Another step closer...

Hi everyone from a cold, wet Melbourne. We have just had the coldest day for 12 months and tomorrow we are not expected to go above 11C so I will be rugging up for work tomorrow. Winter is well and truly with us.

I wanted to show you a couple of photos on the progress of my studio so you can see I haven't been curled up inside all the time :)

 First the empty garage at last. A clean slate for my storage cupboards.

And today the cupboard shells went in.
Just waiting on the shelving brackets to arrive on Thursday and shelving to be built in between the two cupboards, and this weekend I should be loading the shelves up with all my things.

A friend is building this all for me after he finishes at this day job so it will be done in bits at a time. I am so excited and happy at this stage alone so I think I will be jumping for joy by the time it is all finished.

Meanwhile I have completed another journal page and begun a birthday present for my eldest niece.

So I started with a background of leftover paint which was a mix of Atelier Interactives Mars Violet and Carbon Black.










I then chose my stencil, another Crafters Workshop stencil,  but decided that I wanted the opposite pattern to show so I picked out a blank page on another journal and with Jo Sonja Lilac and a sponge roller,















I rolled the paint over the top of the stencil,











 Flipped it over on my original journal page and used my brayer to transfer the paint to the page

Here is the page on the left where I sponged over the top and the negative image on the right where i brayered over the top.

 Why waste paint I say and such a good way to get two uses out of the same stencil.

I really like the look of the one on the right; how the paint is not solid, giving a real textured look.

It needed a bit of shimmer so I put some Jo Sonja Rich Gold in a Mini Mister with water and sprayed over sections of the same stencil but with a different placement.












To give this lovely shimmery effect in places on the pages.















Next it was on to choosing a paper to collage and i picked a circle pattern out of this stack of papers I bought ages ago.

 I cut out the parts of the pattern I wanted and adhered it to the pages with Atelier Binder Medium. This is a great fast-drying medium that you can use for collage or to prepare the surface of your canvases so the gesso sticks better.

 

So here we are at this stage. I am liking where this is going but still have no idea of the title of the page. 

I found an adorable little owl stamp from Kaisercraft and used a sponge with Jo Sonja Yellow Green to add him to the pages.

This photo is a bit blurry but I then stamped using the same colour with this border of circles.

I picked the words for the page from a sheet of text from Kaisercraft, cut them out and decided where they would go on the page. I thought they would fade into the background so decided that I needed a bit of colour behind the letters

I used the small sponge brush with Jo Sonja Titanium White and then YellowGreen over the top. I just swiped them on the page without to much concern and then adhered the text with the Binder Medium.

So here is my finished page. I also added a bit of shimmer but drawing around the text with gold pen and adding dots on the circle paper in gold.

Well it is hailing outside now so it is time for a nice hot cuppa. I hope to show you soon,  the finished canvas for my niece; for now here is what I am up to.

I hope you are all having a great week. 

I leave you today with the quote from my pages

"Live today fully and you create a lifetime of meaningful memories"

Sophia Bedford-Pierce

Namaste 

Lee