lara

The future needs a big kiss



...not a fan of the song, but love this line in it. I've been wanting to do something with it since the first U2 show in New York.

Here's this months layout for the gauche alchemy circle journal.
The theme of this one is "vintage bling" and i have to admit i was stumped almost all month! But with the deadline of Nov 1 looming i pulled it together and tried some new techniques. I'm pretty happy with the outcome! And it's something i would normally not do, but it still has me in it :) The size of each page is 8"x 8"



OK, one of the cool things I've discovered is wax paper will adhere to other paper and I've been using sheets of wax paper i've used under and between projects - when glued over the top of something it makes a cool almost beeswaxy but with muted paint effect. For this I put it over a thin children's book page that otherwise tears too easy because it's so old - YAY! It preserves and looks cool!



To add some additional color and texture and lines i adhered some sewing pattern pieces on to the pages too. And then the title is a package tape transfer! Don't ask me the font ... can't remember ;)



The flower is made from ribbon odds and ends, mesh fabric, gold punch waste and vintage buttons. I didn't have any thread so i used wire :)



I super like this page - it's just something different for me. As i said i was having difficulty being inspired by "vintage bling" and i knew i wanted to use the u2 lyric - somehow by great fortune my supervisor at work wanted to show me where all of our archived clip art cd's are (along with print samples) and i saw this CD called "Adobe Image Library - Yesterday's Lifestyles" and went through it and found a couple of kitchsy images mixed in with mostly the scary "nuclear family" images. Four pieces of packaging tape later - and voila! The bitch is on the page!

Did a spread for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal "T" Prompt. T was supposed to stand for "Tasty" but since that is semi-related to food, and seeing how horrible a time lately i've been having with my relationship with food, i just journalled about my emotional eating then found a quote, i believe from Buddha, about it.

I discovered something SO COOL i could do with wax paper on this one!!!!!
I use wax paper to paint on so my table doesn't get dirty. I also put it between pages when i'm working so nothing drips on the pages i don't want it too - so i had a couple of sheets of wax paper with some paint on it - i took gel medium and put a thin coat over the journalling then pressed the wax paper over it and let it dry - and voila! a Semi-obscured page with some paint.

Also i used packing tape transfers - i've given up on trying to use gel medium to create a transfer, which would be much cooler than tape, but whatever i do it never ever works. So, tape it is!

I made a couple of cards this week for my brother's birthday and a friend's baby shower:



This is for a baby shower! They are super into pirates and their baby is going to be named Nigel, thus the "ahoy nigel" on the front :)

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My brother is obsessed with raven's for a variety of reasons. I couldn't afford to buy him a real taxidermied one, so i tried to make him one out of mixed media. My feelings about the outcome are mixed as well, but for the most i'm please and it was just plain fun to make.



3 different kinds of black paper i ripped up and screendoor and felt ribbon. Eye are washers and a button. Beak is newspaper with Gesso and ink on it.

This is the "R = Read" page for the Year in the Life of An Art Journal Project.





It is the cover of the journal! I thought it appropro since art journals aren't meant to sit unlooked at after they're done! And this journal is extra special to me (even though we still have 6 more weeks to go!)



Close up of the cover - from my last art journal cover i learned not to apply to many things to the cover that could fall off or be knocked off by mistake. So i used pretty low profile felt thickers. Underneath that is what I've been using as my paint palette off and on and then covered with burgundy netting.

Ugh - I can not wait until it is done!!!!!!! It looks so cool as it is right now and I am constantly looking at it! It's so cool to have a visual summary of this topsy turvy year!

Art Journal Entry inspired by challenge blog Gutter Girlz and U2 lyrics and TONS of found objects from my scrap drawer.

The topic of this challenge is "Tender. Human."
For some reason I was having so much trouble coming up with a layout idea because every time i thought of the word "human" i thought of the word "soul" which in turn made me think of U2 (ok, fine what doesn't make me think of U2 these days?) which in turn made me think of the song "Elevation" and how every time i get to experience that song live (which is 7 times now, I guess?) it catapults my soul out of my body and i don't feel like i am in a physical human body anymore. Jumping and singing "ooohhh hoooo" with 60,000+ people is absolutely electrifying! At this point I'm thinking I should rename my art journal "u2 lyric journal" but.... yeah... heh.

So, i went with the lyric and gathered some found objects since i've been cleaning out all my art stuff in preparation of purging for the move.



• The green background is this canvas that the creative team at my work used for a presentation recently and i said "don't throw those scraps away!!!!" so they gave them to me.
• The caution tape comes from the meadowlands parking lot in new jersey (what trash?),
• the screen is still yet more screen from my old back porch,
• there's a sticker under there you can barely see that has two red arrows and says "this way up" that a friend of mine who works in a warehouse gave me a roll of,
• the dragonfly came from some swap or kit that i never thought i would use cause i thought it was kinda cheesy AND
• the text comes from an old old old children's story book i've been holding onto to scared to cut into but i finally dove into it last night and was tickled pink to find this story about a little airplane afraid to fly and the paper is so fragile and smells so ... old.
• Oh and my handwriting is on electrical tape!

Art Journal entry for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal --- S = Song (although i took it to Sound :) )

Love love love this lyric from "Breathe" = it truly does lift me up.

Letters are chipboard so they stand off the page a little and the background started out as a paint palette :)
Background journalling is how U2's songs have changed, really SAVED, my life.

An art journal page for the gauche alchemy circle journal, September.
The topic is collections and quotes (something i collect as well :D ):

Love this quote - forgot where i found it now!