Another Journal Page

Having recently spent a happy couple of hours playing with paint and stencils in my journal, it reminded me how much I love working in a journal. I have four on the go at the moment and they are all different sizes, they all contain different types of paper, so some techniques work better in some than others.....basically, it's trial and error, but I really like the challenge that that throws up.

I have not really had a good play with all the new colours of Fresco Finish Paint yet so today I thought I would work with Caramel and Spanish Mulberry. I also wanted to carry on using my Stencil Girl Stencils as I just love the quirky designs.

I started out by using Matt Medium to stick an assortment of paper and book pages to a double page spread in my journal. I also used a bit of masking tape here and there to add some texture. Now at this point I have to say that this journal page was hugely inspired by Julie Fei Fan Balzer, an extremely talented young artist who I first met at Ranger U. She is a very busy young lady and her blog is full of inspiring work, click here to take you to the page that I loved so much. You will need to scroll down to the end of the post in question to see the piece I am talking about. It's the one with the big red flower.

I watered down some Caramel and some Spanish Mulberry as these are both opaque colours and used them to lay down a wash over the two pages, blending them together created some really interesting colours.

I really liked the bits that resisted the paint, this is where I didn't take good care with the matt medium, so that was a happy accident that I hadn't planned.

I used my "Layered Salad"  and "Small Diamonds" stencils by Stencil Girl to add some design to the pages using Snowflake Fresco Finish.

After drying the Snowflake paint, I added another layer of the watered down Caramel and Spanish Mulberry and then used the Diamonds stencil again but this time I used Chocolate pudding Fresco to fill some of the open spaces.

Next I used Chocolate Pudding Fresco to stencil the three birdie guys from my "Tall Birds" stencil and the "Modern Tree" stencil.

Now here comes the tricky bits! I wanted to add some detail to some of the leaves on the tree but not all of the leaves, so I had to use some making tape to protect some areas.

With the masking tape in place, I re-positioned the stencil over the original image and then I was able to lay some miniature sequin waste over the top so I could add some dots to the leaves.

There were some leaves that didn't need any masking tape so it wasn't too time consuming!

I love this effect!

I then decided to decorate the birdie guys. Once I had re-positioned the "Tall Birds" stencil, I laid the "Layered Salad" stencil over the top so that I could decorate them with the spiral pattern. It worked out a treat as there are some single dots of the stencil which were in exactly the right places for eyes!!!!

I had used Vintage Lace Fresco to add the decorations to the tree and the birds. I chose this colour as it is pretty neutral but not quite as stark as the Snowflake. Now I wanted to tint these designs so I chose Lime Light and Hey Pesto for the leaves and Beach Hut for the birds, these are translucent colours so I didn't need to water them down.

I added a few strips of washi tape and a few hand written words to finish off the page and after a touch of dry brushing around the edges of the pages, this is how it ended up.

And the beauty of playing in a journal is that you can pick it up at any time and simply play!!!