go where your dreams take you

For this background I sprinkled some brushos on the page and used a wet sponge brush to paint. It even works great without watercolor paper, because this is just newspaper. Next I added some more sprinkles and spritzed it with my mister to create the splatters. 

I bought this super cute napkin (remember I can' t resist a pretty napkin :-)) 

with birds sitting in a tree.

I stamped some more butterflies on some book text

and added the quote go where your dreams take you

What we see depends on what we look for

Umbrellas and blue are the 2 prompts for April’s calendar challenge.

A couple of weeks ago I was so lucky to have won the weekly challenge (the flower one), with my winnings I ordered the starter kit of brushos.

I used them to create the background, just sprinkled some on a sheet of watercolor and spritzed it with some water.

Just fabulous, don't you think?

Next I stamped my umbrella girl on a piece of cardstock and colored her with Derwent Inktense pencils. Then came a bit of fuzy cutting and gluing her to the page.

On another sheet of watercolor paper I used leafgreen brusho in the same way (so shaking and spritzing) and stamped this fab tree. Glued some funky birds out of a napkin and created a dome around them.

Who is watching who? 

become the change

I started by painting the background with metallic paint.

Next I  used a mask and intended to stencil the whole page with black, but starting at one edge I was satisfied with only one repeat.

Whenever I see a nice patterned napkin I have the urge to buy it, and this one with butterflies I definitely couldn’t resist, time to use it.

I stamped a pattern around the napkin and glued some pieces of trellis I had lying around on my desk. I glued some flower rhinestones at the bottom trellis (doesn't it look like a climbing rack for flowers?)

I die cut some extra butterflies out of some scraps of paper and searched for a fitting quote : Become the change.  

Just perfect.

Quintessentially English

Yet again just in time for this week's  Craft Barn Challenge where the theme was Quintessentially English.  
I started by glueing down some thorn pieces out of an Oxford English dictionary. 

Next came the Union flag, which I colored with my inktense pencils, still loving them.

On the cross I wrote everything that sprung to my mind when thinking about English: cottages, bobbies, high tea, the tube,rainy wheather, pubs, bulldog, inspector Morse, rugby, left driving, Royal Ascott, Oxford English, Harry Potter, gardens, Queen Elisabeth, The Beatles, Beatrix Potter, Big Ben, London eye, cabs, full English breakfast, an island and Wimbledon.
In the 4 rectangles I glued pieces of tissuepaper on which I stamped things that remind me of England: roses, high hats, crown and cups of tea.

The next challenge is already announced, going to try to be quicker this week.

eclipse II

This was a spread I made a couple of weeks ago about the partial eclipse we could see here.
I was and still am not satisfied with how it turned out.
Initialy I had planned to make a city out of gelli prints, but eventually didn't because the background already looked like a city. But because I really don't like it I decided to revisit the page and proceed with the city out of gelli prints.
Also changed the weird sun with this doodled sun, much better.

It's not really an eclipse anymore, but am liking it much more now, not sure yet whether it is completely finished, time will tell. Maybe I should add an eclipse specticle. I will be entering (just in time) this page for this week's challenge over at the Craft Barn where the theme was house.

retiform

Last week was stamping master class week over on The Craft Barn blog, Dawn's post included a technique called retiform, never heard about it but it looked soo cool that I immediately wrote it on my to do list. It turns out that this technique is this week's challenge over on the blog so I immediately got cracking with this technique. I must say I've needed a few attempts, initially I wanted to make bubbles

but the stamping didn't turn out how it supposed to because I was using a square stamp, so I decided to try it first with straight lines
I used a blue DI and colored with antique linnen distress stain

Next came the fun part off masking of the areas and stamping.
I was pleasantly surprised on how this simple grid turned into something stunning as this

I think this would make a great cover for a book.

Bruges

Last week I spent a couple of days in Bruges for work, but was lucky enough to have some time left to stroll down this beautiful city.

It got me so inspired I had to make a spread in my ARTicles book about it.

I used Distress stain to color the background 

and added a script stamp in brown stazon.

I added a border with this beautiful piece of ribbon/fabric I had in my stash for quite some while now, just perfect for this.

On a doiley I glued a joker, this refers to a local beer, Brugse zot.

I cut out the name Bruges out of a piece of cardstock on which I stamped medieval ruines.

The picture is not of the best quality, I only had my phone with me, but it has the wright feeling.

Lastly I satmped some leafs around the borders, just like the trees hanging on the picture

Happy Easter and egg hunting!!!