Darcy Journalling: Month 7{ with Hot Picks and Eclectica³ Sara Naumann Stamps by Darcy Wilkinson}

Hi everyone, Darcy here. Another month has flown by, and we seem to be in the middle of a heat wave. Well done to everyone who joined in last month, you were so brave in ripping up your patterned papers. I loved seeing the variety of flowers created.

The winner from the June challenge is Alison

Please get in touch with me, darcydotneedles@hotmail.com with your choice of Lin Brown stamp. 

As it is so warm, I think we should do a page that is a little lighter in techniques and layers. This month we will use Fresco paints to make sprays, cut through FOUR pages and incorporate some metal card and *woop.woop* New Stamps!!!

First let's make some sprays. I only ever make a very small amount at once, as this mixture goes a long way. I add water to a spray bottle first, slightly less than a quarter full, then I add my first colour. 

For this page my first colour is Antarctic, I spritzed and sprayed, making sure to leave lots of gaps. Once this was dry, I added some Concrete to the spray bottle. I did not add anymore water! Again I sprayed the pages. I found that pressing on the plunger very slowly resulted in a more splatter effect. I really liked that, and continued to use a combination of fine misting and the splatters. Next I added a couple of squirts of Elephant to the mix, again no water, and continued to add to the page. My final paint addition was Little Black Dress, again no water. I didn't spray too much of this , just a little here and there. You are aiming for lots of lighter background showing through. 

The next stage is to add some text stamping to the background. I used a NEW STAMP and Archival watering can. This is how the pages look now, you can see how very little spray paint I used, lots of open spaces left. Though to be fair some of those have antarctic in them, it just doesn't show up in the photo. 

I added another TWO NEW STAMPS to add a little more interest to the background. Here you can see the very subtle layers of antarctic,and concrete. Keep your spray layers light!

Now for the border. I cut some strips of metal card, I ran this through embossing folders in my big shot. of course the folders are not the size of the strips, I placed 3 folders next to each other and placed the metal card strip across all 3 folders at once. 

I love how these strips turned out, all different with lots of patterning on them. 

Using cut and dry foam, I painted the strips first with Antarctic, then added a little Blood Orange, and finally some Little Black Dress. Once dry I sanded them very lightly, just to reveal the metal in the raised bits. 

I glued the strips into the journal, making sure to mitre the corner to reduce bulk. 

I drew around my hand onto scrap paper and cut it out, leaving me with a hand stencil. 

 I placed the stencil onto the left page, and holding it in place I carefully added a thin layer of paint inside the hand. I mixed Pewter with a little matte glaze, this gave me a thin mix which allowed the background to show through. Once the glaze was dry I then used a NEW STAMP to add the dots using Claret. Once this was dry I removed the paper hand stencil and added the doodling around the edges. 

I punched out lots of half inch circles from card, I wanted them to be dimensional without being too thick. I found the card backing from a paper pad to be ideal. I painted all the circles, some with Antarctic and the rest with Pewter. 

I attached some of the spots in the corners. 

Then I stamped, just over the antarctic ones using the number grid stamp from HP1301 and black archival. 

HP1301 

In the top corner I used  A NEW STAMP, this was stamped first in Antarctic, then I bumped the stamp over and stamped again using Claret. I finished this area by adding a line of numbers from the number block stamp . I did this by placing a post it note over the sun rays so that I could just add the top line of number from the block.

In the bottom corner I added another NEW STAMP. I first painted a piece of smoothy with antarctic, then I covered that with the NEW TEXT STAMP that I used in the background. Finally I stamped the double hearts over the text and cut them out. 

Now for a title. again I painted smoothy with antarctic and then stamped the NEW QUOTE STAMP, before cutting it out and gluing it over the hand. I added a little doodling around just some of the Pewter spots and that is the left side complete. 

Here is a teaser of those new stamps, which are all from the new collection by Sara Naumann. Keep your eyes peeled, as new stamps are arriving in your favourite PaperArtsy retailer  store very soon. 

Now to complete the right side. I added more of the Antarctic and Pewter spots, again I overstamped the Antarctic ones with the number block stamp from HP1301.

In the bottom corner I added the bold text stamps from the same set. I stamped them in black archival onto smoothy card that had been painted with Claret. I then mounted them onto more smoothy that was painted with Antarctic. 

Now for the final area. I wanted to use the girls face from HP1303

HP1303

I stamped her onto scrap paper and cut her out. I then used this as a template to cut out the same shape on the page. I edged the cut out shape using the NEW SPOTTY STAMP and Claret paint.

I drew inside the shape, and then cut out the same shape from the next THREE journal pages. You now have FOUR pages with holes in them. 

I did the same thing right next to this shape, creating a four page hole big enough for the number block. Then I glued all FOUR pages together. I used Little black Dress to dab carefully along the inside edges of the holes . I did this from the back of page 4, this way any excess dabbing wont show on your main page. 

On page FIVE, paint corresponding shapes. I used antarctic and a little Pewter for the girl, and Claret for the number block. Once dry, stamp over the paint. 

Now you can glue your 4-pages (that you have already glued together) down over the stamped images on page 5. You are left with a very nice recess with the images showing through. 

To finish this area, I took some more metal card and painted it with antarctic, I dabbed at the paint with a paper towel to remove some paint and create a shabby pattern.

I stamped the butterfly from HP1301 using black archival. once this was dry I added a little definition along the veins using metal working tools. if you do not have tools then use an old ball point pen (from the back of the card) I added just a tiny smudge of Claret to the inner part of the wings. 

Apply the butterfly to the top of the recess, using foam pads, or thick glue, something that will raised it slightly. 

My final touches were to add a little doodling around the red spots, and a dot of snowflake inside them. 

All done, here are both pages finished. 

Ideas for you to explore this month:

• Embossing and painting on metal card
• Creating sprays from Fresco paint
• Creating a stencil from your handprint
• Using scrap paper or post it notes to mask off areas
• Adding punch outs
• Doodling outlines
• Cutting and gluing multiple pages to create a recess
• Bumping stamps to create a 2-coloured image
• Using metal working tools

Next month will be our last challenge, so there is one more page of techniques to try,  hope to see you join in. 

If you would like to join in then please link up and explain how you were inspired by the techniques presented above.  Use the linky below (this is a separate link to the weekly PA challenges). This journal challenge will remain open for a month, and will end the day before my next journal page. 

Please read and follow the guidelines below, and enter your journal page to be in with a chance of winning one of the Sara Naumann stamp plates. 

• This challenge is to show how you have been inspired to action by this month's example make sure in your blog post you explain what part or technique prompted you to create a page of your own. 
• Make sure you have your journal page entry linked up by 5pm (London time) Aug 22nd 2014. 
• Winner will be announced the following day.
• There will only be ONE draw, ONE winner. You may link up as many times as you like but each name will only go into the draw once.
• Please don't feel you need to copy the example exactly but you must be inspired by at least part of it. 
• You are also welcome to use any stamps/ products / substrates you have to hand, we do not expect you to exclusively use PA products - but of course it is lovely when you do!