 Hi everyone and welcome back to another art journal layout. Today I'm going to use a new stamp set by Darkroom Tour. I have those two sets that I got just recently and I wanted to use to combine them or use just one of them. I decided to go with the birdhouses today and just because I missed working on my regular journal book I decided to work in this one this time instead of using my discbound journals. So if you are not familiar with the rubber stamps by Darkroom Tour they are combined and you need to use your scissors to cut them out It's really easy to do. I'm just going to use my teamhold scissors here and separate all the images I'm also going to peel off the backing and now they are ready to go. They cling nicely on top of acrylic blocks and the fun part about these stamp sets is that they come on their own case so it's nice and easy to store them away. I chose to work on my Dilusions art journal book and I'm going to use this craft mat this is a non-stick craft mat that comes along with my glass mat and I will do the famous technique of teamholds where I'm going to smoothe a few colors on top of that craft mat I'm going to apply some water on top and then I'm going to apply that color on top of my pages Now just because I'm working on a book I cannot smoothe the book as easily on top of those of all that ink So instead I'm just going to lift the craft mat since it is a nice small and convenient to use and I'm going to place it on top of my page, move it around and I have a nice start for my background Before I go ahead and do a second layer, I'm going to make sure that this layer is completely dry Otherwise, I will end up having mud Now I will repeat the same process and again, I'm not introducing any new colors I will be working with broken china, fossilized umber and my favorite vintage photo Every time I apply a new layer, I make sure that the layer underneath is completely dry The result is really stunning and organic I love all that texture that you get with all those plasses And although it looks completely random, the truth is that you can actually kind of control how much blue for example you need in a certain area And with this technique I avoid spraying directly water on my book which helps the pages stay quite flat Now I am working again with the same colors. That's fossilized umber and broken china And I'm adding a few directly with my blending tools on my pages in different areas here and there Depending on what I feel it looks better to the eye. Now, I will finish it off by adding some Vintage photo all around the edges since this is my favorite technique to do I always like to darken up the edges a little bit since they create a lovely frame And at the same time they help the colors at the center of my book to pop even more Another favorite technique that I always do on my art journal backgrounds is stenciling This time I'm using these stencil by team holds and I'm going over it with my blending tool And again, I'm not introducing new colors I'm using the three colors that I used for the background this way I'm not making my background look even busier than it already is but I still add some visual texture I don't want the background to be super busy. Otherwise the focal points on top are going to get lost Another fun technique for adding visual texture on a background is using Some stamping for that. I'm using a text stamp that I had for years and I keep on using again and again For that I'm using the vintage photo to stress oxide ink and without trying to make the perfect stamping I just added a little bit of text here and there and Finally for my favorite white splashes. This is white a jesso diluted with water And I'm going to apply some splashes all over the place They're not going to be as vibrant as they look at the moment since they are going to react a little bit with the stress Oxide ink underneath but they still going to give a lovely effect And here is a close-up look on what I have for the background I'm absolutely happy with it, and I'm so Impressed on how easy it is to use the stress oxide inks to create that organic looking Backgrounds so anyway, I'm going to work on the focal points and for that I'm going to stamp three bird houses from the darkroom door stamp set for that. I'm using my tonic platform I'm stamping everything with black archive a link since I know that it's not going to smudge or smear when I do the coloring Now I always like to add a little bit of double-sided tape at the back This makes stamping super easy the paper doesn't move on me, and I don't have to worry about making a mistake Once I have all the bird houses stamped I'm going to color them in for that I will be using my Arteza real brush pens these work as water color Which means that they are not going to cover up the black lines that I have already stamped I Stamped everything on mixed media paper But you can go ahead and do that or not watercolor paper if you want to I'm going to apply color directly on the paper and then blend everything out with a water brush I'm not trying to do any neat coloring here. My background is quite organic and random And I want these bird houses to look pretty much the same to have the same style Also, I don't care if I go outside the lines I will be using my scissors to cut out everything so that I can stick them on my pages Now you can see here how I colored some of the bird houses And I also stamped and cut out the wooden stick where those houses stand on top And as you see me coloring these bird houses I'm going to talk a little bit about the inspiration on this page I get a lot of questions on how I get inspired Sometimes I just get inspired by a stamp that I see and I love and that's the case with this one The moment I saw those bird houses from Darkroom door I knew I had to put them on my art journal and Since they are all adorable there are actually four of them in the set I decided to go with three of them just because I like odd numbers as focal points on my pages And I also get a lot of questions on if I have everything pre-plant And I know from the beginning on how the page is going to look at the end This is not the case The only thing I knew when I sat down to create this page was that I wanted to have three bird houses as focal points And that's how everything came together I just play and create a background and play and color the bird houses I'm using favorite techniques that I use again and again and everything comes together at the end And as I'm coloring these bird houses I'm making sure that I don't use colors similar to the background So I'm making sure that everything is nice and bright and they are going to stand out against that busy background Once everything is ready. I'm going to use my scissors to cut it out Now I'm going to put them on top of my page and play a little bit with the placement Trying to decide where everything is going to go and what's pleasing to the eye I'm making sure that not everything is going to be at the same height I spread them out to both pages I'm also going to use my blending tool and add a little bit of vintage photo all around those houses Just a touch is going to make a huge difference since you add a color from the background And it brings everything together I used matte medium to stick everything down without covering up anything just at the back of those Cutouts and I'm showing you here how I work with my brushes I just wash them out in clean water and leave them to side And when I finish working on my page, I will go and wash it at the sink I will use my scissors to cut out any paper that sticks out of the page And now I'm going to do the highlighting For highlighting I used many techniques over the years This time I'm trying a new one This is a chalk pen by Faber-Castell There are many chalk pens in the market A chalk pen goes beautifully over watercolor images And although I'm using white here to add the highlightings I think of all the shadows that you can create with chalk pens Just by adding chalk in different areas and spread them out with your finger Here again I'm going back to that stencil And I'm going to add some details with my chalk white pen here and there And again you can use the same thing with white gel pen Or any other white acrylic marker that you have That rides beautifully over watercolor At the end of the video you will be able to see close up photos on the background Where you can see all the detail that I added Now it's time to add my quote For that I cut out letters from this die by Cezix It is designed by Tim Holtz And it is called letterboard I love this alphabet because it is very simple And it's thin, it's skinny So I can add many letters on top of an art journal page My quote reads find your happy place And I'm going to combine sticking those black letters Along with some stamping You can of course write down with your handwriting Anything you like I prefer stamping since I'm not happy with my handwriting Especially in English And I'm just stamping everything By using Concord & 9th sophisticated script stamp set It's one that I absolutely love And remember just like always You will find everything I use to create this page Link down below in the description area Now for some final touches Again I'm going with my chalk pen And I'm adding some highlighting on the letters And with the same pen I went all around the edges To draw a few lines Just to frame it a little bit more Of course you can stamp and stick little birdies On top of the houses if you like At this stage I was really happy with how my page was looking So I'm going to call it done All I have to do now is to stamp the date This is not something that I do on all of my pages After all for most of them I do have a video footage on my youtube channel Which means that I know exactly the date That I made every page Now I'm using my stamp by Altenew And I'm going to stamp that with a black archival ink And I'm going to call this page done And here are some close up photos on today's project As always you will find down below A full list with all the products that I used for today Thank you all so much for watching I hope you had fun and that you got inspired And I'll see you all next time