Butterfly Collage.

A little 8 x 8 " canvas piece . Quite pleased with this despite the fact that I smudged the writing and kind of obliterated the v
backing papers lol... sometimes though things turn out ok in the end. :D

Anyway , I did actually use some of Tim Holtz's backing papers from the Crowded Attic paper pad but sadly you can't really see them. Never mind, maybe next time I won't be so 'heavy' with the paint! Still, I just mixed a couple of yellows and browns and some White to give me different shades and just gradually layered and blended until I was happy.

I used two stamps sets on this piece both from Chocolate Baroque , the first one was the Butterfly Whimsy theme plate and the biiiiig butterfly was from The Patchwork Butterfly along with some of the scrolls. The numbers were from a stamp from my stash!

The Butterfly was stamped onto grey paper then coloured using inktense pencils, then painted over with some white gesso to 'tone it down' a little . I love the muted colours in this piece! I just accented the butterfly and letters with a gold marker pen.

Not brilliant but I now know where I went wrong and won't make that mistake again!

Thanks for dropping by,

Take care

Jackie x

Waste not want not !!!

I have been working on my Art portfolio this weekend because I have an interview for a place on an Art course at the local college. While doing so I came across this sheet of paper, it was used to spray the letters for the inside cover of my portfolio...... I was (still am) too skint to buy a proper portfolio so made my own lol....I do hope it will be ok...anyway...I just couldn't throw that piece of paper away...don't know why really, maybe it's just a 'crafter's thing'....lol....so I just had a little play with it! Just basically 'doodled' some 'stuff' with Sakura Gellyroll Stardust pens in matching colours!!

Here's a photo of the cover.....

The letters were done using the Eazi-score Large Upper Case letters templates....just sprayed with Glimmer mists and over stamped using the The Dots background stamp from The Artistic Stamper ...


Anyway this is just a fly by post today, want to get this portfolio fully finished today if I can, I have a four week work placement to attend starting next week and won't really have the time to finish it off before the interview for college!

Thanks for dropping by

Take care and have a great weekend whatever the weather!

Jackie x

Freebie Stamp!

Evening all, just a quickie post tonight, hopefully lol.... If anyone bought the Craft Stamper mag they should recognise the little Castles stamp! I was reading the magazine last night in bed and ended up having dreams about castles....I have looked up the meaning and it's pretty accurate for what's going on in my life just now!


Anyway...here's the journal pages I came up with...

 .... sadly it's not the best of photos and those castles look like they are in mid air but they are supposed to be sitting on clouds...the photo doesn't show it very well though...The idea looked good in my head and it didn't quite work the way I wanted it to but I do like the end result so I'll leave it as is !! :D


These pages are in my NEW journal and as I said in an earlier post this one will be used for my good work lol...the big old green one will be used ONLY for me and a 'therapy' session for when I need to to 'vent' so Julia, I hope that answers your question!!!

Right, I'm off for now. Got a letter from college today telling me I have to go for an interview about a place on an Art course so I need to start getting my portfolio finished off!

Thanks for dropping by

Take care

Jackie x

Sunday Stampers week 191

And I FINALLY managed to come up with a song title that actually fits Hel's Sunday Stampers Challenge!  

The words are the Lyrics from an all time Classic song from YES - Owner of a Lonely Heart ! Ans it's one of my favourites!

Anyway.... The background was done using Wild Honey Distress stain, over sprayed with some Glimmer Mists in Pink Ink and Passion Red, a little Gold spray ink then dried with a heat gun. I over stamped that with the Dots Background stamp from The Artistic Stamper using Fired Brick distress Ink.

I used the Winged Heart Alterations Die and coloured the heart red with a promarker in Poppy Red, The wings are done using Faded Jeans Distress Stain and then I over stamped with my fave crackle background stamp and Black Archival ink.

The sad looking lady is 'drawn' by me and coloured using promarkers then stuck down onto the page and outlined with a black fineliner!

I'm thrilled to bits with the way this page has turned and hope the others will be just  as good because this is my FIRST Proper Art Journal. So I am going to enter this into a couple of challenges!!....the big one I have on the go at the moment is just a place for me to explore ideas and try out a few techniques..

