happiness

Prompt 55 in the Embrace your art365 challenge is happiness.

What makes me happy?

Being able to express myself through art.

So paint, stamps, inks, sprayinks and off course butterflies make me very happy.

So I used all these ingredients on my canvas. Yes for this prompt I didn’t work on a small ICAD but on a 40 by 30 cm canvas, because I had a MDF happy word I really wanted to use.

This canvas also doubles up for this week’s Craft Barn challenge where the theme is to use something from Tando.

Okay, small problem, I do not own anything Tando, but got permission to create something that looks like something from Tando.

Okay, I have a couple of things that seem to fit.

For example my homemade splatter stencil

Added some stamping with different shaped hearts ( because I love art)

Made up a batch of homemade texture paste and used it through a new stencil, which is  just amazing.

Sprayed some Dylusions over the textures.

Scraped some acrylic paint along the edges with an old credit card.

And added the butterflies with black acrylic paint through a stencil. You might say black for butterflies?? but the canvas on it’s whole is already so vibrant I thought it would be better, I believe they pop now and make the background even more vibrant.

Next I needed to decorate my MDF word (there is also a Happy word in the tando collection), I started by applying a layer of white gesso, followed by a mauve color in between the letters. Some green tissue paper on top of the letters, stamped a pattern of circles on it and added some more butterflies. The edges got distressed with some black stazon ink.

As finishing touches I cut a heart out of burlap and added a flower. Doodled a bit on the butterflies and turned the word happy in the quote Be happy and smile.

If I would win this challenge I definitely would spent it on some Tando stuff :-)
I just browsed through the Catalogue and noticed that in fact I do own something from Tando, a stencil, this is what I made with it in the past
(for the hurt Q&L challenge)

paper,paint and gelatos

are the only 3 things used for this ICAD
I totally had no idea what to do before I started. 
First I created some drippage with the gelatos, 

grabbed my scrapbox from my desk and found these 2 paper scraps in blues which fitted perfect. 

Gave them an outline with gelatos.

All of a sudden I saw it, the direction the project wanted me to take. Travel around the world. I grabbed a stampset and stamped with acrylic paint. The text stamp is stamped using a black gelato.

hope

The theme of my last entry in my ARTicles book (the doomsday clock)was quite heavy and I wanted to create a hopefull page next to that, because life is still very beautiful and we shouldn't lose hope.

I sprayed the page with 3 colors of dylusions spray ink: lemon zest, fresh lime and vibrant turquoise.

When dry the colors became more subtle. I like the crumbled texture of the pages glued together. Next I removed some color with a babywipe through a stencil, stencilled the cherry blossom branch and added the colorful butterflies, both which I associate with hope. And then stamped the quote Don't lose hope (you never know what tomorow will bring)

PS: Did you spot the error?

anything goes - adventure travel pack

My son finally discovered that there are other tv channels besides NickJr, yeah. Today he watched the Disney channel. There was an art program where they made a super cool adventure travel bag. Off course he wanted to make one too. The he turned out to be me in fact J.

Materials used:
large plastic container, I used a 5L water bottle
3 toiletrolls
a strap
a piece of fabric
tape
glue
newspaper
paints
and a lot of patience, it took me a couple of hours to complete the work, can't imagine how long it would take a kid.

So first you need to construct the structure

Then papier mache the whole piece

And finally paint the bag

Today's prompt for the embrace your art 365 is anything goes, so I will be sharing this.
Hopefully it is sturdy enough to survive a while.

zen

Today's prompt: zen
I started by using that awesome mat I used the other day on the gelli plate as a stamp and colored it with inktense pencils. 

But this was too vibrant so I added a layer of white acrlylic paint to tune it down a bit

When googling zen I saw a lot of pictures with circles, I think it's because a circle is endless, so I added some circles

Still too bright for my likings, so I added a layer of tissuepaper and some pearlescent green acrylic paint, now the colors were muted down while keeping a lot of interest. Finally I glued this buddha sticker on a gelli print and gave it a bit of character with black acrylic paint, added some ink around the edges of the card and added this epoxy zen sticker.

Namaste

vibrancy

Today's prompt was vibrancy. When I think about vibrancy I think inktense. So I created my background using a yellow and green inktense pencil on a gessoed card.Stamped some cicles in orange and pink. 

The sun is also vibrant, and as it happens I bought a fun sun stamp just the other day, just perfect for this. 

