Magic in Everything and Exciting News

Oh my word, I am so excited! I have been invited to join the DT for The East Wind, those fabulous images by Unky (aka Kyra Eunkyo Kim). I love her images...they inspire me so much and all seem to have so many stories to tell and to unfold in mixed media art as well as in cards and tags. The team is so talented and creative that I feel so lucky to be included. There are two challenges each month on the Challenge blog as well as a Facebook contest. In order to kick off joining this team, I decided to create an art journal spread following the Facebook theme of Magical Creatures.

I layered black gesso over the journal pages using a gift card to get lots of texture and lines. When that was dry, I applied Treasure Silver with my finger to highlight the high spots as well as add a little sheen to the lower areas. It broke up the black and made the texture very visible. Next I applied white gesso through Dylusions Diamond of a Border stencil. I found some old sheet music at the thrift store and the one song was Haunting Me which was perfect for this spread. I tore a section out and adhered it to the page with Matte Medium. More stencilling was done by applying Golden's Iridescent Copper through TCW's Mosaic Tile stencil.

This gorgeous image, Lucy Loo Love Letters II, from The East Wind shop was coloured with Prismacolor pencils and fussy cut before matting it with black cardstock. Her hair was so fun to colour and I love her pretty face. I popped her up on foam tape to achieve greater dimension and shadow and layered tiny strokes for her cat's fur.

To continue the silver theme, I applied silver metallic tape (from the garage) to black cardstock and die cut the Memory Box star banner. The extra stars were scattered around the piece and one of the punched circles became her earring. Two other pieces of the tape were put through a TH diamond plate embossing folder. One section was layered behind the sentiment and another was torn and added to the top of both pages.

The sentiments came from Create With TLC. Paulette has so many awesome sentiments. The Hold on to the Magic one was crumpled, grunged up with Vintage Photo Distress ink, and distressed around the edges. The word Magic was scuffed with Clear Wink of Stella to create shimmer.

The other sentiment was punched out with a scallop circle punch. Tiny playing cards were placed over the cards on the image. The dice, hat lining, and scarf were coloured with Prismacolor pencils. The butterfly was fussy cut and Stickled before a miniature spoon was added as its body. It was adhered over the tiny butterfly in the image because I needed to bring her hair colour to the other page. The circle was aged with Antique Linen Distress ink as well as Black Soot around the edges and doodling was added as a border. The little silhouette cats were cut from an Impression Obsession die. Once they were set loose, they just went everywhere on the pages :)

Two scraps of cheesecloth were adhered to the pages and two Idea-ology pen nibs were Glossy Accented to the cheesecloth to continue the writing theme from the image. A clock button and some tiny dice finished off the lower vignette. A skull was printed from a TFS file and punched in a circle to repeat the skull in  Lucy's hair. Bits of washi tape, and a torn piece of filmstrip border were added to underline the words "are you haunting me".White pen dots, scuffs of white gesso, and outlining the edges in Black Big Brush pen and I called it "Done".

I thank you for visiting today and allowing me to share my exciting news with you.There's still lots of time left on The East Wind Facebook contest for Magical Creatures. Our other challenge begins on The East Wind blog on April 1. Hope to see you there, too.

I am entering this journal spread in the following challenges:
As You Like It ~ Favourite Animal (Cat) ...I love their beauty, their independence, and how they always remember the importance of play)
Creative Knockouts  ~#30 Texturize it  (gesso, dry embossing, cheesecloth)
Delightful Challenges ~ Out Like a Lamb (animal)
Dream It Up ~ March Madness #4 Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Journey ~ Anything Goes
The Sisterhood of Crafters ~ Animals
Robyn's Fetish ~ Anything But a Card

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie