Hi Bad Girls! It’s been a while…sheeesh….everything was going great and then the world threw all of us a curve ball…that is, I understand, a gross understatement. COVID19 Is something very serious and can I first offer everyone out there who has gotten sick or lost a loved one or family member, my deepest apologies and know my prayers are with you.

It took me a long time to gain my bearings with Bad Girls Couture. I lost all the help I had and I am at the time running this entire company by myself. I am the everyone person. So instead of seeng the negative part of this pandemic I have strived to be positive. I rolled up my sleeves and wondered how in the world could I take this on alone? There were a lot of ways I got lucky though….I had tons of Vintage Fabrics that I always wanted to use to create The Haute Mess Art Journals in. The problem was that there wasn’t enough of these specialty fabrics to mass produce them. Hmmmm…..I figured that was ok with me. This was the perfect time to stock up on some inventory by making them myself and creating as many as I could so I could treat everyone with a new release every week. Sure…there will not be a lot of each one, but how special will it be to have a one of a kind Art Journal with a gorgeous one of a kind fabric?!

I hope I can shed a little bit of hope and happiness and make this time of staying at home a little more creative and joyful!

The Mixed Media Journal Box “Naked In The Rain” is my answer to feeling so vulnerable, like I am….Naked In the Rain. I will continue to address what is going on in the world with more releases…I have another one coming in a couple days to address the unrest with the death of George Floyd.  More about that tomorrow, but please know I am at the forefront of support for Black Lives Matter and the support of black owned companies and protestors. My prayers are with all that have been effected. My soul seeks answers and I find myself doing a lot of soul searcing at this time. I feel it’s all I can do to keep my sanity with everything going on.

On a positive note…I love this Mixed Media Art Journal Box…here it is everyone….NAKED IN THE RAIN!!!! Do you love it? Yep! It’s Totes Adorbs!

LOVE all of you girls…if there’s a time to be BAD….do it now! Enjoy your time while youre at home and start creating more! xoxo

Wendy

Join us for an AMAZING Blog Hop collaboration between Clique Kits and Bad Girls Couture on November 19. We will start at 10:00 a.m. right here-www.badgirlscouture.com/blog. Be prepared to learn tons of new Mixed Media techniques, while enjoying art journal pages, scrap journal pages, and altered projects created by the Clique Crew and the Bad Girls Couture Artists!

Who likes STORE CASH PRIZES??? We are giving away over $200 in store cash and prizes!!!! How do you enter to win?

1. Follow @badgirlscouture2007  AND @cliquekits on Instagram and tag a friend.
2. Join us for the Blog Hop and leave a comment.
3. For a better chance to win, earn additional entries by signing up for Clique Kits and Bad Girls Couture Newsletters. You will receive one extra entry for each newsletter sign up.
4. Winners will be announced on both Clique Kits and Bad Girls Couture Blogs on November 25.
5. Winners are responsible for all shipping fees.

See you all there…it’s going to be lots of FUN!

xoxo Wendy

The Inspiration

This is Dale Ann here to share a page that was inspired by a song.  If you ask me what my favorite song is, I usually can’t answer just one song. And I usually tell you that it changes from day to day. Today, I have a clear answer, it’s a song called, “We Rise,” by Cageless Birds, and it has been like a spa for my soul this week. I cannot get enough of it. Here are some of the lyrics.

We rise by bowing, We live by dying

When we give what we can never keep

We gain what we will never lose

Like beauty from ashes, and joy from mourning

Only You can take brokenness

And make it something beautiful

The line about taking something broken and making it something beautiful reminded me of these #tinycollages I’ve been making lately. They are actually made from little bits and scraps of paper. The parts I didn’t want or use in another project. Some people might look at those little bits of paper and thought it was just trash and thrown it out. But then there are those people who look at those discarded remnants and see the beauty in them. A couple of days ago my daughter walked in the house and asked me what I was doing. I said, “gluing pieces of trash to other pieces of trash.” She just shook her head at me. I guess she couldn’t see what I saw. I saw little pieces of promise. Little bits of beautiful things that can be made into more beautiful things in the hands of a creator.

That my friends is what inspired this art journal page. I’ve been those broken bits that probably should have been thrown out. But He looked at me and saw the beauty hidden in the pile of my bits and pieces.  There is a lyric that says, “I’ll follow You anywhere. I’ll follow you anywhere You wanna go.” When you find someone who accepts you and all your broken pieces, you don’t want to let them get away.

So here’s my page, I hope you like it.

The Page

The Details

Here is a close up of my tiny collage.  It is attached with double sided tape.

I let the tiny collage determine the colors for the page.  I have used the following paints from BGC”s Haute Mess collection on this art journal page.

Caution Tape

Distortion

Sweet Candy Kisses

Drop Dead Gorgeous

The Process

I have mixed the Caution Tape and a little Distortion to get the warm shade of yellow I needed.  Then I made that my base color.

Next I scraped the very last bit of my Sweet Candy Kisses out of the jar and spread it through a stencil to get some color, texture and floral design on the page.  After that I used some white gesso to push the bright colors into the background a little.  I then proceeded to splatter on some Drop Dead Gorgeous and a black acrylic paint across the whole page.

The words came directly from the song, and I printed them out on my printer and cut them out.  I took a pen and drew messy lines around them and splattered them with some black and Drop Dead Gorgeous.  Then I just attached with a glue stick.

The Final Look

I just love how my Paper Doll Palace art journal is filling up! I love to have the pages opposite each other coordinate.  It’s almost full and so beautiful!

Here is one more photo, up close.

Well, that’s a wrap for me!  I only have one more page left to post for this month!  Be sure to come back and check out all the gorgeous work from my fellow Bad Girl Couture Artists!

Dale Ann

Good morning all you crafty bad girls!  Are you sleeping in this morning?  I wish I was!  By the time you’re reading this I will be on my way home from a weekend out of town.  I am writing this post on Friday, before I leave.  Can I tell you, I am already tired and I haven’t even left yet?  Probably because my laptop locked up on me, and I have been working feverishly all week to get this video tutorial together, edited and uploaded from my husband’s tiny tablet, so you could watch it today.  It has been a traumatic ordeal to say the least.  With that said, let me apologize for the quality of photos and video, as I have had to operate without my usual tools, and am feeling very insecure about the results you are getting ready to see.  I’m hoping the content will make it worth the poor quality visuals.

But enough about that, how about we talk about one of my favorite mixed media tools, the totally sexy Gelli Arts printing plate!  That’s right, this little piece of gelatin like, squishy rectangle is so hot right now!

There happens to be an Instagram challenge going on right now with Birgit Koopsen, centered around this magical tool.  So, I decided to do a tutorial video with mine using my Haute Mess Acrylic paints! That’s right, the Haute Mess collection is fabulous on the Gelli plate!  Here are a couple of my favorite prints from this session.

I do have a tip when using your Haute Mess paints with the gelli plate. Since our line of acrylic paints are thick and creamy, and made with the best ingredients, they do tend to dry quicker than those craft paints you can buy at WalMart.  This is a testament to quality of our product. However, when working with the gelli plate, I like to create layers with stencils and multiple colors. Using a cheaper craft paint that contains more water in it as your last layer will help to pull the entire print off the plate.

You can use stencils and any kind of mark making tools you would normally use in your mark making.  I have used the end of a paint brush, my fingers, various sized lids, toilet paper rolls, straws, bubble wrap and clear polymer stamps.  The possibilities are endless!

You can get great layered affects by putting on a layer of paint or marks, then letting it dry naturally or use a heat tool or hair dryer.  Once completely dry, you can add another layer of color or marks.  The more you play with it and experiment the more fun you will have!

You will see that I like to use a selection of different kinds of papers to print on.  In this session, I have used art paper, card stock, paper bags, printer paper, vintage book pages and paper tags. I also like to use magazine pages, waxed paper, parchment paper and sheets music.

Once I’ve created these prints, I use them as the base for lots of things!  I usually add doodles or more paint to them, and then use them as collage papers or make things like tags and cards out of them.  I am currently using them to create a unique and very personal junk journal. But that’s for another day.

Here’s a look at some of the tags I made.

I have prepared a video for you,  so you can see the process. I hope you

Thanks for watching friend! If you have any questions, you can leave a comment here, and I’ll happily answer!

Until Next Time,  Dale Ann