COLOR LOVE ~ ART JOURNAL POCKET PAGE

Happy Monday!  

It's time for another Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge!  This week...it's all about COLOR LOVE!

The first thing I thought of when I saw this theme was Tim Holtz' New Distress Paints in 24 gorgeous colors!  They are truly amazing, very fluid acrylic paints that hold their color and dry with a beautiful matte finish.  Just like all the other line of Distress Products, they are reactive with water.  But once these dry, they are permanent and they retain their true colors.

Check out this video of Tim Holtz at CHA 2013, talking about these new, fantastic paints!

For my color love challenge piece, I decided to team up the new Distress Paints with another page in my Dylusions Art Journal.

Here is my finished piece.  Colorful enough for you?  This is an art journal page that is created from two art journal pages.  It has been folded and taped to create several pockets to hold a #10 Manila Tag as well as 3 #8 Manila tags.  I saw this idea on Jim The Gentleman Crafter's blog and thought it was such a cool idea!  All of this color is from Tim's new Distress Paints: Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry and Broken China.  

I began by spritzing a blank journal page with water.  Then I alternated squiggly lines of the Distress Paints running vertically down the dampened paper.  Next I spritzed over the page again with water and picked up the journal, allowing the paint to run. 

I repeated this process on another page because it actually takes two pages to create the tag pockets for the journal.  I did not roll a paper towel roll over the pages to dry them, as you would typically do with Dyan's sprays because I did not want to remove any of the still wet acrylic paint.  Rather, I heat set the paint with my Heat It Craft Tool.  The colors dry to a beautiful, chalky matte finish but they do not loose their vibrant color.

Now it is confession time.  At first, I did not like the page on the left so I ripped it out of the journal and laid it to the side before I heat set the paints.  Then I tried it again on the page to the right.  After I heat set the page on the right, I decided that I really did like the page I thought would be trashed!  So, I heat set it and it became the top piece for my pocket tag page!  Yet another reminder that sometimes what we think looks like an ugly duckling when it's in the beginning stages can turn out to be a swan!!   I added some Mustard Seed Distress Ink to the page on the left and Peacock Feathers Distress Ink to the page on the right to fill in any white areas and further "blend" the colors together.

Since I'd ripped my page out of the journal, it was easier for me to score the left side to create a small pocket for the larger #10 manila tag to sit inside of.  You don't have to tear the page out of your journal though.  But, in my case, I measured in 1" from the left edge and scored that line.  Then I measured in another inch and made another score line.  

 

Then use a piece of 1/4" or 1/2" Scor Tape and apply it to the back side of the first 1" portion of that art journal page.  Remove the tape and fold along the first score line, attaching the first 1" strip to the second 1" strip on the page.  Then put a piece of 1/4" or 1/2" Scor Tape at the inside edge of both ends of the little folded over portion you just made.  Remove the tape backing and attach the two ends to either outside edge of the page.  

 

You have just created a long skinny pocket for a large manila tag to slip into!  Then I stamped my Dylysions design along the face of that skinny pocket.

Next, turn the page over and measure three equal spaces on the backside of the journal page to create three pockets for #8 manila tags to be able to slip into.  As you can see from my page, the spaces measure 3 3/4" each.  Run a piece of 1/4" Scor Tape down the two outside edges of the page, at the 3 3/4" intervals in the center of the page and I ran a couple of 1/4" Scor Tape strips at the bottom of the page.  Then remove the tape backing and lay the page directly over the other page that you have colored and press the tape into place.  Now you have created an art journal page that has a total of 4 pockets on it...1 big skinny pocket and three smaller pockets.  Then embellish your art journal page however you chose to do so.

My page was finished but it needed tags!  So, I used the same technique as I had done on the art journal pages to create the backgrounds on my tags-using the same Distress Paint Colors.  Here is my completed big #10 manila tag.  It is a combination of several Dyan Reaveley stamps.  All of the parts (other than the flowers) were stamped onto Specialty Stamping Paper and then colored using my Tim Holtz detailer water brush and Distress Ink colors to coordinate with the background colors.  The bunting at the top is from Dyan Reaveley's Bags of Bunting stamp set.  I added the little bows and line between each of them with a Faber Castell Fine Point Pitt Pen.  The funky girl in the middle is a combination of Ruby Rainbow body, and a Traveling Travis head, legs and sunglasses.  The sentiment is a combination of two sayings from Dyan's new Say It How It Is stamp set.  The flowers are from Background Love and some flowers are colored in using a Sharpie Fine Point Water Based Marker.  The center is Mustard Seed Distress Paint.

   
In this closeup, you can again see the really cool colors and blending you can get from the Distress Paints.  I also added some "bling" to the sunglasses and Glossy Accents to the hearts on her head and her boots to give them a little dimension and a slick finish.

For the smaller pockets, I created these three smaller tags, also using the same Distress Paints for the background colors.  Each so unique.  The stamps are from Dina Wakley.  The one on the left is Silhouette Script.  The center is Script Heart and the one on the right is Lonely Girl.  I added "LOVE" to the center heart.  That is stamped on a separate sheet of Specialty Stamping Paper that was streaked with Picked Raspberry Distress Paint.  The letters are stamped (as are all of the stamped images) with Jet Black Archival Ink.  They are from Tim Holtz' Worn Text stamp set.  All of the white highlights on the center tag are from the Sharpie marker.  The tag on the right also has some stenciled polka dots from Wendy Vecchi's new Polka Dotty stencil.  I scraped some iridescent blue green paint from Peabo through the stencil and heat set it then drew the little black circles around the dots with the fine point Pitt pen.

Here is my finished art journal page without the big #10 manila tag in its pocket.  I have added some of the iridescent polka dots on this page as well.  And, I swiped some of the paint with my finger along the edges of the pages.  I love the shimmer it adds.  I colored in the funny looking eyeball type design from Dyan Reaveley's Inbetweenies stamp set with the Sharpie fine point water based marker.  I also stamped a couple more Dina Wakley stamps on this page.  The star is called Script Star and the script is called Textured Scrawl.  The black circles were made from dipping the top off of a Dylusions plastic cap into black acrylic paint and stamping it on to the page.  Finally I stamped the image of an eye and stamped "LOVE ART" (from Dyan Reaveley's Word Love stamp set) underneath it.

Here is the finished page with no tags.

And here is the page all put together, including the big #10 manila tag in its place.

I can't believe I almost threw the top of this art journal page away!  I actually LOVE the blended color runs of this page and I really like the way it finished out!

I hope that I've inspried you to create something with color and join our challenge this week at Simon Says Stamp and Show.   If you need some more inspiration, hop on over to the blog and check out the wonderful examples that my Design Teammates have waiting for you.  Then join our challenge.  You could be the lucky winner of our generous sponsors'

$50.00 credit voucher.  You may also be voted one of the TOP THREE entrees for the week!  That is a very nice honor indeed!  Good luck and I can't wait for you to COLOR MY WORLD!

Here are all of the items available at Simon Says Stamp used on on this project:

InLinkz.com