Instructions

Step 1: Working in my large Dylusions journal, I used the inks to make the background. I started with spraying some water on the page so the colours blend a little easier. Just spray the colours on one of the pages and make large puddles of ink. Then close your journal and press the cover lightly. Open your journal and you will have two coloured pages. Use a kitchen towel to remove the excess ink and leave your pages to dry.

Place the Circles Stencil on the journal page and spray some water through it. Flip over the stencil and press the wet side of the stencil onto the page. Let the water soak in for a few seconds and dab off the water using a kitchen towel. Instead of adding colour to your page you are removing colour (bleaching technique). This way you can make extra layers and more depth to your pages.

Step 2: Place another stencil on the page (Diamonds in the Rough) and spray a little ink through the stencil. Flip over the stencil again and press onto your page. This time I used Bubblegum Pink.
The third stencil I used is the Modern Script with White Linen Ink Spray. Instead of flipping over the stencil I moved it up and down a bit to get ink splatters on my page.

This is how the background turned out.

Step 3: At the bottom of the pages I used Dina Wakley Mixed Media Tape and on top of that some of the Dylusions Creative Dyary Tape. This makes a bottom for the animals to sit on.

Step 4: I stamped the dogs (Puppy Dog Tales), cats and birds (Cat Among The Pigeons) stamps with Archival Ink (Jet Black) on watercolour paper.
Add a thin layer of colour first. I used the Dylusions paint pens. Do not add the colour straight onto the paper but a little on my Craft Sheet and pick up the colour with the waterbrush.

Let the first layer dry and add more layers of colour to create more depth. I keep on adding layers until I am satisfied with the result. That means that I will add six to seven layers of colour.

Step 5: You can add the paint pens directly on the stamped image for more colour saturation. Keep a waterbrush nearby. As long as the paint from the paint pen is still wet, you can blend it out easily. Once dry it will be permanent. When all the images are coloured, cut them out using the Tonic Mini Snips.

Step 6: Glue all your images on your pages with the Ranger Mini Collage Glue Stick.

Step 7: At the top of the page I stamped one of the leaves from the Oodles of Foliage Stamp set. Because the background is quite dark I decided to remove some of the ink first using a wet brush. Make one of the leaves wet and dab off the water with a kitchen towel. This is called the bleaching technique.

Step 8: Now all the leaves are bleached out I let the page dry and colour them using the Bubblegum Pink Ink Spray this time.

Step 9: I found this quote about animals by George Eliot on the internet and decided to use it on my pages.
I first wrote down all the words with pencil and then traced them with the White Linen Paint Pen.

Step 10: Add some extra lines to make the letters more bold. Then colour in all the words with the White Linen Paint Pen.

Step 11: And voila this is how the finished project looks like.