Hello!

I'm thrilled to be able to share with you all one of the double page art journal spreads that are part of the journal I created as part of Monday's sell out shows on Hochanda. If you haven't yet seen these, you can still catch them on rewind.

What I Did:

I have first to say that doing my journal was quite a challenge as I've never done a double page spread before but decided the journal would pull together better if I could do that. It took me a few goes to get into my stride and this spread is the first one I actually felt happy with when it was finished. I hope you like it too.

The first step was to colour my background which I wanted to be bright so I chose multi surface paints in magenta, mustard, lime and bright blue. I added these one at at time, putting a little paint on my craft mat, starting with yellow, misting with water to loosen the colour. I applied the paint with an old store card, scraping it on randomly on both pages.

I followed up with the other colours, magenta, then bright blue and lastly lime, using the same method as for the yellow. As you can see, the colours overlapped in places but the effect is subtle, drawing all the shades together. In a few places, I added line marks by using the side of the store card with some of the leftover paints.

I next created my scribbly flowers which, believe it or not, were made with one of Lynne's gorgeous new and incredibly versatile mark stamps. Read on to find out what I did! It's just a simple pic by pic so that you'll get the gist of this very easy technique. The only thing I will say is that having practiced first, only ink the middle section the first time you do this, after that just the 2 on either end or you end up with rather a messy central element.

As you can see below, you just start with a straight line then twist it round a bit and stamp the next one overlapping the first, roughly half way. You then carry on, twisting as you go until you have a complete circle.






As you can see, when stamping on the coloured background, the image is not quite as strong so I hand scribbled round the circles with a fine black pen to make them pop more. A lovely way to use a stamp and make it your own.

I stamped several flowers and part flowers on my pages in the same way, adding my chosen quote with black ink on the right hand page. I used another of the mark stamps, stamping in black for strong contrast and followed this up with a further mark image that resembles stitching and I stamped it all round the edges to finish and draw my pages together.

Supplies:

That's Crafty! A5 Size Classic Portait Wire-o Sketchbook Journal
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Lynne's Mark Making Stamp Set 1
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Inspirational Quotes Set 2
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paints (shades given above)
VersaFine Onyx Black Ink
VersaFine Clair Charming Pink Ink
Black Fine Marker Pen
Mister Bottle
Old Store Card or similar to scrape paint on