KaoticKrafter: art.

Showing posts with label art.. Show all posts

Thursday, September 13, 2012

My Favorites

I am still loving altered journals a year from when I made my first one. For me that is sort of a record (hence the kaotickrafter).

Anyway, I have decided do a post with links to some of my favorite altered journal posts/sites/supplies, etc.

These are in no specific order, mostly just pulled from my Pintrest Altered Journal Board as well as other places.

Blazer Designs-This website is full of lots of creative fun stuff, but specifically the Art Journal Every Day series.

This page was done by a 15yo.

PhizzyChick- I first fell in love with altered journals when I saw one made by PhizzyChick over on Craftsters. Lots of fantastic inspiration from this lady!

Made by PhizzyChick

Simply Me- This is a site that I pinned one of her posts and forgot about it. Looking through the site now, I really want to hurry up and finish this post so I can go make a crafty mess!

Simply Me

Ponderings- More than just journals, but all great inspiration!

Ponderings

I have just been invited to a tea party so I must run. I hope that this list provides you with a wonderful starting point for your altered/art journal adventures!

Edited to add more sites to check out:
Traci Bunkers

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Just Be Yourself

I have been experimenting with lots of new-to-me techniques. My favorite one lately is using watered down acrylics in a small spray bottle.

Lay down some paper- I used some found pieces of paper that I think might be a manila folder cut up.

Lay some stencil type items on top- anything works really: foam stickers, window screen, nuts and washer, etc. Use your imagination. Then spray away with watered down acrylics, or any other type of paint/ink that you can spray from a bottle.

If you find any particular pieces that need to be enhanced, have fun with it!

I also used a tracing wheel (used to transfer patterns to fabric I think) and more paint to make the dotted lines.

I also added some stamps and some inchies as I saw the need.

This is the top of the journal and the paper I had under the pieces of manila folder that got sprayed. All kinds of potential with that!

And no, this is not a clean craft. I ended up with sprayed paint everywhere. At least now I can tell which phone is mine :0)

I used the spray hand sanitizer bottles.

The front is a little card I made months ago when Emma was really into collage and wanted me to work with her. The front says "Just be yourself"

A fun chunky little journal just for waiting bits of wisdom and art to be added to it.

"Let your art give you wings"

Words to live by.

Have a great day!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Tutorial- My version of an Art Journal

(Wow, 2 posts in 2 days!)

Ok, so if you are not aware of my latest obsession, you may want to read up a bit here.

So, now it is my job to get you hooked as well :)

Here we go!

Materials Needed:

-Corrugated cardboard

-Ruler

-Rotary cutter (or scissors)

-Cutting mat (if using rotary cutter)

-Book rings (or ribbon will work as well, just a little more of a pain to add pages)

-Paper (printer paper, tracing paper, wrapping paper, newspaper, scrapbook paper, brown paper bags, packaging paper, graph paper, maps... I think you get the idea)

-Hole Punch (not shown- adjustable 3 hole punch or a single punch. You may be able to get a fixed 3 hole punch to work)

-Other fun and random items to to put into your journal. (envelopes, cards, pictures, fabric, dried flowers, beads, trinkets, whatever!)

-Writing implements.

-Glue, tape, stapler, staples.

Oh, and box. I like to find a shoe box (or a papa johns chicken strips box in this case) to hold all the items that I think I might want to add to my journal. I usually try to keep at least a glue stick in there also.

Step 1.
-Decide what size you want your journal to be. I typically like 5.5 inches by 5.5 inches. Having it a square makes it a bit easier to get the pages lined up.

However, for this black and white journal I went with what I had for white paper which ended up being 4 inches by 6 inches.

-Cut 2 pieces of cardboard slightly larger on 3 sides then your paper.
-Cut a lot of random paper to to the size you would like. You do not need to get them perfect.

Step 2.
-Set up your adjustable 3 hole punch so that 2 of the punches are where you would like your rings or ribbons. I suppose you could also have 3 holes. Or 4 for that matter. How ever many you want :)
-Punch holes on one side of all of your paper and the cardboard. *Make sure that the paper is pushed all the way to the back of the hole punch (or you will get partially punched holes). It may make it easier if you make a mark on the hole punch so you know where to like all you paper up so that the holes line up nicely.

Or not, it is up to you :) the beauty of the book rings or ribbon is that as long as the holes mostly line up, you should be good to go.

Step 3.
-Here is where the fun comes in. Take your cardboard and poke a pencil under the top layer of paper.

Peal it off slowly until your get the look you are going for. Do one side of each piece of cardboard.

Step 4
Sew things to other things :) This is of course an optional step, but I really like this part, so I expect that all of my covers will have some sewing on them.

Not super happy with the back cover but I can fix it as I go.

-If you plan to add anything that will hang off or add any odd bulk, wait until your are about finished with your journal. Or add it now and take out the pages you want to work as you go :)

Step 4.
-Ok this part is pretty fun too. Put everything together. Play with the lay out. Then do what you will with it :) Draw, paint, collage, staple and have a blast!

Don't mind the green ring. I just ordered more silver, but I had to make do :)

Here are a few examples of what I have done with my journal so far.

Bits of left over thread from the covers.

Envelope holding a sticker to be added.

Stamped paint chip weaving.

Months of the year. Just 'cause.

We really love horses :)

If you have any questions, or need something clarified, please leave me a message or send me an e-mail. I am happy to help!

I would love to see what you make. If you write a blog post about it, leave me a comment with the link and I will stop by and check it out!

Happy Crafting!

p.s. I plan to add photos of my pages as I add to the journal. Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Latest Obsession

Ok, so I had a blast at my first vending event. Thank you very much to everyone out at Prairieland Herb for making my first event awesome and stress free!

Lets hope my first class goes as smoothly :)

Ok, so onto my latest obsession.

Art Journals!

Well, I guess mine would qualify more as junk or scrap journals for a few reasons.

1. I can't draw. I am working on it, but really, there are very few things that I can draw well enough that someone else would be able to recognize it easily.

2. I am addicted to adding stuff to it. Basically, if I could figure out how to punch 2 holes in the kitchen sink, I would probably try to add that too :)

I have been wanting to make an art journal for a while. The ones that I keep seeing over at craftster.org look so cool, and I love the idea of being able to recycle. Go figure. I am not sure when I first started coveting one, but it has been a while.

Added to that, I have been researching other ways to make journals and such and I ran across this cool woven journal cover. Once I found that, I was stuck (believe me, my arm was really being twisted) reading through The Creative Place. For hours. I loved all the journals I found there and wanted to make them all.

Through that site (I think), I found this cool technique for making covers.

And the straw that broke the camels back was this awesome art journal made by Phizzychick. I finally felt ready.

I guess in the true sense, an art journal is suppose to be a visual journal. You can still write in it, but a lot of it is drawings, paintings, etc.

I can't really do either of those, and I kinda fell off the journalling bandwagon. I didn't let that stop me. I figure the only way I will learn to draw and paint is if I try, try, try again! Until I get better at it, I plan to just keep adding cool things to my journal :)

Inchie Tree and Random stuff.

Emma's Mud Gloves and Mud Socks

The green and purple paper is newspaper that I painted with acrylic paint. A lot of the inchies (1"x1" pieces or art) that I received in swaps are in here.