'Found Objects' art journaling

Evening all,
Tonight I'm blogging my entry for the current PA challenge: Found Ojects. You can see more projects on this topic here: Paperartsy

I love this topic because it is so appropriate for art journaling. Not only am I always on the look out for any bits and pieces I can use for 'Mark making' on my journal pages, but my husband is always turning up odd items from the garage and my granddaughters save all sorts of scraps for me! I have a huge box full of all sorts of odd, throw-away items that can add creative layers to my journal pages. Here are the items I decided to use for this project:

I cannot bring myself to throw away a cat food carton. The cardboard is wonderful to journal on and this is what I used as my substrate for this project. If any of you have bought Kate Crane's excellent online class: Journal Soup - Here -  you will know why I blame her for all of this hoarding! 

As I took lots of photos depicting the process of this project, I should let the photos do the talking. It goes without saying that I used Fresco Chalk paints for the journal background but all stencilling and mark making was as a result of the various 'Found objects' that were in my box of 'Finds'. Some worked better than others. See what you think! 

My first paint choices, although I did add other colours as I went on. Yummy. You can see I have gessoed the cardboard cut from the Cat Food box - 5 1/2" x 7 1/2". 

First layer. Love how you can still see the corrugations through the brayered paint. I'm not very good at leaving white space in my journaling so working on cardboard naturally leaves white areas. A plus point for me. 

Now for some essential stencilling tools! And yes, that is the scoop from the cat litter tray. Thoroughly cleaned of course. The fine red mesh originally held M & S oranges. It worked beautifully as a stencil. 

This worked well too. 

The other plastic mesh embroidery tools were too thick to make much impression with paint but were  very useful for a bit of modelling paste. Unfortunately, my grunge paste has hardened! 

The cat scoop was less successful as a stencil...

The large bougainvillea circles were created with good old bubble wrap. Once the modelling paste had dried I was able to add more paint layers. Then...

...a few Mark-making tools. I had great fun with some of these! Not all made much impression though.

Kate Crane got me addicted to using odd bits of Lego. I do feel a bit guilty when I see the grandfairies despairing over a lost piece of vital Lego from building a princess palace. Whoops! They now know to go hunting in the 'Finds box'. I have no idea what that black spatula type of thing is. Possibly a salad server? But it makes great dotted lines! 

Now these strange tools made some fabulous 'marks'. The long, black plastic tube thing once held some tiny plug plants. I couldn't throw that away. And look at the wonderful marks it made with Little Black Dress, Fresco chalk paint! The cardboard mini tubes were dropped on my craft table by my OH, saying "Can you make use of these?". Oh yes! The coffee stirrer made fabulous little marks too. Who hasn't got a coffee stirrer in their stash? Love how it's coming together and not a bought stencil anywhere near it! Frugal crafting or what? 

Now to create the focal point. I'm an avid collector of tags. A lot are garment tags or from the shoes I buy. I decided to use one of the little monsters from elenazinski Art ZA02 and collage a dress from a bit of one of the tags as a contrast to the background colours. I then cut out some bunting from some cardboard left overs in the cat box again and paint it with a similar colour to the cut out dress.

And there we are. A final touch of 'Treasure Gold' on the bunting and raised, modelling paste areas, and it was finished! I do hope you like it and perhaps might be tempted to find your own 'Found Objects' to create an art journal page. Thankyou so much for dropping by. I would value your opinion! Until next time...

Do you recognise the quote? It's from: "It's a Wonderful Life".