Acrylic & Stencils on Art Journal

Hello! Welcome back to the BPM blog. I have an art journal page for today's post. I repurposed an old, unused planner into an art journal. This is a where I can experiment with my craft supplies and just be playful.

I used the following Blank Page Muse Products on this page:

• Summer Wildflowers Postoids Collage Art Rubber Stamp
  
• Sunflower and Dragonflies reusable plastic art Stencil

I stamped the collage stamp on a lightweight paper using a brown dye ink. I adhered the rubber stamp to the stamp positioner using a washable glue stick.

I pressed the inked stamp to the paper. The great thing about using a stamp positioner is that I can re-ink and re-stamp the images if I I did not get a good initial stamped impression. 

I cut the stamped postoids separately so I can create a frame on my art journal. 

I positioned the postoids on my page, making sure that there are no alike postoids next to each other.

I adhered the postoids to the journal page.

After I adhered all the postoids, I created a window on this page using a craft knife. I placed a small glass cutting board underneath this page so as not to cut the next page. I cut an x on this page.

From the x cut, I created the window using a pair of scissors and using the postoids as a guide.

My postoid frame came out shorter than the journal page. I trimmed off the excess. On hindsight, I should have started adhering the middle postoids to evenly distribute the postoids on the page length.

I used the craft knife to smoothen out the inner edges of the frame.

Now, I have a window opening. Time to work on the next page.

I die cut a white lightweight cardstock using a postage die. I want to keep the postage edges white so I masked the edges with an artist's tape. To lessen the stickiness of this tape, I adhered it to my skin and pulled it off several times. You can also do this on a piece of cloth like your shirt or pants if you don't want to do it on your skin. 

I adhered the tape on the postage edges using the stitched lines created by the die as a guide.

I positioned the stencil over the white postage die cut. I used a sticky mat which keeps the stencil in place. You can use tape and/or a temporary adhesive spray for this purpose if you don't have a sticky mat.

I colored the openings of the stencil using acrylic markers. 

Acrylic markers are more opaque. The beauty of it is you can color on top of another color without altering the original color. This property of this marker makes blending a bit of a challenge.

I colored the center of the sunflower with a brown acrylic marker.

I used black for highlight since I have limited colors of acrylic markers. It worked though.

I colored the stem with a green acrylic marker. I did not like the first green marker I used. I colored over the green ink that I did not like.

I continued coloring until all the openings of the stencil was colored. 

I actually love how the strokes of the marker added texture to the flower.

Moving on with the project, I traced the window of the first page on the next art journal page.

Using these pencil lines as a guide, I adhered a yellow washi tape to frame the postage die cut and also add a pop of yellow to the page when viewing it from the window.

I hope you like today's project. 

Visit our social media sites for more stamping fun!

I Brake For Stamps -https://ibrakeforstamps.com/ 

The Blank Page Muse- https://blankpagemuse.com/

FB Fan Page-  https://www.facebook.com/groups/blankpagemuse/

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Have a blessed, brilliant and creative day!

Maria Giselle B.

of Maria Giselle's Creative Cuts 

Blank Page Muse is having a FLASH SALE! 10 HOT red rubber stamps are featured for sale with an amazing 50% discount. What a deal, right? 

But if there is nothing on the sale category that interests you, BPM is generously offering a 15% discount to their online store. Just use the code BPMMaria when you check out.

Only 1 code per transaction please. Enjoy!

Fall Sunflowers

 Hello September!  School buses are running again, the weather is changing, my annual county fair is in the past. Hope you enjoyed the summer months!  Sunflowers remind me of Fall. They are also one of my favorite flowers. Today the centerpiece of my card is the Sunflower and Dragonflies Art Stencil.

In addition to the Sunflower and Dragonflies Art Stencil The Eyes 1 Stamp, Learn from Yesterday sentiment and the Steampunk Romance: Digital Printable Papers were used!

Additional supplies used:

• Black Stamping ink
• Acrylic block
• Gold Wide tip Sharpie
• Cosmic Shimmer Graceful Mustard Glitter paste
• Lunar Paste Refined Copper
• Astro Paste Tropical Tango
• TCW Stencil Butter Olive (not pictured below)
• Spatula
• Water
• Paper towels
• Glass Dip pen and ink
• Deco Foil scrap
• Watercolor paper
• Paper Scraps
• Adhesive/dimensional foam/glue stick

Have you ever spent time glue paper scraps, it is one of my favorite pastimes.  I use a watercolor paper pad to glue the scraps.  It is very relaxing, and it doesn't have to be perfect! The paper this project is on is one of my "glue book" pages. 

Print the Steampunk Romance: Digital Printable Papers two sheets per page.  This way you are able to shrink the size of the printed images. The eye image and sentiment were stamped on a couple of the papers.  

On the watercolor "glue page" stencil the Sunflower and Dragonflies.  The petals are Cosmic Shimmer Graceful Mustard Glitter paste.  The sunflower center is Lunar Paste Refined Copper and the dragonflies Astro Paste Tropical Tango. Let each area dry before adding the next color. 

Once the pastes were dry, it was time to add black ink with the glass pen.

You can see that the sunflower petals are outlined with the black ink.  In the first picture above the outline was a single pen line.  For the flower to really standout. a second pass was made with the glass pen, see the second photo above. All the gaps left by the stencil are filled in with the black ink.  

