Words Can't Express - a Journal page

Hello, everyone!  It's Broni here and I have a journal page to show you today.  I don't often do multi-media pieces; I'm more of a card maker.  But this past weekend I decided it was time!

I started out knowing which colors I was going to use: pinks, olive green and kraft, and that I wanted the page to have a Valentine/love theme.  And that's all I knew! So I decided the best way to start was to pull out my Distress ink pads and go to work on my craft sheet.

Let me show you the finished page, then I'll walk you through the creative process.

I smushed (yes, that's a creative word) my ink pads - Worn Lipstick, Spun Sugar, and Crushed Olive- onto my craft sheet.  I spritzed it several times with water using my Ranger mini-mister.  Then I turned my journal over and laid it down into the ink.  I pressed it down a little to let it soak the ink up.

I lifted it up, dried it with my heat tool and repeated the process until I had the ink coverage I wanted.

I took a background script stamp (not on a wood or acrylic block), inked it with some Frayed Burlap ink and randomly stamped it across the page.  I think it's easier to use a large stamp this way and I get more random impressions that way, which is just what I wanted.

Then I pulled out my new TCW Mini Mariposas 6x6 template and used it to sponge a couple of pretty butterflies onto the page with Worn Lipstick.

I sponged on some Crushed Olive ink through another TCW 6x6 template (that I LOVE) - Mini Funky Tags.  Those are the all of the olive images that you see.

Next, I did a little stamping: Keys in Frayed Burlap; hearts in Worn Lipstick; and the sentiment in Archival Coffee ink (because that's the one thing that I didn't want to lose it's distinctness if I decided to spritz on more water at any given point).  I drew a larger heart around my sentiment too.

I took a dark brown watercolor pencil and shaded around the hearts and butterflies and smudged the shading using a paper stump and some odorless mineral spirits.

I used a magenta pencil to color in around the edges of the heart I drew and smudged that as well.

Next I applied some Studio 490 Embossing Paste through the Mariposas template and allowed it to dry thoroughly.  When it was dry I very lightly sponged on some Worn Lipstick ink, then used my finger to dab on some Star Dust Stickles.  I also dab the Stickles in several other places too!

The last thing I added was some hearts that I'd cut using my Silhouette.  The border of hearts was cut using ivory cardstock.  I sponged some Frayed Burlap on them and now they look like they were made with kraft paper, don't they?  They're also popped up using some Scotch foam mounting tape.  I love how the open hearts die cut connects the drawn/stamped hearts!

And that's it!  This page took a little while to create, but I had so much fun doing it that the time just flew by!  I got a little impatient at times letting the ink dry, so I just pressed the book closed to let the opposite page absorb some of the wet ink.  And I tested out the Embossing Paste on that page as well. Now I have a new journal page already started!!

Here's the finished page again.

If you made it through this entire post I commend you, and thank you for your patience!!  I just didn't want to leave out any of the details.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my process!  Thanks so much for stopping in today!

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