Category Archives: Art Tutorial

Mixed Media with Chrissie B #2

Good evening!

I am very excited to announce that I have posted a new Mixed Media with Chrissie B video, this is actually video #2, to be exact!

SIDE NOTE: mama is tired!! I am having a BLAST putting out so many new videos, but man, is it a TON OF WORK!!! I am hoping this will get a tad easier, in the next coming weeks, more to come!

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled program!!

As, I was saying, before I so rudely interrupted myself. I have a new Mixed Media video out, and this week I decided to go old school and do a full art journal spread! I thought that this would be a piece of cake, but in all honesty I have been doing 1 page, loose leaf, journal spreads for the past 6 months or so, and I found myself struggling more than usual to get something down on the spread! Plus, to start a spread from start to finish, is not easy on my poor brain right now! Mama is seriously busy, I have mentioned that haven’t I? 🙂

When I first started this spread out, I had a completely different direction that I was going to take this spread. The only thing that remained the same to my original idea was the sentiment! When I found this piece of gauze hidden in my tissue paper drawer, it just screamed to be used – so here it appears!! 🙂

Here are a list of all of the supplies I used in this week’s project:

Golden’s Matte Medium
1-1/2 inch utility brush
a piece of gauze
Ranger Heat Tool
Golden’s fluid acrylic: teal
Dr. Ph Martin’s Bombay India Ink: turquoise, grass green
Staz On Ink Pad: forest green
Crafter’s Workshop 12×12 stencils: Well Rounded, and I apologize, but I can’t find the name of the 2nd stencil. I will update this post with the name if I can find it!
Sentiment printed out on regular printer paper
Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue
Scissors
1/4 inch utility brush
White tissue paper that has been stamped with various stamps, using black staz on ink
Ranger Craft Mat – used as a paint pallet
Faber Castelle Pitt Artist Pen Big Brush: Indanthrene Blue (247), Purple Violet (136)

Whew! That seems like a lot of supplies, but I am thinking that maybe is very normal for me! 😉

On a more serious note: I chose this sentiment this week because I think that some time in the past 6 months this happened to me. I looked around at the life that I had created, and thought to myself, “How the hell did I get here?” It was like I had this plan for what I wanted to do, be, have, and experience, and then somewhere along the way I got sucked up in the rush of traffic of what is “normal”, “responsible”, and “expected”. When I finally really, truly looked around at this life that I had created, through all of my choices, and actions, I was shocked that I had ended up here. It was kind of like driving to work in the morning, and you let your mind start to wander, when you finally get to the parking lot at work, you do a double take and ask yourself, how did I get here??? That is what happened to me, and my life. It is not that my life is so bad, it is just that it is not what I had set out to create! That is freaking scary.

So I am changing things up, some of those changes I do not have much control over, but even those changes that I didn’t choose has caused me to wake up and really look around at my life. So for that, I am so incredibly thankful!!

I keep saying to myself I want a happy ending! I want a happy ending!! I realize, that it is not too late to create that happy ending for myself, on purpose! And thankfully I have an AMAZING support system in place of AWESOME people who will help support me in creating this new life! I am not sure how all of these changes are going to come to fruition, but I need to remember that no matter how scary all of the coming changes are going to be, it is waaaaay scarier to wake up and realize that you have arrived at an entirely new decade of your life, and you have no idea how you created the life that you are living in, because you are too busy flying on autopilot!

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much!” ~Jim Rohn

I know this video was really short and fast this week, I will work on that for future videos! In any case, I really hope you enjoyed this video! I know that I learned a lot about myself while creating it!

If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know in the comment section! I am always happy to be of help!

Here is to living a Beautiful Creative life! 😉

If you want to have a different life, you have to choose differently!

Mixed Media Techniques #3

Good evening!

This week, for my Mixed Media Art Technique video, I had some fun showcasing 3 of my favorite quick and easy art journal background techniques. More specifically, 3 easy ways to take the fear out of getting started on a white art journal page! I find that some times when I am faced with a fresh new page, I can overthink what to do first, and then end up getting frustrated, or worse, giving up and walking away. These simple techniques takes that fear out of getting started!