Thanks for looking

Take care

Jackie x

WOYWW 140

Morning Everyone! Well my desk is suitably 'creative' this week again! :o ... Starring this week is the battered old green 'practice journal' a place for storing andf trying out ideas...A box of inexpensive (sounds a wee bit more glamorous than cheap) acrylic paints and a new journal...this one is going to be for my 'good' work !! (hopefully)!!!  That old wee brown hardback book is for an online workshop that I'm taking part in and it's for an Altered Book! I haven't done one of these yet so I'm REALLY looking forward to taking part! It's going to be fun! :)


Here's some details of my 'new' purchases ... the new Art Journal.... I love the size of this, and it's decent weight paper too, Also like the fact that it has the 'elastic strip' to help keep it closed!! £2.99 from a discount book store on the high street! :)

and here's the other purchase......

A box of small tubes of acrylic paints.... 20 tubes for £4.99 from the same store!... I do prefer to use the Golden range but sadly my purse doesn't!! Hey ho...it's all about the fun in the end!!

Right, that's me done for now, so if you fancy having a nosey around everyone else's workdesk then pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground and have a wee peep!

Take care and have fun!

Happy WOYWW

Jackie x

Another Art Journal page !

Good morning all, just thought I'd show you what I've been working on last night! I had an awful day yesterday! It was terrible...very angry and frustrating and lots of arguing (no! NOT with the teenager) lol... so last night my lovely big buddy called and we sat for ages on the phone just talking! He really must have the patience of a saint to put up with all my worries woes and sometimes just inane drivel! But boy is he my 'saviour'!! I'd be lost without him and am totally privileged to have him as friend!


I am quite a 'solitary' person to be honest and don't really have a lot of friends, so I sometimes find it difficult to communicate  with people......starting an art journal was a good idea for me I think because it lets me really express how i feel sometimes, and as you have seen over the past few pages I've show sometimes that can be pretty dark, I also think it is a good therapy because I am really struggling to cope with my depression just now, which seems to have REALLY kicked in over the past month or so.

Anyway I digress...onto how it was 'constructed'!

I have 'discoverd' Gesso !!! And LOVE the stuff!! Soooo wish I'd invested in it sooner but hey ho....anyway...the backgrounds are quite 'messy' mainly because I had used that page to offload the spare paints from my 'pallette' .. ! So covered it up with white Gesso, then a couple of blobs (technical term that)! of yellow and red and then smooshed (another techy term)!! over the page with an old bank card! Dried with a heat gun, then another coat of Gesso, dried with a heat gun, then some blobs of copper metallic, which I then drew lines in with the bank card. Nice, but very dark and needed 'lightening' up a little so I covered the whole lot with a coat of white acrylic paint and because some of the copper was still wet it blended in, that'll do !! No more faffing around! Left the pages to dry and was pleasantly surprised with the texture, lots of wrinkles, lines and page buckling, so I decided to give the pages a run over with some rough sand paper and it brought the base colours through! LOVE IT!!...lol.

I decided seeing as I was brave enough to start the journal I might as well try and be brave enough to try some drawing!!! I really don't like drawing because I am terrible at it but I gave it a go anyway...I drew and painted the girls face all by myself :D Now I am by no means an artist and it isn't really supposed to be a portrait...just something that was in my head when I took pencil to paper...anyway she's not too bad looking...The big red telephone is a Google image, I just drew round it with a black rollerball pen to emphasise it a little!

The Notebook page is a journaling stamp from The Artistic Stamper as is the The Ink Blots Background Stamp, these were stamped using Walnut Stain Distress Ink! The rings are done using brown acrylic paint and the lid off my paint tubes!!

I really had fun with these pages and think I will continue on with this journal as my therapy!! lol..

Thanks for looking in,

Take care everyone

Jackie x

WOYWW 139

Well it's Wednesday yet again.....why does the time fly so fast!!

As you can see , my desk is in it's usual 'creative' state ... apart from all the usual crafty 'stuff' there is my art journal.... well it's not a 'journal' as such....more like a place I put down my ideas for projects and then practise them in... does that make sense... I really quite enjoy this kind of art.... love the intuitive stuff....a great way to get rid of frustrations if you don't really have anyone to 'talk' to...but as you can see by those two pages I was in a pretty 'dark' mood!! That blue thing you see next to it is actually a thesaurus! I kind of needed that to help me with other words of the same meaning...if you know what I mean!!


Anyway I digress.....

Over on the lovely Mrs D's Stamping Ground you can have a a right proper nosey around the rest of the World's crafty spaces!

I'm off for a VERY loooooong coffee break and have a wee looksee myself! :D

Enjoy WOYWW !

Take care

Jackie x