Fortifying Faith, My First Art Journal :)

Hello, dear friends,

I've been absent for a while. I've some personal issues, pain and health that require much more prayer. They are areas I don't have much control over, so need to rely ever more on our heavenly Father and Creator.

Here is my first journal. It is all about deepening Faith. It's a journal in which I hope to let the colors flow and to write out positive, up-building scriptures and thoughts that will help lift me up on the days I need extra strength.

You probably know how much I love the ocean and water (I love mountains, plains and valleys, too). The front cover has about 8 coats of glossy Mod Podge over the distress inks, clear micro round beads, rhinestones, and glitter dots. The finish looks as though you are standing over the sea shore looking straight down through the sparkling water to the sand just beneath. It sparkles so much IRL and I hope to figure out how to upload a brief video to show it glisten. The papers are from Heartfelt Creations, and the flowers are from their Fleur de Lis stamps and dies. I also used some 3D Stamp Paint in Gold by Viva Decor. Finally I scattered some of Gina K. Designs Diamond glitter all over before the last two coats of Mod Podge. The result is a translucent ocean of goodness! I should have put some shells or a starfish on the sand before I built up all the layers of clear water.

Inside front cover, tag with Isaiah 41:10

(I've since distressed the little corners of the tag frame)

Tag stamps from Graphic45, The Secret Garden

Thank you for stopping by. Your friendship and comments help more than you realize :)

I'll try to upload a brief video to show you how sparkly the front cover is. Aloha ♥

Always Butterflies

As summer ends, autumn begins, where do all the butterflies go? They used to cover San Juan Capistrano, but I heard recently they have not been there as much. We have them here year-round. They always seem to come back in spring and summer on the mainland, so I feel there's Always Butterflies.

This is another card that started out CAS and quickly turned into another "Oh, no" and shabby here we come. I had also tried a new technique in the background that (click link for simpler tutorial as well as video ==>) Lydia at Splitcoaststampers  taught via tutorial today. She calls it Bokeh. I called mine a failure LOL because I could not find a new pencil with a round eraser near me. So I used the next similar thing: the broken chop sticks I keep in my craft box for when they come in handy, like today, to stand in for the pencil erasers, which they could not possibly live up to. The paint didn't look like round circles, but rather like splotched messes.

Create the background:

Color gelatos onto your stamp. Using an Aqua brush or any paint brush with water, thin and blend the color on your stamp. Stamp the image onto cardstock.

Next you create the bokeh dots around the shadow image. Take your gelato color (I used the same blue) and color a small area on an acrylic block. Add a touch of water to thin, then dip your pencil eraser in. Tap gently around your image, first close to the image so that the most color is deposited around the image, and as you tap farther away, the dots get fainter. Keep doing this until you get a 'dreamy' dotted background all around the image.

Now for the main, to-be-fussy-cut image: I am using a butterfly by the way. Color your image with the colors you would like. I used yellow, green, medium and darker blue. Use your aqua brush to blend the colors to a wet, creamy consistency, then stamp onto a fresh piece of cardstock. You can add Gelato color directly to your image if you want it to be more vibrant, using your finger to blend. Time to cut this out. It will be adhered over the shadow that you created earlier.

I didn't like my shadow image background. so I tore off the edges and added sponging with yellows, greens and blues by Memento. Then I sprayed it with Shimmer Pearls (I make it), scrunched it up, then took a heat tool to it so it cried crumpled. I added some Glitterata Gold ink to the edges. Background done.

It really lacked pizzazz. Enter Prisma Glitter {grin} - ahh, just the right thing to doctor this up. First I painted the butterfly with Mod Podge, and laid it in a small container of glitter, spooning it over and over until it was all covered. I used a heat tool and heated it from underneath to set the glitter, and adhered with strips of foam adhesive to the shadow/bokeh/crumpled background.

The rest is pretty self explanatory, but please ask questions if you have any. My dh exclaimed, "It's as big as a 747!!!" which drew me down, including the corners of my mouth, into a frown. I will definitely be practicing bokeh more once I find a new pencil eraser :D

Thank you for looking!