As promised here are the art supplies that I used this week:

DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic Paints: Wild Green, Tutti Fruitti, Tropical Blue, and Buttercream
An old plastic credit card (a palette knife could be used as a substitute)
Dina Wakley Media 1 Inch Flat Brush
and a small square of hard plastic, that I had repurposed out of a piece of the packaging of something I had purchased (you could easily use any flat hard item to do this, or you could use a piece of overhead projector plastic, cut into a square)

I hope that these examples give you some inspiration to go and try doing some of your own quick and easy backgrounds! The sky is the limit on what you can do over the top of these backgrounds, but I hope I can help get you started. I am sure that in one of my future videos I will be showing how I finish each one of these pages, so please stay tuned! If you haven’t done so already, I would recommend that you subscribe so that you don’t miss a thing! 🙂

Thanks so much for visiting, and here is to living a Beautiful Creative life!

1 - Signature

If you want to have a different life you have to choose differently!

Mixed Media with Chrissie B #1

Good evening!

I am so happy to report that I have a new art journaling video up out on YouTube. I will not lie to you, this is the longest video I have every done! WHEW!!! Watching this is more like watching a free art journaling background class!!! I am pretty happy with it!

As promised, here is a list of supplies that I used during this video:

Dina Wakley Media Stiff Bristle 1 inch paint brush
Dina Wakley Heavy Body Acrylic Paints: Lime, Magenta, Ocean, Tangerine, Lemon, Turquoise, Fuchsia, Night, White
Book Pages – I used pages from a small dictionary
Golden’s Matte Medium
Liquitex white gesso
Palette knife – mine was plastic
3 mini Tim Holtz Stencils, Plus Signs, Dot Fade, and Schoolhouse
Ryan Reaveley Dylusions Journaling Block
Ranger Archival Ink pads: Manganese Blue, Deep Purple, Fern Green
Dina Wakley Media Stamps: Textures
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stamps: Mixed Media 2, Bitty Grunge

I hope you enjoyed this video!! There will be many more to come! 🙂

Here is to have a Beautiful Creative life!

1 - Signature

If you want a different life, you have to choose differently!

Tutorial Tuesday – Textures with Spackling Paste!

Good evening!

Tonight, for Tutorial Tuesday I thought I would share one of my favorite texture techniques, and that is texturizing with spackling paste! I know, that may sound crazy, but hear me out!! 🙂

What you will need for tonight’s project is:

Some spackling paste from your local hardware store.

Various stencils. I have a bunch of different styles that I enjoy using! 🙂

Various random tools for marking up AKA texturing the spackling paste.

You will need a palette knife, as you can see I have many different sizes, styles that I can choose from.

Some acrylic paint. I used some inexpensive craft paints for this, but you could use high pigmented paints such as Golden’s fluid acrylic, or other tube paste. Either would work just great!

and finally, you will need some acrylic gel medium, or Mod Podge will do too!

For this sample project, I started with an inexpensive plaque that I picked up at my local craft store for a dollar. I painted a solid color – any color will work!

I used sequin waste for my texture on this project. Position the sequin waste at the top of the plaque. Note: I had covered the holes of the plaque with painters tape before I started, so I would not fill the holes with the spackling paste.

Place a dollop of the spackling paste out onto your work surface – mine just happens to be freezer paper for easy cleanup.

Using a palette knife, spread some of the spackling paste over the top of the sequin waste.

To create a gradual gradient design, I decided to add yellow acrylic craft paint to my spackling paste.

Mix thoroughly.

Reposition sequins waste to cover the middle section of the plaque.

Apply the now yellow spackling paste, making sure to blend in with the overlapping white.

Do the same thing again, but this time adding orange acrylic craft paint to your yellow spackling paste.

Mix thoroughly.

Reposition sequin waste to cover the lower portion of the plaque.

and remove sequin waste.

Remove the painters tape that was covering the holes – do not worry about the areas that have no spackling compound. When I knot the ribbons that will be used to hang this plaque, those blank areas will be hidden! 🙂

Cover the whole thing with the acrylic gel medium, or Mod Podge, to seal it and there you have it. Isn’t that easy?? And really economical too!

