ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK #48 "Hang a Wreath"

Hi y'all!  Betty here this week with a message of good cheer and glad tidings, and your weekly prompt!

The holiday crush is upon us!  Thanksgiving is behind us, only one more "big cook" left until the new year,  with shopping and decorating in full swing across most of the country.

We want you to also "decorate" your journal this week by "HANGING A WREATH" (by creating one) in your journal. You can draw it, paint it, collage it.  Do you have a holly leaf punch and some green construction paper? There you go! You can festoon it any way you want. Use the gorgeous autumnal colors of fall, or think about cold, wintery cool blues or icy white, or start your holiday decorations with a full-on red and green wreath.  Perhaps you have some awesome greenery in your area and want to construct a "real" wreath using actual greenery  (be sure and preserve with medium or mod podge so it doesn't come apart all over everywhere a month from now!) And of course there are a bazillion options out of silk!  Add a nifty or appropriate quote or some journaling about your  holiday season and make it your own! However flat, bumpy or lumpy you get it done, hang a wreath in that journal for us this week!

Our spreads for this week are as varied as the four of us are, each taking a unique approach to the prompt.

MELODY made this beautiful spread and here's what she had to say: "I started by hunting up this background....I knew I had made it during the retreat and thought it would be perfect for a fall wreath of pretty leaves. The leaves are Recollections from Michaels, and I started by using a large candle to "draw" my circle, then began by laying down the leaves. Once I knew it would work, I pulled them off to glue them all down, then added some smaller leaves over the top, just to give it a little more depth and texture. Thanks for looking!!" 

LYNN put her thinking cap on and crafted up this pretty page ... "The "wreath" that almost wasn't. I spent over a hour trying to paint something pretty and oh boy the more I tried the worst it got so finally trashed it and said oh where is the cutting machine. Cut out leaves until I had enough to make a circle glued them all down and added the Christmas flowers. Punched out a few snowmen and the ribbon is fabric. The Christmas tag I cut and below that is a Christmas sticker.Thanks for looking and make Sure you see what the other girls came up with."

My spread was a lot of fun. My initial idea was a kaleidoscope of color, but it didn't quite turn out that way..... check it out on my blog HERE








We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, thought about the many blessings in your life and got to spend some quality time with friends and family!  We are truly blessed to have you all be a part of our lives, and wish each of you a  stress-free upcoming holiday season!

ARTFUL CHICKS
~~Betty, Melody, Lynn & Shana

Are you missing some prompts from earlier in the year?  You can find a permanent link at the top of the blog "2015 Weekly Prompt Archives" or click to go directly to the archives.

Interested in what we are doing?  Join us by clicking for direct access!

ARTFUL MAIL GROUPIES (mail art swaps)
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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

Artful Journeys Week 15: "Found" Poetry

Hey y'all, it's Melody again!  Back to bring you another prompt and maybe some motivation for your muse!

This week's prompt is "Found" Poetry-your words must be cut from other sources...even if you print them out on the computer and glue them down.

So let's get to the fun, shall we????

First, let's take a look at what Lynn created this week....I always love seeing Lynn's pages...They're created by a beginner and she is really learning to go with her gut when she creates.

Lynn said, "I used neon pink Apple Barrel paint for the back ground and added some glimmer strips on the top and bottom.  My poetry was created from words found in a magazine and the arrows are a die cut I have. A simple piece but I liked how it turned out. Thanks for looking girls."

Next up is Betty's page....she really got after it this week!  Be sure to go take a look at her blog where she talks all about it, here!

Tamie, of course, is all about the color and pushing herself a little farther....See her inspiration and full spread here!

And then there's my spread...You can see it and my thoughts behind it here!

Thanks for stopping by, and please be sure to leave everyone a little blog love when you visit!

We're keeping it artful!

ARTFUL CHICKS
~~Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn

Artful Journeys Week 13 - Northern Lights or Stars

Hi, it's Melody this week taking the reins here on the blog. Surprise!

There was grumbling among the natives this week over the prompt....and why wouldn't there be...Northern Lights...Beautiful to look at...Easy to admire...NOT so easy to recreate on paper!  And only one of our team members was able to pull it off!

