Mini albums can be just the thing when you want a quick photo album about a certain event, for a gift, or any number of reasons!
The last time I was at my mom’s she was saying something about an photo album I had made, and I didn’t remember what it was until I saw it. It was an 8×8 album and was filled with 6×6 digital layouts centered on each page. I had completely forgotten about them! They was such a variety of the whole family and I since I barely remembered them, I was afraid I had no idea where they were, so I could print more. However I did remember that I had created 4 layouts on a 12×12 sheet, and cut them apart. I still haven’t found them, and if I ever want more, I may have to scan hers!
Anyway, it reminded me how 6″ x 6″ layouts can be quick and easy, and make nice little albums. I decided to break out my new Chantilly Picture My Life pocket scrapbooking cards to make extra quick work of a little page of my granddaughter while she was having photos taken for her near ball team. I found one 4×6 card, and one 3×4 to use, and cut out a 6×6 piece of Hollyhock card stock for the background.
6″x6″ piece of card stock, 4″x6″ card, 3″x4″ card
I used the decorative card as part of the background. The journaling card was cut into two pieces to tuck behind the photo. The top, which says, “The Best Thing About Today,” was tucked in at the top and the bottom of the card to use for a bit of journaling space.
Then I simply stamped Way Cute from the True to Life stamp set in Hollyhock ink; punched it out with a 1″ circle punch and applied it with a foam dimensional. Done!
6″ x 6″ mini album page using Chantilly Picture My Life set.
Pocket scrapbooking cards can be used in a variety of ways. I hope you’ll try using them on a traditional layout!
Circus Alphabet Stamp Set
Don’t forget, the Close To My Heart Stamp of the Month is an alphabet stamp which you can receive for $5 with a $50 order! Watch the video below to see some of the fun things you can do with an alphabet stamp set!
Be sure to share your creations over in our Facebook group!
While we are learning about the fabulous Gelatos® Made by Faber Castell, I thought you would enjoy meeting Alison Day. Previously we have discussed some ideas on finding inspiration. The popularity and visual context that Pinterest employees, makes it great place to look for inspiration. In today’s post, Alison combines using something she saw on Pinterest with Gelatos to create a fun art journal page. This same technique with the Gelatos could easily be used on a scrapbook page, a card, or mixed media place! So heeeeere’s Alison! (Insert my Ed McMahon introducing Johnny Carson voice!)
Hi everyone! My name is Alison Day and I am super excited to be a Guest Blogger here at Artful Adventures. I am a fairly recent “dabbler” in the art journaling world but from the very first time I put gesso on a page I was hooked. I can usually be found at Alison Day Designs sharing my love of scrapbooking. Since discovering all the different multimedia techniques used in art journaling, my scrapbooking pages have taken on a decidedly ‘artsy’ feel. But I digress.
Today I wanted to share with Kristie’s readers one of my favourite places to find inspiration for my pages – whether they are scrapbook pages or art journaling pages. And that is Pinterest. Pinterest has become a fantastic way to gather images that inspire you, and a way to share your own projects and products in the hopes of inspiring others. I admit to losing myself a little bit when looking for said inspiration! Things like a 15 minute time limit are excellent tools to remember when surfing online galleries such as Pinterest! Are you on Pinterest? Here’s a link to my boards – I’d love to connect with you there so please follow me!
For today’s post I created an art journal page using this image I found as inspiration for my background.
I loved both the colours used and the painting that the colours were pulled from. I thought the painting would make a great background texture for an art journal page but you could just as easily use this as a background for a layout or card. That would look awesome!!
Here’s my finished page. What do you think?
Here’s how I created the background.
To get started I printed off my inspiration piece and searched in my Gelato stash for matching colours. The gold one on the far right was a design choice. I hoped it would add a bit of shimmer to the page instead of going with a more flat yellow colour.
The next step was simply to scribble all over my page with my Gelato’s – following as best I could the colour placement in the inspiration piece.
I knew I needed to blend the colours to get the soft look from the original painting. Instead of using a paint brush and cup of water, I pulled out a water brush (from my Stampin’ Up days), filled the handle and got busy.
It wasn’t giving me the soft blended look I was trying to achieve so I spritzed it with a bit of water to see if that would help.
I admit that at this point it looked nothing like the inspiration piece and I was a tiny bit disheartened but … not to worry! I found a fix!!
I wondered what would happen if I dabbed at the page with a piece of paper towel. Voila! The soft blended look I had been trying to achieve revealed itself!
I may have let out a squeal of delight at this point, but let’s keep that between ourselves, okay?
Once my background was dry I started adding my stamping. I’d decided on the phrase “find your wings and fly” so stamped that out using different letter stamps from my stash. I would have used Stazon ink for this if I’d been able to find my ink pad but … regular black ink had to suffice.
Here is a close up of the word ‘FLY’. I used a Post-it note to cover half of a butterfly stamp at a time so I could get just one wing on each side of the word.
I did more stamping – love how it’s all imperfect! I also punched a few small butterflies out of some Crate Paper vellum to add more colour, texture and whimsy.
The last thing I did was splatter the page with some watered down white acrylic paint. I keep it in an old Mister Huey bottle and decided to try spraying it on the page this time instead of shaking it from the nozzle. It was totally messy and I did use my paper towel to soak up some of the excess but I love the added texture.
