Mixed Media Time with Adele

Time to get painty peeps!

Today I am challenging you to pull out some sort or messy, painty supply and add it to your next layout. I am pairing some modelling paste, a large stencil and some watercolours from my stash with the gorgeous October Main Kit today to create a layout that's very close to my heart.

I have also created a process video so you can see the mixed media techniques I used from start to finish, which will be at the end of this post.

I began by spreading a thin layer of modelling paste through my stencil and allowing it to dry COMPLETELY. You do not want to add any watercolour until your modelling paste is dry as it will end up a bit of a smudgy mess...trust me, I learnt the hard way previous hehe!

I used a combo of this month's alpha stickers and my brush lettering to create a soft and subtle title. I paired this with some strips of journaling below my photo.

I loved adding the little puffy hearts and some splatters to add those finishing touches to this precious photo of my Mum, Nanna and I.

If you're not a fan of mixed media, this is a great technique to try because you don't need to be precise with your watercolouring and can make it as subtle or bold as you like depending on what colours you use. Have fun!

Adele

Explore | Gina Rodgers

Hi everyone, I'm sharing one of my July pages with you today, created with the #rightnow main and sprinkles kits. I've gone for a grungy feel on the background, which I've built up with layers of distress stains, ink, watercolour paint, graphite scribbles and stamping.  I've chosen papers from the main kit which replicated the muted colours in the photo

I've trimmed the 'this is it' cork arrow to a different style arrow and inked the edges. The die-cut pack in the Sprinkles kit is perfect for a travel themed layout

Thanks for looking, I hope you've been having fun with your July kits, standby for lots of inspiration from August kit creations starting tomorrow!

Gina

GraceBox Kit with Dedra

Hi there sweet friends and happy Wednesday! Today I wanted to share a bible journaling page I created using the latest Citrus Twist GraceBox Kit and the most common process I use when I'm bible journaling, especially when using watercolors.

First, I always prep the page with clear gesso. My two favorite tubes of gesso are from Dina Wakely and Prima. Both will give you very nice, smooth coverage and will prevent the watercolors from transferring to the opposite page. 

To apply the gesso I have a bowl of old gift cards I use to "scrape" it across the page. When I first started using gesso I was struggling with how to scrape it on the page without ripping it. Since the pages of a bible are usually super thin, the best way to apply it is to turn the bible sideways with the page turned closest to you. Put your bible mat, cardboard or a piece of cardstock under the page so you don't transfer the gesso onto the pages below. Grab your bottle of gesso and squirt it directly onto the page. Take your scraping tool or old gift card and spread the gesso from the center of the bible toward you until you have covered the entire page or the area where you will be using watercolors, stamps or any medium that you do not want to be seen on the opposite page.
Since I'm really impatient I use a heat tool to dry the gesso. Your page will be a little wrinkled and feel limp, but that is totally normal.

Next, I grab my watercolor tins. I use a spray bottle to mist the watercolor pans I would like to use. This gets them wet and ready for my watercolor brush. You can get your watercolor and wet with your watercolor brush as well, but I just prefer to use the spray bottle so I'm not refilling my watercolor brush constantly. Just my personal preference. :) :)

There are many ways and different techniques that can be used to create a watercolor effect. For this particular page I used some plastic packaging I had laying around. I added watercolor directly to the packaging and "smooshed" it onto the page in the areas I wanted color. Through a lot of trial and error I found one of the most important things to remember when using watercolor is to let each layer dry before adding another and that each time water is added the layers of color will react. So, have fun experimenting and if you're feeling nervous try experimenting in an art journal or notebook, etc. something that is not important if you mess up. 

One of my favorite things to do in my journaling bible is to stamp. Whether it's florals, patterns or in this case, hearts, phrases and arrows. 

When stamping and using watercolors or any form of mixed media the archival ink from Ranger is my go to. The awesome thing about archival ink is, once it's dry it's permanent. You can use any form of mixed media and it will not effect your stamped image. It's truly magic and hands down the best option.

I like to add stickers, washi tape, die cut cardstock pieces, tabs, etc. anything that will add that "finishing touch."

