Quiet Music

Music can be seen as well as heard.

Flowers are the music...

I’ve made another art journal page inspired by the theme LANGUAGE at Art Journal Journey .

Also inspired by this Pinterest pin https://pin.it/73QjtTc

To get some color speckles all over my page, I placed my journal inside my spray painting box and lightly spritzed Cracked Pistachio Distress Spray Stain holding the bottle about 18” above the page.

I then used some stencils to direct intense color through the designs.

After the stencils I sprayed very close to the page to get spots of intense color over the page with Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers Spray Stains.

I then embossed the grid stamp with white embossing powder.  That made the ink blobs blend into the background.

(I’ve been using black archival ink to emboss over. I really should get a clear embossing pad.)

I don’t draw well or easily, so I traced a portion of a flower cutting die with pencil then went over the pencil lines with an 8B graphite pencil.

The flower petals were painted with a white heavy-bodied acrylic to give the petals some texture.  It was here the top ink blob looked quite out of place.  I worked at it for awhile using a variety of ways to get it blend into the background.  It refused.

My final attempt before trashing the page was to just add more embossing.  Although I now had more embossing than I wanted, it did save the page well enough.

I wet the graphite pencil with a water brush to outline the flower petals, but it just wasn’t bold enough.  I am new to Distress Crayons.  But they’ve done the job.  And we all know how I love a bit of grunge.

I stamped the words on white cardstock, added hints of the colors and grunged the edges.  I placed them as leaves for the flower.  The original quote says “ Flowers are the music of the ground...”. But I liked the word earth better than ground.

I love these colors.  I attempted to make a postcard in a similar fashion but I ended up with color all over.  That worked out fine to white emboss, add modeling paste through a stencil and a white die cut  to decorate all the color.

If you’d like to receive this postcard in the mail, let me know in a comment.



When I see the beauty of flowers, I can’t help but feel happy.

Me vs. Paints and a Flower

Me vs. Paints is typically a battle and the trash bin wins the prize of a quite unfortunate painting.  This time is different.  I think this painted watercolor flower is not completely unfortunate.

I think me and my inexpensive paints did a fairly decent job of it.  

I struggle with several painting issues.  The most debilitating of which is not being able to visualize the finish during the process.  So I don’t know when to quit fixing it.  Or even whether or not it needs fixing.  Another is not waiting for layers to dry.  For once I did use a heat tool at times to get it dry faster.  But I kept painting on it and making it worse.  It was destined for the trash bin.

Once I finally drew the scribbles, I could see it so much better.  But that just started a whole new fix-it process.  I thought one of us has to give in and I didn’t want it to be me.  I think I ended up with a fairly decently painted single flower for Sheila’s (Orange Esmeralda) A Single Flower theme at Art Journal Journey .

I haven’t actually pasted it into my journal yet as I’m undecided as to what I might want to do, if anything, with the page it will get pasted to.  

Update:  I have finished the page.

This theme runs for the entire month of March.  All mediums of art are welcome to join in.  It’s such a great theme to welcome the arrival of Spring.

A Single Flower

The very talented Sheila at Orange Esmeralda is hosting this month’s theme, A Single Flower, at Art Journal Journey.  Sheila inspired me to join in on the challenge as I discovered a single flower start piece in my box of odd pieces.

I decided to finish the flower as a page for my fabric book.  Which I realize is a type of journal of my textile art bits.

I created the flower by tracing two spirals onto Wonder Under and fusing them to the fabrics.

Cut them out.

I chose a base fabric for the flower.

I layered the pieces and fused them all together.

I did raw edge appliqué around the spirals and chose a decorative stitch to sew around the outside just catching the edges of the base circle.

A stem and leaves were added as well as some select selvedge words and color dots.  The base fabric for the page is a printed scrapbook paper onto Magic Fabric.  On the right side edge is a scrap of stripe fabric and another strip of selvedge.



Adding selvedges to my pieces is becoming a signature thing for me.

Thanks Sheila for suggesting and inspiring me to join in the challenge and adding to my fabric book art journal AND getting another odd piece finished up.

Anyone can join in for the monthly challenges.  All mediums are welcome.  Have a look at the other talented artists works here and be inspired to join in the fun.

The Month of Hearts and Flowers

A small old piece that has been languishing, awaiting inspiration for a finish.  

It was planned to be a pillow.

It was too small as is.  But it would be too large if I added to it.  So it sat.  Stored for quite a long time.

The flower is a rubber stamp image that I enlarged for applique.  The rest of it is paper pieced.

I suddenly realized it was a perfect size as is for the little 12” table top display frame I recently purchased for a cross stitch piece.

I recently made a birthday tag for a small gift.  And that inspired me to do a little more paper crafting with tags.  On Pinterest I found a tutorial for a window technique using acetate.

It started out as a future need of a birthday tag instead of a card.  As I worked on it, it was soon apparent to me that it intended to be a Valentine tag.

It’s a bit of a struggle to keep the acetate clean while working with it, but a not too close look doesn’t reveal that.

I always do a little on the back of my tags.

This prompted me to pull out the heart themed tags I had done in previous years.



Now they all hang out around the house on available knobs.

Or just tucked into a drawer.





I think it’s a fun idea to enjoy them.  I’ll be switching them out throughout the year as I’ve got quite a few tags that have been in hiding for much too long.

My Calendar Journal format has changed once again!  I most likely will be sticking with this easy format for now on.  I’ve printed off the months and am just decorating the blank spacing simply with washi tapes.

Happy Valentine’s Day!