Dance With Your Whole Heart

Hi everyone. For this art journal page, I decided to play with one of Sandra Caldwell's quirky and adorable images because they are such fun to colour and make me smile. I was introduced to Sandra's delightful images when I was on Sweet Peas Stamps DT but when that closed, I lost track of her. Recently I discovered that she has an Etsy shop all her own called Babycakesdnd with all kinds of wonderful new images as well as some old favourites.

I have a real soft spot for ladybugs which is good because we often have them in the house. I call them Waldo because you never know where you will find them. Yesterday there was one on the bedroom wall and another on the headboard. I coloured Ladibug Ballerina with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils. She was then fussy cut leaving a narrow white border. Ladibug was matted with black cardstock, trimmed out again leaving a narrow black border, and then popped up on foam tape to add dimension and shadow.

The 6 x 8 inch rectangle of mixed media paper was spritzed with Drop Dead Gorgeous Green and Cathedral Pines Green Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Sprays plus a little water. I experimented a little by using a baby wipe to remove some of the dried ink by scrubbing it off with a baby wipe through TCW's Spinning Tops stencil. A tiny ladybug stamp was applied randomly to the background with Library Green Archival ink. A TH text stamp was rolled onto the background here and there using Forget-Me-Not Archival ink. Texture Paste was scraped through TCW's Mini Netting stencil and allowed to dry thoroughly before paint rings were added with Dylusions Black Marble and White Linen paints and two sizes of bottle lids.

The computer generated saying was cut into single words, matted with black, and popped up on foam tape. Torn and exposed corrugated cardboard was adhered to the bottom of the page to form a ground line and yellow and red punched flowers with brad or pearl centers embellished that. Three layered hearts punched from red mop up cards and black cardstock were adhered around Ladibug both to illustrate the theme and to add more pops of red to the page. A die cut black border was adhered to the left side and a hand drawn border added as well. The black and white striped border is washi tape adhered to white cardstock and adhered to the back of the page before the black mat was added to frame the entire page.

Thanks for joining Ladibug Ballerina and me today. We are delighted you stopped by. Be sure to pop by Sandra's shop or her Facebook group, Sandra Caldwell Stamp Fans, to see more of her adorable images and get tons of inspiration. You will certainly come away with a smile after visiting.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie