A Perfect Day Journal Page

The beginning of this journal page is a paper towel that I used to blot ink off of a plastic fern leaf I was using as a mask while making a whole bunch of scripture note cards a while back.  The paper towel was so cool that I pulled the two layers apart and glued one to a blank page in my journal and there it sat for the last several weeks until yesterday when I decided to do something with it (and finished it tonight).

The current challenge (#54) on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo group is to use gesso plus you always need to use at least one of Wendy's stamps.  I started by using a Crafter's Workshop stencil of a fern leaf, applying gesso through it with a pallet knife and let it dry.  I first added some ink over the stencil with a blending tool and wasn't very happy so laid the stencil back on and sprayed it with Dylusions bubblegum pink and dried it... and then to define it more, especially since the gesso bled under the stencil some, I used a black pen.  Next I got out Wendy's heart stencil/mask and using the actual cut out heart, layed it so it overlapped the leaf  and sponged gesson around the outside pulling the sponge away from the heart so the gesso faded out and dried it.  Again used a black pen for more definition.  Stamped the saying (Studio 490) on a scrap of white cardstock, cut it out, glued it on, and went around each piece with the black pen.  I lightly brushed some gesso along the top and down the left side of the page, dried it, and using Wendy's line stencil added Archival Ink magenta hue.  At the time I used pink on the leaf and then for the lines I thought the pink was looking ok but now I'm not so sure especially after uploading the picture... if it bugs me too much I might go back over the leaf and the lines with a little bit of orange/red shading to help it match the page better.  The words are also from Wendy stencils and I just used a black pen in the stencil and then after removing the stencil added some white highlights.  Some dots in the lines and in the heart finish things up.