Marriage

is a mosaic

you build with your spouse

millions of tiny moments that create

your love story.

Online I created this mosaic picture with 250 pictures of our wedding, how cool is this!
Then I made the tag (got quite some inspiration from Tim Holtz's February tag of 12 tags of 2014)
I like the moasaic and I like the tag but not quite sure whether the both work together.

Ok, so I decided they don't work on 1 page, so I made it into a double spread

Much better.

alpha/dictionary catch-up letter P

4 P’s on 1 page

I started out by trying to create a Panorama out of torn pieces of colored paper,

and I liked the look of this Pair of owls as if they were sitting in a tree overlooking this vast panorama.

The rock has a Poem about owls that is so true.

There was an owl

who lived in an oak 

the more he heard

the less he spoke

the less he spoke

the more he heard

we all should be

like that wise old bird

The last week there has been a lot written and said in the Belgian press (and apparently also in the world press) about these 2 pandas coming from China to stay here in a park for a couple of years,

so I just had to have a Panda in here, I carved this stamp myself, I’m surprised how easy the material carves and how neat results you become.

I need to have some more, much more.

I painstakingly searched for a panda that was facing the right way, that is his face to the left, but had forgotten when you stamped it becomes reverse, doh!

 I’m linking this post to stampotique designers challenge # 134: perfect pairs 

milk/shaving cream marbled paper

As I already mentioned, my 4 year old son also enjoys being creative. The attic is our space and he oftens asks (begs) to go up there.

A lot of the times we each do our own thing, me at my desk and he at his. But recently I’m on google+ and I discovered a community about kid’s crafts and that got me thinking that I actually need to guide him now and then a bit (because there are so many cool projects), I also still think he should sometimes be totally free to do what he wants, he sometimes amazes me with his creativity. Just yesterday he grabbed a piece of paper and laid it on his step which has blue anti slip circles and started drawing them over on the paper or the last couple of weeks he loves to punch holes in paper and then he folds the paper so you get holes in different places at once, and all that without me saying or showing him.

Past weekend we played around with some liquid watercolors ( which I made up with some foodcoloring and water), milk and detergent. (saw this originally here)

Poor milk in a shallow dish just enough to cover the bottom, drip in some watercolor as desired 

and now for the magic: grab a cotton swab, dip it generously in the detergent and place it next to a color and watch what happens. 

It’s fun playing around with and watching what happens, but it is also fun making prints with it, just place a watercolor paper on the surface, peel it off and let it dry.

The colors are subtle (in our experiment anyway). 
The paper does smell of milk, but according to other blogs this should disappear in a few days.
Needless to say he loved pooring and dripping and making prints.

I aslo bought some cheap shaving cream to play around with. Play is exactly what he did, he loved the texture of it, normally the plan was to create some kind of marble effect, but he was just mixing everything together, which was fine by me, he also took a cardboard roll and smeared it with the cream, took a colored paper and roled it on.

 Meanwhile I tried to produce some marbelized papers with it, it was fun for both of us and I have some great backgrounds to use as well. 

An added bonus is that this paper smells nice. I think I’m going to try and make some tools for marbelizing with some nails and give it another go.

dress to impress (junk journal page #7)

When browsing for letters for my strong page I stumbled upon this image and it immediately sparked my interest.

It became my inspiration for the whole page.

I glued torn up pieces of pattern paper randomly on a cereal box,

gave it a white wash to blend it all together

and added some faux stitching

Then started the fiddling part to figure out where I would place everything: the dresses I cut out of scrap pieces of fabric, the colored one I sprayed with dylusions and added butterfly stamps as design, the magazine image and the mirror out of aluminium.

I added the quote: I've been shopping all of my life and still have nothing to wear.

which is so true.

  

Miss

My second entry for this fortnights Q&L challenge:

Most quotes with miss are of course a bit sad, but I found this one that was not and immediately in my mind a page had formed. Yesterday I was able to execute the plan, naturally it didn't turned out like the picture in my head, but that's fine, that's all part of the process, the page still has the playfulness I imagined.
The background is sprayed using Dylusions spray inks, for the quote I used a font that ressembles the handwriting of a kid. The girl is a digital download.

Thanks for stopping by.

strong

Challenge #3 over at The Craft Barn is to use strong and/or miss in a quote or lyric.

After some thought it suddenly dawned to me: strong woman.

So I printed pictures of strong woman throughout history, needless to say that there are plenty: Marie Curie, Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen, Oprah, JK Rowling, Anna Frank,…

and glued them to a gelli printed background.

Because my page was already filled with the images I decided to make it a double page spread (luckily I had also a ghost print) and add the quote on the other side.

I cut out different letters from magazines, because the woman images reminded me of a magazine spread, as first letter of each word.

I’m going to try and make a page with miss this weekend, I already have it in my head, now just find the time to execute it J

junk journal page #6

Junk used: cereal box, left over paint, round objects (toilet roll, kitchen roll, tape roll) and a dictionary page.

