Quick Art Journal Layout - Cactus!

 Hello everyone!

I am so happy coz it is my 200th post today! Had there not been a couple of years gap in this blog, this milestone would have happened long back! But still, time to move now and keep sharing the work consistently in this space!

Today I have for you all an easy art journal layout page. Here it is first!

You can create this with any small stamps that you have and make that into a focal point. To take the fear of backgrounds away, I have a easy fix. Whenever you are apprehensive of doing backgrounds for a journal, try this technique.

1. Take few pieces of cardstock or pattern paper in the shade you want your background. 
2. Stick them randomly one on top of the other varying the spacing and orientation. This will give you a look of lot of tiles piled on top of each other
3. Give a coat of white or clear gesso. 
4. Pick your main colors. Today I have picked lime green and yellow. You can use any medium you want here. I have used watercolors, distress crayons and markers. 
5. Keep the tile portions lighter and add shadows to the edges using black or brown so that it adds a lot of the depth to the layout. 
6. Pick out any small stamp and repeat the design on few tiles and color them accordingly. I have used Itsy Bitsy Cactus stamphere. Arent they just cute?
7. Add a sentiment or label that goes with your journal page theme
8. Tada! your quick page is ready! I love to add white splashes and highlights, but that is totally optional. Also if your journal pages seem sticky on closing them use a bit of wax on your finished layouts :) 

Wasn't it easy? 

Entering this journal page to the following challenges

• More time to craft - Anything Goes Challenge
• Stamping Sensations - Outdoors
• Color Hues - Green and Yellow Challenge
• Love to scrap: Anything Goes Challenge

The Gandiva Bow - Art Journal Layout

Hello crafty friends,

I am back with another art journal layout today.  I was so happy with my previous one which I made of Lord Krishna ( you can check it out here ) that I decided to pick inspiration from one of our epics, The Mahabharath. 

In Mahabharath, one of the central characters is Arjun ( my son is also named as Arjun :) ) and he is a highly skilled warrior. He is an are archer and his archery skills are highly detailed out in the epic. There was no one to better him ( set aside Karna and Ekalavya, who were tricked never to overshadow Arjun ). Setting aside all these, in his own merit he was a great warrior and he received the powerful Gandiva bow from Varuna and the sound of Gandiva is said to have sent fear to the enemies on the other side. 

So here is my take on the Gandiva bow, sketched and painted using pearl colors and fineliners. 

I have used Mudra's Arrow chipzeb to denote the array of arrows that came from the bow. 

I had this stamp from Itsy Bitsy which is a swirly pattern and almost looked like a bow, so did some shadow stamping using Ranger Archival Inks.

By the way, the background is done using Itsy Bitsy Color splashes , Distress oxide inks and some stenciling using icraft stencils. I did the background after painting the Gandiva bow. I thought i was going to ruin it, but somehow made it work by a bit of masking using copy paper.

 

I finished off the bow with some rhinestones and of course, you can't have a bow without the string!. It looks and feels so good in real life. This is what makes art journal so inviting to me. The look, feel, textural elements and connect you have with it, because you are making it for yourself is matchless. 

What is the Gandiva without Arjun's names! Some of his names are written in Hindi. They are Gandivadari Arjun , Partha, Dhananjaya, Vijaya. 

Let me know what you think of this project!

Entering this to the below challenges:

• Mudra Craft Challenge #34:
• My Time to craft
• Crabbie Moments of Craft
• Fusion Card Challenge
• Aud Sentiments

Products used:

• Mudra Chipzeb in Arrows
• Itsy Bitsy Color Splash - Hot Pink
• Itsy Bitsy Color Splash - Tangerine
• Itsy Bitsy Switly Stamp - I believe this set is retired
• Gelly Roll No 10 White
• Ranger Archival Bright Tangelo

Happy Teachers Day - A Day Late...

Hello there fellas,
I promised I would come back with a set of Teachers' day cards for you.
So here they are!

