Snow

We get snow so seldom on the Gulf Coast, that it almost becomes a holiday when it happens. It is rare any year, but it never happens this early in the season. It's not even officially winter yet.
I first painted these pages with "Antique White" just to cover up the lines and to give me a base to apply the diluted blue and green fluid acrylics. Fluid acrylics are fun to use. The Golden brand is what I have, and even though they are quite expensive to buy initially, they are very concentrated so you only need a few drops for intense color. They also give a nice sheen to the paper and have a yummy feel. Almost silky. This picture doesn't begin to show the intensity of the color, let along the sheen.
I used a white pigment inkpad to stamp the snowflakes, and a white Prismacolor pencil to journal. The swirly lines were added with FW white acrylic ink.

Thankful

The photo of this spread is not very good, but I had to include it anyway because it shows Blake getting her first sponge bath and also features the sweet thank-you card that Missy gave me. Inside, she listed in detail the things that she was thankful for that I've done for her lately. I'm thankful that I am so blessed to have such a loving daughter.

Coming Home

The top picture shows Missy and Jerry as they are just about to take the baby into their house for the very first time.
The bottom one shows Alley taking a sniff of this strange new critter that they've brought home.

Ta Da! Our Baby's Here

This spread commemorates the birth of my granddaughter. They'll be calling her Blake, but I'm so honored that they chose to make her middle name Eliece. She is just perfect!

New Camera

This spread features three different days separated by rubberstamped frames.
I first painted the background with Seafoam Green and Morning Blue. When that dried, I stamped the top frame with Kaleidacolor's "Caribbean Sea" dye pad. Notice how badly it bled. Maybe dye pads are not the best to use on top of acrylic paint. I colored in some of the spaces with a "Brite Purple" Prismacolor pencil.
After stamping the smaller rectangle, I added some extra greens to the page with Neocolor IIs and a babywipe. I also used a sponge and ColorBox inks to apply the pinkish colors inside the rectangles.

Coquette Weekend 2009

I used Seafoam Green and Wisteria to paint stripes for the background.
I'm usually pretty good about making notes in the back of my journals that remind me of how and what I used do various spreads, but I fell down on the job for this one. I have no idea what I used to color the rubberstamps used on these pages. It appears to have been a multi-hued pad, but I don't seem to have one with those particular colors. Maybe I dabbed on individual colors.

Granny's Little Rocker

This spread shows various items that I've worked on to get ready for my grandbaby. The photo on the left side shows the dust ruffle on the crib that I referred to in my "Eyelet" post. In front of that is the little rocking chair that belonged to my mother. After refinishing it, I wrapped it up for Missy to open at her baby shower, and included a tiny book to explain it. There were pictures of the three of us as toddlers and this is what it said:
"This little chair first held your granny.
Then me
and you.
Now it's been refinished to the color it was 85+ years ago,
and is waiting for a new little girl.
With love
from Mom"

Flu Shot

This spread is an example of pages that started out so ugly and ended up looking really good.
I began by painting with "Wisteria" and "Moon Yellow." Because purple and yellow are complements of each other (directly across the color wheel), they go well together and make what is known as "neutrals" when mixed together. This is usually some version of gray or brown, and you can see that happening where the two colors came together.
My next step was to brayer some bubble wrap with the "Hydrangea" ink from a Ranger pad. I randomly applied this to the pages and then wiped with an old T-shirt to blend and soften. The resulting dots are quite subtle, so you may have to look carefully to see them.
I used various purple hues of Prismacolor pencils to draw the swirls, which were further embellished with a black Pitt pen. The dates were written with a Prismacolor "Parrot Green" pencil.

Diaper? What Diaper?

This illustration is another picture that I had been saving for years. Little baby butts are so cute!
It was perfect to help tell the story of our search for a changing table that would match the crib, be small enough to fit in the designated corner, and have drawers.
The background paint is "Wisteria" with streaks of "Hi-Lite Flesh". I used a black Pitt brush pen to draw the swirls and to write the heading. These were shadowed with a "Platinum" Brushable by Zig. I used Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White to paint the white spaces on the swirls.

