Having a laugh...

As part of the "You're Having A Laugh" art journaling CJ on UKScrappers I've just completed my first entry in someone else's CJ. The fab Karen asked for either lyrics or alternative affirmations. I love lyrics but as I had recently got my mitts on some very funny Dylusions stamps I decided to make use of them and go with that. Here's the page for Karen's CJ that I call "Freedom":

The background is Vibrant Turquoise and London Blue Dylusions sprays with Kate Crane style bottle tops and credit card stamping in black and white inks. The quote is Dylusions and the raindrops are Claudine Hellmuth stamped onto pre-sprayed card. The collaged person is a head and arms from a magazine, skirt from Dylusions' Curious Corrin and I bought the zetti legs from Etsy. I found the bunting in my drawer where I keep lots of stamped and printed images so I'm not sure where it's from but I coloured it in with Azure Blue and Marine Promarkers and wrote Freedom in a black Stampin' Up! Journaling pen. At Karen's request I've repeated all this on the back which she will see is also sprayed due to a false start from me :)

Hope Karen likes it. Keep Crafting. Siân xx

I love...

The February card swap on UKScrappers was a slight twist on Valentine's Day in that instead of making a card based on someone you love we had to create cards inspired by someTHING we love. Whatever we are passionate about was to create our cards. I had a few ideas but it kept coming back to the same thing for me... and that's art journaling. I love it! And as I made the cards more passions came out as I'll explain once you've seen the cards.

The two optional ideas were to use red, the colour of passion, and to use an emotive word on the card. I managed to include both these criteria. Here's the first card:

The quote stamp is from Dylusions and the girl is a Suzi Blu stamp. I love quotes, I love stamping, I love using promarkers and I love the colours purple, pink and turquoise. I also love to use scraps and the sentiments were stamped on some scrap paper. The backgrounds were created with Dylusions sprays, various stencils and acrylic paint. 

I chose these particular stamps because I'm also an advocate of complete self acceptance, of people feeling loved and safe and worthy. I thought when it was all put together it would make a nice card to give to a young or teenage girl that may be struggling, or a friend or relative that you wanted to let know that they are loved, perhaps someone is going through a tough time and this card may be to help let them know they can get through it.

Here are the rest of the cards:

They are quite different to the other cards in the swap so I hope they are received well or at least appreciated for the message that I have intended to relay. Keep Crafting. Siân xxx

A Found Poem...

I bought a book a few days ago called Raw Art Journaling. I originally bought it because I read it had ways to journal in code or in secret which I would enjoy. The book itself is about art journaling without having to have lots of different paints, tools and fancy brushes - some techniques require only a pencil and a journal. One of the first ideas in it is something called Found Poetry. This involves opening a magazine, book or anything with words that you don't mind cutting up. You cut out any words or phrases that speak to you or that you like the sound of. After you've got q good number you arrange them to make a poem, saying or story. I love poetry and quotes so I really took to this idea and decided to try it for a swap I'm in on UKS.

The swap is to decorate a 7x5inch canvas in any style you wish. I cut my words out, gathered some paints and papers and a Donna Downey saying I'd cut out on my silhouette a few days ago and I put them all together and made this:

The saying I created from magazine cut outs and the Donna Downey file is, 

"Inspiration is dreaming of angel hair, fairy wings and flowers.

 Creativity is to paint the vividness and intensity of your dreams."

The main fairy image is a dufex image called Wood Fairy. All the other images come from digikits which I printed through Craft Artist 2. I painted the background with white, pink and purple paints and added some torn papers one of which was a lilac paper with dreams printed on it.

So I hope whoever ends up with it likes it. Keep Crafting. Siân xxx