2015 #12 Flower Power Journal Page {by Alison Hall}

2015 Topic 12: Stencils

Hi everyone, Alison/Craftytrog here, joining you this evening with a journal page that has lots of layers of texture, paint, and stencilling. I love building up layers on a journal page, and seeing where it takes me. 

Step One: I'm working in a Large Prima Finnabair Sunrise Sunset Journal. I removed one of the plain pages, then used Ranger Matte Medium to adhere a layer of White Tissue, scrunching the tissue to make lots of creases. 

Step Two: I painted a coat of Art Basics Heavy Black Gesso over the whole page. This provides a wonderful, dark base for all the colours to go over.

Step Three: Next, I used a palette knife to apply Grunge Paste around the edges of my page, with PaperArtsy Stencil EEG 015.

Step Four: Now to add some colour with my Brayer! I began with Yellow Submarine Fresco Finish Paint, then Tango, then Autumn Fire, then some Brown Shed and Chocolate Pudding. It was looking a bit Halloweeny and I wasn't loving that look, so I finished with some Snowflake to lighten it up. Much better!

Step Five: Time for some more stencilling, and a contrasting colour! First, I used a Stencil Brush to add some arrows with Mermaid Fresco Paint and PaperArtsy Stencil EEG 018, then I used Bora Bora with the Crafter's Workshop Mini Art Is Stencil. I used up the Bora Bora paint left on my Stencil Brush over the Grunge Paste Circles around the edges.

Step Six: The piece of paper I used to clean my brayer on in Step Four, provided a great background to stamp some petals and circles from Ellen Vargo Eclectica Stamp Set EEV 09 onto.

Step Seven: I also stamped the Nature Phrase from EEV 10 onto the above background, then cut out the petals, flower centres, and words. I wanted some extra texture, so I used Glossy Accents to glue some orange and red seed beads to the flower centres.

Step Eight: Time to put my page together. I cut some flower stems from the leftover background in Step Six, glued these onto my page, added the petals, flower centres and words. I used a soft black pencil to outline the flowers, words and beaded circles, doodled some dots on the stems with a black Fineliner Pen, then glued some beads to the Grunge Paste circle centres to finish.

I'm so happy with how this page turned out, although I almost gave up on it halfway through! Sometimes you need to persevere with adding more paint and stencilling until your artwork blossoms into something you like. Adding beads to your art is a great way to get some gorgeous sparkle and texture, and that extra bit of dimension. 

I hope I've inspired you to get creative with your stencils

Alison xxx
Craftytrog's Inky Adventures

Those flower petals that Ellen designed are so cool, pointy bit in or out they give a totally different look, they really are great to work with! Those beaded centres are cool, and pick up the colours in your background nicely too! Thanks for sharing your journalling with us! ~Leandra

We would love you to join in with challenge #12: Stencils If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Stencils link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, July 12th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.