LilyandtheLotus and Smeared Inks 31 days of Halloweem,Teresa Shermans Delicious Doodles Steampunk Sally in journal

Be True to your self...that is something we all must do.Be true to ourselves. Welcome to the 31 Days of Halloween with Smeared Ink. I am Allywhitecat (susan s.) and I wanted to show you my many layered journal page :)....
so sit down a pour your self a warm bowl of milk and join me....please...
I began making journals when I was a small girl after my Grandmother passed away...a few months after my close friend Roxanne and her mother were burned alive in a house fire...Halloween story??? sadly no.She was a beautiful little girl always pulling her knee socks up as we ran across the school yard. Friday we said good bye as school let out I did not know it was forever.
I played the piano and made journals for years and now I am 54 my piano is in storage temporarily..ahhh but I still journal
We have a lovely sponsor at smearedandsmudgedink.com
Teresa Sherman a very talented artist I also represent her often in Sweet Pea Stamps. Her talent knows no bounds.
I purchased this digi 2 or 3 years ago and in cleaning out my files this past month I found it and said ahhh sweet. Steam punk Sally was the title of my file.
The paper was from one of my son's past girl friends Gothic nice ravens and grunge and stating Be true to yourself.
so
here we go...

If you are not into journals  I would love for you to leave a comment no need to exasperate your self through this..toodles  and have a wonderful hop

as you can see the page ,has been divided part the lovely grunge and misc pictures from Graphic 45 and my coffee can of stash

I colored Delicious Doodles Steam Punk Sally.
I used a wonderful stencil from stencil girl on the left to begin folding in more darkness and gesseo where I wanted to watercolor.
Gesso is wonderful it held her in place like glue..but I also cover my final piece and will tell you about that in a moment.

water color the gesso area, I am using cheep ones right now but they have been wonderful as a learning tool, first like a crayon  skribble the color on than use a paint brush and water to blend it into gesso and paper.

now it is marking light from dark time

I added Tim Holts tissue paper under the purple areas and began adding papers that blended with the theme adding coats of Gesso in

between to create more and more layers..keep stenciling and your dark and light zones build

I have painted some gear die cuts from Tim Holtz die collection and added Tim Holtz fired brick stain in many of the white gesso areas

Tim Holtz

cut some letters that say "BE TRUE TO YOURSELF"Glued on the dies using glossy accents
and

Waited for it to dry and added a few statements with white gel pen...than went and had a Mexican food dinner with my son ..omg good:)

so here she is

your thoughts questions and comments are always welcome.
Allywhitecat