Stampin! with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday.

As some of you were very kind and encouraging about my first art journal page, I decided to share my second one with you.

This was another page that was a labor of love for me and on where I learned how little I know about different mediums and how they should be used!  In fact, it was this page that made me sign up for some classes so that I could push myself creatively and, more importantly, begin to learn about the different art mediums :-)

This page all began with some DSP.  Can you see here in the background?

I collaged it onto the pages of my journal and covered it with matte medium.  I then took ou my SU heart stencil and used it to create some hearts with texture paste.

Whilst the embossing paste was wet, I sprinkled some distress glitter all over the hearts and left it all to dry.   I then went back in with the same stencil and some Smokey Slate ink:

Once I had the background of my page completed, I started work on the two elements that I wanted to be the whole object of my page.

I hand-drew a folk art heart from Real Red card stock and cut around it with my paper scissors.  I then applied it to my page with gloss gel medium.  I wanted to be able to see the texture of the strokes and to add some shine to the page.

I added a couple layers of the gel medium and left it to dry.  I then went around the heart with a Faber Castell marker to add depth and to make my heart pop from the page.

I knew that it needed another couple of elements and used one of the SU vintage key trinkets and a little tag cut from a PTI die.

I adhered the key, and the tag, with Crystal Effects and then made sure they were adhered even more with another layer of gel medium.

Do you notice the initials on the little tag?  They are important and their reason will be revealed in a little while :-)

Of course, I couldn't stop with just a single heart - so die cut a heart from SU red glitter paper 

So... the left hand side of my page was complete and I went to work on the right hand side.  For that I needed a tag and a sentiment.  I distressed the edges, added some ribbon and created the sentiment from various Kelly Purkey stickers that I had been saving from old Simon Says Stamp card kits.  I popped the tag up from the page using strong dimensional adhesive.

Of course, I had to tie the two pages together - so added another heart which I found in my stash and covered that with SU red glitter.  

When I was placing the tag though, I realized it needed an anchor... it needed something to anchor the tag and also go between the left and right hand pages.  I found some old Tim Holtz Washi tape in my stash, adhered it to the page, covered it with gel medium and then added some dimension and color with my marker and the adhered the tag.

I dated the page and did a little more shading with my marker, added a sentiment next to the heart and my page was done.

So... remember the initials on the little tag with the key?  Well, that's because this page is dedicated to my Mom.

It was my Mother that taught me to live my life as fully as I could with as much heart as I could.  She taught me that even though life is difficult, heartbreaking, it was also wonderful and you would only truly appreciate the wonder when you approached life - and experiences - with an open heart.  My mother dealt with more than her fair share of heart-break; the loss of 4 children; a husband damaged as a POW in Burma; bouts of terrible depression with suicide attemps that led to hospitalization and shock treatment.... but she came out the other side of all of that because she believed that life was to be lived - and loved - because we could.

It was only later in my life, many years after Mom died at the age of 64 from lung cancer, that I realized just what a wise woman she was.  I still find myself remembering the things she taught me and how much of my character comes from her.l  I just wish she had lived long enough for me to be able to tell her how much I appreciated all that she had given to me over the years: my love of books; theatre; animals; the environment; a thirst for knowledge; a love of learning; a love of music; tolerance; my curiosity and the need to know why; a love of history and my common sense.   Pity she couldn't have given me her height and skinny genes!  

Mom has been gone 30 years, but I still find myself missing her and recognizing things that she taught me at unexpected moments.

This page was built for her and is dedicated to her.

 I think she would have approved :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with my Paper Players card and the final tally of cards collected as part of our Cards with a Cause 2014 drive.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee