seashell wreath

The Craft Barns’ weekly challenge is holiday.

As a matter of fact I’m counting down the days for our holiday to Kos, only a couple more to go J

I made this wreath with seashells we’ve collected on our last holiday: the only thing you need is a wreath (I used one of straw), seashells, some hot glue sticks and a bit of patient.

Every time I see this wreath I can hear the sea, feel the sand between my toes and taste the salt of the water, just love it J

handbag notebook

This week's challenge over at The Craft Barn is to make a bag. I thought I would give a pass this week, but when doing some research on altered composition books I saw this neat idea. I immediately went to my local office supply store to buy a small notebook. Sadly I didn't find any time to craft this week until today altough this project didn't take that much time. 
So I started with a regular notebook (16.5 x 21cm with 72 pages in it) and cut the corners to create a handbag shape.

Covered the front and back covers with some pretty girly paper and added a pink spine.

I added a handle and made a closure with an eyelet, some string and a button.
Next came the even more fun part, the decorating. I added a pretty frilly pink ribbon at the spine, these pretty bird stickers which matched the paper just perfect and a frame which I matted on some of the same hot pink cardstock as the spine and topped it off with a glittery pink butterfly.

 At the back I also added the ribbon and some gold butterfly stickers.

This book was really easy and fun to make and I love the outcome very very much.
This would make a perfect gift for a young girl, don't you think?

May

I finally finished my May page for the Craft Barn calendar challenge where the 2 prompts are magenta and flowers.

I started by pulling out my gelli plate and making a print using magenta acrylic paint and a flower mat.

Next I stamped different sizes of flowers on patterned paper, cut them out and attached them with eyelets to the page.

This stage was done a while ago but I just couldn’t decide on what to add in the center. Until yesterday, suddenly it dawned to me, why not just add the word May, simple, no?

So I wrote the word May, gave it an outline and added a glittery butterfly. All done.

Bunting

This weeks chalenge at The Craft Barn is bunting.
I made this card for familymembers who recently have moved to a new house.

I started by sprinkling different colours of brusho on a large piece of watercolour paper and spritzing it with some water.

While this was drying I made my bunting out of washitape, it was a little bit fiddly but I love the playfulness it ads to the card.
With the leftover watercolour paper I made 4 more cards.

I love the fact that they all look totally different, yet are made out of the same sheet of brusho paper.

boat refugees

In the first quarter of the year a lot of boat refugees have died in their quest for freedom and happiness. I cannot grasp the bad living conditions these people must be living in for them to willingly risk their lives and pay a fortune to make the trip to Europe. On the other hand I’m quite ashamed that we, the rich Western people, don’t take responsibility and step up to help these people. Aren’t we all citizens of the world? Does humanity stop at the border?

I needed to give these strong feelings a place in my ARTicles book.

I started by coloring the sea with some ultramarine brusho and glued down 2 pieces of a map.

One representing Africa and the Middle East which I colored in black to represent war.

And  one representing Europe, the promised land, which I colored in happy colors and added hummingbirds and butterflies.

Between the two I added lines representing the boat trips and here and there black crosses and red for the lost lives and the blood loss.

I hope that there can come a humane solution for this difficult issue.

words

I think this must be my quickest entry for one of the weekly challenges at the Craft Barn where the theme this week is words.

I started by randomly stamping a script stamp, 

followed by some spraying with Dylusions through an alphabet stencil.

Next I used 4 masks of dancing ladies and blackened the rest out. Added the appropriate quote: Time to drink champagne and dance on the table.

Who knows maybe I make another entry...

night and day

This weeks challenge over at the Craft barn was day and night.

I do not have step by step pictures this time, was too much in to creating to be bothered to grab my camera, sorry. I sprayed the top part of the page with after midnight  Dylusions and the bottom with a blend of lemon zest and squeezed orange. Next I added the brick wall with red acrylic paint through a stencil on top of which I stamped these 3 cute little owls. I then masked them off to stamp the script stamp in the background ( if I would have had a plan to begin with I would have done that first before stamping the owls lol) Searched for a suitable quote which Goodnight sleep tight (don't let the bedbugs bite) uhm, wake up bright in the morning light is.
Thanks for stopping by and till next time, bye.