Young at Heart Layout by Jen Waugh

Hi everyone, Jen here again with my second project for October. I realised that I hadn't done a layout during my term so decided that with Halloween just around the corner, I would do bit of a "dark" project. The colours are still within the Zeus and Zoe October "Steamchic" theme for this month.

I used the Polish paper manufacturer UHK Designs on my layout and the collection is My Dear Watson.

I added some lace and vintage buttons from my DT pack, I loved how the buttons complimented my colour scheme.

I loved this industrial chic metal charm from my pack and knew it would look great on my layout. The flower is from Manor House Creations and was included in my pack.

To get the textured effect, I used a Kaiser Craft mask with some texture paste. I sprayed with Tattered Angels mist in Sand Beige. Once that was dry I accentuated some of the masking with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tea Dye. I also used this to ink my distressed edges.

I heat embossed my 2 Crafty Chipboard with black embossing powder to get the metallic effect. The title sticker is from Prima.

Thanks for joining me in my last post for October. Have a safe and enjoyable Halloween weekend. See you all next month.

Jen xxx

P.S The young girl in the photo is in fact me taken during my "goth" phase in the late 80's ;-)

Jennifer's Altered Box

Hi everyone, Jen here again sharing another project and my first tutorial with you.

Our theme at Zeus and Zoe this month is Altered Vintage so I decided to create an altered vintage writing desk. I got some beautiful images in my DT pack, along with some gorgeous lace and doilies, the hardest decision I had was what to choose.

My writing desk was one of the Off The Page range from Kaisercraft and started out looking like this:

The first thing I did was paint all the edges and add the vintage music sheets provided in my DT pack. I cut up one of the paper doilies in my pack and glued them to the corners of my image. I then used a stencil and some modeling paste to add some texture:

After everything had dried, I used mists, inks and some Luminarte Twinkling H20's to get the desired colour blend. I stitched up the bottom of the doilies to create a flower shape, added some of the vintage buttons from my pack and that was it.

I finished off by inking round the edges of the box with Tim Holtz Tea Dye ink pad and added the Tim Holtz feet to the base. The knob came from Kaisercraft and I added a beautiful, vintage pendant from my pack to make it look pretty.

  

Now on to my tutorial. I wanted to add one of Marivic's butterflies to the writing desk but the colours just didn't fit in with my design. Here is what I did to change them:

First I applied a coat of Gesso to cover the pattern. 

I wanted to add some interest to the wings, so again I cut some of the paper doilies as seen above. 

I blended in some Tim Holtz ink in bundled sage and tea dye, then used some Smooch to paint the middle and give it an outline.

The only thing left was to glue it all together and add some pearls from my pack. This was the end result:

Thanks for joining me today. 

Jen x

Illustrated Stories & Sketches - Art Journal Page

Hi Everyone, Norma here with you today!!   This is my last post as an official Zeus and Zoe team member so I'd like to take a moment to thank Marivic for the giving me this wonderful opportunity to share my creations with all of you.  I have truly enjoyed working with this amazing team of talented ladies and all of these fabulous Zeus and Zoe products!!   A huge THANK YOU to all of you Zeus and Zoe fans too!!!!!

I really wanted to share a fun project in my favorite mixed media style so I created this colorful art journal page.

My background was already started with left over sprays and stencils so all I had to do was pick a focal image.  I chose to use this beautiful vintage lady from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  I colored her in using Prismacolor pencils, distress inks and markers, Liquitex soft body acrylic paint and a Faber-Castell brush pen.  I simply fussy cut her out of the paper and glued her onto my colorful world ;D

I added swirls with Golden Molding Paste and a DecoArt stencil.  Then doodled around the top and bottom of the page.  I added pops of color with Golden Fluid acrylic paints.  The fluid acrylic adds tons of color while allowing the colors underneath show through.

I added bits of vintage news papers from my Zeus and Zoe kit to create my title and for scallops along the inseam of the page.

I doodled flowers here and there to add some yellow as an accent color.  I wrote "Dare to dream in bold bright colors" along the top.  I imagine that this is the way my vintage lady sees the world.  I have to say, I'm so loving this art journal page!!  It makes me so happy with all of the bright colors and doodles, it's how I see my world, lol.  

Well friends, thank you so much for visiting with me today!!  I hope my art journaling makes you smile too, HAVE A BEAUTIFUL/COLORFUL DAY FULL OF INSPIRATIONS!!!

HUGZ!!!

Create Happiness - Art Journal Page

Norma here with you today to share my second project of the month featuring the beautiful products from our sponsors Donna Salazar and Couture Creations.  

I was inspired to art journal by the Donna Salazar dictionary pages so I chose to highlight: artistic, journal and happy.

I like to use my excess inks and paints in my art journal so that nothing goes to waste.  So I flipped through my art journal and found this page filled with the over sprays of a previous project.  Next I dug through my Zeus and Zoe kit and found an unfinished page that never made it onto another project along with jump rings and it hit me!  Create an art journal page within an art journal page, does that make sense, lol?  I punched holes on my art journal page and the mini album page I found then connected them with the jump rings, easy peasy right?!

Then I began by adhering torn and inked strips of Donna Salazar papers from the Natural Beauty collection.

Once I figured out the basic design, I focused on adding the layers of inks and paints to grunge it up a bit and give it my "Norma twist" ;D.  I used a doily stencil with an acrylic dauber to create texture.  I really like the way the acrylic paint puffed up.  This allowed the inks to really get in those groves to help define the shape.