Eyelet Trim

This spread is to commemorate how I made the dust ruffle for the baby's crib.
I painted the background with dark periwinkle paint. Then I used my "Elegant" multi-punch to cut holes along strips of white paper to resemble eyelet fabric. To simulate the pink grosgrain ribbon that I threaded through the eyelet, I ran a piece of linen-textured cardstock through my shredder to quickly and easily make quarter-inch strips. Cutting the slots to pass the strips through was the tedious part. I wish I'd had one of those ribbon stitch punches to save me having to cut each one of these holes with an Xacto knife.
I attached the shower invitation with a strip of Magic Tape along the side so that it can be flipped back to read the reverse side.

Crib

People just shake their heads when I show them this spread. It relates our experience in putting together the baby's crib.
I got the brilliant idea (????) to make a little replica of the crib from glossy cardstock. You can't really see this from the photo, but the front and side pieces are cut separately and layered over the back piece, and the drop-gate folds up and down. Also, I used a ball-tip burnisher to deboss designs onto the legs. Yes...I need to get a life!

Silhouette

The illustration here was an experiment where I cut out a picture from a magazine and applied repositionable spray adhesive to it to create a kind of reverse stencil.
After painting the background with lavender and aqua paint, I pressed the tacky cut-out into place and brushed red paint around it.
This didn't work out quite as I had planned.
I discovered that some of the printing inks had transferred to the background when I removed the cut-out. I didn't really object to that since it created a funky look.
I think I would have liked the red paint better if I had sponged it on instead of using a brush.

Creating Your Own Story

This spread shows a label that I made to go on some copies of CDs of my art journaling lessons that I plan to give the Coquettes when we get together in October.
If anyone is interested in these lessons, you can read about them here:
http://creatingyourownstory.blogspot.com/

Julie and Julia

The illustration on this spread came from the food section of the newspaper. It appeared months (maybe years) ago, and I had been saving it all this time because I really loved the look of it. It was perfect for my entry about seeing the movie "Julie and Julia."
I first applied the yellow paint called "Melted Butter"...how appropriate is that name for this background? Overbrushed that a bit with a wash of turquoise.
I carefully cut around the vegetable drawings and ran them through my Xyron machine. I positioned it just where I wanted it on the pages, and peeled the backing paper away a bit at the time while pressing it down so it wouldn't curl up onto itself.
I added shadows all around the cut-out with a gray Prismacolor pencil, as well as a few curliques and spirals.

M Is for Melissa

The background for this is "Steamed Milk" by Anita. Occasionally, I like to have a plain background instead of something more colorful. This allowed the initial letter to show up nicely. It's an Art Nouveau letter that I colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Multi-Punch Border

The paints for this background were "Spring Green" and "Bright Blue". To make the borders, I used a multi-punch called "Elegant" by The Paper Studio and strips from a magazine page. The top one is the lacey look that the punch makes, but I thought the part that was left over was interesting looking, so I stuck it to the bottom of the right-hand page.
For my journaling, I used Dr. Martin's Bleed-Proof White and a Nikko G nib. It's not necessary to be a calligrapher to use these materials. This is just my ordinary handwriting. It's difficult to find a pen that writes reliably with white fluid. Believe me...I've tried every kind I can find! It's especially difficult when writing over acrylic paints. The Bleed-Proof White works better than anything else for me. I decant some into a tiny container that will hold no more than 1 teaspoonful. You can use the pop-off lid from a bottle of hairspray or something similar. Just so it's narrow and just deep enough to accommodate your nib. After putting a small amount of the BPW into the container, add some distilled water drop by drop and stir it to mix well. Try it with your nib until it flows well, but is still opaque. You'll need to rinse it out of the nib periodically so it won't get clumpy.

Visit to New JoAnn's

The background for these pages was "Bright Yellow" and "Wild Berry" overbrushed with "Cream" when dry. I inked up a foam butterfly stamp that I found in JoAnn's $1.00 bin with the Versacolor "Velveteen" pad.