Cone Flower Art Journal Page

Hello friends! I hope you had a good weekend! We took it easy, with some walking and crafting. Leo painted a whole bunch of bright colored zombies and jars, which he had noticed among my Halloween crafting. I can't believe it is November already, where did the autumn months disappear to?

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Thanks/Thanksgiving theme. Since it is the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing products by a specific designer/company, and this week it is AALL & Create. You can see all their wonderful stamps and stencils here. You don't have to use AALL & Create products to join, but it is always fun if you do.

We also have a new guest designer. During November Nikki Acton will be our guest. I hope you will stop by her beautiful blog Addicted to Art to see what she has created for you.

I made an art journal this week, inspired by late summer cone flowers, now all gone. I wanted to create the look of a whole bunch of flowers against a background of dense greenery. For my project, I used the AALL & Create Eclectic Stems stamp set, designed by our old team mate Tracy Evans. The page was done in my large Dylusions journal.

Tear random pieces of old book paper and glue to the page with Matte Medium. Add another layer of medium on top of the papers.

When dry, apply gesso with a palette knife, but don't cover up all the text.

Paint the page with watered-down Distress Paints, misting with more water to help them blend.

Stamp flowers from the Eclectic Stems set on the glossy side of white tissue paper. I used more flowers than what you see here.

Tear around the flowers instead of using scissors, since a torn edge disappears better. Adhere the flowers to the page by first applying a layer of Gloss Multi Medium, carefully placing a flower down, and then applying a layer of gloss medium on top of the flower. Depending on your tissue paper, it will disappear almost completely, or leave a faint white impression. Don't use matte medium to glue down the tissue paper, since it will make the paper more visible. At this stage the project might look pretty bad, but don't worry.

Paint the flowers with acrylic paint. I used Dina Wakley's paint, which is heavier than Distress Paint. If you use Distress Paint, you can add a layer of white paint first, making less of the green background show through.

Use the same green paints as already used for the background and paint around the flowers, to remove any trace of the tissue paper.

Add shading to the flowers with black or grey paint. Paint some more stems with green paint.

Add even more green paint, to create the look of greenery.

Leave to dry, and then add back details to the flowers with a black pen. You can also restamp the flowers, using a stamp positioner, if you would rather do that. I also added white details and highlights with a white gel pen.

Stamp sentiments on the background and then add some texture paste through Tim Holtz's Linen stencil, here and there.

Some of the sentiments were stamped more than once. This is my favorite sentiment on the page.

Don't worry about getting a perfect result when you work with the black and white pen, since we are aiming for a sketchy look.

You can also add some black scribbles along the stems.

The title was die cut from Specialty Stamping paper using the Simon Says Stamp Archie Jr Solid die set.

Here's another look at a finished flower. You need to be patient with this technique since the result often doesn't look very nice in the first stages, but it is well worth it in the end.

I hope you will join us this week in our Thanks/Thanksgiving challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

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