Wake Up Juice! (2021 Spring | Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop)

2021 Spring | Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

Have you ever had an ART IDEA come to you in the middle of the night?

Alice’s WAKE UP JUICE (aka coffee) popped into my brain and literally woke me up 2 nights ago.

A slider, yes A SLIDER for her eyes!

That is what I must attempt to create for this next blog post.

For this project you will need your mixed media journal (or card) plus 2-3 extra pieces of white card stock, exacto blade (use carefully), scissors, under-sketch pencil, permanent black ink pens, watercolours, paint brush, double sided tape, foam glue dots, heat tool, sparkles and embossing powders.

(1) On one of your extra pieces of cardstock, sketch and paint in a face. Make sure that you draw the eyes in larger than normal and do not add any eyelashes to the top lid.

(2) Place your cutting pad underneath your character (I did Alice). Using your exacto blade, cut out the eyes.

(3) On a separate piece of white card stock paper, I want you to place your character overtop and then trace two sets of eye holes, side by side. NOTE: Make sure that this ‘eye’ strip is no wider that the width of the art journal page that you will be using.

(4) On one set of eyes, draw the eyelids very low to create a ‘sleepy’ look. On the other set of eyes, omit the eyelids all together and draw large iris’ with very large pupils inside. Use the same colour palette when painting in the eyes. Don’t forget to leave some white spaces to mimic light reflections.

(5) On a blank page in your journal, place (do not attach it yet) your character near the outer edge. Trace one set of eyes. Remove the character face. Trace a one small rectangle around the both black eyes on your journal page. Using your exacto blade, cut out the rectangle.

(6) You can now cut out your painted eyes into a long strip of paper. Make sure that the hight of the strip is a little higher & lower than that of the opening on your journal page.

(7) Before we attach our character we want to add any embellishments we desire. I chose to add these two blue WOW! Embossing Powders to Alice’s bow and eyes with the WOW! Embossing Pen. (Pen #WV04, Totally Teal #WS44R9(OM) & Something Borrowed #WS201R(T)

(8) On Alice’s SLEEPY eyes I coated the whole eye in ‘Clear Matt Dull’ #WAD2R(T). For her wide awake/alert eyes, I coated them in ‘Clear Gloss Regular #WA01R(T).

(9) It is time to attached our Alice portrait to our journal page overtop of the rectangle that you cut out. Make sure that you do not see any of the cut edge through Alice’s eye sockets. In my creative mind, I visualized this journal page as a wall in a home with a variety of photos/art in frames for viewing pleasure 😉 . I used double sided SOOKWANG tape to attach Alice to my page. Do keep in mind, that you do not want any tape in areas that the eye slider will pass beneath.

(10) Test out the placement of your eye strip on the next journal page (do not attach anything yet). Place your eye strip down, go back one page and see how the eyes line up with Alice. If you are happy with the placement, go back to the second page and begin adding your foam glue dots (do not peel the back paper off yet). Keep checking on and testing your strips movement as you place the glue foam dots. I have then placed just to the side of the strip. They are not attached to the strip itself.

(11) A NOW or LATER step: Once you are happy with the placement of your glue foam dots and your strip moves smoothly, you can go ahead and place strips of double sided tape along the remainder of the second pages exterior edges. Peal of the paper backings and attach your second page to the back of the first journal page. NOTE: I actually saved this as my VERY LAST STEP in creating this page. Feel free to SKIP this step for now and come back to it later.

(12) Create two or three more picture frames on your page. For one of my frames I wanted to test out my WOW! Sparkles ‘Gold Rush’ #SPRK032. It has these fabulous little stars! I used my double sided tape to create a box frame, poured GOLD RUSH over top and brushed off the excess. For my second frame I used my WOW! Embossing Pen and scribbled an oval with flower loops on the outside and then embossed it with ‘Totally Teal’.

(13) I used the same pen to write out a quote that I found on Pinterest (Author unknown) and then embossed it with ‘Metallic Gold Rich Regular’ #WC04R(O). “May your COFFEE kick in before REALITY does.”

(14) I added some black fine-liner waterproof scribbles, caffeinated characters and more layers of watercolour. I even added in her eyelashes, while making sure that they worked well for both sets of eyes.

(15) I felt like the page still required more colour contrast, so I decided to add some outer frames lines with an Stabilo All Pencil (8046 Black) and then activated it with my water brush. I did have a moment where I was afraid that I had taken it too far, but once the page dried, I really liked the look of it.

I really like how this page turned out. It has sparked some new ideas, so I might try it again soon with a more appealing layout. Plus, I think it would be funnier to have the eyes in opposite order. Have her look sleepy until you pull the tab for the slider 🙂 .