Creative Expressions - Pillow Talk Journal Page

Hi ya, it's Monday which means it's time for my creation for the Creative Expressions Blog and as you know this month we are showcasing the stamp set Winter Flowers, all products you can find where to buy from at the Creative Expressions Website :-)
This week I have done a double page in my journal with lots and lots of warm summery colours.  I have used mainly Cosmic Shimmer watercolours to show you how versatile they are and of course I have done a mega step by step lots and lots of pictures lol :-).  I shall do what I did last week and highlight all the products that you can find on the Creative Expressions Website :-)

I can't believe how hard it is to take photos of 

yellows and reds lol.

I really love the summery feel, makes me feel a lot warmer during

this cool weather lol.

Lots of close ups :-)

Now for the step by step, grab a cuppa!!! lol

As I said above I am highlighting all the things you

can do with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours, these

are such gorgeous shimmery paints and you can get loads

of different colours, including individual pots.

So here is my journal ready for use, water, paintbrush and cling film!!!!

Spritz the journal with lots of water.

To activate the watercolours you spritz water in the pots and wait for

a bit, or you can start mixing them to make it quicker.

Look at all that shimmer, gorgeous.

I spritz lots of water as I wanted it to run all over the page.

I started with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours - yellow sparkle and tropic yellow.

I just blobbed the paint here and there, if it doesn't look wet enough just

spritz the journal with more water.

The next two colours were - topaz sparkle and golden scarlett

And I kept doing this until my page was full of colour but still really wet.

Then I lifted my journal so I got some streaks through each of the colours,

I just kept moving it around until I got the effect I wanted :-)

Next grab some cling film, lay it over the journal and start

scrunching it a bit (can't think of a better word lol).

I did use odd bits of cling film where I missed as the journal it huge :-)

 I left mine for around 5 hours until dry, but because

you use a lot of water, even though the effect was dry the pages

seemed a bit damp so I gave it a zap with my heat gun.

Wow look at all the shimmery lines, fabulous :-)

More pics before I cover it up lol

Ooooooo I so want to see what the blues are like, for

a winter scene maybe :-)

Now while the above dried initially I tested some fabrics out and

the water colours.

So for my grungy pillows.  Now the first steps you could do for

inside bags, or I though making a cushion with pot pourri or lavender in.

If you want to be able to wear it outside i.e a bag then 

you can mix the paints with some fabric medium.

I chose a nice light cream fabric, that had a fine weave

so the Creative Expressions Winter Flowers stamp set

would stamp clearly.

Stamp with Archival jet black and then heat set,

when stamping with archival on fabric to

make it permanent.

The Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours I used are -

yellow sparkle, tropic yellow, topaz sparkle, golden scarlet,

holly leaf, emerald gold, golden mint.

I used a medium and fine paint brush and transferred the paint

to the heat mat as I went along.

The trick is lots of layers :-)

I used golden mint first, as I painted it on I dabbed a piece

of kitchen roll to take some away as I always want to be able to see the stamp line.

Next I repeated the above again still with golden mint.

Next I used emerald gold to darken some areas, still dabbing after.

And then the final step I used holly leaf for the darker areas.

If at any point they don't seem to blend I used a wet paint brush

to go over which helps the blending process.

The finished flower stems.

Next I started on the flower heads with yellow sparkle,

again dabbing as went along.  Then I repeated the colour

shown below.

Next I used tropic yellow to darken some areas 

Next I used a damp paint brush to help blend,

always remembering to pat a dry kitchen towel after

Now for the darker areas I used topaz sparkle, again blotting

and using a damp paint brush to blend.  If at any point you feel

the fabric is too damp just dry with a heat gun :-)

Next I used Distress black soot inkpad with water to add some

shading areas on the outside.

As you can see it just helps the image to jump out a bit more.

For my journal I wanted some little pillows, I used some bright threads

and some batting.  Because I wanted my pillows to look grungy I used the sewing on the front,

not inside.

Because my journal page need to be able to shut a bit lol I used

a small bit of batting.

I sewn them all up, then ruffled the edges not shown here yet lol

Now this is were I made a mistake, so only do this if you want mega grungy

or remember to dry after.  For my pillows to jump off the page I edged

them with Distress black soot and some water.  And errrrr next picture

shows what happens if you don't dry lol

Eeeek the black soaked all the way through onto the front, which

made the sides look greyish.  So next I used a bit of Eco Green Black Paint

to re-blacken the edges.

They certainly looked better lol.  I forgot to take a picture

of the next part, but for the pillows to blend in with the 

journal page I added some random stamping to the edges which

you can see on the finished piece.

So for the rest of the journal page - I wanted some

texture so I used Cosmic Shimmer Texture Paste - gold pearl which

is such a gorgeous colour and matched perfectly.  I used 

Special Touch stencils - flower and butterfly and poppies for the first

step.

I wanted some texture so I patted the paste while the stencil was

on so it had spiky bits (I'm sure there is a better word for that lol)

I also used Special Touch stencil - grid, but didn't make it spiky as

I wanted to stamp some script later on.

See not spiky, smooth, well as smooth as I could make it lol.

When dry I re put the grid stencil back over and stamped

with the script stamp from Creative Expressions Textures.

Ok maybe me taping it down would have been easier lol,

but you can just about see how I managed it lol.

Next I stamped with the larger flower from Winter Flowers stamp set

with Archival jet black inkpad, masking off the leaves with masking tape.

I wanted just some of the petal for the edges of the page.

I used Tim Holtz stamp set worn text to add my title.

I painted over the flowers with a mix of the Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours

golden scarlet and topaz sparkle just to add a slight difference.

Next I used the watercolour lava red and added it to some

cut and dry foam and used the mask polka dots.

Lovely :-)

The journal so far :-)

Next I used the Creative Expressions alpha writing stamp

with the watercolour golden scarlet.

I didn't use a block for my stamp as I wanted to only get the odd

bit of the stamp here and there.

But as you can see stamping with the Cosmic Watercolours are lush.

Next I used Creative Expressions chicken wire with

Archival vermillion

Same again not using a block just curving the stamp

in my hand to get random bits of stamping.

Now for some paint, I used the Eco Green Paint - clam shell

with the Creative Expressions bubble wrap stamp.

Again not using a block and adding bits here and there.  The clam shell

looks gorgeous with the background.

I kept repeating using the stamp sets above, then stamped the Winter Flower large

flower stamp and some awesome words from Creative Expressions

Art Sayings stamp set.  I used some of the stamps that I used

on my journal on my mini pillows and also used the script from

Creative Expressions Timeless Journey which is my favourite script stamp

and I used Archival vermillion and monarch orange.

Right I shall be off, guess what is happening tomorrow!!!! We are having a Creative Expressions blog hop with loads and loads of prizes so pop back tomorrow to have some fun.  This means that my Crackle Tutorial will be on Thursday :-).
Happy Crafting :-)
Hugs Kezzy xxxxx