Outside The Box Design Studio

 

There's a new art journal forum from Outside the Box Design Studio.  I discovered them during Digital Scrapbook Day this past weekend.  They ran a contest to win a seat in one of their upcoming art journal workshops.  The catch-you had to use their products, but they did give you a coupon; oh and you had to use the word "art" on your page.  So I purchased the starter kit using the coupon and made this page.  Received a message a short time ago that I was one of the winners...Woohoo.  This is the page I created.  Hope you get a chance to create :-)  Until next time...Happy Craftin'!

Snapshot 2012 #18 - I Believe

Digi Credits: Studio Viva Artistry-Fairy Tale-Virtuosity, Penmanship, Le Reve

Beth Rimmer: Grunge Overlays

I finally made it to another Snapshot 2012 chat.  Although you don't have to go to the chats to participate I find the discussions help me focus on what I want to do for a page. Snapshot 18 is about our beliefs.  What beliefs do you hold dear, or perhaps what beliefs have changed over the years.  It's a pretty broad topic.  I chose one of our family beliefs.  We are strong proponents of the "Each new day brings new possibilities.  Yesterday is a lesson learned, let it go, move on with no regrets."  Our teenager especially embraces this...lol.  For this page I worked a lot on blending the background papers.  Underneath the ink and gesso there are 3 different papers with different blending modes applied to help create the look I wanted.

 I've been playing in PSE7 for 10 months now and am still discovering new things to try.  I haven't even started playing with brushes.  Of course PSE11 has now been released.  It looks like a great program, but I don't want to upgrade since I'm still learning PSE7.  Unfortunately many of the new classes coming out are for PSE9 or higher so I may not have a choice if I want to take any classes.

 

Oh and before I sign off I wanted to share that this piece was selected as a WOW layout over at ViVa Artistry.com and as a GSO (gallery stand out) over at Scrapbook Graphics...Woohoo!  It was a wonderful surprise and I just had to share it with you all since you are kind enough to visit my blog and look at my creations :-).

 

The weekend is almost here and I hope you find time to create...until next time...Happy Craftin'!

Delicious Autumn

Autumn Poetry is a new digital art kit just released by Studio Tangie over at ."Scrapbook Graphics.  I had the privilege of getting a sneak peek and playing with all the gorgeous elements in the kit. 

The journaling is an excerpt from a George Eliot piece and says-

"Delicious Autumn my very soul is wedded to it and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeing the successive autumns"


I had a hard time trying to get the font readable on the dark background.  I finally settled on adding a glow to the text.  Not very realistic, but at least you can sort of read the poem.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a wonderful weekend full of creative opportunities!

Gypsy Art Journal Workshop

As some of you know I've started dabbling in art journaling.  Mostly digital with a couple of tries at a physical page.  Well, Tangie Baxter has a mixed media workshop titled "The Gypsy Diaries" that intrigued me.  How can you not be intrigued by a workshop that has the word gypsy?  After reviewing the class materials I decide to try my hand at doing an altered book art journal. 

And here is the first set of pages.  I really need to figure out how to photograph these pages so that you can see the true colors.  The page has a very dark background that made me think of nightime and inspired me to find the quote "and the night shall be filled with music, and the cares that infest the day shall fold their tents.....and silently steal away." by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

 

I used acrylic paints, black gesso and some images that were included in the workshop materials.  I have some fibers that I want to try and incorporate in the diary somehow, I just think there needs to be textures in a Gypsy Diary, don't you?

 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a chance to create today :-)

100 Happy Thoughts

Get a pen and paper and just start writing things that make you happy.  It's a great prompt for a scrapbook page or in my case Art Journal page.  And the best part is when you're done you can't help but feel happy!  It may seem a little difficult around item 20 or 21, but just stick with it and soon your pen will be flying across the page.  Thanks for visiting and Happy Scrappin!

QUICK UPDATE 6/27/2012:  I was notified today that this LO was chosen as one to share at SBG Gallery Standouts for this week.  There were some really cute LOs chosen this week, if you have a moment bop over and check it out.

Studio Tangie-AJC12 parcels 3,13 & 25, AJF Beetle, Gesso Messy
Studio Rosey Posey-Amazing Artist, Blockland
Studio Ztampf-Hipstagramix Painted
Jennifer Labre-Stencil Alpha, Beth Rimmer-Grungy Overlays

31 Things Share

Here's another page I did for Ali Edward's 31 Things Class. I must admit I have fallen waaay behind in this class.  I'm on Day 6, but the class is on Day 23!  Of course the great thing about Big Picture Classes is that you have forever access to your classes. Which is a very good thing!    I had some comments about the Owl I used.  It came from a postage stamp image from Viva Aristry's "Libris" kit.  I didn't want the postage stamp,, but I loved the owl so I extracted it from the image just like you would do to a photo and voila!  Sometimes it's easy to forget that you can do things like that to your digital embellishments thereby increasing the versatility of you digi kits.  Other digi elements were from Studio Tangie's "Librarian" kit. Well that's it for today.  Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Craftin'!

