Giftmas 2019 Freebie - Painted Shrink Ornaments

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Art Journal - a Work in Progress

I had this old blank book, which I didn't like the cover.  So I tore it apart and repapered it in the Stardust cardstack from Die Cuts With a View.  I sealed the cover of the book with matte acrylic gel medium, and it works so wonderfully.  I love the finish and the texture.  The DCWV paper looks gorgeous and the golden metallics still shine through.  It was a lot of work to manage the paper, tape and glue and more glue.  Layers of paper...

The paper isn't as flexible as other cardstock I've owned, so it tore on the spine and folded edges.  The inner core is white, so it shows up quite a bit.  For all the edges of the book cover, I had to sand, go over with sharpie and then touch up with gold acrylic to hide the tears.  But it is gorgeous and did the job.  Perhaps it would have molded to the shape better if I had slightly dampened it.  Well, trial and error.

More error...  I bound the paper into the new cover, but the binding on the paper is stiff and pulls apart.  The pages are all wrinkled and the original binding isn't very good.  I hope that homemade gesso will help give them more stability.  But too my fail.  I would dry the gesso between coats with a hair dryer, this resulted in the glue binding to soften and come apart.  I tried gluing them back to the spine to no avail.  It kept getting worse and worse.

So, I've decided to rip it out of my beautiful cover and start over.  I'll need a new paper filling for it and I watched tutorials on the technique a bit more.  I'll be figuring out how to make this work.  In the meantime, I might have to switch gears.  I have an old date book from the late 90's when I was in high school, filled with boring budgets and such.  I think I might have to repurpose it.  Or perhaps an unloved old sketchbook that sits around in a box not getting any air.  I will start an art journal.  I'm feeling adamant.

Embellishments from the DCWV paper to add onto the corners.

And since I like to work on several projects at once, I'll also be working on tea infused artist trading cards.  I tend to do two or more things at once and work on them alternately.  This prevents me from getting burned out on one thing.  And ups my productivity level.  I have found I hurt my own creativity by committing to one project.  I struggle with commissions because of this.  I do not allow myself to work on anything else and this results in an art block.  I have a guilty commission sitting on my easel taking up my entire bedroom to remind me what a louse I am.  I am feeling inspired again by forcing myself to get back to arting.

I had hurt my wrist a while back and that was my excuse.  And now my excuse is, it's too late in the day....  Yada yada yada.  Why does artistic inspiration have to come at 2 in the morning?  My schedule gets messed up all on its own without me helping it.  My routine is blocking me as well.  Breakfast - homeschool - lunch - homeschool (granted much of this homeschool time is arguing with my kid to do his work) - dinner & dishes - then it's too late.  So I resign myself to online gaming and Facebooking and deviantARTing.  Maybe watching a show or two.  And no art gets done.  I feel very frustrated by this and I need time to myself to do the art.  When I do my art, I am skipping preparing meals or dishes, etc.  But I am so happy.  I feel accomplished.  Maybe I should just tell everyone to use plasticware and paper plates for a week.  Forever.

So, I've had this Gel Medium forever and am thinking of more uses for it.  I think I can extend my paints and add a bit of translucency to them.  And then I found this excellent tutorial for using them to make acrylic sprays.  They're permanent, not water soluble like the Tim Holtz Distress Inks.  So this is brilliant.  I'm quite against spending too much money on art supplies.  Especially if it is something you can make yourself.  I made myself some glimmer mist sprays and I have an ink sprayer from my printer overflow.  Waste not and all.  I cannot justify spending $10 on a 2 oz bottle of pigment mixed with water.  Nope.  I guess, it is convenient and premixed colors and all that, but I'm poor and cannot afford fancy art supplies.  I did spend my Christmas money on a Cuttlebug with accessories, but that was a splurge.  And it has been useful.  I can squish things in it!  Who doesn't want to squish things?  ;D  (note to self: squish flowers in it onto paper to make pretty stains)  Well, without further ado, here is the video tutorial I watched, which is also relevant to art journaling.  ImperfectImpulses has more art journaling videos and he demonstrates the stencil and negative print to reduce waste and have more premades readied for scraps or whatever. I subscribed to his channel.  Hopefully, I'll someday get a video camera and have something worth subscribing to as well.  Goals.

An Apology for Scott

I borrowed Scott's book for 10 years.  I found Squee stashed away in a box since I moved from my old apartment.  I didn't have any way to return it to him before I had moved and now, ten years have gone by!  So naturally, I wanted to do something special.  An apology card seemed a grand idea.  Scott loves origami, so an adeptly folded card, intricately paper cut seemed like the perfect idea.

I took progress pictures.  I think it took me close to a week start to finish, carefully cutting out these little curvy swirls and details.  By far, the most elaborate paper cutting I have ever done.  I drew the design in pencil on the back side of the paper, gave it a unique shape by folding it on the diagonal.

Most of the time spent was on the cutting.  I think that was day 2 or 3 pictured above.   Day 1 it just sat there being decided how to fold it and all.  

After all the paper cutting was done, then embellishments were added.  I thought I was going to use my Cuttlebug folder, but decided on using this drain filter mesh instead.  I smashed some cardboard in between and ran the foiled embellishment through my Cuttlebug.  I cut an oval by tracing the bottom of my glue bottle, then made a slightly wider template on cardboard.  It is the same outline shape as on the folded card.  I covered some card stock with aluminum foil tape and cut out my shape.  The "S" is hand drawn with silver gel pen on black card stock. 

Layered the pieces to see how they would look.  The oval is cut from cardstock covered in aluminum foil tape.

Mesh sock texture sheet and Cuttlebug plates A, 2 B's and rubber mat.

Now my oval has a nifty chainmail looking texture.

Instead of erasing all my pencil lines, since I was afraid of tearing all my hard work, I sponged on some metallic silver paint.  I used a spare sheet of black cardstock to stencil on the design, rather than on scrap paper.  It gave a wonderful effect, which I used for my Patreon rewards for my Patrons.  I have cut that sheet into ATC sized to be used for future arty projects.

While the paint dried, I cut out a scrap piece of my DCWV Stardust Paper Stack to fit in the border of the inner part of the card, added some contrast by first writing in black fine line sharpie, then going over in silver gel pen.

Finally, I glued everything together and admired my handiwork before putting in the bubble envelope along with his package.  I threw in some little origami stars I made with thin scraps of paper in various colors.  They're fun to make and super easy.  I'll have to make a quickie tutorial some time.