Blog: Urban Scribble

Be Brave Art Journal Page and Stampendous Giveaway

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Today is the last day of the Nathalie Kalbach & Friends Stampendous Summer Hop – so much fun :)

What better way to celebrate summer than with some summer colors, I thought and created this Art Journal spread with all kinds of bold summer colors and different sets of the stamps I designed for Stampendous.

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I layered some acrylic paint onto my art journal pages and set it aside for later. A list of all supplies can be found at the end of this post.

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For the Bird, Elephant and Urban Scribble image I wanted to create my own patterned paper and I love to use deli paper for this because it is cheap and thin enough that you can use it to wrap up small presents, and can be used easily as collage material in your mixed media art work. I used the same colors over and over again, first adding big patches of colors to the deli paper, then stamping with acrylic paint and all kinds different Rubber and Foam Stamps. Later I layered some of the stencils which are included in my stamp sets on top to tie some areas together. Last but not least I used the Urban Scribble rubber Stamp and black archival ink and stamped randomly here and there.

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I traced the Foam Stamps onto the back of my new patterned paper and cut out an elephant, bird and the urban skyline. I glued all the cutouts down onto my earlier painted art journal spread using Matte Medium and a cosmetic sponge. Then I added a couple more marks and colors to the page and outlined the shapes in a sketchy manner. Added some Journaling- and voila :) It was a lot of fun to just play with all the different stamps. I cannot wait to make more patterned paper to use this way for wrapping paper – a good way to use up some of your left over paints and stamp off your inked stamps. Here are the details of the elements on the finished page

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I hope you enjoyed this fun and colorful post :)

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Do not forget that you can win all three of my Stamp Sets by commenting today on the blogs with projects of my stamp sets in this list from the whole week. Check out all those amazing projects my friends posted – I am blown away:

Stampendous Blog Post Monday

Pam Bray Monday

my blog – Creative Squad – Cheiron Brandon on Tuesday

Katy Leitch on Tuesday

Stampendous Blog on Tuesday

Stampendous Blog Post Wednesday

Gwen Lafleur Wednesday

my Creative Ice Breaker Wednesday

Louise Healy Wednesday

Stampendous Blog Post Thursday

Rae Missigman Thursday

Marsha Valk Thursday

Katy Leitch on Thursday

Allison Heikkila on Thursday

Mark Gould on Thursday

Stampendous Blog Post Friday

Tina Walker Friday

Pam Bray Friday

Lea Fritts Friday

Katy Leitch on Friday

Tenia Nelson on Friday

my blog- you are here :)

 

Have a wondeful day and good luck!!! Stampendous and I will post about the winner on our blogs next week!

Here are all supplies including the stamps I used (some are affiliate links).

SuppliesCJS


Nat

Comments (35)

  • Linsey

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    Oh goodness! Your art journal pages are SO gorgeous and completely inspiring!!! Thank you so much for sharing your awesome creativity and talent and for coming together to bring your fans this super cool mixed media hop!! I’m thoroughly enjoying seeing your marvelous designs come to life!!!

    Reply

  • D.Ann C

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    Oh, I have a serious crush on your user of neon colors!!! I have also developed a serious crush on your stamp/stencil sets this week. Can’t wait till my budget let’s me indulge in getting some!!! -FL

    Reply

  • Leadonna Fritts

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    I absolutely love your style of creating, Nat. Like me, you love color and it shows beautifully in your work. Your art journal pages just speak to my heart. Thank you for sharing!

    Reply

  • Janet Staples

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    I LOVE this! So bright while being subtle and bold! Brilliant. I’m glad I ran across this…can’t wait to see the other artists’ interpretations! Thank you so much for all of your inspiration Nat!

    Reply

  • nicole n

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    Love all of the bright colors and the elephant!

    Reply

  • Jackie Schachter

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    When I reached this page I just said to myself “wow’. Love the
    brilliant colors of the backgrounds and stamps. You and your
    designers are so talented. Have enjoyed this week’s blog
    hop – it was fun. TFS.
    Jackie, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Reply

  • Sarah P.

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    The journaling pages are so colorful and make a statement. I love them, they catch your eye for sure.

    Reply

  • jacqvz

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    So inspiring! Love the hold colors!