Betty took the bull by the horns and with an amazing jolt of inspiration created something spectacular!  Jump over and see HOW she did it here

Next is our dear Tamie's spread, created with some digital images and sweet silver star stickers, Tamie really captured the beauty of a night sky and the idea of making her spread an adventure!

Lynn jumped into this week's challenge with both feet and came up with a winner!!!  On this piece I painted with 3 colors. First I used the color Navy and then added Apricot to make it look like evening. The top I did Brick Red. The glimmer at the top is  the glow of the Northern lights, while the man and woman are a postcard I cut down to fit the page trying to make it look like they are watching the lights from inside their house. Trees came from a swap with a friend, and the glimmer at the top are tiny star lights.

Melody tried to do the Northern Lights, but apparently her sanity was starting to suffer, so she took a different route for her spread this week and hit NASA up for a little inspiration.  See her interesting take on this week here

ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK #11

This week, St. Patrick's Day arrives, so everyone (nearly) is thinking about green.  Green everything. Clothes, food, beverages.  Some of these celebrations are legendary in some parts of the country and we hope that you will be celebrating the wearing of the green, whether you are Irish or not. It is all about the fun!

Our prompt this week:  Paint it Green with alternates:  Use a brown paper bag or Saran Wrap (c)

Your admin team likes to use that very wide "interpretation" thing quite frequently. And I think we have done just that this week.  Have a look at what we have created in response to this week's prompt.  I think you'll have a laugh or two and hopefully be inspired.


MELODY ELZY - Gosh Melody is digging way down into her stash of goodies this week and made a wonderful spread, full of surprises, lots of interest and texture.  Check it out on her blog here

BETTY RICHARDSON - Going way out of her comfort zone, Betty has created a three-dimensional spread this week. Check it all out on her blog here

TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - Tamie is telling us just how it really is in her world this week, and made a beautiful spread, as always. Check it out on her blog here

LYNN JACKSON - I used two color of greens for this. Neon green and Island Green. Added some stars with a stencil in white paint. Not sure why I used the dress on the page I just liked it and hope you do too.

Well there you have it.  Four different interpretations this week, and everyone taking a totally different approach.  We hope you can take something positive away with you this week from what we have created, and we look forward to seeing what you come up with!

We're keeping it artful!

~~Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn
ARTFUL CHICKS

ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK #10

Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires. ~Charles Caleb Colton

This week, we're thinking about clocks and time.  Time is a commodity that seems to be fleeting in many of our lives. We over-commit and run from dawn to dusk and well past that daily.  Electronics eat up our time these days it seems -- hours online chatting, trolling the feeds, dreaming the dreams of the perfect art studio we found on Pinterest, lusting after the newest, latest & greatest art supplies.  We're inundated with texts, phone calls, television.  We cannot escape it......but we can do our best to manage it.  And once we use up that precious commodity of time, we cannot get it back.  So we have to learn to use our time wisely.  Set strict family time, art time, computer time, and of course, rest and ME time -- whether you use it to take a long, luxurious bath with the door locked, or a quiet solitary walk where you can center and collect your thoughts.

Since Daylight Savings Time returns to most of the northern hemisphere today (2:00 am), let's focus on CLOCKS & TIME in our journals.  And remember to "SPRING FORWARD"!  Express the theme any way you want.  I think this week your Artful Chicks went in all sorts of directions, given the "time" we had to create! (ha).  Have a look at our interpretations of this week's prompt, and see where you go from here.  Have fun with it and let those creative juices shine this week!

LYNN JACKSON -- Clocks! For this weeks prompt I used two colors for the background..lime green with diva pink made by Apple Barrel. The clocks are a stencil I have and the fingers pointing towards the clocks are washi tape. I look forward to the time change with more light in the evening.  This was a fun page to create. I think I'm getting my mixed media mojo going! Thanks for looking!

MELODY ELZY - Melody is wowing us again this week with another of her bright and colorful spreads.   Melody is just teasing you with this pic! Go check it out on her blog here,  to see the finished spread in all its luscious glory and be sure and leave her some blog love!  She will appreciate it!  We always like to know you are actually visiting us and seeing what we're up to!

