Can't sleep? Get inky!

Well, I've decided to try something new.  Thanks to Clare over at Miscanthus Crafts, I've decided to start an Art Journal and also to participate in The Craft Barn Dictionary Challenges this year.  I didn't find a dictionary, though.  I found a FREE book at work called "The Basic Everyday Encyclopedia" circa 1954.  It is beautifully aged and makes me sneeze like crazy, lol!

This fortnight, The Craft Barn wants us to alter something on a "V" page.  I choose to do Valentine as February is drawing near.  There will definitely be a learning curve on my pages as this is the first time I've attempted this type of inkiness, so please bear with me!

Here are the complete pages I altered~

 

Details~

For these fabulous challenges~

The Craft Barn: "V" 

I chose Valentine.

Vintage Stamping Challenges: Vintage

The book itself is vintage, I used 

vintage style images and papers as well.

Simon Says Stamp & Show: Embrace the Old

I must learn to embrace this old book

or I may throw it out from all the sneezing. ;)

Also, I've had these stamps for some time

now and some of them have never seen ink

until tonight--hooray for them, and the
scraps of paper I found at the bottom
of my scrap drawer!

I started by highlighting and drawing a heart around the entry I wanted to focus on: Valentine, Saint.  I then brayered my page with a medium pink in a random fashion.  I then spritzed two tones of red ink with an ink spraying tool from Stampin' Up!.  After that, I randomly stamped some images in different colors.  After doing this, I spritzed both pages with some homemade glimmer mist.  I let the pages dry for a bit and then I decided to add a ribbon down the page for a sort of faux bookmark.  I like the way it looks and will probably do it on each of my pages this year so that I'll know which pages were done in 2013.  Some bits of patterned paper were placed on lastly.  Voila!

Thank you so very much for stopping by to take a peek!  If you have any constructive criticism, I would love to hear what I could do to make my next pages better!  I hope you join in these amazing challenges!  Happy inking! :)