Positivity Pocket

Hello my friends and thank you for visiting my blog. Today, I present my Pocket of Positivity!

This is my design to tie in with the Paperartsy topic of "Bleach".

To be honest, I was flummoxed at first, as, apart from spilling onto my clothes etc, I had no experience of bleach in art.

So, my first step was to play with Paperartsy Infusions on tags and then bleach out some of the colour with stamping.

I sprayed water lightly onto tags and liberally added a mixture of infusions, spraying and dabbing until I reached the desired effect.

Next, I spread thick bleach onto a Tear Off Palette and dipped in my PA stamp! Scary, but has survived many dunkings! I used a HotPick for this that had chunky style. HP1604EZ.

You will see in the picture my pocket, which is an end cut off an Amazon envelope.

Next, I selected some fragile papers and glued them on both sides of the pocket. Then I sprayed all over lightly with water and rubbed in some Burnt Umber Acrylic Ink. I used a baby wipe to control the amount of stain.

I rubbed some Black Soot distress ink around the edges of the tags, threaded some wool/ribbon through and backed them with paper from my stash that is suitable for writing on.

I also added some positive thoughts to the fronts of the tags from Tim Holtz Idea-ology Small Talk.

For the front of the pocket, I also attached a tag. I added an "old Soul" photo, some corrugated card, large pin with tassels, hessian and yummy rusty wire. Oops, and a tiny butterfly, symbolising hope. 

On the back, I have added a poignant poem by Rupert Brooke and a word band.

The idea behind my Positivity Pocket, is to use it to collect positive thoughts, happenings , phrases , poems, throughout the year adding to the collection and turning to it in times of either need or celebration. I hope that, by this time next year, it will be stuffed full with more tags and lots of hope and inspiration.

Turning into a philosopher in my old age! Thanks for looking and do pop over to the Bleach topic over on the Paperartsy blog.

To the Evening Star

Here is my second piece for Country View Crafts on the topic of "Stars." I based it around the very inspiring poem by William Blake entitled "To the Evening Star".

I began by creating 3D stars through a stencil with DecoArt Crackle Paste. (having gessoed my book page first.)

When dry, I sprayed the page lightly with water and sprinkled Paperartsy Infusions, Royal Blood and Violet Storm onto the sky. I controlled the colour by dabbing with a baby wipe.

I couldn't decide at first, whether to write my poem in black or white pen, but, as you can see, I went for white Posca pen.

Next, with Tim Holtz Wildflowers stamps CMS253, I stamped over the top with Black Archival Ink.

Because the background has a little texture, I went over some of the black stamping to make it denser using a black Posca pen.

Finally, to frame the piece, I went around the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink applied with some Cut and Dry foam.

If you would like to see more ideas on the theme of stars then do pop over to the Country View crafts site for inspiration.

Products Used:-Infusions Royal Blood, Violet Storm; Decoart Crackle Paste; Star Stencil; Wildflower Stamp.

Typography, Diana.

Loving the new topic on PA blog and needed to join in. Was greatly inspired by the presentation that Darcy gave us. Typography,Fonts and Quotes is a great topic.

Here is my entry, inspired by the beautiful Diana Ross.

I began by selecting a few fashion adverts from magazines and glued them to my journal.....A4 size.

Next, I selected a pic of Diana Ross from a magazine and outlined it onto my background. The most crucial step was to paint over the outline of the person with Clear gesso so that I could paint onto the shiny magazine surface.

Here is the face partly done...looks a bit scary. All the paints are from the Paperartsy range.

There are several areas where the background magazine came through...probably because I overworked it in parts.

I enjoyed once again having a go at a face and combining it with the striking images of magazine lettering.

Here is my final piece which I am entering into the Paperartsy challenge.

Star

Gosh, November the first. What an exciting time of the year. I think that most of us will be getting starry eyed about the Christmas season.
For the wonderful topic of Stars, over on the Country View Craft site, I chose a 3D approach with a die.

I began by using some offcuts of Mirri Card and my "Die'sire Star of Wonder Die" and cut out lots of star shapes on my Big Shot die cutting machine. I rubbed the die with a tumbler dryer sheet first to enable it to pop out of the die easily after cutting.

Next, I selected 3 gold stars and glued them onto red tissue paper. Making sure that I lifted them after gluing with matt medium so that they didn't stick to my craft sheet.

I cut off the excess tissue and folded each star down the middle. 

I wanted to dangle beads and found an odd earring which just fitted the bill.

Finally I threaded some cotton into the top to hang it.

Here it is dangling in a conifer outside. It was hard to photograph as the wind kept spinning it around.

I hope that you have enjoyed my little project and that it may inspire you to do something similar. Single stars would look nice with acetate behind them and a few hanging in a window would make a nice display, or just attached to a Christmas card.

Products Used:- Ranger Multi Medium Matte, Die'sire, Star of Wonder die.(replacement) bought from CVC last week but doesn't appear to be available any more!

Thanks for looking.