The background is painted with left over paint, the circles were added using all types of rolls 

and the gelli plate as ink pad, so I also have some fun prints (now we can debate whether the stamped circle images are the by product (or waste) or the gelli prints) 

The cute little girl is a gorjuss stamp, which I stamped with black stazon on a dictionary page (left over from the dictionary challenge) and colored in with derwent soft colours.

The words are rub-ons, stickers and a stamp from Andy Skinner which I embossed in black.

spread your wings (junk journal page #5)

I started out by weaving left over strips of gelli prints

Then some spraying through a flower stencil

The page needed white, I wanted to heat emboss some stamped flowers, but apparently I don't have any white embossing powder, so I used hologhraphic instead, this gives it a nice shimmer. But I still didn't have any white on the page so I used the smaller flower stamp from the set with white frost ink.
Now I was satisfied with the background. 
For the focal point of the lay-out I used this bird image which I've used as a mask with some gelli printing and some glittery sunshines.

How much junk on 1 page??? (junk journal page #4)

I finally managed to finish the next page for my junk journal.

Clare gave us kind of a challenge, wondering how much junk we can use on one page.

I’m always up for a challenge so of I went and this is what I turned up with:

(sorry for the picture because it's so bulky I couldn't scan it and my photography skills aren't that great)

I started with a piece of cardboard from a cereal box (#1) which I painted green with paint that was leftover on my pallet (#2).

The pink was added by cleaning of my stencils(#3)

The frame is made by using cut out hearts that were sitting on my desk, I intended to use them on this month’s birthday calendar, but they were too bright for it and I had redone them in a softer color, so they were in fact junk (#4)

The hearts led me to a romantically themed page which needed cherubs and flowers.

The flowers I made from newspaper (#5) and a die cut.

This is how the pieces look when die cut, then you role them up using a quilling pen.

The cherubs are images from a napkin. They needed golden wings, but  as I didn’t have any stamps, I made one myself, this is my first attempt at carving a stamp, not too bad if I say so myself:

I definitely going to buy some more blocks for carving and attempt to make some more unique stamps.
In the rigth bottom corner I glued a row of hearts which I used as a mask whilst gelli printing (#6)

The last piece of junk I used on this page was a pair of black earrings in the shape of angel wings which were from a secondhand store, so they were someone’s junk, but my treasure (#7)

 So my answer to Clare’s question is 7 for now.

Dazzle

Hi there,

I literary only just finished this page now, just in time for this fortnight's Q&L challenge. This page has truly been a struggle. 
After doing some research about dazzle I was going to paint or draw some dazzle camouflage

I started but gave up quite early, didn't have the patience to do the whole page. 
So on with idea number 2. 
This was to make a page that is so bright it almost hurts the eye.
The background is painted with fluo yellow and added some layers of hot pink and metallic purples through homemade stencils. The one with the dots I just made by using my crop-a-dile.

 Then I added this dazzling beautiful lady and the quote

Do Something that nobody else has done, something that will dazzle the world.

Hope you like, I do, just for finishing it alone J

mini album "A day at the zoo"

For my grandmother's birthday I made a mini album of our day at the zoo last summer (last year's birthday present J)
I started by cutting out 13 pieces of cardboard with dimensions 14 x 17cm:

I do not own any fancy paperpackets for making mini albums, but on a bookfair where they also have a ton of craft stuff I bought these packets of cardstock, only 1.25 euro for 25 pages. 
I've selected one with green shrubs as I figured this fitted well with the zoo theme, I glued the cardstock to the pieces of cardboard:

Sanded the edges, added some dark green paint and binded it with my Bind-it-all

Then came the decorating, here's the cover:  

and here are some of the inner pages:

Needless to say that my grandmother was over the moon with this present.

Last year was a good present as we all enjoyed a day at the zoo and this year a great little book to browse through and be remembered of that wonderful day. What to do next year??

Silence

Whoa, I just found out that I won a £20 gift voucher from The Craft Barn with my up page. Thx guys.

Here’s my next entry with the word silence.

I found this quote 

Silence is the way to avoid many problems,

smile is the way to solve many problems.

I liked the fact that is does not only have silence in it but also smile, I found that just perfect as it forms a bridge with the previous page.

The background is stamped with music notes and colored with distress stain broken china over which I glued some gelli printed tissue paper. There was an oops during the gluing, I was a bit  overzealous and the tissue paper got thorn, but I left it that way and now it’s part of the design.

Now I’m going to start on a dazzle page in my dictionary.

Birthday calendar for February

It's the first of a new month, so you know what that means, the reveal of this months birthday calendar

As it is February and a lot of people celebrate Saint Valentine I went a bit romantic.
I love the fabric flowers, they are so supereasy to make, the only issue they are bulky and quite heavy, I am going to figure out a way of reinforcing the ringhole because it will tear in time otherwhise.

The doodled hearts are a free downloadable from Consie over at Atop serenity Hill. Many Thanks, they were just the perfect finishing touch.