Hues and a Burlesque Queen



Studio Tangie: Artist Box, Journal Anthology 7,

ATC Requisites collab w/Sherriyd
Studio Rebecca:Elle
Paprika: Venice Masquerade
Fiddlette Designs: Calliope Catches the Moon
Anna Aspnes: Dotted Korners N Edges No. 1
Gina Cabrera: Restoration
Traci Stroud:I am Beautiful
Font: The Alice

It's time to share another art journal page.  Here I played around the changing hues and blending modes.  One of the things I love about digital scrapbooking is that I can change the colors of elements if needed.  The day I worked on this page I was feeling an affinity with the color orange.  If the element I wanted to use wasn't orange then I hit <ctrl>+U and played around with hue and saturation until I got an orangy color.  The eyes were originally a teal blue.

I love these puppets from Paprika's "Venice Masquerade".  I've had the kit for a while and was so happy I finally got to use them.

 Do you have something in your stash you love but haven't used yet?  Why not make today the day you finally use it?

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrappin'!

My First Ali Edward's Class

Studio Rebecca/Studio Tangie Collab: Steampunk Je T'Adore.
Studio Tangie: AJF Mad Hatter, FiveSevenandTwo,
AJC12 Parcel 12

Ali Edward's 31 Things class started today. The 1st prompt arrived and I started journaling.  But when it came to the LO, I didn't have a photo I wanted to use and was having a hard time with the template for the album.  Anyone whose seen Ali's pages know she has a very clean, linear style.  I was having a hard time trying to fit into that style.  So I ditched the template and went for it. And here's the result.  It will be interesting to see if there are any others taking the class that won't be using the album templates.

Thanks for sharing in my journey!  Hope you have a fun day :-)

Snapshot 2012-Week 9





Studio Viva Artistry-Altered Girl Talk

Studio Tangie-AJF Rockinghorse Fly

Over at Scrapbook Graphics they have a Time Capsule Project called Snapshot 2012. This past week was Snapshot 9-  Snapshot 9 Health-Wellness. ViVa Artistry was hosting the chat this week and they are one of my favorite digi designers so I had to be there.  After the chat they sent out a challenge to do a LO about this week's topic.  LOs had to be done by 12pmEST the next day.  Not alot of time when the chat didn't end unitl after 10pm. 

So because of these two little things called sleep and work I only had about 20 minutes to do the LO.  I decided to do an art journal page.  I went to my ViVa Artistrry folder and they have a kit called "Altered Girl Talk" that featured these ladies.  I knew I had to use them. I played around some with blending modes and opacities and then added my journaling and called it done.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Craftin'!

A Change of Pace

Credits: Studio Tangie-Buildable Art Journal Workshop,

Wishing & Waiting, Ethereal Flowers
Viva Artistry-Blue
Hollywood Studios-Art Journaling 2
Font: Studio Tangie AJF Mad Hatter

I've been having so much fun doing scrapbook challenges that I've fallen behind in my Art Journal Caravan assignments (oops!).  I was finding it difficult to transition to art journaling so I followed some advise Tangie Baxter offered in one of her videos.  I picked three random papers and started playing with some blending modes until I liked what I saw.  After doing that I was definitely in an art journaling mood and here's the result.

Do you have something you do as a creative jumpstart?  I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks for stopping by and happy craftin'!

Exciting News!

I am honored to announce that I have joined the Soul Team over at Soul Scrappers http://soul-scrappers.ning.com/.   This is a wonderful community of creative people.  There are scrapbookers, card makers, mixed media and hybrid artists.

They have challenges to help inspire as well as tutorials and specialty classes.  I've taken Stampbooking which shows you creative ways to include stamping on your scrapbook pages and a journaling course.  One of the current challenges is a quote challenge.  I decided to do an art journal page in place of a regular LO.

I had the hardest time creating the background.  I started with a real pretty blue, but as the page developed there was too much pretty blue.  I tried several other pages and just wasn't happy with the color.  So I went back to the original paper and then blended in several different gesso backgrounds.  This helped to balance the background without losing too much of the color.

There are way to many digi credits to caption under the photo so here they are:
Studio Tangie@scrapbookgraphics.com- Mad Hatter Font, Momerath Font, Journal Anthology 7, Quickity Split Borders, Being Me collab with Rosey Posey, Art Journal Carvan 2012 Parcel#5; Rosey Posey@scrapbookgraphics.com-Synopsis;   Jacque Larson @The Lily Pad-Here to There collab with Emily Merrit.  Whew!  I think that's everyone!

All I can say is thank goodness for ACDSee or I'd never find my digi elements!  LOL.

I hope you can stop by and visit us over at Soul Scrappers.  I'll have my first Negative Sketch Challenge go live on April 9, 2012.. Woohoo!  Hope to see you there!  Until then Happy Craftin'!

I Made a Drop Shadow!