Then just simply added the lyrics "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy." And topped it all of with a beautiful butterfly diecut.

the scan didn't pick up on the pink and orange stamping.

shoe

The prompt for day 46 in embrace your art 365 was turquoise, pink and gold; day 47 favorite color (mine is turquoise) and day 48 is pink, so I combined all 3 in 1 piece. Okay, I know that is not the spirit of the challenge, but creating something every single day is just not feasible/possible for me. I also will be linking to the weeklyCraft Barn challenge, where we need to create something with the theme shoes this week.

I started by gluing 3 hearts out of my scrapbox as a base

Stamped on top with a floral motive and burgundy stazon ink.

Painted over it with gold.

And then came out my gelli plate, somewhat under the dust because it’s been a while since I used it. But last week I bought this amazing mat for doing the dishes which has just the most amazing pattern, just perfect for monoprinting. (and probably also for stamping, spraying)

I used my favorite color turquoise on the plate, added the fab pattern and printed it over the already gorgeous layers. I love how it created a halo around the hearts.

Last but not least I stencilled a pink sandal through a homemade stencil (this one was quite tricky to make due to the fine details) and added a flower strass on the strap.

Typed the quote: keep your head, heels and standards high.

Thx for stopping bye and have a nice day.

mini album

Along with the monthly calendar challenge The Craft Barn is also hosting a weekly challenge, all details can be found here. This week's challenge was to make a mini album. 
I wanted to create a book for the ICADs I am creating with the Embrace your art 365. These measure 10 x 15 cm, a little border around them and the cover and the book would easily measure 20x20 cm, is this still a mini album? Apparently it is, I found somewhere a description that mini albums come in all different sizes with 8"x 8" being one of the most popular sizes, so I think my book qualifies. 

In all the videos I watched this week the cover was made using chipboard pieces and one scrapbook page, but my book is too big for a single 12" x 12" paper, so I used a packaging box instead. Glued my pattern paper on the front and back and used a piece of brown cardstock for the spine. 

On the inside I painted the spine brown and glued 3 pieces of patterned paper. (I forgot to take a picture,oeps)

Now it was time to create my waterfall pages. I cut a base page of 15 x 17 cm out of off-white cardstock, glued some flower paper at the bottom and used a decorative corner punch. For the waterfall I cut 5 pieces of 15 x 12 cm, scored them at 1 cm from the top and added a border at the bottom with the flower paper and finished it off with a decorative corner. Then all I needed to do was to glue them down on my base. On the left side I made the waterfall vertically and on the right side horizontally.

As I do not own a scoring board I needed to make something myself, I just took a soft pad, a ruler and my bonefolder.

Queen Of Hearts

This month’s prompts for the Craft Barn’s calendar challenge are red and hearts, all details about this challenge can be found here.

I didn’t want to make a typical Valentine’s page so I needed to get my thinking cap on: after some brainstorming I came up with the queen of hearts in a card deck which led me to Alice in Wonderland. 

In the remake with Johnny Depp I just love the Queen; the big head on her tiny body, the pursed lips, just love it. So I printed out a playing card with that image and that was my starting point/inspiration for the rest of the page. I sprayed the background with red Dylusions spray ink and stamped a diamond background stamp with Stazon inkjet black all over. I altered the card a bit by adding a sparkling crown and glossy accents to her lips. Past weekend, besides the metallic paint, the trellis die and butterfly stamps I also bought this cute doodled cat stamp (and even some more stuff J) which I colored black/purple with my inktense pencils,  just like the cat in Alice in wonderland.

In gold acrylic I stenciled the title Queen Of Hearts and the page was ready to be glued on my February page.

Flower

Last week I received 6 stamps in the mail I ordered via ebay, they were less than 3 dollars, can you believe that and that included even the shipping?? (ok, luckily we can still find bargains like that) 

Aren't they cute?

I used one of the 6 to create the background, I stamped it with Versamark and clear embossed it, added 3 colors of DI on top. Used left over piece of paper from my health page yesterday and the diamond cutouts from the trellis die and added some shading with a brown Inktense pencil. As focal image I used this 3D sticker I had in my stash and added his wooden cage which I colored with copper metallic acrylic paint. Also used it to edge the card.

health

First a collage of booktext over which I applied 3 layers of metallic paint. These paints are new and I like the translucency and shine of them.

