MARCH IS LOOMING OH SO CLOSE!

It's that time of the month, folks, that we need to be looking forward to a new month, new opportunities for creativity, new things to try and more fun to be had.

Before we post our weekly prompt for this coming Sunday, we wanted to remind you to get your MARCH CALENDARS made and into your journals!

If you are arting like crazy, you might want to skip a couple pages in your journal (if you like things in order) or create as a stand-alone and tip it in when you get to March!

Anway, here's what we did for our March calendars!

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MELODY ELZY - Here is my calendar for March. I love how this turned out. The tag, papers and sticker came to me in a private swap, the paints are the new Dylusions Blendable Acrylics by Dyan Reaveley and the stamps are a set by Graphic 45. Colors used in the background are Fresh Lime and Cut Grass. I TOTALLY misjudged the size of my circles in proportion to how much space I had after I laid down the tag, but I still like how it came out. It's just a little off. Just like me!

                                            

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TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - Tamie is celebrating her birthday this month -- can you tell?  More lovely madness from the creative mind of Ms. Wilson. Tamie doesn't like calendars, and doesn't particularly "like" to make them, but she is humoring us. LOL  A great page using acrylics, stencils, mono-printing, stamps, collage elements & washi tape.

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BETTY RICHARDSON - Created in my large Dylusions journal this month, with my fantastic new Dylusions Blendable Acrylics that I purchased at Scrapbook Expo in Grapevine. These paints are fantastic -- soft, buttery, & a super smooth finish. They dry quickly, and have a transparent quality to them, unlike other acrylic paints.  I first stamped a script background stamp on the page and I too used Fresh Lime and Cut Grass applied with a paper towel.   I also used some Dylusions spray ink in Cut Grass as well. See that stamp peeking through??  That is UNDER the paint.  Yee haw!  And, just a little bit really goes a long way!  I cut up some "inchies" out of a fabric catalog using all shades of green and all different textures, then added the dates with a white Signo Uniball, then outlined each square with a gold Signo Uniball.  On the sides, I added a place for notes, and made a little flap out of a card I got with an Artsyville order, hiding the journaling lines on the right side.  Some washi tape was added for interest and a little embellishing, and I called it finished.

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LYNN JACKSON -  March is a month where winter is almost over... maybe.. and daylight savings time begins which I love and my husband’s birthday! I painted the background neon green with some grass green and added the month of March out of a pocket calendar with some punch out flowers and a heart doily that I put a stencil on. Bring on the new month! I'm ready.

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So get busy, make up your March calendars and show us your creations at Artful Journeys.  We are always interested in your art, and love for you to share with us.

Keep it artful!

ARTFUL CHICKS
~Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn

14 DAYS OF LOVE - DAY #13

DIFFERENT.  We like that -- being different.  Artists are different. Our ideas are different on how we interpret things, represent them and our approaches to creativity. Differences in who we are as human beings, our backgrounds, our relationships and our life experiences all affect how we create and what we create.  Our differences make us unique. Our differences can bind us together through our love of art and creativity, and loving one another.

Today, we want to be different.

Our prompt today is to create with METALLIC HEARTS

Maybe your hearts are created with metallic paints, or metallic embossed papers.  Maybe you use something really metallic -- tin foil, aluminum cans, copper sheeting, sheet metal, silver wire, jewelry wire.  If you can dream it, you can do it.  So be different today and think outside the box.

Here's what we prepared in response to this prompt.  We hope you enjoy what we created and perhaps take some level of inspiration from our different approaches.  Enjoy!

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LYNN JACKSON - 

This time I selected a tag for use in my journal or maybe to include on another piece of artwork. I used Tim Holtz distress ink in Raspberry then stamped some dots on it and stamped baby hearts and colored them in with Sakura glaze pen in 6 different colors. It's hard to see all the shiny but it turned out really bright metallic looking.

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TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - You know, I don't have much of a selection of metallics of any kind.  But the one thing I do have is some blue metallic paint.  I created this on a 4x6 index card with blue metallic craft paint, that I stamped some light ink hearts on and applied some yellow-gold hearts that were generously shared with me by Lynn Jackson.  Embellished with some dots around the hearts and some simple journaling with a marker.

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MELODY ELZY -

Amsterdam turquoise blue and Liquitex Basics Titanium White applied in wide brushstrokes on the background in my small Dylusions journal. Gold Uniball Signo pen for the hearts.  You know, I don't create all that many busy pages because I actually use my journal for journaling.  By creating background pages, I have plenty of room to journal about my day or events or whatever I am in the mood to write about.

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BETTY RICHARDSON - I had fun with this page, created on 9x12" 140 lb cold press watercolor paper by Artist Loft.  Back during Christmas, I saved a bunch of foil wrappers off some Cherry Cordial Hershey Kisses (and boy they are good!).  I knew those wrappers would be good for something, and you know how we are about saving stuff for journal fodder, right??

The entire background was created with Dylusions spray inks in Bubblegum Pink, Pure Sunshine, Squeezed Orange, Cherry Pie, After Midnight and White Linen.  I used a laser cut stencil I got from free from some wedding invitation samples I wrote away for and cut off a card.  I also used a small heart stencil I got from Rose Cafe Art.  Inks were blotted with a paper towel between each layer, tamped with a stencil brush and then blasted with a heat gun.

The 'central' heart heart was "carved" on a sheet of copper salvaged from my glass art supplies.  I made the swirls with the end of a #4 paint brush and a dental pick. (ha).

I covered assorted sized punch cut hearts (some of which were sent to me by Lynn Jackson), some with the outside of the Kisses wrapper, some with the shiny outside.

I 'aged" one of the silver hearts with black acrylic, and wiped most of it off with a baby wipe, leaving bits in the foil creases.  One silver heart was "colored" with Copic marker, and the 3rd silver one was colored, repeatedly, with Cherry Pie Dylusions and dried between each layer with a heat gun. (not that happy with this, but I had to experiment, right?)

The cherry cordial papers have kind of a zebra stripe in them that I think adds a lot of interest to the hearts.  Basically, I just used some Elmers glue and glued them down, wrapping thinly cut edges over the sides of each heart, and trimming.

Lettering done with some nifty alpha stamps and Adirondack stamp ink in Stained Glass, applied to 1/2" strips of watercolor paper that I colored with Deep Red Copic marker and edged with Special Black.

And here's the finished piece that will be going in the mail to a special friend.  Hope you like it and thanks for looking!

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Thanks for visiting our blog and looking at our interpretations of today's prompt.  Be sure and share your creations with us on the group feed at Artful Journeys!

We're keeping it artful!
~~Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn

"your" ARTFUL CHICKS