With all the stencil work done, I started layering more of Donna Salazar's Natural Beauty papers and even ran some through my sewing machine.   I used a beautiful flowing vine stitch, distressed and inked all of the edges.  Next I added the dictionary strips that I wanted to use.  I highlighted the edges with fluid acrylic using my finger then outlined the entire strip with a black pen.  I created a small banner using the Donna Salazar Natural Beauty die cut pieces.  To give them a little more presence in my design, I glued them on some of the paper and cut around them leaving about a 1/4" border.  Then I added the Natural Beauty Chipboard Alphas with a little pen work to make them pop.

For the insert, I focused on journaling about why I love to art journal.  I wrote:
"These pages are so much more to me than a place to learn through my creative play.  
They see me through the darkest days.  With each layer, the troubles of the day fade away and I'm transported to my happy place."
This is so true for me, my art journal gives me wings to soar above whatever challenges I might be facing.  I truly believe in the the healing power of art.  Being creative has a wonderful way of lifting the soul and one of the beautiful things about art journaling is that it can be done with no expectations or pressure.  You don't have to worry about incorporating a photo or story.  All you have to do is play, let the page become whatever it wants to be.  If you don't like the way it's turning out, just keep going.  Add another layer of paper, ink or paint; whatever you want until you feel that smile on your face and twinkle in your eye.  You know the feeling you get when you're so happy with what you've just created.

For the cover, I used a page from a mini album that I received in my Zeus and Zoe kit.  It already had paint and stencil work on it from before.  I was gonna use it on a layout but ended up leaving it off.  So all I needed to do was add some of Donna's Natural Beauty paper, a little more stenciling and chipboard alphas.

To finish off my pages, I added some doodle work, strips of torn fabric and cording from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  I also added the key and hanging sign Couture Creations dies.  I love the grungy feel of these art journal pages and the bonus mini page tucked in.  If you've never art journaled before, I encourage you to give a try.  Just remember to have fun and JUST PLAY!!  It's also a wonderful way to use up all those scraps, odd letters and embellishments you have laying around.  Well I hope I've inspired you to give art journaling a try!!

Oh and don't forget to enter this month's challenge: My Favorite Things!!!  There are wonderful prizes up for grabs including this autographed kit from Donna Salazar, so get to craftin peeps!!

The Main Prize

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. Her playful nature tends to come across in her products and classes because she believes that art should be fun. Donna is known for blending contrasting elements to create what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Donna's style is especially appealing to mixed media artists, however her love of flowers and all things sparkly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. 

Donna is a licensed designer and has product lines with 5 different companies: Clearsnap, GCD Studios, Spellbinders, Want2Scrap and Zutter. Donna offers free video tutorials, e-classes and a LIVE webshow, called Tuesday Tutorials, where she gives away lots of prizes from her partner companies and/or original artwork created during the show!

Random Prize:

Couture Creations

http://couturecreations.com.au

An Australian owned and loved brand, Couture Creations is the culmination of 20 years experience in the scrapbooking industry. From its final inception in 2010, Couture Creations has been devoted to producing expertly designed, high quality products overseen by veteran designers and crafters for a result that is both simple and elegant.

Couture Creations is part of Artdeco Creations growing collection of quality craft brands available worldwide. Distributed through a network of the best industry representatives in scrapbooking and craft internationally, Artdeco Creations has the ability to test and meet global expectations for quality and precision beyond local trends and markets.

Also included in the Random Winner Prize Pack is this 6x6 paper pack from Donna Salazar:

Thanks for joining me today and have a BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRED day!!!

Mini Album - "This is Me" for the April Challenge

Hello Everyone

I hope that you had  a super weekend and that Monday is treating you kindly! Denise here today with a mini album that I created for the April Challenge  - Life as it is Now - and I am really excited to show you what I created.

The challenge this month is to create and journal a project about "life as it is now," the subject being "you as an individual."  This challenge is open to interpretation and you can add as much detail as you wish, and share whatever you wish to share about yourself. Hidden journaling for personal information is fine. There is one additional requirement for the challenge, and that is to incorporate the use of buttons into your creation.

This mini album is about Me, as I am now, in 2013, and is called "This is Me".  So one day, I will hopefully look back at this  little album and remember exactly what my life was like in this year.

It was actually quite easy to get my thoughts together for this project, as I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to journal and the points I wanted to highlight.

So firstly I wanted to have a photo of me, as I am now. Can you imagine me in 20 years time, looking back at this moment?

I also wanted to document what my life is all about and what is important to me.

Then I went on to document the things that I really enjoy and love! These are certainly the "stuff" of life!

I certainly had to have a picture of myself and my son in the album, as he is certainly the sunshine in my days! He has added so much joy and love to my life and is certainly one of the best things I have ever done! ;-)

Here is another picture of me and is adjacent to a big 42!! So that kinda tells you exactly where I am at! LOL!

So that is my "This is Me" album and I used some wonderful goodies from the Zeus and Zoe kit.

I loved the metal trinkets and rounds, the stick pins, the beautiful buttons and the wonderful laces and trims, the Prima Say it in Pearls, and so these were what I used throughout this album. 

I was also fortunate to have some Glamour Dust from DecoArt and this was really fabulous to colour the papers and metal round with.  The Zeus and Zoe Etsy store can be found 'HERE'.. and you can obviously purchase these wonderful goodies there.

It would be so super if you could join us for this challenge and we really hope to see your entry soon!

Just a reminder as so the wonderful prizes you could win:

Our main sponsor for May is kind enough to send some extra trim for a random winner this month..

The random winner will get trims from May Arts.