Artful Journeys - POP UP #27

Betty here, bringing you our Pop-Up this week. Guess what day it is?????  Last day of the month (already?) and time for another POP-UP art challenge for your journal. 

Yes, it is time for you to make a gorgeous, beautiful and delightful DECEMBER CALENDAR using holiday colors (if you so choose--or not).  This will be your last calendar, and I promise we won't do them next year.  Seems like I am the only one on the admin team who really likes having them in my journal, but they are a great "marker" to know when you did something if you don't date your journal work like I do.  I will do them next year, as I have done every year since I started journaling, but we won't have them as a prompt!


LYNN made this beauty... Isn't it pretty?  Here's what she had to say: "I got lucky today and got this piece of deli paper that Betty made with the gelli plate and I loved it so much I wanted to use it for the background for the calendar. Just punched out a bunch of circles and added birthdays that I have this month."  

 

MELODY made this super cute calendar in her usual cheerful style!  "For my calendar I started with tube acrylics in red and white to create the background, then punched circles out of scrapbook papers from my Christmas collection and glued them all down. I added some stickers for the month and a little somethin' extra. Thanks for looking!"

 

BETTY - My page this month is full of wintry and holiday cheer.  Background was prepared with acrylics in red and white, applied with a brayer, then some circles stamped with leftover paint.  I punched out the date squares out of holiday scrapbooking paper, added the dates and snowflakes with Posca markers, then the embellishments. Sadly, I got the "December" that was stamped with Stampin' Up's Alphabet Attitude stamps a little bit high, but oh well!  

SHANA says: As you know I do not enjoy doing Calender's! there is too much planning do do, spacing for the days of the weeks and making sure you have the right amount of days in the month... so since I was just going with it I decided to use what I had to go with the red and green theme, I had a background that I had just made using red and green with a brayer some time ago and started with that. I had a piece of watercolor paper that got ripped so I trimmed it down and laid down some green gelatos for a border then wet the whole piece down, I then sprayed with Dylusions in red. for the days I had some copy paper that I just did random sprays of the dylusions. I glued them all down and uses my sharpie paint pens to number them and add the month at the top. I actually like how it turned out with the mash of red and greens with no real shape, and I got to get my hands full of color! big hugs!

Did we motivate or inspire you?  Can't wait to see your calendars!  Be sure and share them with us at ARTFUL JOURNEYS!

ARTFUL CHICKS
~~Betty, Melody, Lynn and Shana

POP-UP ART CHALLENGE #15 - MAY CALENDAR

Hi y'all!  Betty here to announce that it's time for a Pop-Up art challenge at Artful Journeys!As April draws to a close, we have to start looking forward, so we want you to create your May, 2015 calendar ... but we want you to incorporate the colors ORANGE & LIME GREEN into your spread.

Here's our adventurous take on this pop up~we hope perhaps we can inspire you with these color combinations!

Melody played with her new flower punch for this challenge, and she said that fitting all those flowers onto the page was the biggest challenge of all! As always, Melody's background is gorgeous with some brush work and use of a baby wipe it seems.  I love how she outlined all the flowers, making them pop off the page!

 

Tamie made an awesome calendar. And look at the hair verrryyyyy closely.  Yup, you guessed it.... "paint boogers" as Tamie calls them.  The dried on paint under the caps, saved and incorporated into yet another creative page, ala Tamie's Madness! How cool is that???  You'll notice lots of techniques in Tamie's work including resist, stencils, stamp work, hand coloring, collage and of course -- those adorable upcycled paint boogers!

 

Betty's calendar is beyond bright.  Working in my  mixed media Artful Journeys journal, I used my Dylusions Blendable Acrylics in orange and lime green (one of my favorite color combinations), applied mostly with a paper towel. Surprisingly, it takes very little paint with these paints and they blend oh, so nicely on the page and are smooth as butter when dry.  I gridded out the calendar in pencil and then outlined with a Neon Orange Painter's Opaque Marker, adding in holidays and notable days during the month.  I doodled a bunch of flowers and doodly things across the bottom since May is all about reblooming, incorporating my little girl pop, Sunny, this time actually in a shirt and with arms!  Colored in some of my doodles with acrylic and most of it with Caran D'Ache Neocolor II's.