Lastly, and most importantly, I make sure to leave room in the design for journaling. Sometimes I have a long message, whether it's a prayer that I have for my girls, husband, mother or talking directly to our heavenly father. Sometimes I'm thanking Him for all of the gifts he has bestowed upon us. Whatever he is putting on my heart is what I want to document. For journaling my favorite "go to" pen is the Micron .03 or .05. Once dry it never smears. 

One of the things I love most about the Citrus Twist GraceBox Kit is the exclusive, wonderfully designed, stamp sets and journaling cards and the amount of embellishments that seem endless!

Wishing you a blessed week! 

xoxo

Dedra

Grace Box November

Hello friends, It's Gina here with you today to share another entry in Grace journal.

My journaling is from the book of Psalms.  I wrote "But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations" Psalm 20:8

Supplies used:

November Grace Box kit
StazOn Jet Black Ink
Prima Watercolor Confections
Prima Color Bloom Cotton Candy Spray Mist, Glistening Waves Spray Mist

Pick up your November Grace Box here!

Sunday Sketch with Wendy

Hello all, it's Wendy, and I'm ready to share up this week's Sunday Sketch to kick start your Fall vibes!

Here's my take on the Sunday Sketch....

Surprisingly, there is actually a nice Fall breeze here on the Gulf coast this morning.  So, I'm soaking it up as it's probably only momentary as we are still in the high 80's and low 90's around here, yeah, in November.  So, not quite time for boots, leggings, sweaters and hot chocolate.  We are still hanging in shorts and sandals but I'm seriously feeling some Fall vibes of change.

I was in the New England area of Connecticut for work a couple of weeks ago and had the pleasure to enjoy REAL Fall temps (along with a sprinkling of winter temps of snow included one day, yikes).  There was the chill in the air, the GORGEOUS changing colors of trees and beauty all around while driving in the rural parts of the state.  I truly enjoyed a few days after the work day to soak it all in and snap a few pics.  New England, you represent Fall on all levels.

I felt my summer was a bit sluggish and with a few minor adjustments on the home front (i.e. a new doggie and adjusting out with her on the turf since the Spring has been a major shift in my creative time).  

Personally, for me the Fall season brings a season of reflection, a season to re-evaluate my vision and goals for the rest of the year, and overall, to be thankful for all that I have in life.   Fall has me recharging, a fresh boost to restart, and resetting my batteries. Ha!

For my project, I used ephemera, papers, and stamps from the November 2016 Main and November 2016 Add-On Kits along with past kits and stamps from Citrus Twist Kits.

To play along with this week's challenge, create a layout inspired by the sketch, upload it to the Citrus Twist Kits Gallery with today's date (11/6) in the title, and you might win a $5 gift certificate to the CTK store.  Easy peasy, eh!?

Wendy
SaveSave

Wendy Morris-Saponaro | Stamping Simplicity and Watercolor Dreams

Hello all and Happy Monday!  Wendy here to share up some simple stamping and watercolor fun.  Let's kick start the week with a bit of watercolor and stamping.  I love all things watercolor and lately I've committed to getting back into my artistic flow along with a new watercolor set in hand, I'm gonna make it happen.  Investing in a nice palette of watercolors is all worth it for colors that are vivid, vibrant, and crisp.

My 9"x12" layout, "Life is Lovely", was created using the October 2016 kit(s) and the stamp set from the October 2016 Scrapbook Main kit.

My husband, Vincenzo, and I recently went to Europe last month for 2+ weeks to visit family.  One of my sister-in-laws lives on the beautiful island, Isola d'Elba (founded by Napoleon) in Italy.  It was the quite literally the island of dreams. The type of island where there is not a bridge and you put your car on a boat to travel one hour to the island.  Yeah, epic.

I wanted to simply capture the beauty of the memory with an airy watercolor touch and stamped words or phrases to transpire my emotion at that time.  I love it when a kit has so many elements (i.e. diecuts, phrases, cork shapes, etc) that flow so well together in creating a magical feel to my layout.

I added some floral stems and sprigs from the Pinkfresh Indigo Hills puffy stickers (October 2016 Pocket Life Kit) and coordinating diecut shapes (October 2016 Main Kit).  Also, the stamped floral stems from the CTK exclusive stamp set (October 2016 Main Kit) were a nice touch that matched perfectly.

