Had to do something with that stencil-ink-spray background I did the other day so turned the blue stamped circles into flowers. Very roughly painted and outlined with black marker. Added some nonsense text and tally-ho! I do like a quick one sometimes! I’ve just signed up for an online course in lettering, so look out for improvements in that department soon.

I got me some Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints and I had to try them out – all of them. Layer upon layer of glorious color. When I got fed up with that, I doodled all over the page. That’s it.

Here’s another girly page. I seem to go in waves of wanting to do the same stuff until I get bored with it. I am feeling fed up. I have the remnants of a cold and I’m concerned that my home-schooled kids aren’t doing enough. We’ve been home-schooling for seven years and never really had any problems – perhaps I should just relax.

On this page we have home-made styrofoam stamps and acrylic paint for the background, a little sheet music collage, some scrapbook paper for the left border, a girl-face, fabric paper dress and that’s about it.

This afternoon I thought I’d create another step-by-step for Hubpages. Haven’t written the article yet so no link but here’s just part of the page for now. Made a pinkish background using bubble-wrap. Yellowed up an old map, tore it into pieces and glued randomly to page. ‘Knocked it back with white paint diluted with glazing medium. Drew the face in my sketchbook and cut it out. Glued to page, cut out a dress from art paper. Toned down the background a bit more and painted her hair. Gave her a heart to hold and added text and white highlights. Rubbed gold acrylic paint and a little Neocolor II round the border and finally, journaled with a plain old ballpoint.

Edit: Here she be: Mixed Media Step-by-Step

I had to write another article for HubPages – “Using Mixed Media in Painting“, so made a step-by-step sort-of tutorial, ending up with this. I could tell you how I did it but wouldn’t you rather go and read the article? Of course you would. Off you go…

I have been creating. Honest!

Was accepted onto an intensive 6 month writing course with Hubpages and have been completely absorbed. I made this:

How to Paint Rocks

and this:

How to Deal (Spread) Tarot Cards

and this:

Techniques for Mixed Media Layering

and this:

How to Read Tarot Cards

and this:

How to Read Fives in Tarot

and this:

Foot Reflexology Techniques

Back to the book. A quick reminder… I set myself the challenge of creating something every day for a year. The main theme of my challenge is to work in THIS BOOK altering it, one page at a time. Sometimes I have to veer away, as the past week shows. However, barely a day has passed during the last two months when I haven’t made something. If you want to apply yourself to a shorter challenge, then have a look at Make Something Every Day, which has loads of ideas for a one-month creativity fest.

This page was created by stamping the page with a homemade styrofoam stamp and acrylic paint, collage, text, white-out pen and a quick spritz of diluted acrylic ink. My kids have both got colds right now and I hate to see them feeling less-than-great, so I wanted to remind myself to appreciate them at their rambunctious best, however irritated I am by the noise and general family rumpus.

Which is only one of the reasons I am late with my updates.

I was not inspired to work in The Book over the weekend. Instead I had put down some backgrounds in a Moleskine a while back and wanted to bring them to fruition. The journal has already been written in and some pages have Zentangles on them. I’ve been giving them makeovers with color washes, layered with gesso and more washes. Stamping, collage and lettering added.

Last night I returned to The Book and created another background by spraying diluted acrylic ink over stencils and a plastic comb abandoned by my daughter. I tell you, leave anything around and it will end up in an art journal.

Idly trawling around Youtube yesterday wondering what to do with some black styrofoam/polystyrene saved from a couple of frozen pizzas, I came across this video. I was on it right away and created this cool background (and several more) with one stamp and some heavy-bodied acrylic paint, including gold. I white gessoed the page first but, yep, that is a pink elephant peeking through.

So today, I simply went to town with layering – I can barely remember what’s on the page, truth be told. Collage, stenciling, shading, corrector pen, journaling, doodling, and finally I rubbed on some yellow then white soft pastel to give the page a distressed look.

Made a Squidoo lens today “Make Something” and this was the intro image. Page coated with clear gesso. Sprayed with diluted acrylic inks, stamped, painted and pretty silver stars and doodle hearts image glued on. Very quick and much fun.

A cold and miserable rainy day,

The perfect time to art and play.

Printed out the grid doodle I made yesterday, glued it into The Book with Mod Podge. Collaged some little houses made from my fabric paper. Printed out the words (Betsy Flanagan font) and collaged them onto the page. Added the angel postage stamp and it is done.