BETTY RICHARDSON - I'm still a little into grunge mode with this week's prompt, hot off our "grunge" pop-up challenge.  And besides all that, all this paint was still sitting on my dining room table!

I created this as a tip-in for my journal as a 'trifold."  I upcycled a K-cups coffee box and made use of all the box folds.  Base was coated with a thin layer of gesso, applied with  a ratty acrylic flat brush I use just for this purpose. Then I began slapping on different shades of red acrylic:  Liquitex Heavy Body in Alizarin Crimson, Liquitex Basics in Napthol Crimson, Aquatec in Cadmium Red Light, and Daler Rowney in Brilliant Red. Some of the paint was scraped on, others brushed, and in some places smoothed and thinned with a baby wipe and my fingers.  I wanted to let some of the wording off the box peek through.

Once  that was all dry, I made some random marks with some generic black acrylic, and a splash or two of some permanent drawing ink.  I had gathered up several different clock faces and images, and the ones I had previously printed out on white cardstock, I covered in Cadmium red.  I wasn't very happy with that decision, but I had no TIME to do it all over.  I am embracing the Tim Holtz philosophy of embracing imperfection!  The silhouette was in my stash of happy mail goodies and she is holding a cup of coffee.... my favorite.  Really, that silhouette was the decision maker for the lettering. Had to do it.  And in my world, any time is truly coffee time.  I finished off the lettering, edging and marks and called it good.  It was TIME for me to move on to the next thing on my never-ending to-do list.

So here's what I learned:  Recycling is always good; coffee is always good, any time day or night;  I still love red and black together; I'm liking grunge more and more; and time is something I never have enough of.  I'm fixin' a fresh cup.  Care to join me?

TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - Another beautiful and very creative spread from Tamie with glorious use of color, texture and a little of her "madness" thrown in. See the full details on her blog, here

We hope that we have inspired you in some way this week.  Be sure and show us what you create and how you're thinking about TIME and CLOCKS this week over at Artful Journeys.  We'll get Tamie's interpretation posted sometime later today.  There was a little glitch over there in the big Detroit. But fear not, we know there is something masterful coming!  We'll get the blog updated for you as soon as we get the finished images.

We appreciate you stopping in, and if you'd care to leave us some blog love, that would be fantastic. We read all your comments and love knowing that you're here, reading, watching and playing.

Keep it artful!

Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn
ARTFUL CHICKS

ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK #8

Whew!  The month of February is almost over. Some of us created a ton of art with lots of love and hearts and red and pink paint.  We're looking forward to spring and a rebirth of color into our worlds...  Some of you will be long-covered in snow after we are having hot days here in north Texas, but you will be laughing at us all summer while we are sweltering in the heat.

This week's prompt:  Things you think are beautiful

Maybe you are dreaming of an early spring, maybe big splashes of color in your journal.  Others of you may include pictures of your grandchildren, your pets, your home, a beautiful sunrise or sunset. Whatever you think is beautiful is fair game.  Think about a collage page with a whole bunch of things you love and think are beautiful, expressed in a new and creative way.  There still may be some of you who live in warm climates who think snow is beautiful (yes, some of us do).  Or those of you living in the frigid northern climates and being bombarded with blizzards are dreaming of warm, sunny days and sandy beaches.  Express beauty in your own way, and then show us what you love.

Here are our interpretations of this week's prompt.  We hope we can inspire you or get you enthused about this week.  Nothing prettier than what we think is beautiful!  ~~ see ya, Betty~

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TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - Tamie's spread this week is her expression of what is beautiful, and what a bang-up job she did.  Tamie's style continues to amaze and delight us all every week.  Her "madness" can be contagious!  You can read all about her process here on her blog.

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BETTY RICHARDSON- This week's prompt was created as an "inspiration" page in my large Dylusions journal.  Come check out the back-story and my inspiration behind this page, and my process here

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MELODY ELZY -  This week Melody is loving all of us with her spread. You have to read about her inspiration!  See the full spread and read about the process here

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LYNN JACKSON - "What I think is beautiful" - Besides my number 1 grandson, Jackson, what I find beautiful is all my fun happy mail swaps I have gotten since being involved at Artful Mail Groupies. I have an art journal FULL of all my fun mail that I just keep adding to. I flip it open a few times a week and it just make me happy to look at all of it.  Knowing that these fun things all come from my friends far and wide is truly beautiful in my book and one of my most fun life blessings!