Then, as a finishing touch, I added some handmade 'enamel dots' using the Nuvo Crystal Drops (Neptune).  Those drops are addicting!

Hope I inspired you to grab your watercolors and stamps for some simple fun!

Wendy

Tuesday Tutorial | Pinspired Watercolor Layout - Color Me Happy.

Good morning my beautiful readers! Today I have a super fun layout tutorial for you.

It was inspired by this amazing watercolor photo backdrop I stumbled across on Pinterest.

The photo and brilliant idea comes from Amy and Naomi over at the Oh Happy Day blog. They have written a really good tutorial using tube watercolours and rulers. My methods are significantly less precise, but it gets the job done. You can obviously choose which one works best for you.

Okay so to start you'll have to get yourself 2 sheets of white cardstock. One will be the background that you mount everything too, The other your going to cut in to many, many 2 inch squares (36).

Next comes the painting of the squares. There were 7 colors in my paint pallet that I wanted to use, so having done the math, I divided my squares in to piles of 5 plus 1 extra that I painted purple. I lay each set of 5, Painted the middle square the straight up pallet colour and then worked to create a slight gradient by mixing in the follow on paint color for the 2 squares either side. So if I was doing the yellow squares - the centre square would just be straight up yellow, the 2 squares to the left would have yellow with progressively more orange paint added. The 2 right squares would have progressively more green added. My gradient was fairly small, but you can make yours as large as you like. Oh and a note on painting - I found the more haphazard the better. I didn't even bother wetting my cardstock first.

Once done, you can lay them out to dry.

A smart person at this point might consider weighing the dry squares down under their craft mat stacked with cookbooks to make them a little more flat, but I wouldn't know anything about that. I just moved straight on to the next step.

Once dry, I lay the pieces out on my background to decide the order in which I wanted to stick them down.

Once happy with your order, take your squares off one by one, numbering the back as you go. This will make life so much easier when it comes to putting them back on.

Glueing the squares down is another personal preference. I choose to use backed tape. I covered the entire background in stripes about an inch apart. Then only peeled off the backing as I was working on that row (following your numbers of course). This make the process very clean and easy. I did however have to use my fine line craft glue to stick down a few corners when finished. Once again, a more patient and intelligent person might choose to give the layout a couple of hours under weights. I didn't.

As far as placement is concerned, I chiefly concentrated on making the intersections line up more than the edges. Once all the squares were down I cleaned up the edges with the paper trimmer. Here is the final product:

 I know all you creative souls out there don't really need any further instruction on how to turn it in to a layout. So I'll just give you the briefest account of how it came together for me. I found a photo with a lot of white works best. This one of Eva in her favourite loud print PJ's was perfect, but a black and white photo would do just as well. I didn't feel the need to mat the photo as I didn't really want to add more patterns. I did however embellish fairly heavenly from the Main and Embellishment Kits. I tried to keep the coloured embellishments close to their matching background quarter for uniformity, but that's a personal choice thing as well. So here's the final product.

Now I'm going to put it under some cookbooks for a couple of days ;)

Aimee Xx

Grace - August GraceBox

Hi everyone!
It's Gina Lideros again sharing with you a bible journaling page that I created using my August GraceBox kit.

I absolutely love the die-cut paper tags (Amy Tangerine) that are included in this month's GraceBox kit.  As soon as I saw them I knew right away that I wanted to add watercolors to them.  They inspired by art journaling pages this month.

I started by covering my pages with a thin layer of clear gesso.  Once, the gesso dried I decided to use the die cuts as stencils.  I placed one of the doily stencils on the left side of my page and then painted with watercolors over it.  Next, I repeated this step on the right side of my page.

One of my favorite watercolor sets to use are the watercolor confections sets by Prima.  They are  highly pigmented, which I love - I can always count on them to be bright and bold.  And they blend well too.  On my pages here I used pink and orange from the Tropicals set. 

                                               
I also added watercolors to a die cut feather and owl, before adhering them down on my pages.

Next, I added some stamping and journaling to my pages.  Since my journaling is about God's grace I quoted 2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

You can pick up your own August GraceBox here!  I can't wait to see what you create with it!