The stamped eyes and sentiment are outlined with the glass pen.  You can barely see the glass pen in the picture above.  Then let everything dry before foiling and assembly. 

Cut the paper to size, this is a 6 x 6 card. Edge the card front with a wide tip gold sharpie pen.  To randomly apply the foil, gently swipe a glue stick and press the foil on it.  Be sure not to apply too much glue stick or you want it to be splotchy and like peeled paint. 

Mount the card front on a 6x6 card base. The stamped sentiment and eyes were adhered to the card with dimensional foam.

Hope to see your Blank Page Muse creative works on our Facebook Fan Page. It is always a pleasure to see what everyone is working on. 

Visit our social media sites for more stamping fun!

I Brake For Stamps -https://ibrakeforstamps.com/ 

The Blank Page Muse- https://blankpagemuse.com/

FB Fan Page-  https://www.facebook.com/groups/blankpagemuse/

Instagram Shop-  https://www.instagram.com/blankpagemuse/

Instagram Blog-  https://www.instagram.com/blankpagemuseblog/

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Pinterest- https://www.pinterest.com/blankpagemuse/boards/

Enjoy your week!!

Lyneen Jesse

Embossing Paste and Glitter Glue on Stencil ~ Beauty in Botanicals

Hello! Today's project is about adding texture to your projects using embossing paste and glitter glue on stencil. There are a lot of mediums available and it can be pretty overwhelming. In this post, I will be discussing how to customize the embossing paste and glitter glue to fit your project.

I used the new Blank Page Muse Sunflower and Dragonflies Stencil on this project.

I created a background panel first. On a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" white cardstock, I applied ink using a brayer. I picked the ink with the brayer then transferred the ink to the paper. If you don't have a brayer, an alternative is to apply the ink directly from the ink pad to the paper.

I suggest moving the brayer to one direction, either forward or backward instead of going back and forth. This is just a personal preference. Feel free to do otherwise.

I layered two shades of brown ink on the panel using the brayer. 

Since I used a water reactive ink, I set the panel aside to dry. You can also heat set it to speed dry it.

I adhered some non-tacky tapes on the back of the panel with the sticky side up. I positioned the stencil over the panel and pressed the stencil to the tape. This kept the stencil in place when I applied the medium. I used a white embossing paste which I customized by mixing it with brown ink to fill in the center of the sunflower. I used a brown colored reinker for this. You can also use an ink pad or a marker to color the white paste. Just dab the ink pad or scribble the marker onto your work surface and mix this with the white paste.

You can definitely mask the areas of the flower to prevent contamination of colors. I did not. I just made sure to be careful in applying my colored medium. 

I was also dabbing the medium on the openings to make sure that the hole is covered with medium. I did not smoothen this out since I am working with different colors and different mediums. 

I sprinkled black glitter to the embossing paste while it was wet. I end up modifying this later. 

When working with different colors of embossing paste or glitter glue, you have stop and pause in between colors to allow the medium to dry. It is also very important to clean the stencil and the applicator in between colors. I sprayed my supplies with water before wiping off the excess glue with a paper towel or rag. We don't want that washed out and clogging our drain. 

If the medium still won't come off, just soak the stencil and the applicator on warm soapy water. Use your fingers to loosen the glue. I do not recommend using a brush since this can damage the stencil especially if the stencil has some dainty parts.

Before I worked on adding medium to the petals, I added tape to the front of the stencil to guide the alignment of the paper panel. For each medium application, I simply align the panel to these guides.

For the petals, I used a gold glitter paste. To mute the gold color, I mixed a drop of a dark yellow reinker to the glitter glue and mixed it before applying it to the flower petals. 

I worked on the leaves after the petals. I also mixed a green ink from a reinker to the green glitter glue.

I applied brown medium to the stem which I modified later on.

I applied another layer of brown colored medium to the floral center so I can add more black glitter powder to it.

I poured black glitter to the medium while it is wet. I set this aside to dry. Unfortunately, not all of the glitter stayed adhered to the medium. I should have patted the glitter to the medium to make the glitter stick to the medium.

I did not like the look of the brown stem with the green leaf. 

I mixed up another green medium and applied this over the dried brown medium to cover it up. This is what I call a make or brake step since this is when it can either go right or go wrong.

The embossing paste did look green until it dried.

I die cut a postage frame on a black cardstock. I die cut the floral panel using a rectangle die slightly larger than the inner postage frame. I think the embossing paste has not dried yet that's why it got squished when I ran it through my die cut machine. I should have used a craft knife instead but too late for that. We learn from our boo-boos anyway.

I ripped a pre-printed vellum for the sentiment. The ripped edge added texture to the panel. I ran the vellum through a sticker maker to add adhesive to the back. I adhered this to the panel. 

I hope you like today's project. I encouraged you to use those lovely colored mediums on your stencils.

Visit our social media sites for more stamping fun!

I Brake For Stamps -https://ibrakeforstamps.com/ 

The Blank Page Muse- https://blankpagemuse.com/

FB Fan Page-  https://www.facebook.com/groups/blankpagemuse/

Instagram Shop-  https://www.instagram.com/blankpagemuse/

Instagram Blog-  https://www.instagram.com/blankpagemuseblog/

Twitter-  https://twitter.com/BlankPageMuse

Pinterest- https://www.pinterest.com/blankpagemuse/boards/

Have a blessed, brilliant and creative day!

Maria Giselle B.

of Maria Giselle's Creative Cuts