 Hi everyone and welcome back to the second week of my Christmas art journal series. Today the inspiration comes from this die set. This is a scissors die designed by Tim Holtz which is called Santa's wish and that's what I wanted to use as my focal point. Now this is quite big which is going to determine just like always the size of the art journal that I'm going to work on. So I decided that for this size it would be nice to work on my dilutions mini art journal. This is a new product and it's going to be my focal point. However the rest of the products that I'm going to work with are from older collections from one or even more years before. And I'm going to start with this collage paper. This has been released a while ago and I had it in my stash. I have a box with Christmas things that I can use and that's what I have close to me and I can pick bits and pieces from there to embellish my pages. So this is a technique that I used to do a lot back in the day and I'm going back to it today. For sticking everything down you can use your matte medium or any other collage glue. In my case I'm using collage medium by Ranger and the one that I'm using here is tinted. So this is the vintage one. This is going to give a nice and brown base on my page and you will see as I apply it now. Notice that my brush is completely dry. I apply the glue with a completely dry brush and this way I make sure that I don't transfer water and moist on my page. That's why my pages always stay nice and flat. This glue is water soluble so you just have to clean your brush with water. I do have a jar next to me so when I'm finished applying the glue then I just dip the brush in the water and I'm good to go. Now this is a technique that is great for beginners especially since you don't have to fight with a white page and you don't know where to start. Just stick a tissue paper with some design on top or even use napkins with level designs and you have a background to start with. Just because I love the vintage look I'm going for a vintage look and feel for this page and you can see that by applying this tinted glue at the back I don't have a super white background. You can see that on the right page that I have finished. If you want you can go over the tissue paper as well with that glue but I am planning to do other things on top so it wouldn't really matter. As I stick this down I may end up having some wrinkles here and there or some bubbles. This is not at all a problem for me. Sometimes I even try to end up with bubbles because they do give some texture at the background and some character on my page. I'm using my heat cut to quickly dry the page and at the same time I don't forget my brush. I don't want those bristles to stick together with the glue so just dip it in the jar and I can leave it there until I finish my project and then go to the sink and clean it properly. Now you can use your scissors and end up having a nice and neat edge or you can just tear it off. This is a very thin tissue paper so it's really easy to do that with your fingers. Now for what I'm going for this design is quite vibrant and if I stick my focal point on top I don't think it's going to stand as much so I want the background to be what is supposed to be a background. I'm going to turn it into being quite dull without losing the design. For that I'm using Gesso which is diluted with water and I'm covering up some of the areas mainly the really vibrant ones. I'm not going to cover up completely everything and it's not going to look as white as it does at the moment once I dry it. A lot of things are going to happen on top of this page so even if it doesn't look beautiful at the moment trust me it will at the end everything is going to come together. Now I'm going to bring in an acrylic paint and this is a brown acrylic paint the one that I'm using here is Distress Paint Ground Espresso but with any acrylic paint you can do that. Now I have this for years and it is the old version the one that has that sponge at the top and to tell you the truth I was really surprised that this wasn't dry and clogged however it worked just fine. I'm going to rub some brown here and there and then smudge it with my fingers by the way this is acrylic paint and it is going to dry completely permanently so no matter what I decide to do on top it's not going to smudge, smear or blend with the rest of the layers. Now by adding this brown I made my background look even older and now I'm going to bring in my gesso and a spatula. With my spatula I'm going to pick a little bit of gesso with the back and then I'm going to drag the spatula over my page. I'm not pressing the spatula at all I apply my white color very lightly and I'm starting from the edge of the page going towards the center. I don't want to have a completely perfect coverage I like all those imperfections and this is the look that I'm going for. Another tip that I can give you for this technique is not to load your spatula with too much paint. If you notice I apply a little bit of paint on my glass mat and then dab the spatula on top picking up just a little bit. It is easier to do this technique if you repeat the same process again and again rather than load your spatula with too much paint because this way you will cover up areas completely with white paint and you won't get that transparent look. Now usually on my pages I go darker on the sides but this is an exception for this page I'm going to go white on the outside. I'm using one of those sponge dabbers to apply ink only on the edges and I'm just dabbing there. Of course you can get a similar look with your brush and I'm creating a white border I want to have that snowy look on my vintage page. By the way I'm working with liquid gesso this is one that I had for ages by Faber-Castell but any gesso would work for this technique. Now since I have all that gesso on my glass mat I don't want this to go to waste so I'm just going to apply some water on top and then add some splashes white splashes all over my page. Creating backgrounds on art journaling is so much fun and it gives me the ability to create different techniques and that's why I'm not going to stop here this time I'm applying white embossing paste over a stencil this is a stencil that I had for ages and it has lots of stars all around I'm going to use that to create kind of a star border so I'm staying mainly on the edges of the page and although it is white on white it doesn't show that much on camera it does add some texture and I do have another technique on top of that which is going to enhance all those stars on my page so after doing the sides as well as top and bottom I'm going to bring in some glitter this is embossing powder the color is gold tinsel and as I apply it on my page it's going to stick only where the stars are just because they are still wet this is a great way to add some sparkle on a Christmas project without having the glitter going all over the place because this is going to stick where the stars are plus it is embossing powder which means that once I hit it with my heat gun it's going to stay where it is it's going to melt nicely on top of my project this way I will end up having lots of texture with all that paste that I have underneath on the stars plus the texture that my embossing powder adds with this technique you will not get the perfect stars you will end up having the perfect star with the white paste but some sprinkles of glitter on top of them if you want to have perfect glittery stars then you should go with embossing ink and of course I can go on and add even more techniques on top of that but I'm going to stop here I'm really happy with how my background looks at the moment and you can see the stars here I don't know if you can tell how textured these are and they add lots of shine on my page now I'm going to leave