DLP8 – It’s Worth Repeating

The Documented Life Project — Journal
(For more information or inspiration, visit the ladies at Art to the 5th)
February 21st Challenge, Week 8

Art Challenge: Repeating elements
Prompt: It’s Worth Repeating

Since I am behind with these challenges I have the benefit of seeing what others come up with first. Many people used basic shapes as their repeating element; circles, squares, etc. I saw one journal page that used cogs as the repeating element. Obviously, I loved this since I am a fan of the Steampunk look. That page inspired me to go beyond basic shapes and use something that I actually enjoy repeating…cupcakes!! Anyone who knows me, knows I love cupcakes. Hubby’s pet name for me is even “Cupcake”, lol. Anyway, cupcakes are worth repeating. I always find two are better than one! 😉

This time, I tried to seal the binding of my art journal. Paint keeps seeping through the binding onto pages that I’ve already done. I covered the binding with pink polka dot washi tape and then painted the pages with gesso. The tape appeared to have done its job. Next, I used gel medium to stick in magazine cut-outs of cupcakes. I also used a rose stencil to draw various shades of pink roses onto the page. I used Sharpies to do this. The regular Sharpies stopped working on the gesso pretty quickly. To my surprise, even the Sharpie paint markers didn’t hold up on the gesso. I switched to gel pens. They went on smoothly. I knew they were going to smudge when I went over them in paint though.

I went over the roses and magazine cupcakes in light pink craft paint. Sure enough, the gel pen roses smudged. Oh well. I did the lettering with a Signo Uniball pen on some paper cut outs I got in my stash from Creative thINKing. At this point, I put the journal away because I didn’t need it to make the paper cupcakes. Maybe that was a mistake. When I opened it again, the tape I used to seal the binding was all messed up and stuck to itself. I don’t know if that’s just what washi does when you bend it, or if the paint was still wet… any ideas?

The cupcakes were really fun to make, but they took a really long time. I used cardstock for the icing tops. I doodled two different types of icing and used them as templates to cut out all the tops. I decorated with Sharpies and gel pens. I made a template for the cupcake wrappers and used it to cut out bottoms from different patterned papers. Some of the paper was from my Creative thINKing stash and some was from my aunt’s collection. I drew lines on the cupcake wrappers that weren’t already textured. Finally I went to town with a fun little cupcake stamp I found in a $1 bin at a craft store.