Doodling....

I bought this plywood box 'J' from Hobbycraft with an idea to fill it with a layer of buttons (using up some my stash of buttons) but wasn't happy with it.
I had a lightbulb moment while making my JoFY Bingo Week15 project (HERE)... I could stamp and doodle inside the 'J' !!!  Stamp my doodle images to doodle around!!
Couldn't get started fast enough! lol

Here's how I did it - nice and simple!

The J is about 3cm deep (22cm tall) but I wanted the contents (buttons was the plan) to sit higher so I cut lots of bits of cardboard and arranged them in stacks inside the 'J' so the base was raised by about 2cm... (you could lay contents in the base)

Drew around the plywood shape and cut it out..

... and laid it on top of the stacks...  When happy with the height and fit I glued everything in place.. (PVA will do the job)

Next I painted it in my chosen colour - I went for dark grey (PaperArtsy Fresco Finish 'Slate') but later changed it for black gesso.  Set it aside to dry.

To create a base for the doodles and stamping:  I drew around the letter on black cardstock...

I chose to stamp with white paint ('Snowflake' Fresco Finish - brilliant opaque white!) because I knew it would match white gel pens that I was going to use for additional doodling..
I started with stars from JOFY70.. leaving a nice amount of space around them.. (for additional stamping and doodling..)... and followed with the large doodle flower from JOFY64, and flowers from JOFY54

... and here is the stamping finished...  you can just see the outline of the 'J'...

The 'J' was cut out and I doodled into all the open spaces - but not inside the outline of the doodle flower from JOFY64

Here is the finished 'J' - the top edge of the sides of the structure has also been painted white to outline the 'J'

Detail of the doodling and stamping... I really like the monochromatic colour scheme.. (it reminds me of Mexican 'day of the dead' artworks)

We went to America (ahem) number of years ago and I bought this large papermache 'J' - I 'had' to have it!  

So it came home with us, along with its matching 'M' (for Jo and Matt (my husband)) because I was going to do 'something' with them.. they've come across the Atlantic and been through two house moves -Now is the time - its now or never - I am ready to work on the big 'J'.

I can feel a bit more doodling coming on! (I'll keep you posted!)

There are lots of paper mache letters available, & you could do stamp and doodle onto all sorts of objects - inside objects (a friend recently gave me a wine box to work with - thats definitely getting a doodled interior!)... they'd make great christmas presents! (oops did I drop the 'C' word... sorry - I was hoping to get through a blog post without mentioning it again).

Thanks for stopping by

Holiday makes..... Part 4: From cereal box to....

..... mini junk book

Every morning on holiday I try and eat healthily- I walk past the champagne bar "mimosa signora??", past the pastry counter (aaaaah the smell of hot croissants!!) and the sausages, eggs, waffles etc etc etc - you name it & its available - all very (too) tempting!!

Instead I have a box of one of these (which I like to jazz it up with fruit, nuts and... stuff...) ....and thank goodness for illustrations on boxes otherwise I wouldn't have a clue what they were! My Spanish vocabulary is very limited and the writing on those boxes is really small! and I mean really small!!

But, I'm not choosing these purely for their tastiness.. oh no.. I'm also choosing them for their packaging! Cardboard! Oh yes!! on a previous holiday I used it to make stencils but this time I had plans to make a book!!

I know this isn't groundbreaking or rocket science but I liked the challenge of making something out of nothing and with limited supplies...

I set up a creative station on one of the tables in the room - I chose this one because it had a glass top - now that was a revelation:  I NEED a glass top to my desk at home - great for use with paints, cutting on, easy to clean - why haven't I thought of this before!!

I cut up the boxes - discarding the narrow sides and cutting the remaining front and backs into 12x6.5cm panels, then scored and glued as the diagram below - easy way to create a book

I glued it together with Matte Medium and waited for it to dry. Then the decorating began... I limited myself to 3ish colours for the book - trying to makes sure these colour appeared on each spread working as a theme/scheme throughout the book.. Neon Pink (love!!), dark blue (I think its Baltic Blue), Gold, Aqua blue watercolour...

The front and back covers: made out of a piece of gelli printed paper I'd bought with me.. they were cut and glue on in separate pieces and where the pattern didn't cover  the page I stamped on the mini alphabet set as a block in neon pink acrylic paint... what is not to love about that colour!!  (neon pink circles were created with a bottle top)

The book pages that had cereal packet print on needed to be covered in paper to block out the bold colours - on this spread I used vintage music paper and another gelli print.  The doily came from one of the restaurants and the alphabet strip is a handwriting excercise book I have in my stash.  I doodled onto the gelli print on the right-hand page and the text strip is the title of the book pages I brought with me - considering the heat I was creating in it couldn't be more appropriate could it! lol

More paper covered pages, with stenciling - I brought 2 stencils with me - big number and an alphabet (Tim Holtz stencils)...I have neon paint and I am not afraid to use it!  The chevrons are a stamp (JOFY36) painted with Aqua watercolour.
NB a glue stick makes a great mini roller for spreading glue and getting rid of airbubbles after you've glued papers down (as above)

I really like this spread - the circles (stamped using a bottle top) and the chevrons - I like how they look dimensional - almost like bubbles.. 'happy' is cut from a magazine and the tag is one I brought with me they I washed with the watercolour paint... it flaps open to reveal the second page of this spread.

I've added this photo to show how shiny, metallic and pretty the Fresco Finish Gold paint is! and when used with the Neon and Aqua paint - LUSH!!

When you lift the tag (the added page in the previous diagram) it reveals a stenciled number 9 which is my 'magic' number so the clipping from a magazine was another apt addition....spots are from JOFY36

This is a top view of the book showing the spine and the added page - a really simple addition.

This is the final spreak - book text across the hinge are, another doily with doodling and a phrase cut from book text (again its a bit of a nod to the holiday).. the right hand page is the alphabet stencil and gold paint... more spots and neon paint.

That's all my holiday creations - not many from this holiday - I usually make more sitting at the pool but I couldn't on this holiday as there was a lovely breeze - papers would've been everywhere!

And when the temperature is upwards of 85degrees I'd rather have the breeze thank you!

Thanks for popping by.

x

Masterboard, masterboard & ....

.... a bit more masterboard!

I found the last of the masterboard - & I mean it this time this is the last of the materboard.... no, really it is!

At the last count up I'd made:
2 12x12 scrapbook/journal pages
5 cards
1 canvas panel

... and now I can add 1 more card - 13.5x13.5cm - a really simple card. ('you are bloomin' marvellous' is from JOFY10)

and 6 mini tags (5x8cm) & 1 standard size tag (6x11.5cm) (Papermania)..
The tags used up all the fiddly twiddly bits that are left over when you cut up bigger pieces.. & I had previously cut a piece of masterboard into 1inch squares with intention to create a 'tiled' piece but changed my mind and used them on these tags instead.  I like having little tags on big tags - these ones images are from JOFY23.

The purple resin flower on the top left tag was painted in JOFY Amethyst Fresco Finish- this paint is great for changing the colour of resin embellishments to match projects because it is suitable for all surfaces.
On other tags I stamped simple images on masterboard pieces and carrying the designs onto the tag - hilighting with Chalk paint and white gel pen (love white pens!)

All the masterboard has been used... nothing left.. zilch! - & I mean it this time!

xx

black pen, white pen.....

.... sometimes it takes seeing someone else's project to remind you of what you have in the way of stash and equipment!
Linda Cain created a lovely tag over on the PaperArtsy blog (go here to see all the details) using my JOFY stamps, distress inks and hi-lighted everything with a white pen.  Light bulb moment!!! last year I spent ages searching for the 'perfect' white pen to buy... & when I had one used it a lot and then nothing for months! (there goes the way of lots of equipment and 'stuff')
Linda's tag inspired me to use the white pen again (when I eventually located it! shame on me...)

This panel is made from one of the chunky cardboard blocks (here in the PaperArtsy shop) - they are surprisingly sturdy and so ideal for stamping and painting.  I painted the surface with Fresco Finish paints - Mermaid, Guacamole & Nougat,  I used Peacoat around the edges and to stamp the flowers in the background.
Then I got busy with the white pen - I'm not letting that slip out of my sight again for a while!  Great of accenting.

I stamped the flowers (JOFY12, and JOFY10) in black and stamped the same images on to vintage text paper that had been given a wash of Snowflake & Nougat paint.  Cut them out and stuck them down.
I stamped the phrase onto a tag (oops, back on a tag roll again! and just when I thought I'd weaned myself off!)
I accented the middle of the flowers by adding a layer of scrapbook papers, and added some shading with Distress Markers.

Yesterday I blogged briefly about my ongoing (neverending) job to tidy my workroom - its still not tidy - because I keep finding things that would be great on a project and I find paints, pens, papers that inspire me to make something.... its so hard to keep on task! lol
New Plan:  I'm going to set a timer for 30 minutes and see how much I can tidy and put away in that time... a sort of beat the clock challenge!
If it goes well I'll post pics... if it doesn't you'll see nothing and we'll never talk about it again. OK, deal?!