The supplies are from different Manufacturers, but mostly from two dear Indian manufacturers Craftyscrappers and Mudra. Konica and Varshita and two wonderful souls and I wish them all success at their entrepreneur life.

Let me know what you think of this fellas!
Linking this to the following:
The card concept: withered florals. I have incorporated flowers with distressed and withered feel to it.

Linking this to the Path of Positivity Challenge #51: Teachers deserve a lot of love and this is an attempt to surround them with art and love!!!

Farewell!

Hello friends!!!!
Wish you all a very happy new year with great hopes, love, joy and fun! We bid farewell to a wonderful year and it was right in time I did a farewell card to one of my colleagues. Here is the card!

Farewell Card - Stamping using Itsy Bitsy and Mudra stamps, MDF frames and some MDF Alphas

Farewell Card - Stamping using Itsy Bitsy and Mudra stamps, MDF frames and some MDF Alphas - A closeup

The inner card with some fun sentimerns

Inner card where the fellow team members can write their wishes

Another look

I created this card using two pieces of A4 size Cardstock to make a card designa nd covered it with pattern paper and washi tapes. For the front, I adhered some shimmer pink card stock and wrote out the sentiment "Farewell" and name using some alphas.

Then I prepared the sentiment base for the focal panel by a distressed CS and stamped Hello, You are amazing and adhered a MDF die cut frame on. To add some bling, added a pearl border and glitter butterfly.

For the insides, I cut out some basic fun die cuts and panels in black and white with some encouraging sentiments.

For the team members to convey their wishes, I created an inner card that said Best wishes and a blank inner space to be filled it.

Hope you all liked this project. Linking to the challenges below.
Paru's Card making CHallenges: Anything goes:

Country view challenges: Anything goes:

Being Thankful!

Hey friends!
The year is coming to a close and we have a fresh year to look forward to. I wish to take thsi moment to pause and thank all those who made my crafting journey possible. Family, friends, relatives, co workers, supportes, you awesome blog readers and finally self. Thanks a lot for the belief and hopefully I create better things in the coming year.

I wanted a way to express this and also share it woth others using a simple means of expressions. So I came up with the bunch of tags below.

These bunch were taken off before the blink of an eye actually!
I cut tags of size 2X3 inches from various colored cardstocks and stamped a "I am Thankful For" note on all of them using my Impresso Stamping tool . That is as simple fo that.

I am sure the recipents will love the token of gratitude!!!


Hope you loved this project :)

Love
Uma

Vintage Shabby Chic style Wall Decor

Hey Blogger Pals!
I am sharing a mixed media layout/wall decor that I made for a trio of best friends. Here it is first!

Handmade Vintage Wall Decor for friends!

Handmade Vintage Wall Decor for friends!

This layout depicts the everlasting friendship of three friends from college and I thought what better way to emphasize than to have their names on it.
I have prepped the layout mdf with a coat of Camlin Texture white and stamped the leafy stamps from mudra. I painted over the stamped images using Acrylics. Once done, I added mdf laser cut embellishments of partial gate and corners.
For the name, I used mdf alphas for the first letter and stamped the rest of the name using Mudra Alpha stamps.
To create a messy layout, I distressed the panel with Picked Raspberry DI and stamped some mixed media stamps like scripts and honey comb from Itsy Bitsy, The sentiment stamp on the top is from Craftyscrappers and it adds such a nice touch :)
Finished off the layout with few flowers and leaves (from Hibiscus stamps - Mudra) and added the 'bff' for eternity :)
The back is kept pretty simple with a tag space for personal message.

Handmade Vintage Wall Decor for friends!

Let me know what you think of this guys!

Entering this to the following challenges!
Aud Setiments: Vintage + sentiment

Path of positivity: Friendship

Added!:
This piece is selected as a DT Delight for the Path of Positivity Challenge: Head over to view more

:)

Happy Birthday!!