Can you see a theme in all of my art tutorials??? Let’s just say mama doesn’t have a lot of patience!! 😉

Here are a few other examples of how I have used this technique in the past:

This is white spackling compound used over one stencil.

Here is the spackling paste, turned blue, over a painted and torn paper background (another one of my favorite techniques!)!

And finally, here is a project where I basically frosted the plaque with white spackling paste, and drew in the still wet paste. Once it was completely dry, I painted blue over the top of it, and wiped the excess off with a paper towel, leaving more paint in the recesses.

This “create” was created using the tip of a butter knife, the stripes were made using the tines of a fork.

Here are more of those fork tine lines, and the swirls were created with the blunt end of a skewer! 🙂

There you have it! I hope this inspires you to go to your local hardware store and give this simple, but fun technique a try!! Please make sure to share your results with me, I would LOVE to see how you put your own spin on this fun technique!!

Here is to a FABULOUSLY ARTSY evening! 😉

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

Art Journal Every Day: Torn Paper Collage Tutorial (balzerdesigns.typepad.com)
Basic Acrylic Paint Palette for Beginners – Just the Basics Ma’am (katcanpaint.com)
How to Draw and How to Paint Eyes for Beginners (katcanpaint.com)
Patterned, Painted background Explorations with LK Ludwig (bebebutler.com)
Mixed Media Monday (cassandramadge.wordpress.com)
Making the most of your supplies (octoberafternoon.typepad.com)

Tutorial Tuesday: Packing Tape Image Transfer

Good evening!

Tonight I wanted to show you a cool, inexpensive image transfer technique! I am calling this technique Packing Tape Image Transfer.

To get started, there are a few supplies you will need to round up:

Clear Packing Tape

A pair of scissors

Water. Here I am using a small spray bottle, but you can use a bowl of water and a brush, or whatever is handy.

You will need various images either cut out from magazines, printed on a laser printer, or photocopied images. The important thing about the images that you choose is that you want to make sure the ink is colorfast. You do not want the image to run when you get the image wet.

I have a tendency to use small images; images that fit the height of the packing tape, however you can use larger images by overlapping the edges of the tape to make sure the entire image is covered by the tape.

To get started press the tape to the image, making sure that the image is fully covered, and smooth. You can use a brayer, a bone folder, or a finger, which is my tool of choice to make sure the image is stuck firmly.

Flip the adhered image over and spray with plenty of water, let soak for a few minutes. You can also brush water on with a brush if you would like, and I have also heard that some people sometimes just drop the entire adhered image into a bowl of water to accomplish this – I find that spraying the water is just faster, and less messy for me! 🙂

After a few minutes of letting the water permeate the paper, start vigorously rubbing the back of the image to peel all of the paper off. The thicker the paper, the longer this will take. Be careful that when you get down to the ink from the image itself, make sure not to rub or scratch the ink off of the tape, otherwise you will end up with only a partial image. However, if you do not rub all of the paper off, you will end up with a milky looking transparency. So stop when you get to the desired look that you are going for.

Once all of the paper has been rubbed off, you will then be left with a transparent image to use any way you would like. NOTE: The tape will still be tacky to the touch, and can be stored by placing on a sheet of wax paper, if you are not going to use them right away.

Here is a sample of another magazine image I have created a transparency out of, and have overlayed it onto some decorative paper.

Here is an example of a journal page that I used this technique on the words, which I printed using a laser printer.

NOTE: Even though these images were still tacky to the touch, I used Gel medium to make sure that they will stay adhered to the pages.

I hope that you have enjoyed this Tuesday Tutorial and are inspired to give this technique a try yourself! If you do, please feel free to share the link with us in the comment section! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Here is to a FABULOUSLY ARTSY evening! 😉

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

Creating Custom Tape: Personalizing Envelopes With Photo Transfers (whataboutthis.biz)
Tutorial: Leprechaun Silhouette Art (annumography.wordpress.com)
New Address Cards (bluecrafty.wordpress.com)

Tutorial Tuesday: Convert a Book Into an Art Journal

Good evening!