this and I'm going to work on the focal point so this sandals wish comes with a bunch of dies and you are supposed to cut them out and stick one on top of the other all those layers to end up with a realistic look with lots of shadows now all you can do is to use different colored cardstock or you can use white cardstock and color it in with your coloring mediums it just depends on what you want to do all the dies ready to run them through my die cutting machine and at the back there is a mark that says which color you are supposed to die cut every one of those dies so it says flesh, green one, green two, white and so on so here you can see I cut out everything and I do have two of those pieces one in white and one in flesh so that I can show you that you can do whatever you like so this is the flesh one if you die cut it from colored cardstock or you can just go in with your alcohol markers or whatever other coloring medium that you have and color it in just like that these are really fun to put together the die set comes from the collection of physics color eyes where you get lots of layers to stick one on top of the other for sticking my layers I am using my nouveau de luxe glue this way by using a liquid glue you do have a few minutes to slide the pieces one on top of the other until you have the perfect placement plus if some of the glue woos out of the layers I don't really mind because this is going to dry completely clear and you won't even be able to see the mess for sticking all those little pieces that magic wand, the embellishment wand is really handy for picking up all those tiny little pieces and you don't have to guess where you are supposed to stick everything when you die cut all these pieces you will end up with some markings on the paper that tells you exactly where you are supposed to stick the next piece I am going to put on some music and let you see really quickly how I put together my santa but if you want to see a more detailed video on how you can put him together there is one in the physics youtube channel and finally my santa is ready and he is absolutely adorable you can use him on many different projects for example create gift tags with him you can even create little ornaments you can stick him as a focal point on top of your Christmas cards but for this project of course I am going with the focal point on my art journal and since I am going for a vintage look and feel I am going to ink up the edges with vintage photo so that he comes together with the rest of the elements I am placing him on top of this red cardstock and this is the same color cardstock that I used for cutting out his hat and I am going to draw a couple of lines that are going to work as his body this is not supposed to be a realistic body for him I just want to have something coming out underneath his head so that he doesn't look as if he is floating on my page after all with everything I am going to do on the page it is going to pretty much cover up most of his body I just want to have a hint of that underneath now as we all know Santa is checking his list so that's exactly what I am going to create I am using a paper from an old paper pad that I had and I am going to cut out a strip of paper this is about 4 inches or so he can write names on top if you want to I am going to leave it as it is however it already has some writing so it works fine for what I want to create and then I am going to stress this just a little bit by adding some inking again going for that vintage look and feel my list is quite long for now but I am going to work on it as it is and later on when I place it on top of my project and I decide how long I need this to be I can always use my scissors and cut it out now I am going to bring in my tool here to distress the edges even more you can do that with your scissors and I wish I had that decal edge paper trimmer the new one by Tim Holtz I did order it but it hasn't arrived yet by the way we are still in lockdown so I am sure that it is going to take forever to arrive anyway I am going to create a couple of notches and turn the edges I absolutely love the look of that and then I am going to use a pen so that I can wrap my paper around to create the top of my list and I think it looks just perfect exactly what I had in my mind now just to make my page more fun this is going to be the knotty list and that's why you can write on top of your list a word knotty you can stamp it with an alphabet stamp or if you are like me and you love dice then you can just die cut all the letters and put together the word knotty I did use an alphabet scissors die set and this is called alphanumeric label I like the fact that they are super tiny and there are many of each letter inside so you can cut out complete phrases with one passing through your die cutting machine I did use some double sided tape at the back of my cardstock so this way when I run all the letters through my die cutting machine I will end up having little alphabet stickers this is easier for me since these are so tiny and you don't want to manipulate them too much I did spell the word knotty at the top of my list and since santa is holding the list when you wrap it you will see the word upside down I am going to stick that with a couple of foam squares underneath so that I can keep the dimension and it's not going to end up completely flat when I close the pages of my art journal now it's time to finally put everything together first of all I am going to stick down that big piece of red cardstock this is going to give just a hint of the body of santa then on top I am going to stick his head I am also going to stick down the knotty list making sure that I cover up most of his body and I am going to use my scissors to cut out the excess paper and since I cannot stay away from little details I did cut out a kind of rounded little piece out of the same red cardstock which is going to work as his mitten and he is holding the list with my white gel pen I am going to add some highlights here and there just because I love the look and this is I think that I do with pretty much every taika that I stick on my art journal pages now I want to create kind of a cluster on the bottom right corner of my page for that I am going to use products that I have for ages these are ephemera as well as wash tape that I have been collecting from previous years and let's move on to the quote for this page I did use this alphabet die set by Altenew to cut out the word santa and I used the red cardstock that I did use for the santa as well so this way I am bringing that same red color on the other page which I otherwise left completely empty from focal points this way I can add the sentiment there and I also like to have a combination of fonts for my sentiments you can go ahead and write it down if you like I prefer to combine die cuts with stamping or sometimes even print out my sentiments and just because I want to make this page super fun I decided to go with dear santa I can explain and I think this is super fun with the naughty list that he is holding I did print out part of the quote with my label maker but of course you can use your printer I just find it easier and quicker I did add some highlights with my white gel pen and also went around the two white labels with my black marker stamped the date and I am going to call this page done just like always you will find links down below to everything I used if you haven't already seen week one of my Christmas art journal series you will find that linked down below as well as at the end of this video you can see here some close up photos where you can see better some of the details I hope that you had fun today that you got inspired and don't forget to like the video and also leave me a comment thank you all so much for joining me today and I'll see you all next time