We hope you like our bright calendars this week, and wish that you can take away some kind of inspiration from something we have created.  We are anxious to see your beautiful work, too, so be sure and upload photos to Artful Journeys so we can cheer you on!

Keepin' it artful ~~

ARTFUL CHICKS
Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn

POP UP ART CHALLENGE #13 - APRIL CALENDAR

Boom! It's April. Just like that. Where does the time go?  I know, we'll blink and it will be Christmas again, but right now, we are enjoying spring, or for some of you, hoping to see it very soon!









POP UP CHALLENGE:  Create an April Calendar in your journal using lavendar/violet/purple hues or tones.

Here are our calendars for your inspiration!

Betty - I created my calendar using gradient shades of lavender and purples with craft acrylics applied with a cosmetic sponge. The grid was first laid out with pencil, then over-lined with white Signo Uniball  and the April Holidays and a birthday added with a Micron .04 pen.  I added a quick little tree on Arbor Day and a reverse bunny on Easter Sunday.

Then I spent a couple of hours doodling all over the place, inspired of course by the fabulous Dylusions stamp and stencil, which I don't have... so I created my own version with a bold, black Signo Uniball.

I did all these doodles while having that special "quality time" with the hubs in front of the television.  He was actually watching the TV. I was focusing on getting this finished so I could move on to some other obligations!

MELODY -  Melody made a really beautiful calendar for this pop up, using her ever-vibrant color choices of Dina Wakely's Blackberry Violet and Titanian White, offset beautifully with some stamps, hand lettering and stickers.  The days of the month were cut from scrapbooking paper, hand dated and outlined with a black china marker.  Who doesn't love Paris in the springtime?

Tamie and Lynn were not available for this pop up this week due to other family commitments.  We hope that these two calendars will inspire you to make your own beautiful version to start the month out.  Remember to share your creations with us over at Artful Journeys!

We're keeping it artful!

ARTFUL CHICKS
~~Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn

Pre-Launch Prompt #5

We've made it.  The year is coming to a close, and we're looking forward to a new beginning, a new chapter of our lives, a new phase and a new opportunity to show love, positive outlooks, gratefulness and hope in the coming new year.  As we all reflect on this past year, our successes, our goals, our challenges, we have the opportunity to review and reconsider.  We can review all the things we did right, pat ourselves on the back for those successes, make changes from those things that didn't work out as planned, and turn the page...to one that is all shiny and new and filled with promise.  We are all looking forward to an exciting year at Artful Journeys and at Artful Mail Groupies, with the promise of new friendships, relying on those we have already come to love and respect, and the excitement of new challenges looming on the horizon.

To get the year started, our Week 5 Pre-Launch prompt for you is to create a January calendar in your journal.  While you are creating, reflect on this past year and all you've learned, all the wonderful people who have touched your life, and put the spirit of all of 2014 into that fresh, shiny new page.  Perhaps you will journal on the adjacent page about what 2014 brought you, and where you want to go in 2015.   A look at the past, a nod to the future.

Here's what we created in response to this prompt.  We're excited to see the fabulous creations we know you are going to create.  Post your images in Artful Journeys, and tell us a bit about your process.



Melody Elzy -- See her full spread and process here

Betty Richardson -- See her full spread and process here

Lynn Jackson -- I actually had fun making this page. I decided to get the dust off the Cricut and cut the grid and the snowflakes and January word with the rarely used Cricut.  Why didn’t I bring this out sooner??  I painted the background with Apple Barrel Flag red and cut out white snowflakes, but then wanted to paint them a sea blue. The "2015" are numbers I cut from a roll of washi tape. I used a gold sticky back sheet that cut way easy to form the word “January” and I was pretty pleased with the whole process. I am finding as I go along the pages are getting easier to think of and I think it will for all you girls too. 

I am certainly playing and experimenting with all my art supplies.  Are you?












TAMIE WILSON -- see her full spread and her process here 

We hope that we can inspire you to play and experiment and have fun in your art journal.  We are already having a ton of fun and we're just getting started.

Stay artful!

~~Betty, Melody, Terri, Tamie & Lynn