Digi Credits: Studio Tangie-Ethereal Flowers,
Gesso 2, HearfirstGraffiti;
Studio Flergs-Heartfirst;
Fiddlette Designs-Caliope Catches the Moon;
Charlize Creations-You are Loved; Darcy Baldwin- DigiTara font

My newest LO for the AJC 2012.  I played around with different blending modes .  I even made my own drop shadows for the dancers.  I created a shape using the shape tool and filled it with a medium gray.  Then I used the blur tool to smudge the edges and voila! customized shadowing. 

I also used the pen tool to hand draw the pathway.  I tried to handwrite the journaling, but I will need a lot more practice before I can do that!  In the meantime I keep plugging along in PSE.  The more I learn the more I realize this is one awesome program!  I don't think I'll ever learn it all.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrappin'

Teenagers! ARGH!

Credits: Studio Tangie/Studio Rebecca-

Steampunk Kits Je t'adore & Bandwagon
Other digi elements: Studio Flergs Industr'e,

DJB Fonts Almost Perfect,

Dafonts Capture It, AJF Mock Turtle-Studio Tangie

 and Journal Anthology 7-Studio Tangie

Having a teenager definitely gives me lots of material for scrapbooking as well as art journal pages.  He's been having some trouble in school, just sitting in class and not turning in his work.  When his teachers or I ask him about it he just shrugs his shoulders.  It can be very frustrating, especially knowing how smart he is.  And thus this LO was born.  Say hello to scrap therapy!

I wanted to play with some steampunk kits I bought recently. I love all the rust and grunge, but it needed texture. I used a stencil font and one of the PSE paint spray brushes to spray paint the background. I also used some gesso borders and recolored them. Then a little Disappear It action on the title and I was done. 

Thanks for visiting and Happy Crafting!

My Brain Adrift

Digi Elements: Studio Tangie-AJF Mock Turtle, Studio Remnant,
Cart Set 3-Brain Stamp
Fidlette Designs-Calliope Catches the Moon
Etc by Danyale-Imaginary Adventure
Creative Memories-Wishes & Dreams

I stated at the beginning of the year that I joined the Art Journal Caravan 2012 as an incentive to learn PSE.  I made myself promise that all LOs would be done in PSE.  Each time I do a LO I try to learn a new skill or experiment with an action or effect.  For this LO I played around with drop shadows and text shapes.  I tried using varying depths of shadows to give the feel of the ocean moving, kind of like the way old puppet shows would do their stage sets. 

Today I received notice that my LO was being featured at

http://tangiebaxter.com/news/latest-news/
for this week's caravan highlights.  I was so surprised and honored.  The funny part is this isn't even the LO I wanted to create when I first started it...LOL.  I am learning so much on this journey, not just about PSE but also about myself, too.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you find time to create today!

PSE Actions in well...Action

Credits: Studio Tangie-Creative Felicity,
AJF Contrariwise,
 Steampunk Bandwagon featuring
 Rebecca Mcmeen,
 UpUpAway, Requisites w/Sherrie JD
Studio Manu-To Be Happy

An action is a group of photo effects bundled into one package that when used helps take you through a series of prompts to get the desired effect.  For this LO I saw a really cool action by Wendyzine Scraps called "Disappear It".  The Winged Woman was a detailed graphic that through the action became this 3D image outline with all the details removed so that I could use it for my journaling.

I also used this action on the photos of myself.  I just changed how I responded to some of the prompts and voila I had these great near transparent images.  So even though the action is created for a specific outcome you can manipulate it to a certain extent to get the effect you want.

I then used Tangi Baxter's Paperworn Action to help the images merge with the background paper.  CAUTION!  This action is extremely addictive and once you start it may be difficult to stop.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Thanks for visiting and Happy Crafting!

Me and My Gesso

I started an Art Journal a few weeks back. I liked the idea of using my craft supplies to create a visual diary. I discovered during my page prep that I am addicted to gesso! I may have overworked my first couple of pages, I couldn't help myself, it was so much fun. At one point I imagined I was like Tom Sawyer whitewashing a fence...lol. Of course, if I wanted to get any journaling done I had to stop gessoing and start writing.

I used some images from Catrine of Catscrap's "Day at the Park" digi kit as a base for my page and then me and my gesso (sounds like a song...me and my gesso, painting wherever we go...lol) played. Although I'm not entirely happy with the page the cool thing was that I did it. I got out my supplies and enjoyed myself.

I hope you have a chance to do the same! Thanks for stopping by.

I've Escaped the Doldrums!

It took a concerted effort, but I finally escaped the doldrums. Lately, Ive been in a funk and I couldn't seem to shake it. I heard about a book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. He talks about all the things we do to block whatever our creative passion might be. I've been enjoying it. I'd made it to about page 40 when I told my husband about the book. I'm still at about page 40 because my husband is reading it! About the time my husband commandeered The Book I listened to a Digi Show Podcast http://thedigishow.com/ about Art Journaling. I now understand with all my being the word "EPIPHANY"! I started my art journal that night and I can feel the difference in myself already. With the art journal I can use all my crafting tools to express my thoughts and feelings. For me it was the perfect thing to kick my Mojo back into action.

Do you art journal? What do you do to get your Mojo going again when it's stalled?

Thanks for stopping by!