over paper towels from clean up, lace papers, fabric pieces, doilies, decorative papers, lace, polymer clay, resin music paper, burlap, coffee filter pieces and tissue paper casting (center piece) that I made.  I added some paint (cobalt teal) in spots that were white or bare..  Then I added a strip of checkerboard duct tape to the binding.

Watch the progress:  and click on picture for close ups and then juicy close up towards the end.

Juicy close up alert on the following pictures.. click and click.

I sprayed PYMII on all my work to seal it.

I hope you enjoyed that progress of my journal cover.  It felt good to get messy again and up in the “Judio”.

Thanks for stopping by.

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 ♥

Scraps, Stripes & Strips

Say that fast 4 times….

Signs of Spring are definitely here today.  Nice to see lots of green on this St. Patrick’s Day!  ♥

A short post today and a peek at some fun in the studio.  I’ve been using up the scraps from tearing pages for my large art journal I’m making – see the journal covers HERE (from my last post).

I love checkerboards and stripes; especially black and white.. so though I’d create my own colorful borders.  They are about 14″ long, 1/4″ to 1/2″ wide.  These were quick fun to make. When you don’t know what else to do…make embellishments.

Don’t throw your scraps away.. embellish them.

Thanks for stopping by.

Judy

In the Studio…& and a little surprise

Yes, I’ve been up in my studio again having fun creating.  I seemed to have push through my “rut” of not getting up there.  So, a few leftover nights and take out, got me out of the kitchen to spend time creating.  I just made the decision to not think about what I should do rather than what I WANT to do.. and that is to forget about chores and putting in extra hours in the office and concentrate on feeling good about my art and doing something about it.  Well, at least for one weekend anyway.  I think we all deserve that, don’ t you?

It’s still “wintery” here, so I will continue to hibernate, as they say in bear language.  What better way to enjoy a cold day than to be in the art studio.

Let’s start with my birds.  Well, you all know how much I love the birds that visit me by reading my few posts here and here.  They’ve inspired me so much that I’ve decided to create some of these little creatures with polymer clay.  I wanted to share them with you.  They are such a joy to make.

Ready?  Lots of pictures ahead…  Click each picture to enlarge.

This little fella is about 3″ long, 1″ thick.  I have him sitting on a wooden post that’s also about 3″ tall and 1″ round.  Painted the stand with a teal acrylic paint and rubbed some white over it.  Then gave the bottom and top edge an Inka Gold rub (love that stuff).

I’m loving the spiral wings.  This bird is about 4″ long.  I put gem stones on the eyes and a small heart on it’s back.  I’ve been making a lot of teeny tiny hearts for my birds.

Now these little guys are my favorites.  They are so tiny.  They all measure about 1″ long and 1/2″ wide.   I put the tiny hearts on their backs and one of them has hearts for wings. These hearts range in size from 1/8″ to 1/4″.

A gather of hearts and birds, above and below.

and now………….a little surprise………….. my first video on how to make my little birds.

Enjoy and thank you for stopping by.