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We hope you enjoyed looking at our interpretations of this week's prompt, and we look forward to seeing what you create this week at Artful Journeys!

And if you leave us some blog love in comments, we would really appreciate it!

We're keeping it artful!

Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn
ARTFUL CHICKS

ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK # 7

MARDI GRAS, FAT TUESDAY, CARNIVALE -- the final last big hurrah before Lent for many people.  Another reason to party and celebrate for others.  A time when many cities come alive with people, events, parties, parades and debauchery.

Mardi Gras begins on or after the Epiphany or King's Day and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is French for "Fat Tuesday", reflecting the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season.

Related popular practices are associated with celebrations before the fasting and religious obligations associated with the penitential season of Lent. The date of Fat Tuesday coincides with that of celebrations of Shrove Tuesday, from the word shrive, meaning "confess".  (courtesy of Wikipedia)

You guessed it.  This is our prompt for this week.  Mardi Gras.  We want you to express Mardi Gras in your journal.  Make it bright. Make it bold. Make it colorful.  Use all the greens, golds & purples you want since these ARE the colors of Mardi Gras.  The gaudier it is, the more it becomes about this event.  Collage some costumes.  Make a mask. Represent this huge international event however you please.  Many people, in many cultures celebrate the last day before the Lenten season.  Maybe your celebrations are quiet and reserved, feasting, sharing time with friends and family and not filled with quite so much of the rituals that have become these wild Mardi Gras celebrations.  However you choose to intepret it is strictly up to you.  After all, it is your journal.

Please take a moment to visit the blogs of Betty & Melody to see their creations and processes, and leave some blog love while you're there.  Tamie's blog is still down and of course, Lynn says she is not blogging. Ever.

Enjoy our creations.  We had fun making them for this week's prompt.

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LYNN JACKSON - I can't lie. When I first heard of this prompt from the other members of this jolly band of chicks, my first thought was that nothing was going to come to my mind with this one but, as it turned out,  I really enjoyed doing it. 

I used Blue Bird acrylic paint for the background, and created some fluffy white clouds.  The south is always clear and sunny, right??   The letters were brown that I used my glaze pens on and found some New Orleans stickers at the local hobby store that represented New Orleans.  I just kinda tried to make a cute page out of it.  Remember, I'm still learning, like some of you, and I am sure having fun experimenting and playing!

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TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - Well, my blog is still down, and I am really missing it (um, did I say that? hehe).  Bless Betty for doing these posts for all of us. She does her darndest to keep us all in line (most of the time).  Anywho...  for this week's prompt I first started with a gessoed page and used some round homemade stencils for the effects.  I used all Gelatos for background. I also used a new circle stencil with greenish ink and placed red dots with a marker. Then, I glued down some gold confetti I just happened to have. Used apple green acrylic and an end of a pencil to make some more circles.

The dolls are from Xquizart Designs (http://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/manufacturers.php) I printed out my word art,  drew around them with a black marker and added white dots. Glued some on some neon color butterflies and here you have it!

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MELODY ELZY - Melody's spread this week leaves lots of room for her to write and journal, as is her style and preference.    Visit her blog here,  to read about her processes and materials. Remember to leave her some blog love while you're there!

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BETTY RICHARDSON - This week was a lot of fun and I think I went a little bit crazy with this thing.  I'm only giving you a little sneak peek here, so hop on over to my blog here to see BOTH things I created for you this week.  And a little blog love would be especially  nice, too.

If you want, you can follow my blog either by email, on Bloglovin or recommend it to your friends on G+1.  If you follow, you will likely see these posts before they are posted to the group, giving you a bit of a head start.  Jus' sayin' .... 

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We hope you all enjoy our interpretations of this week's prompts.  We're getting back on track (with the conclusion of 14 Days of Love yesterday) with all our weekly prompts, pop-up art challenges and our Artful Tactics.  So stay tuned, and 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