Kaylas Mad House: Journal page ...YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE

So it's been a sunny week or so here in Kent (UK)

And during the week one of my magazine subscriptions was delivered (Papercraft essentials) and this month the free gift was a stamp set which was based on one of my favourite flowers......

The SUNFLOWER!

Now normally I pop the free stamps in to my stash of stamps

and use them when I need something for a project based around another stamp or image.

But this time the second I saw the stamp set I knew I needed to do a sunflower art journal page.

The trouble was I had a page that needed finishing before I could start work on the developing sunflower page.

Once I was finished with the other page I knew exactly what I was going to do,

so I quickly got to preparing my large art journal page ready for my layout.

Now the pages on my large art journal are quite thick so I don't need to glue pages together but I like to prep the page with gesso before starting with my background.

(As before I will post a list of all the products I have used below the blog with links to where I brought my supplies. )

Whilst my page was drying I stamped the sunflower image and the pot image onto plain white card 6 times,

using my Tim holtz stamping platform and my versafine ink in sepia as I didn't want harsh black lines on this image I then printed one copy of the sun flower and pot onto craft medium weight chipboard (white) and I also printed each leaf of the sunflower a second time onto the same chipboard.

I proceeded to fussy cut the flowers and pots on card out with my decoupage scissors and the pieces on chipboard out with my finger knife.

For my background I wanted a sky/ ground effect and after looking through my stash

I realised I didn't have anything that would help me create the sky and cloud effect I wanted so I took a scrap piece of card and cut around it in a cloud like manor to form a quick and effective cloud stencil.

Using my distress ink in 'faded jeans' , momento ink in'summer sky' and my mini blending tool I began creating the sky part of my page.

I then continued on and began to apply ink to the ground part of my page using momento inks in

'Pear tart' , ' bamboo leaves' & 'key lime' using my blending tool to create depth and texture to the page.

I still wasn't completely happy with the effect so I sprayed the sky area with water and dabbed with kitchen towel to get the distress ink to 'ghost' and give a more textured look . I left my page to dry completely before applying further texture to the background.

Once the page was dry I layed my sunflowers on the page to see how it was going to look.

As I looked at the page I felt it was missing something so I had a look through my stamp and stencil stash, and came up with the following

I stamped my page using my Marianne design background stamp 'distressed linen'

At the top of the page I used my distress stain faded jeans and on the bottom I used momento 'key lime' now because I used the same colours as I used for the base of the background I created depth rather than something that stood out as something new as I don't want to take away from my focal points..... the sun flowers.

To redefine my clouds I used my stencil again and my ranger 'glacier white' ink I carefully added my clouds back to the sky.

I was very pleased with the effect !

The last thing to do with my back ground was add my favourite effect Embossing paste !

So using two different effects from my Ronda Palazzari designs 12x12 stencil by the crafters workshop ( which I'd cut down into smaller more manageable pieces)

I mixed my homemade embossing paste with distress inks to give a subtle but amazing effect the colours I used were 'distress jeans' & 'twisted Citroen'

Using my spatula I applied the embossing paste to my page in random areas until I was happy with the effect I made sure that I also left space for my quotes to be stamped on my completed page.

While this layer was drying I began to colour my focal points using my chameleon pens, tombow pens and a highlighter I found in my stash.

The pots for my sunflowers I did slightly differently I used my finger dabbers and distress in inks in 'fired brick' & ' vintage photo'

Once all my elements were dry I gave them a coating of gloss medium gel to seal them and ready them for shading once glued to my page.

While these were drying I began work on the 'centrepiece' of my page.....

In my stash I had some cheap stray sunflower heads I think I had them left over from making an Easter bonnet for my god daughter a couple of years ago.

I didn't like the centres on the flowers and felt that they were too ......flat.

So I took them apart ,then glued 3 flowers together using my tombow sticky glue. To form the centre of my sunflower I took a cotton wool pad split it into two then cut a circle to fit the middle of my new sunflower then using my chameleon pens I coloured the cotton wool then using tombow and a yellow diamanté brad I secured the new flower head together and left it to dry.

Once everything was dry and ready to go I began by arranging all my pieces on the page before using my gel matte medium to glue everything into place. Once the glue was dry I stamped my quotes using my small cursive alphabet stamp from my stash and the quote/ sentiments from my free stamp set. Then set about using my Fabre castell pen in 169 'Capet mortuum' I did my shading making sure to smudge the pen line for a softer finish. I then added some highlights with my white gel pen to complete my page .