Welcome to my very first ever tutorial Tuesday!!

YEAH!! WHOO!! HOOOO!!!! APPLAUSE!!!! 😉

If you saw yesterday’s post, you would have seen that I am in the habit of writing Morning Pages every morning. I do those Morning Pages in a leather bound book, that has grid-lined paper inside of it. I like the fact that it is not just regular boring lines, in case I want to doodle or draw in my journal, I feel like the grid-lines support me in thinking outside of the box.

However, I am also a big fan of art journals, and today I want to show you how to convert any regular book into an easy and inexpensive art journal of your very own.

What you will need:

A book – I have found that hard covers hold up the best

Paper tape – this could be any kind, but what I enjoy using is the paper tape that you find in the first aid section of most any pharmacy

Paper tape found in first aid section of pharmacy

Scissors (optional)
White gesso

A wide paint brush to use with the gesso

To convert your book into an art journal:

The first thing you will have to do is to create room in your art journal so that all of the fun elements that you might want to use to decorate your art pages, such as decorative papers, buttons, beads, lace, fabric, broken jewelry, pictures, etc, have space to go.

To do this, count the first three pages of the book, then count the next three pages of the book. Tear out the second set of 3 pages. Otherwise leave in pages 1, 2, and 3, and carefully tear out pages 4, 5, and 6. You will want to tear the pages out as closely, and as carefully to the spine as you can get, but remember perfection is not necessary.

Count three pages, to skip.

Tear out the next 3 pages.

You will keep repeating this step over and over again until every other set of three pages have been removed.

Once you have torn out every other set of three pages, you will then want to reinforce the remaining sets of 3 pages that you have left.

To do this, you will go back to the beginning of your book, and gather the first set of three pages. Using your paper tape, you will want to either tear, or cut a piece of tape that measures the width of your page.

Once you have the correct length of tape, carefully lay it across the bottom edge of the book, with half the tape hanging off of the edge

Cover bottom of page, with tape letting 1/2 of the tape hang over the edge

Cover bottom edge of page, with tape letting 1/2 of the tape hang over the edge

Once that has been smoothed into place, turn your set of three pages (treating as if they are now one page, because they essentially will be), and then fold the overhang of tape up and over the back side of your new page.

Turn 3-page set, and fold up the remaining tape to create one new page out of your original three pages.

Do this to all three sides of your new page: bottom, top, and side.

Do this to the bottom edge, the top edge, and the side edge of your new page.

Each set of three individual pages will now become one thick page per taped bundle. This reinforces your pages, and makes them sturdier for any kind of media or technique that you might want to use to decorate your journal pages with.

Repeat these taping steps for all of your sets of three pages.

Once you have your pages reinforced, you are now ready to prep your pages for arting on! WHEW!!! 😉

To do this, you will want to use your paint brush and apply a thin layer or two over each page of your new art journal.

Apply a thin coat or two of gesso to each page and let thoroughly dry, so your pages don’t stick together. As you can see I don’t mind some words showing through.

If you are impatient like me, you may want to use a hair dryer, or a embossing heat gun to speed up the drying process. Please note, if you do use an embossing heat gun to dry your pages (like I do) make sure not to leave the gun pointing at one spot for too long, you do not want to accidentally burn your gesso. Not fun, and kinda smelly!!

Once your pages are gesso’ed you are ready to get arting and customizing your new art journal in any way you would like!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments section of this post! I am always happy to help!

Keep an eye out for more tutorials in the future, including many ideas and techniques on how you can decorate your new art journal! I can’t wait!

If you haven’t already, please follow This Artsy Life by hitting the “Subscribe” button on the right. I would really appreciate it!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening creating!! 😉

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

Beautiful Creatives

Empowering your juicy life!

Category Archives: Art Tutorial

Mixed Media with Chrissie B #2

Mixed Media Techniques #3

Mixed Media with Chrissie B #1

Tutorial Tuesday – Textures with Spackling Paste!

Tutorial Tuesday: Packing Tape Image Transfer

Tutorial Tuesday: Convert a Book Into an Art Journal

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