Hey, there blogger pals :)

I am sharing a fun and simple card today that you can quickly make. One of my first supplies that I got when I started making cards was distress ink Mini kit #1. This kit has some fun colors that blend really well.

For today's card, I used picked raspberry, mustard seed and spiced marmalade to blend into one another in the card, offset to left. Once the blending was done I stamped a circular stamp using picked raspberry ink in random locations.

Finally, I finished off the card using the Happy Birthday sentiment from Mudra and mounted the panel onto Kraft card stock.

Let me know what you think of this fellas!

Supplies:
Distress ink mini kit #1
Sentiments from Mudra
Circular stamp from Itsy Bitsy
Ranger Archival Black
Kraft & white card stock

Entering this to the following challenges:


Pink & Main: #14: Fall or Halloween

Inspiration Destination : ANything goes #106

Oh Heck! I missed your birthday

Hey there blogger pals :)

I am sharing a fun and simple card today that you can quickly make.
I love washi tapes but never get around to getting them in all colors. But this stampset from Mudra, has 4 washi tape patterns and we can create brilliant patterns in any color that you want now.

I stamped the washi's in an offset diagonal fashion using a few chosen colors. Then I stamped the sentiment which is really fun from Itsy Bitsy and colored then using Kabeer Art watercolor brushes. I mounted the cardstock onto a top folding kraft card stock lined with glitter tape.
I love the outcome. Do let me know how you like it guys!

Supplies:

1. Washi tape stamp from Mudra
2. Birthday stamp from Itsy Bitsy
3. Kabeer Art Watercolor brush pens
4. Mememto gum drops pallet
5. Ranger Archival Black
6. Glitter tape.
7. Kraft & white card stock

Entering this to the following challenges:

Mudra Color Palette

Paru's Card Making Challenges: Glitter

Pile it on: #118 Sparkle

Decoupage Pen stand: #reusewithkrafttime Day 29

Hey there fellas!
I am continuing my experiments with decoupage today and I have taken a wooden MDF pen stand for this purpose. The piece is from Itsy Bitsy and quite good to hold your stationery.

Here it is first for you!

I gave a coat of Camlin texture white for the base and left to dry between multiple coats. Then I took this pretty decoupage napkin from Itsy Bitsy too and removed the underneath layers. I have used mod podge for the binding of the stand and the napkins.
After covering the stand, I took twine and wrapped the top portion of the stand to an extent and colored it in pastel pink acrylic paint.

Once this was done, I thought to leave it plain, but these beautiful roses caught my eyes, I removed the layers of the flowers and arranged them in an open fashion and stamped few leaves from he itsy Bitsy stamp set, colored them nd fuzzy cut them nd arranged altogether.

Let me know how you like this fellas!

Supplies:
Camlin Texture White
Decoupage Napkins
Mod podge / Decoupage glue
Twine
Acrylic Paints
Paper flower / Embellishments
Stamps & Inks
Linking this to:
Doing Life: By Desire (Anything goes)

I am having a month long "Use up your stash " challenge running on my blog. Check out the details here.

Find some LUCK! #ReusewithKrafttime Day 22

Hey, crafty friends :)

I am here with a quick post for the day today. I usually work on a panel when I plan to use kraft cardstock as the base as I never get the right colors to use on the brown shade of paper. Today I was playing around with Itsy Bitsy leafy stamps and felt that the brown can be a perfect background for a fall card.

I stamped the note first and doodled the sentiment by hand. Then took a couple of leafy stamps and went around the note all over the card. I colored the leafs in fall colors using acrylics and watercolor pencils and finished them off with a couple of flat backed pearls.


Let em know how you like this folk.

Entering it into the following challenges
Path of Positivity: Luck

Love to Scrap: Anything goes

Inspiration destination  Anything goes

Pink & Main: Autumn

 I am having a month long "Use up your stash " challenge running on my blog. Check out the details here.