Beautiful Butterflies, Sisters, Friends Art Journal Spread

Hello and Happy Friday!!!  It's a cloudy, dreary day here in Southern Iowa but at least it's not raining.  We had a lot of rain this week!!  We needed it but it's nice to have a break also.

I'm sharing an art journal spread in a small Dylusions journal today with my inspiration being a few challenges.  I might add some flowers to this later but right now I'm out of time and I'm calling it good.  We are soon headed to MN to visit family for the weekend.

I did do some step outs for the background.  First I stenciled the fabulous PaperArtsy - Lin Brown stencil (PS044) onto the pages using Grunge Paste.  Once the paste was dry then I painted.

Next up, some Infusions, a fair amount of water, let it sit, do some tipping and dry it.

Stenciling with a Tim Holtz stencil and Glass Blue paint.  Dry It.  Then sand the Grunge Paste to bring the flowers back out.

More stenciling with another Lin Brown stencil.  I dabbed with Vanilla first and then Zesty Zing to help the color pop as Zesty Zing is a translucent.

Stamping with paint.

As I worked on the background I knew I wanted to use the die cut word, Beautiful (Elizabeth Craft Designs, Suzanne Cannon) along with a Tim Holtz Idea-ology Paper Doll and I wanted to include butterflies, but I didn't really have a plan.  As I worked at putting all this together I was not liking all the brown from the Infusions and after trying to make it all come together trying different things I decided to see about taking the Infusions off.  With acrylic paint under them the chances were good it'd come off.  I sprayed the pages heavily with water and then wiped them down with paper towels.  As you can see, it mostly came off.  I liked this better. 

I used various pieces of Tim Holtz printed paper, distressing or tearing edges.  The strip of numbers is a new design tape from Tim - this one came from the Chatter pack.  There is a paper doily.  Chit Chat stickers for sisters and friends. The girls are from the Paper Dolls pack.  The butterflies are from Tim's Botanical Layers pack.  I did some cutting on the butterflies by the antennas and at the bottom so there was less white border in those areas. 

I had die cut Beautiful from white cardstock and decided it needed to be colored.  Instead of cutting a new one I just sprayed it with Distress Spray Stain.  First Mustard Seed as I thought yellow might work but it didn't so sprayed again with gathered twigs, blotted and dried it.  Then gave it a little spray with Perfect Pearls Mist Heirloom Gold.  Love how it catches the light.  The word is glued down with Ranger's Collage Medium Matte being sure to press into the fold area so there wouldn't be any trouble when opening and closing the book.

Finally I stenciled around the edges with The Crafter's Workshop stencil Mini Tiny Circles using Fresco Finish Paints, a mix of Chocolate Pudding and French Roast.

This was fun!!!  I hope you like the spread!!  

I'm entering into the following challenges.

Simon Says Monday Challenge - Things With Wings.

More Than Words - March Main Challenge - Beautiful & Butterfly.

A Vintage Journey - All Aboard, Happy Birthday AVJ - Anything Goes