    Reply

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My City Speaks to Me – Michelle Rydell

CS April My City Speaks to Me Blue

It’s Tuesday, so it’s time for my Creative Squad to share a project with you with this month’s theme: “My City Speaks to Me”.  Throughout the month, the team has been using my new Urban Scribble Foam Stamp, Rubber Stamp and Stencil Set to interpret the theme and to share with us what their hometown or city is all about.  We want to know what makes it special, vibrant, and important! This month, our Creative Squad has taken us on a trip to their city!

Today we have a really fun art journal page from Michelle Rydell. Her colorful interpretation of the theme is like an insider’s travel guide to Minneapolis :)  Thanks for sharing all the good spots, Michelle!
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Michelle April Headshot

Up until a few years ago, I lived in the city of Minneapolis my whole adult life.  Now, I live in the country, just outside of the city, but Minneapolis will always have a piece of my heart.  I love this month’s theme because it gave me a chance to document that!

First I created a background in my art journal, using black on the bottom to represent city streets, and blue on top to represent sky.  I used white paint with the Urban Scribble stencil to create texture on the streets, and clouds in the sky.

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The city is broken up into neighborhoods, so I decided to represent that with a variety of colors and patterns, using painting underpapers as my substrate.  I stamped the cling stamp on two different color schemes, and the foam stamp on a third. Then I cut them out…

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I pasted them onto my page in overlapping rows, and drew little banners on sticker paper to label the neighborhoods.  I also typed up the names of some of my favorite places in each neighborhood, printed them onto sticker paper and stuck them on to corresponding buildings.  I colored over the building names with tombow markers to blend them in a bit.

Here’s my finished piece:

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And a few closeups…

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I absolutely love how Michelle used the Urban Scribble stamp to create rows for different neighborhoods, and her colors are so vibrant against the black stamping, the whole design really pops.  The overall idea is a super clever way to share with us the hotspots in Minneapolis!

Besides the supplies listed below, Michelle also used newsprint underpapers with a variety of paints and sprays on them:

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And maybe you will even play along -we would love to see how you interpret the theme – email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share what you did at the end of the month!

See you next Tuesday for the another project from the Creative Squad, with a brand new theme for the month of May.

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P.S. Stampendous is doing a blog hop this week and you can win one of the stamp sets. Simply comment on this post or their blog post in order to be eligible to win!

Check in with their blog all week long to see some fun projects with my foam stamp sets – my creative squad is posting a lot of new projects this Friday- so stay tuned :)

 

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Nat

Comments (39)

  • Tracy Moloney

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    FABULOUS pages Michelle!!!
    LOVE the colours and dimension of your “old town”
    THANK YOU for sharing :)
    Tracy from Australia

    Reply

  • Kate B

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    This is fantastic – so creative and colorful!

    Reply

  • nancy L

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    Awesome, love the cityscape

    Reply

  • Sarah P.

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    This looked like a lot of fun. The talent is awesome.

    Reply

  • Jade Sutton

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    Your page is beautiful. I love how you have layered the city to create the different areas.

    Reply

  • myriam Le Blanc

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    Wow! I love it! The colors are so vibrant!

    Reply

  • Miriam Prantner

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    Really love these pages and the different layers of the buildings and the colors, so fun!

    Reply

  • Joela

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    That is incredible

    Reply

  • Teresa Godines #6857

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    Wonderful project

    Reply

  • Rachel Alexander

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    Love the colours, such a fun page. Rachel

    Reply

  • kirsty vittetoe

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    I have a soft spot for city scene, lived in and visited many, LOVE this!
    (Las Vegas)

    Reply

  • Greta H

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    Very creative–just beautiful!

    Reply

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My City Speaks to Me – Marsha Valk

CS April My City Speaks to Me Blue

Happy Tuesday!  It’s time for my Creative Squad to share a project with you with this month’s theme: “My City Speaks to Me”.  Throughout the month, the team will be using my new Urban Scribble Foam Stamp, Rubber Stamp and Stencil Set. This month’s theme is all about expressing what your hometown or city is all about.  What makes it special, vibrant, and important to you?  This month, our Creative Squad will take us on a trip to their city!

Today we have a super dimensional art journal page from Marsha Valk. Her interpretation of the theme takes us all the way to the Netherlands, and she asks us: how well do we really know our own city?
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Marsha April Headshot

I live in the middle of the Netherlands in a city with a beautiful medieval city centre.  The neighbourhood I live in was mostly built around the 1930-ies. I decided to concentrate on the question: ‘What does my city say to me?’ and explore that through art journaling.

I’ve never lived anywhere longer than I’ve lived here. I know the best places to eat, to shop, I know the most important sights, I have my own favourite ‘sights’, I know some of the history, but… what else do I know? Well… turns out that I’ve still got a lot to discover. My city is telling me to finally open my eyes. To view it in a different light. There are many places that I have always intended to visit, but that are still on the list. I really, really need to stop and look.

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I started my page by stamping the Urban Scribble cling stamp at the bottom of the page with black ink. Then I created a mask by stamping the Urban Scribble foam stamp (twice) on a sheet of paper and then cutting the stamped image out. I used the mask to mask off each previous row of buildings before stamping another row behind it.

When I had about three rows, I switched gears and inked the Urban Scribble foam stamp with two different tones of Distress Ink and spray mist. To create the watercolour look, I sprayed the stamp with water after inking it up. I used this method to stamp until my whole page was covered, masking off each previous layer.

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I coloured the buildings with Distress Ink. I tapped some ink onto my craft mat, diluted it with a spritz of water and then picked up the colour with a watercolour brush.

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Once everything was dry, I added details and depth with markers, charcoal and coloured pencil. I also picked up some of the leftover ink from my craft mat with a make-up sponge and used that to stencil subtle little squares onto the buildings with the stencil that comes with the Urban Scribble Foam Stamp Set.

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Lastly I wrote down my journaling. I decided to put it in a circle, to emphasise the city being (my base) in the middle of the country.

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I think we can all relate to Marsha’s desire to take the time to slow down and explore more!  In her art journal page, I love how she used the Urban Scribble stamp with a mask to create a cityscape with many layers of buildings.  It’s also a gorgeous example of how certain colors and details can transform the stamp into a completely different place; last week it was NYC and this week Marsha brought us to the Netherlands.

Besides the supplies listed below, Marsha also used 13arts Ayeeda Mist in Pastel Yellow:
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And maybe you will even play along -we would love to see how you interpret the theme – email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share what you did at the beginning of next month!

See you next Tuesday for the another project with the theme ‘My City Speaks to Me’.

Nat

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My City Speaks to Me – Cheiron Brandon

CS April My City Speaks to Me Blue

It’s Tuesday so it’s time for my Creative Squad to share a project with you! The theme for this month is “My City Speaks to Me” and throughout the month, the team will be using my new Urban Scribble Foam Stamp, Rubber Stamp and Stencil Set. This month’s theme is all about expressing what your hometown or city is all about.  What makes it special, vibrant, and important to you?  This month, our Creative Squad will take us on a trip to their city!

Here is Cheiron Brandon and her super colorful interpretation of the theme, which happens to feature a city that’s my neighbor too!

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Cheiron April Headshot

Even though I am a Jersey girl, New York City has always been my city. I live about 8 miles from NYC and get a beautiful view of the skyline on my drive to work each morning and most times, I see the sun coming up. It is like the city is saying hello to me each morning.

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For my project this month, I created a journal page with all the colors of the morning sunrise using the Urban Scribble stamp as the main focal point.

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To start I used a page where I had wiped up some Distress stains from another creative adventure. I stamped the page using stamps from the Marks, Wired, and Mish Mesh stamp sets along with various Archival Inks to create a background. Then I stamped the skyline twice and colored it in with Faber Castell PITT artist pens. This stamp was so fun to color! I fussy cut around the stamp and adhered it to some crinkled black tissue paper to use as my focal piece. Once my piece was done, I adhered it to the background with matte medium.

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I hope you enjoyed Cheiron’s gorgeous art journal page! We are both Jersey Girls so I totally understand her love of the NYC skyline – it inspires me all the time. I love her choices of color too and the way she layered several stamps in the background to capture the energy of the city.
Besides the supplies listed below, Cheiron also used black tissue paper and Tim Holtz Distress Stains in Picked Raspberry and Wild Honey:
SuppliesCJS


And maybe you will even play along -we would love to see how you interpret the theme – email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share what you did at the beginning of next month!

