I hope you are all doing well. Yesterday I did something that I have not done in over SIX years – drive to a city, in this case, Glasgow. I have travelled far from home since before 2020, due to various obvious things, and then a period of not being able to drive at all, so yesterday I went to IKEA. I have not been there either for over six years! I can’t say it wasn’t nerve wracking but I made it there and back in one piece. The weather on the way up and down was horrible, very heavy rain showers, but when I arrived at IKEA, it cleared up and we had blue skies and sunshine!
It was nice to walk around there again (one of my favourite places) and see all the new home stuff and especially the room settings which are always so clever and inspiring. I bought a few things, nothing very exciting, some new pillows, stuff like that, but I did buy a present for Miss Lily and she is VERY excited…
Can you see her in there? It’s a cat tent (IKEA calls it a cat house but I prefer to call it a tent for obvious reasons lol). I put it on the bed last night and she jumped right in and slept there all night. She’s actually in there right now taking an afternoon nap!
My theme for this month is Steampunk, Halloween OR Steampunk Halloween.
Today’s Art . . .
Anyway, on to the art journal, but also here is Miss Lily sitting in her usual spot demanding to be included in the photos!
Since this is a real junky art journal, I thought I should include more “junk”, this time in the form of some empty Pukka teabag wrappers. I have been obsessed with these two flavours and they have great Autumnal colours that I thought would look good on the page. The flavours are Vanilla Chai (brown wrappers) and Turmeric, Ginger and Orange (orange wrappers). I haven’t been buying a lot of Pukka tea as it has practically doubled in price but a couple of the supermarkets have it on special at the moment with great savings, so I have been drinking more of it. There is one that I can’t seem to find – Winter Warmer, another favourite – but I see they have it on Amazon. And another called “After Dinner” but they seem to have changed to flavours of that one so I won’t be buying that!
The image of the woman with the raven and all the pumpkins come from a digital pack from Art Stacks. This pack is one of their Artist Series and it is called Trick or Treat. The artist I’m sure you will recognise, is of course, Tamara Laporte (Willowing). I printed the image of the woman on photo paper and printed the pumpkins on transparency so I could layer them over the top. I added a lot of black, white and fluoro orange paint splatters over the background and then used some small Steampunk stamps to stamp over the top of the background and the transparencies. Oh and the big black cat in the front is actually a cat candle I bought yesterday in IKEA. It’s part of their limited Halloween range so I got it reduced due to being so close to Halloween. I won’t be using it as a candle, I just want to use it as an ornament.
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading, Happy Journalling and Happy Halloween!
Ingredients
recycled amazon packaging, recycled pukka tea sachets, ArtStacks Trick or Treat (Tamara Laporte) digitals, photo paper, OHT, acrylic paint, glue, Distress Ink, staples,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – Steampunk, Halloween, or Steampunk Halloween
I love IKEA too, but it’s about a 2 hour drive though Boston to get to the nearest one to me. I haven’t been in way too long. (I think this winter that sounds like a good trip for me though. I love your cat candle, and like you, I wouldn’t burn it either. I have an old Skeleton candle I bought maybe 10 years ago that I just put out for a season decoration. And nice page. I love all the tea bags you used. They are the perfect colors and give your page a bit of an exotic Halloween feel. Hope Miss Lily enjoys her new house. Hugs-Erika
I love Miss Lily’s attitude!!!
And yes, I agree that this is a cat tend, not a house.
Very clever idea to use so many teabags to decorate your page.
I need to taste Pukka tea.
Another lovely entry for your theme at AJJ, Elle.
Hugs,
Mia
Co-administrator for AJJ
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