By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Silence can mean many different things to different people … for me it means silence of traffic and people with the poplar leaves rustling in the breeze, whispering summer, summer, summer …. this page is a spot in our little park that silences all that traffic and you can feel the difference. The tree and grass were created with torn tissue paper, the background is water colour crayon and I also added a bit of scrap paper for the tree line.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
I loved this week !! …. creating this jar was a blast and the smudging was perfect for this left hander. I love and collect turtles so of course I had to add a turtle stamp. Working with water paint and mark making for the background of the jar was so much fun.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
February’s colour challenge at the Digital Scrapbooking Studio with ADB Designs brought us a wonderful soft colour palette. I created both a layout and a kit for this month. Loved working with this palette.
I love this layout and the vintage photo. She is telling a story while she is taking a photo to tell another story about somebody else.
Vintage Musings
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
For this little page we were to use the colour blue and work with a crackle finish. I started with a deep blue and added white school glue, dried it with the dryer for a couple of seconds and then painted over it with the lighter blue which crackled finely. I then painted copper on the borders, more glue and then white which crackled also. This piece was one of two samples and since I liked them I used one for this piece. I then glued down the piece of lace and added the stamped bird and tag. I used the stamp pad to give the edges of the piece a bit of colour and to soften them as well.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
I had a blast with this piece … playing with acrylics … mixing, spreading, spraying, spritzing, brushing, stenciling all in one piece. Mati used gold leaf for her boat but since this is a practice piece I used a piece of gold Mylar from a package of tea bags instead. I glued it onto a pattern of the ship and then glued that onto the piece to give it a bit of solidity. One word of warning … don’t use a heat gun near it … it will shrink.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Faces …. I need a whole lot of practice with faces … I have been sketching them since my teens but painting with acrylics is a very different technique. But I love my background using Violette’s cloud technique. I tore my arcs out of a piece of scrap watercolour paper rather than cutting them to give them a fuzzier outline.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
This little book was a lot of fun to make. We were to pick 4 people as our support group to highlight on the book. I chose my two sons and their wives. They spoil me rotten and I let them. Thanks guys and gals :). The original book had doors at crotch level and I decided to change that so made doors to their wonderful large hearts instead.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Fun, fun, fun … seeds of love on Life Book 2015 …. this is my page with lights and darks. I loved this lesson with it’s mix of bright and muddy colours. I’ve included a black and white version to show the tones and values. I used ombre tissue in the background and picked up those colours into the painting itself. The tissue also gave me some wonderful surface texture. Great lesson from Tamara LaPorte.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
There are 3 png and 2 jpeg documents in the file. Overlay one was made from a hand drawn doodle, two has a golden glitter butterfly. You can take advantage of the glitter if you use it on top of your colour. The third overlay was created with shapes and the fourth was scanned from a piece of fabric. The fifth was made from a tulip in my garden.
Flower Overlays
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
These backs were scanned from the blank originals. They are higher resolution at 150ppi but not 300ppi because they are meant to be printed and used on a postcard back rather than in a digital piece. They are 4″ x 6″ so will fit directly on the back of your card, whether it is paper or fabric. I created them for The Art For the Creative Mind yahoo group. Grab all 4 …. two in the natural sepia tones and two in black and white. When I used one I typed the name of the recipient and her address in a script font as well as a message on the left side and then added a vintage Canadian stamp.
postcard back 1
postcard back 1-black and white
postcard back 2
postcard back 2 – black and white
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
These elements were first posted in the first scrapbook kit I created. I have brought them back for the Make an Element challenge at Pixel Scrappers. These were so much fun to make and I still like the way they turned out.
Make an Element
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
The challenge called for 8 cards …. 3×4 inch and 4×6 inch …. 4 each. Here are mine with the psd files so you can change them up and switch them around. I’ve also included 4 of each size for you to use if you don’t play with Photoshop. Personal use only on these cards.