See you next Tuesday for the another project with the theme ‘My City Speaks to Me’.

Nat

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My City Speaks to Me – Gwen Lafleur

CS April My City Speaks to Me Blue

It’s Tuesday so it’s once again time for my Creative Squad to show you a fun project, and we are at the start of April now, so we have a new theme too!  The theme for April is “My City Speaks to Me” and throughout the month, the team will be using my new Urban Scribble Foam Stamp, Rubber Stamp and Stencil Set. This month’s theme is all about expressing what your hometown or city is all about.  What makes it special, vibrant, and important to you?  This month, our Creative Squad will take us on a trip to their city!

So without further ado, here is the uber creative Gwen Lafleur with her gorgeous interpretation of the theme!

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Gwen April Headshot

I live in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah, but I work downtown and one of my favorite views is when I’m driving in and the city comes into view up against the mountains. I especially love it when the sun is coming up in the background (or the sunset behind the mountains on the other side of the valley when I’m driving home at night!) There are frequently spectacular colors and I never get tired of the view; the contrast of the man-made city with the rugged mountains really draws me. It also influences a lot of the culture here – my office mates are frequently off doing morning ski tours before work and lunchtime discussion usually centers around outdoor activities. I’m not particularly outdoorsy, but I love the views and the openness of this area, and after recently moving back here from Chicago, I’m especially loving the more laid back and less crowded lifestyle!

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With those thoughts in mind, when I got this month’s challenge I immediately knew that I needed to use the Urban Scribble stamps backed by mountains of some kind. I started by taking an 11″x14″ sheet of heavy weight mixed media paper and I sketched out where I wanted the mountains to be. I used pages torn from a telephone book along with Mod Podge mixed with water and put crumpled paper within the outline of the mountains in the foreground.

detail Salt Lake City Mixed Media Painting Close-up 2 - Gwen Lafleur - WM

Once they were dry, I used Montana Granit Effect spray paint and gave them a good coat – it really helps them look like rock! I used a few washes of acrylic paint on top to add a little shading and dry brushed some white on the tops (since the mountains still have their snow caps right now.)

detail Salt Lake City Mixed Media Painting - Gwen Lafleur - WM

Next, I gesso’d the area above my mountains and painted in some more in the background, then I added a sunrise with lots of fluorescent paints. For the city, I took a few sheets of drawing paper and gesso’d them, then painted them with different shades of gray and silver. When they were dry, I stamped on them twice with both the detailed side of the foam stamp and the rubber stamp. I also stamped in gray with the solid side of the foam stamp. I cut out each individual stamped image and mounted them all on a thin sheet of cardboard, then cut them out again. I lined them up in front of the mountains on my piece and started adhering them in layers, using stacked cardboard on the back of each piece to add dimension. I cut some of the cityscapes into smaller pieces so I could arrange them the way I wanted.

500 Salt Lake City Mixed Media Painting Close-up 2 - Gwen Lafleur - WM

Once that was done, I added a wash of color here and there. I used a black Stabilo All pencil to add some definition to the mountains, then I finished the piece by using the stencil that comes in this set in the sky and in the bottom corners and on some of the buildings and outlined the whole piece with a gold paint marker.

I really love the contrast of the texture from the mountains with the stamped buildings, as well as the colorless early morning city against the beautiful colors of the sunrise. I think it even looks a bit like Salt Lake!

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I hope you enjoyed Gwen’s project! I think we’re all wishing we had a scenic commute like hers :) I love how she created really dimensional texture with layers upon layers of stamped cityscape and the crumbled paper mountains in the background.  And that orange sunrise!  It literally glows.
Besides the supplies listed below, Gwen also used cardboard, phone book pages, and pieces from a luggage tag with SLC on it:
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And maybe you will even play along -we would love to see how you interpret the theme – email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share what you did at the beginning of next month!

See you next Tuesday for the another project with the theme ‘My City Speaks to Me’.