Here’s another look at the finished page.
Thanks for having me today! I find Kristie’s style so fun and love her easy to follow tutorials, don’t you? I’d love for you to stop by and say hi over at Alison Day Designs or connect with me on Facebook. Any friend of Kristie’s is a friend of mine!!
While creating the Art Journaling Basics series, it seemed like there was not much time for much art journaling. Ironic, right? There are several backgrounds ready to go from the video on creating backgrounds, so I decided to grab one and use one of the vintage images from yesterday’s post.
Here’s how it this art journal page was created:
Applied gesso to a book page
Applied a light watercolor wash to page
Printed vintage image and did image transfer using a gel medium. You could easily just print it, cut it out and use it as is.
Stamped sea shells in the corner of image
Spritzed a bit of ink from markers to make specks of color
Printed quote; cut out; used matte medium to adhere
Used matte medium over image to seal and brushed a bit over the stamped shells
Used waterproof, black fine-point pen to do rough, sketchy line under quote sections
Randomly dabbed a bit of white on the page
As the vintage image was getting a light layer of matte medium to seal it, I noticed that the first sea shell it touched was beginning to bleed. I liked the way it softened the edges of the stamped images, and I continued to lightly brush the medium over the other stamped shells. Then I realized it was causing the ink to look totally different. You could see more of the red in the brown! If I had wanted to make sure the water based ink did not begin to bleed with other layers added, I would have needed to use a workable fixative before using any other waterbased products in layering.
Grab your art journal and make a page before the Artful Adventures’ train leaves this station! Then come over and share it on the Facebook Group page!
Here is another month in our series on art journal calendars. This idea for June is made in a 9″x12″ art journal. This particular journal has tear-out pages, so it can be taken out and added to the rest of pages that have been done this year. Previous pages this year have been made on 12″x12″ card stock, and the months have either been on a single or double page layout.
Here’s the process for this month’s pages:
Background misted with color at the top and bottom of the page. The top is someway blue and the bottom somewhat green.
The June title was just hand written and embellished with a little dot and line work.
Handwritten June Title
I made a stencil of a watering can using my Cricut, and used a yellow PanPastel to create the watering cans, covering the entire shape.
When finished with the PanPastels, I went outside and sprayed a workable fixative over all of it, so I could continue to work over the Pan Pastels.
After realizing it would have been better to have the handles open to see the background, I went in and colored the handles and the open tops with black marker.
Now, it was way too dark, and so a bit of paint was mixed to coordinate with the background, and painted into the handle openings.
Two different green markers were used to create wispy grass along the bottom.
Three colors of stamps were use to create the flowers. Some being stamped two or three times to get different levels of colors.
Wispy Grass and Stamped Flowers
Next, a bit of paint was mixed into the water color, and the open tops of the watering cans were filled in, and the water drops painted.
Finally, Glossy Accents was used over the water drops and the top openings of the water cans.
Glossy Accents added to water in cans and water drops.
Last, but not least, numbers for the days of the month were written onto the watering can spouts.
It is kind of hard to see, but the misting on the bottom also has some sparkle in it! I love sparkle and shine! What are things you like in your projects?
We have been taking a look at the color wheel and discussing some of the ways that color combinations can be made. One of the reasons I wanted to take you on this little artful learning adventure is to challenge you to stretch the way you look at the color combinations you use in your projects. Even if you know that you love a certain group of colors and they are your go-to colors, using a different method of coming up with a color palette, can introduce you to something new you may like. I’m not talking about just going completely opposite of what you like, I’m just saying that you may be pleased with using a couple of your favorite colors and just using a different method of color selection.
Tetradic Color Scheme
One of my favorite scrapbook pages I made last month is the one shown in this post. When I began to examine what type of color scheme this might be, I was surprised that it actually used a tetrad of colors – four colors. Another name for this is a double complementary color scheme, since it is two sets of complementary colors. The four colors in this method form a rectangle and on a more simplified color wheel you see that the short sides of the rectangle have one block of color between the points of color. Here is a look at this on the color wheel. For some reason, when I upload this to my website, it just doesn’t look the same, so you’ll just have to look at it and get the general idea that the four colors are yellow, green, blue, and the purply-pink color.
Here is a closer look at the page. Everybody should have someone this happy in their life! Even though this is a digital page, you can see how it would be so easy to create a similar page by stamping the background images, and then stamping the floral images.
Digital Paper: Katie Pertiet, Color Inspiration Pack 8.29.10 Digital Journaling Spot: Katie Pertiet, Painted Journalers No 1 Digital Floral: Katie Pertiet, Editorial Inspiration Color Rub-on
If you’d like information on other color scheme selection methods you might like to see the previous posts on using a complementary, triadic, monochromatic, or analogous color palette. Do you have a favorite method yet?
Anyway, it reminded me how 6″ x 6″ layouts can be quick and easy, and make nice little albums. I decided to break out my new Chantilly Picture My Life pocket scrapbooking cards to make extra quick work of a little page of my granddaughter while she was having photos taken for her near ball team. I found one 4×6 card, and one 3×4 to use, and cut out a 6×6 piece of Hollyhock card stock for the background.