Journal Cards
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
These are my first doodle brushes….I have done many brushes but never any to share. These were created for the Pixel Scrappers online site. These brushes were made with Photoshop Elements 11 and I can’t guarantee that they will work in other versions of PS and PSE. Please feel free and have fun with them but do not distribute them without linking to my blog.
Doodle Doodle Brushes
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
After finishing this piece this morning I had an epiphany … I am still stuck in the era I stopped painting. I switched to quilting art quilts, mainly landscape which kept up my sketching and drawing skills along with creating my own cross stitch and embroidery patterns. I then moved on to mixed media and digital and designing scrap book kits. I created many a background but have not done any serious painting in a long long time … thus the reason I am stuck. I want to redo many of these pieces and will do, but only after I have enough lessons done to feel mature in that area. It really is a shock to me to find my brain/hand co-ordination is not up to what my mind sees…. humbling is the word. I also feel a need to be wilder and more adventurous. Here is my dream catcher. I love the lace and the feathers and bird in the middle but my background and feathers need to be bolder and wild. I wasn’t going to post this piece and then thought … “It is part of my journey” …so it is here although it feels unfinished.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
This was a fun lesson but obviously painting with acrylics is still an issue with me, always has been. I tend to make acrylics into paint book figures and that is what has happened to this little girl. She has a sweet face but there is no maturity in the piece. Practice, practice, practice with acrylics. She reminds me of one of my paper dolls.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Solace means quiet, respective contemplation and who better to display this but a Blue Heron sitting waiting for his dinner to swim by, so very very still. Appleton is where the photo was taken, a pretty little town in the Ottawa Valley. It is the same photo I used for the digital piece as well. This page was created for the Art For the Creative Mind yahoo group for January.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
This was such a fun lesson I made two. I love working with lettering and love to doodle the alphabet but this lesson was hard for me to do at first until I figured out that I wasn’t relaxed doing it. Once I relaxed I didn’t have any problems. For the water colours I made my own palette using waste water colour paper and applying the colour to that and picking it up from there into my brush. I will never buy another water colour palette again, this worked so well.
This page is right from the lesson. I love working with water colours. I left the letter on this one blank but I think they look bare and need work. I have to leave them for a couple of days to decide.
I wanted to do an oval piece with my chosen word “Value”, which reminds me to value myself and treat me like I treat others in my life.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Bright yellow flowers for a very cold cold January to make your scrapping pages wonderfully sunny. Pixel Scrappers is calling for an extraction of our choice as a designer challenge. This is my contribution. Don’t forget they are for personal use only, no commercial or sharing in your free kits.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
January’s colour challenge kit for The Scrapbooking Studio was a pleasure to do with the wonderful colour palette given us this month. The challenge was Telling My Story, Documenting Your Life or Journaling.
Family Memories papers
Family Memories elements
Who Are You came from this photo of a relative who I look like, especially when I was younger but sadly we don’t know who she is. I created the page using the little kit made by ADB Designs.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
This piece was done for The Digital Scrapbooking Studio’s January art challenge. I used a paper and a brush given to us by Jilbert who was hosting the challenge this month. I chose the photo as soon as I saw the papers. They were made for each other. The quote of Vincent Van Gogh’s is one of my favourite of his. I love his paintings and the way he layered strokes of paint on a canvas and created a masterpiece.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
What fun these tags were to do. I think I need Spring because they sure are spring like…. Instead of sewing the seams on my machine which has a new needle in it (I’m not using the new needle for paper) I marked holes with a piece of plastic canvas, punched them and then sewed by hand with crochet cotton. I also added a wee bit of translucent glitter just to give the tag a spring like glow. To get the background I laid down some water colour crayon on a transparency, spritzed with water and then swirled the colour around with my fingers before dipping the tag into the paint. The images were created in Photoshop filters with two of my photos, one of a peony and the other of a seed flower. I had them in my digital stash and blended them together.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Lesson 1 is finished. This little girl is my Beacon of Light for the year. She has too many shadows, not enough highlights and is a bit overworked but she is mine and she is ready to give me a hug throughout the year.