Nat

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Inspiration from Around the Globe

This Tuesday we’re taking a break from our Creative Squad (don’t worry, they will be back next week with a new theme to play with!) to bring you some super fun projects from around the world.  As you may know, my stamps and stencil designs are available for purchase online and maybe even in your local craft store, so crafters and mixed media artists and art journalers from around the world are using them.  I am always excited to see how YOU use my products in your own projects.  I am even more excited to share some of the beautiful and creative examples of these projects with you today. Enjoy this inspiration from around the globe!

Global Inspiration Asia King Fashion Dame Card

From the UK:  I absolutely love Asia King’s use of my Fashion Dame stamp set for this mixed media panel.  Her combination of neon green, that cool Caution stamp, and my Fashion Dame really made for an image with a lot of attitude.  It goes great with my word of the year ;)

Global Inspiration Frieda O Fashion Dame

Frieda Oxenham also from the U.K. paired my Fashion Dame stamp set gal with a funky car and some great colors for a really nifty art journal page.  I love how she built up all those layers in the design to give a real sense of dimensionality.

Global Inspiration Sarah Donawerth Stampington Art Deco

Stampington Magazine based in California, featured a free project using my Art Deco Wallpaper stencil on their website and social media.  You can follow along to create this beautiful journal with a super nice textured cover!

Global Inspiration Janelle Stolfus Urban Scribble

Janelle Stollfus in Idaho created this gorgeous card using my Urban Scribble stamp set.  I love how she filled in the cityscape to make it her own.  The little touches really give it a personalized look that is so unique.

Global Inspiration Eeva Urban Scribble-2

And finally, here is Eeva from Sweden, purchasing one of my Urban Scribble Stamp sets at her local craft store!  So fun to see all of you shopping for my designs and inspiring us with your creativity :)

Join us again next Tuesday for another great project from one of our Creative Squad members!  They will be working with a new theme for April.  And in the meantime, share with me what you’ve been working on with my stamps and stencils.  I would love to feature your project in an upcoming post!

Nat

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Rule of Three #1 – Three Ways to Ink up Foam Stamps

Let me introduce you to my new series of mini-videos: “Rule of Three”. As we all know all good things come in three and these mini-tutorial-videos will show you all kinds of fun and practical things and techniques in coming in three.

Check out the first video in the “Rule of Three” series:  “Three Ways to “Ink” up Foam Stamps”

Rule of Three – #1 “Three Ways to “Ink” up Foam Stamps from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

I hope you find these application methods helpful. Here is a full list of the supplies I used in my video:



I am looking forward to share more Rule of Three and Art Tapas – Bite Sized Tips for the Mixed Media Artist videos with you in the next couple weeks!

Have a wonderful day!

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Nat

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Won’t Be Easy or … In My Art Journal Today

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“It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it”

I have to remind myself ;) This page started actually out as a demo page in class and I had shown my students how to apply gesso over a pre-painted page and then scratch into the still wet gesso to reveal the under layer. This is a technique called sgraffito.

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Once the gesso was dry, I stamped loosely parts of the Urban Scribble rubber stamp and parts of the Mish Mesh stamp onto the background.

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I cut some self adhesive canvas sheet for journaling, fringed the edges and added some titanium white before journaling because i didn’t like the stark white of the canvas pieces.

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It was a fun page ….actually easy and still worth it ;)

Here is a list of the supplies I used:

SuppliesCJS



I wish you a wonderful day !!!

 

Nat

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Many Beautiful Reasons or … In My Art Journal Today

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“There are many beautiful reasons to be happy!”

Like ….playing in your art journal :) I had a good time creating a funky grungy background and layering it up with some marker marks.

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I re-explored the Stampendous Dauber Applicator which comes empty and can be filled with whatever liquid you want. They have a little foam dauber on top. I filled the bottle with part black soft body paint and some white acrylic ink to get a grey and also a more fluid paint and used the dauber to apply paint onto the Urban Scribble Foam Stamp. I love how quick this works and especially with generic colors it is an easy way to keep on hand for working with foam stamps. When done with the dauber, simply wipe off access paint from the felt and close up to prevent the felt to dry up with acrylic paint. So far this worked well :)

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I stamped with the Urban Scribble rubber stamp and archival ink on top.

What made you happy today?

Here is a list of the supplies, I used for the art journal spread above.

SuppliesCJS



Nat

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