In between each layer I applied some Vaseline to act as a resist, recently this didn’t turned out as I hoped but now worked like a charm. I also bought a new die, of a trellis, off course I needed to test drive it. First I was worried that it won’t be easy to peel off the intricate design, but in fact it was very easy and as a bonus I have all these cute little diamonds. I used it to create a notice board on which I pinned the words of which I think at the word health. Initially I intended to place a puzzled man with a question mark underneath the bord but the background and the whole page had another feeling then I planned for, but of which I am very happy, so instead I used my beloved butterflies (a new stampset J)

Buttons

I started by gluing 2 pieces of doiley in the opposite corners and tried a new technique, transferring an image from an inkjet copie with gel medium. I printed the words love, xoxo, hugs&kisses and be my valentine out on my inkjet printer (selected mirror image!!), applied gel medium and burnished them on the page and IT WORKED!!! 

Next I drew some random circles with inktense pencils and activated them with water, but I wasn't quite liking the result, so I sprayed some fire brick Dylusions on the top and made it drip, ok liking that, disaster diverted :-)
Next I had a fight with my sewing machine, I own one but I am totally useless at using it, first I tried to stitch on a scrap piece, finally after 15 minutes or so it worked, took my actual piece and arrgh my thread was finished, needed to fix that which took me another 15 minutes or so, luckily then it was just a matter of stitching the edges. 
I glued 4 buttons in each corner which I made myself by the way out of scrap pieces of patterned paper. I am very pleased with them.
Stenciled the woman's face and added some flower embillishments.

ice

Yesterday's word was ice. I did do the card yesterday and it was a quick one, but it needed to dry overnight.
I made a landscape of snowy mountains out of texture paste (homemade) and added sparkle with some glitter. The sky is done with Inktense pencils to which I added some white spatters for snowflakes falling down. Added a bit of glossy accents where the mountains touch to suggest a frozen lake, where a reindeer is at the look out.

This is my son's interpretation

Can't wait for the weekend because we are heading out for the mountains for some sledding fun.

words only

Today I found the Embrace YOUR Art 365 challenge on FB, it is a year long challenge to create each day, which I must say is a real challenge with life coming in between and so on. But I want to give it a try. 
1 prompt each day, 365 days, 365 pieces of art. Find out everything about this challenge here:
http://www.tiaresmith.com/whats-happening/embrace-your-art-challenge/
I decided to use ICADS (= Indecxard) for this challenge, I think the size (not too big) is just right for this challenge. I am not sure yet what I eventually am going to do with all the ICADS, time will tell.
Today's prompt is only words.
This is what I came up with

I started out by collaging pieces of a dictionary page and coloring it with 4 shades of green with Derwent Inktense pencils

heat embossed in pink the letters of thank you and spray inked through a letter stencil with midnight blue Dylusions (this didn't go as planned because the ICAD was curled)

Handwritten the word Thank you and outlined it with a white posca pen which picked up the blue sprayink. I choose the word thank you because I am thankfull for so many reasons: I live in a peaceful country, I have no life treathening diseases, I have a nice job, a lovely husband and son, a nice home, time to craft...

Doomsday clock

According to Wikipedia the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible global catastrophe (e.g. nuclear war or climate change). It has been maintained since 1947 by the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, including 18 Nobel Laureates. The closer they set the Clock to midnight, the closer the scientists believe the world is to global disaster.

 The most recent officially announced setting—three minutes to midnight (11:57 pm)—was made on January 22, 2015 due to climate change, the modernization of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia, and the problem of nuclear waste.

This article caught my attention and I needed to include it in my ARTicles book.

I started by gluing down all kinds of waste on my page: a tear off pallette, a used babywipe, the packaging of a tea bag, a ribbon and some left overs from previous projects.

I then divided the page in 2 parts to represent the northern and southern hemisphere, the southern is drying up and becoming a desert and the northern is facing floods.

So I used an ochre color for sand and wanted to crackle it by using glue in between but this didn’t seem to work, maybe wrong kind of glue, instead I used my heat gun to create some bubbles to represent dried out sand. The upper part is painted with an aquamarin blue, initially I intended to add glossy accents to make it more watery, but I already liked it the way it was, it looks like an underwater world to me.

I randomly stencilled different types of fonts of the number 3 on the page. I cut out 2 globes from a printable found on www.farfarhill.blogspot.be, ran it throug my embossing machine with a clock embossing folder and added walnut DI to the raised areas. Printed out some huge environmental distasters, colored them with linnen and walnut DI to make them look like old newspapers and cut them with a decorative scissor. 

I am surprised with how easy I am inspired by the news and how my ARTicles book is progressing, what would be even greater is if you would join in the fun; just hop over here  and become a member of my group.