The crow is for the pair of nesting crows we had at our country home. I have mentioned them before. I miss them big time. Sitting in the tall elm waiting for the sun to rise, dipping in by the window to check on us and saying HI how are you today when we walked out the door. They are my symbol, my beacon of light
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
I made the decision this year to sign up for Tamara Lapage’s Life Book 2015. The course goes all year and there is still lots of time to enroll. You can find her site here: Life Book 2015
This was our opening warm up exercise. We chose a word that meant something real to us. Mine is value, to remind myself that I need to value myself just like I do with everybody else. It is the one hurdle I find hard to overcome.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
The Art Challenge at The Digital Scrapbooking Studio for December was a pleasure to do. It’s hosted by Robyn of Red Dog Designs and she generously shares a mini kit with us each month. I used several of the elements and the blended background papers are from the kit. The tree is from a photo I took after an ice storm and it had the brightest blue sky that I blended away.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Half Past Autumn … I love this way of describing the season change between autumn to winter. It is from a poem by Gordon Parks “But I do feel a little teeny right now that I’m just about ready to start, and winter is entering. Half past autumn has arrived.” This kit was created for The Digital Scrapbooking Studio’s December colour challenge with ADB Designs. I have also done a page using ADB Designs pretty little kit and another created with my kit. These photos are from a beautiful autumn day deep in the Ottawa valley.
Page created with ABD Designs mini kit
Page created with my Half Past Autumn kit
Half Past Autumn
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
The November Art Challenge at the Digital Scrapbook Studio was all about love. One of Robyn’s kits from her Red Dog Designs was the basis of my page. I blended her flowers and papers, added a brush and a swan. Robert Frost is one of my favourite poets and I thought this kit fit his quote so well.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
This little Elephant tag was done for the November tag swap on the Art For the Creative Mind Yahoo group. I placed my wings as ears on my little baby elephant in Dumbo fashion. The background is watercolour with a cheesecloth cloud and washi tape borders. Ribbons and fluffy yarn along with some beads hang from the tag to gussy the little fellow up.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
November’s journal page for the Art For the Creative Mind Yahoo group is all about generosity whether it is lots of hearts or other generous thoughts you may have. I chose both. Lots of hearts on my page along with the fact that you can find generosity if you go and look for it, whether thoughts or deeds they are all about us. My textures for the heart were a map, a dictionary page and a handwritten page, all symbols of ‘looking for something’ and to finish them off I embossed transparent dragon flies onto them. They always amaze me with their flitting from one thing to another as they ‘look’ through their little world.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Here is my little mini kit that I created for Dianne of ADB Designs November colour challenge on the Digital Scrapbooking Studio site. The theme this month was ‘delicate’ and it was a challenge for me to use the muted colours.
Gentle Whisperings
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
The cowardly shooting and death of the brave soldier, Frank Cirillo, guarding the unknown soldier’s tomb, the morning of Oct 22, 2014 has put the city of Ottawa in mourning. This is a tribute to Cpl Cirillo and others who die senseless deaths in these crazy times we call modern life…. Soldiers leave behind family, mothers, fathers, wives and children. How do we help them understand? How do we understand things that don’t make any sense? Sleep in peace Cpl Cirillo.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
A little journal page created for the Art For the Creative Mind Yahoo Group. When I first read about this swap I was interested, I love wonky houses of all kinds. My houses are not only wonky but happy. The background is water colour crayons, the chimney smoke is an embossed stamp of flowers (just right for my happy houses) and a bit of trim added for whimsy.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
October’s colour challenge at the Digital Scrapbooking Studio brought us a beautiful colour palette to play with. Autumn colours with a muted look to them which reminded me of many days just before Halloween when it is frosty but still loaded with wonderful warm hues and breezy whispers of the leaves in the trees. I added a little mask and two owls to bring in the Halloween season.
Autumn Whispers
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
These little 4×4 Art cards, done for the Art For The Creative Mind Yahoo group, were so much fun to do. The background is metallic copper paint with a border of metallic blue paint and a matching alcohol ink. The copper is for the changing trees and the blue ink is for the bright blue skies surrounding the trees that appears in the Autumn. Both cards were drawn freehand so are a bit different. Once has something extra … can you spot it?
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
October’s journal page at The Art For the Creative Mind Yahoo group was all about following your dream. Dancing to my own music, to my own song has always been my dream. I try to do that at least a little bit each and every day. This journal page is my inner child and I added my grey hair. Although dancing these days is not as easy as it was when I was younger, it is in my dreams.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Quilting Memories is the third and last mini kit created for the Digital Scrapbooking Studio site during their New Designer Challenge in September. My grandmother made me a Dresdan Plate quilt as a wedding present over 45 years ago. It is now a beloved heirloom. When I want to be closer to her I wrap myself in this quilt and remember all the wonderful, loving times we had together. This little mini kit could also be used for a Christmas layout. Don’t forget to download the alphabet in the second download.
Quilting Memories
Quilting Memories alphabet
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Sitting with my mother’s button bag could amuse me for hours when I was young. How I loved all those colourful buttons, running my fingers through them, building them up into towers and spreading them out again to start over again. This is the second of three kits created for the Digital Scrapbooking Studio’s Birthday challenge for 2014.
Mama’s Button Bag
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
Grandma’s Garden Memories was created for the Digital Scrapbooking Studio’s birthday bash, week 1 using two of the Pantone autumn colour palette. The blue and green reminded me so much of the morning glories that used to grow on my grandmother’s porch when I was just a toddler. I can still recall the heat of summer, sitting under the shade of the flowers and leaves, hearing the buzz of the bees as they flew in and out and a wonderful, peaceful, secure feeling. So this little kit is all about my grandmother and that day on her porch.
Grandma’s Garden Memories
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
September is all about apples …. apple pie, cider, vinegar. When Pixel Scrappers challenge was ‘red’ what better than apples; apples in red, green and yellow. Don’t forget the cozy warmth of plaid flannels and felt in the Autumn air. Put them together and you have a great little kit for all those ‘playing in the leaves’ photos.
Apple Cider Elements
Apple Cider Papers
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
These are papers created for other kits that were not used. When this challenge was listed I thought it was a great way of adding them as a kit. They all will match one of the other kits I have made.
These papers are in two links so don’t forget to click on both
Only Papers package 1
Only Papers pakage 2
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
These little ATCs were fun to do. When I think of Bombay I think of the old city and traditions and of course for a phrase who better than Mahatma Gandhi’s wise words about love.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
The colour challenge at The Digital Scrapbooking Studio with ADB Designs is a great big mega kit with one theme for each of the mini kits … love music, love to dance. This little kit got my toes tapping.
Love to Dance, Love Music
It is the Studio’s birthday month and there are lots of activities, come in and join. You will find the rest of the links to the mega kit and other lovely pieces atDigital Scrapbooking Studio Don’t delay though, many of the links will be gone in October.
By Susan on 11-27-2015 in Journal pages, Life Book 2015, Mixed Media
This little journal page was created for the Art for the Creative Mind Yahoo group. Whimsical Me was the subject and only guideline for this 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch page.
The background is an ombre tissue paper. Tissue paper is a great way to get a brightly coloured background quickly. I covered it with gel to keep it from bleeding. A simple coating of clear glitter glue went on top of that with some pearlized water paints stenciled into the corners. The green cheese moon is a piece of water colour card. My little girl with the wistful look was traced from a vintage fairytale book using my Wacom Bamboo tablet in PSE 11. I then printed onto a dictionary page and coloured with water colour crayons. Once she was dry I redrew the black lines and outlined her in grey gel pen. The words were printed on a piece of textured resume paper and torn before being pasted onto the piece. Everything was covered with another layer of gel to preserve it.
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