The Materials Used:
- Polka Dots and Houndstooth Stencil
- Radial 1 Stencil
- Hard molding paste
- Watercolor paints: (colors used, rusty lantern lime, ocean breeze blue, time travel teal are pictured)
- Clean water and brush
- A rugged edge stamp, numbers stamp, tracks stamp set
- Regular gel medium and or a glue stick
- Clear embossing ink pad
- Baked texture powders: (color/finish in, vintage beeswax and desert)
- Distress inks: (colors used, worn lipstick, black soot, and evergreen bough)
- Archival Ink (color used, coffee)
- Spray Ink: (color used, sweet violet purple teal)
- Ranger distress oxide spray: (color used, cracked pistachio)
- White gesso and clear gesso
- Gold confetti washi paper
- Some magazine cut-outs, or Scrap Booking stickers
- Small paper tag
- Black Pencil
‘Circling Around Spring” uses a stencil and watercolor technique for the first layer. I dampened the page on the right of this journal with clean water and a brush. I layer the Polka Dot Stencil on top of the wet page and applied various colors of watercolors on top of the stencil and into the pattern. (don’t heat set or you will wrinkle your stencil!) Let this sit for 5 minutes or so in place. Then, remove the stencil and flip it over, and use it on the clean side of the journal spread. Use it as a stamp, remove the stencil quickly for a great effect.
When dried, use a bit of white gesso to soften some dark spots and then apply some vintage pharmacy prescriptions over some areas with a glue stick.
I added a numbers stamp in 4 spots with coffee ink and added some strips of washi tape in some transition areas.
I covered the washi tape and pharmacy ephemera with clear gesso to protect. I next laid the Radial 1 Stencil down in two spots and spread hard molding paste a palette knife and let completely dry. (Tip: keep a tray of water nearby to place stencils until they can be cleaned). I used a honeycomb stamp with worn lipstick Distress Ink in several spots to add another very subtle layer.
This is where the spring circle theme became an aha moment and I used a few pieces of ephemera from a pre-cut set, yet, any collage or magazine images would work just as well. Many of these got edged in brown or black ink.
The radial patterns also got sprayed with Distress Oxide in Pistachio. Splatters were needed next, through a small accident my colors; Sweet Violet, Purple Teal, unscrewed out of the bottle turned out to be just the ticket.
Watercolor aqua tones got painted on with a damp paintbrush around the dried molding paste, spritzed with water, and let dry. I added some splatters to a paper tag as well. I used the gel medium to stick all these elements on the spread. I added smudged wet pencil marks around the page edges and a tag. Thinking a honeycomb stamp would be a nice addition to some edges, I embossed the honeycomb stamps with clear ink and the Desert texture powder and heat set.
I covered the field label with glue and a used tea bag and then used Vintage Beeswax baked texture powder and heat set to set off the clock, label, and butterflies for an encaustic effect, set aside. I tied some remnant ribbons through the tag on the right, found a clip/chain attachment, and clipped that through the hole. Added a tiny glass corked bottle that was perfect to close out the last page in this journal. I typed “Circling Around Spring” and “The End” on a vintage card catalog card, cut out, edged with ink, and placed in the bottle as well as gluing onto the right page.
Hope you enjoyed it! Tracy @anonymous.palette
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