Using Mists To Make Your Own Paper {The Alphanumeric Blog Hop}

Hello and welcome to The Alphanumeric Blog Hop. Hopefully you'll have arrived here from Michelle Loves Allsorts but there's no need to panic if you haven't. You can start the blog hop from the beginning by heading over to I Speak Melsh where you can find a list of all the participating blogs. There are prizes to be won, so do join in.

When Mel asked me to take part, I was originally thinking that I'd be assigned just the one letter or number. Imagine my shock when she asked to write about the whole bloody alphabet!

I like to get the most out of my crafting supplies, so I hope you'll join me in some appreciation of the humble negative - the way to include typography (and a little interest) to your scrapbooking pages. Those of you who know me will already be aware that I'm not a stranger to using the leftovers from my chipboard alphas or creating with the remainders of my sticker sheets. So today, I wanted share a technique that's new to me - even though it's been around forever - stencilling.

If you want to have a go you'll need a spare piece of cardstock or watercolour paper, an old (but still useful chipboard negative) and some spray inks. You may also want to have your art journal on hand if you have one.

1. I've set up my desk so that my cardstock background is lying on top of a larger piece of watercolour paper which happens to be part of my art journal. You'll see why later. If you don't want to do it this way, at least make sure that you're not spraying onto your best tablecloth. Learn from my (bad) experience.

2. Pop your chipboard piece down onto the cardstock and choose one colour of spray ink. Now spray. The closer you are to your page, the darker and more concentrated the colour. Experiment. It's good for you.

3. Now lift off the negative carefully and if you have an art journal handy open it at a blank page. Pop the stencil in with all that lovely ink still swimming around on the top. Close your journal and press down over the surface.

4. Take your negative out of your journal and re-position it on your cardstock, choose another colour of ink and get spraying.

5. Again, take your negative off carefully and pop it into your art journal. Remember to apply a bit of pressure across the surface.

If you're lucky, you'll be left with some awesome backgrounds in your art journal as well as your original background cardstock. Result!

Now, I've not tried it, but I'm also thinking that by piling some of my old and dusty mis-matched letters onto a piece of cardstock and getting busy with the inks I could come up with a different look altogether. Hmmm....

The next stop on the hop is Over At Our Place, so before you get your fingers all inky, pop over and say hello to the lovely Amy. She's bound to have something special up her sleeve.

Note: If any of the posts aren't up yet, please bear with us - the different time zones and the peculiarity of blogging platforms when it comes to autoposts may mean that one or two posts don't appear on time! If that's the case, head back to the list at I Speak Melsh and pick up from the next blog, but do please pop back and try the other link later, when the post should be there for your enjoyment.

Art Journal - Musical Memories

So, I thought I'd share another of my art journal pages from Kara's fantastic Art Journalling Adventure Class. As part of the class we needed to think - really think - about the part that music plays in our lives.

There's actually rarely a time that I'm without music, I nearly always have it on the background while I'm working, reading or crafting and, sometimes, I don't even notice. But, there are those moments in life that will be forever defined by a piece of music - the song that was playing when you had your first kiss; the tune they played on the radio all summer while you were travelling; the comforting lyrics that helped you mend a broken heart.

To me, every piece of music evokes some kind of emotion, but the tunes I remember are the ones that evoke memories and tell the story of my life. For my art journal entry, I made a random list of songs and the memories attached to them, then inked and blended to create a simple background. (There's a larger version if you'd like to see a little more detail.)

What does music mean to you? Are there any particular tunes that always bring back a certain memory?

Colourful Mess (My Creative Space)

My creative space is a little bit of a mess this week - a properly creative and colourful mess though! I've been participating in Kara Haupt's amazing Music + Composition Book = An Art Journalling Adventure Class and I am loving it. I've been so intimidated by art journalling - which is crazy when you think that an art journal is meant to be the place where you can try new techniques; be random and not really care about how it all looks. I think it's helped that music is something I find really easy to journal about because it's such a large part of my life, but Kara's video posts - which are so adorable, by the way - have also helped me to understand that I wasn't the only person to get a bit stressed at the idea of just letting go and experimenting. It's great to know that you don't have to be comfortable with what you're doing and that, actually, stepping out of your comfort zone is pretty much the point of the whole thing.

You can find out more about My Creative Space - and have a bit of a nose around other people's creative spaces - by visiting Kootoyoo.

And just because I'm really proud of what I can accomplish with some time; some encouragement and some pencil crayons, I thought I'd share one of my art journalling pages.