ice queen

I had a day off today to cheer on my son who had his first fieldrun today, the rest of the day I had some me time in the studio, which is something rare. So I sat down and created this

When I read this week 's instructions for the Craft Barn challenge here I immediately knew I wanted to use my Julie Nutting princess stamp. She would become an ice queen or perhaps the wife of Santa Claus. I stamped her twice, once on a piece of scap paper with skin tones and once on patterned paper  (with snowflakes) which would become her dress. I used posca paintmarkers to color her hair, crown and gloves. 

The background is colored with blue gel sticks, some stamping with purple and pink brilliance ink and some spattering with white acrylic paint. 
I stamped a balloon sled in one corner and in the other heat embossed the words vintage christmas time.
Thank you for taking the time to stop bye.

butterfly dew

Today was the day I took my Dylusions paint for a test drive. Lovely vibrant colors, no?

I kept the background as it was, simple and colorful. Simply added a butterfly stencil as focal image with black marble which complements the colors so well and make them pop. 

On the wings of the butterfly I added some clear liquid glass from DecoArt Media (also new so I just had to try it) and added a bunch of flowers from K&Company.

I will be entering this page to the Craft Barn challenge stencils and/or masks

steampunk angel

Yesterday I got cracking with some of my new supplies.

I wanted to use the technique whereby you wipe away ink with a damp babywipe through a stencil, therefore I needed to gesso my page first.

Unfortunately the gesso dulls the otherwise so vibrant Dylusions. (but in this case was just perfect for that autumn feel)

Here you can see the difference between Dylusions on a gessoed surface (on the left) or not

Creating some interest in the background by removing some ink through a leaf stencil and by adding some walnut DI through the same stencil (so 2 different ways to use a stencil)

The page begged for some script stamping, so out came the stamp with one of my new stamp pads, dew drop brilliance red gold.

I also went around the edges of the page with the stamp pad.

I like the size of the pads, they are easy to hold in your hand.

As a focal point I used the steampunk angel from Viva décor and heat embossed it with Halloween  embossingglitter from WOW!

After a search through my drawer filled with embellishment I found the perfect match

I would like to enter this page for following challenges:

The Craft Barn weekly challenge: stencils/masks

The Craft Barn calendar challenge for September: brown andleaves.

Craft Stamper Take It Make It Challenge September: take a stamp/anything goes

Kasper's preschool art book 1

Do you know the feeling that you’re always running way behind with everything. I do.

For example I have a whole pile of artwork from my son from in kindergarten which I intend to sort through and bind the most beautiful in a book and that per year.

Well, my son started 2 weeks ago his first year of elementary school (where has the time gone??), so I am hopelessly behind.

But in these moments of sudden panic I try to remember this quote I recently read in a magazine: You are not behind, you are just starting.

So with this mantra in the back of my head I got started.

Step 1: collect all art from kindergarten year 1, that was easy as I kept them in separate boxes, one for each year.

Step 2: select the works I want to keep and which ones can be thrown away, I did this together with my son so he could tell me which ones he really would like to keep and it also teaches him that you can’t keep everything.

Step 3: I glued pages together to make double sided pages

Step 4: punch holes in the pages with my Bind-it all

Step 5: aha, and now for the fun part, creating a front cover (I got the inspiration from Artangel)

I covered a piece of cardboard with crinkled tissue paper

Painted it with metallic paints and rubbed over the creases with some blue and green oil pastels.

In the middle I am going to glue down the letters of his name in gypsum which he decorated himself, around I wanted to create some kind of border.

Because this week is stencil week over at The Craft Barn I was playing around with stencils and another way of using them is laying them underneath a piece of paper or in my case a piece of tissuepaper and rubbing the pattern with a crayon.

I tore the leaves and glued them to the cover, followed by the letters for which I used my heatgun.

Bind it all together and tada finished.

One done, 2 more to go.

WOYWW#328 Craft haul

Hello and welcome at my desk,
Today was a high day for me, I went to the anual craft fair nearby my home town.
So today my workdesk is filled with the haul that I scored for myself (ssst don't tell my husband)

I splashed out and finally got me this case filled with posca paint pens

When passing these Dylusions paints from Dyan Reaveley I just couldn't resist them, aren't they just lush?

Unfortunately I don't have an unlimited cash flow otherwise I would buy a zillion new stamps,but for now I settle with these

and also bought the cute little button dies.

And what are stamps without ink, right? And every time I'm working on a project I seem to be unable to find the right color ink, so I thought I buy a couple (?) of new ones

I also really needed new acrylic stamping blocks because mine are getting really dirty with permanent ink, thus losing their advantage of seeing through them. These are rocking blocks which should help stamp perfectly and crisp. Wait and see.

And to finish some embossing powder and a perfect medium pad

I can't wait to try all of my new stuff so that is exactly what I'm going to do now so make sure to come back and see them in action.

Blossom

I had so much fun making this page and I believe that is visible.

I started by coloring the background in different shades of green with inktense pencils and wiped over it with a damp babywipe in a circular motion.

Next I took a variety of my homemade stencils (I use a heat tool for cutting them) 

and stencilled away with acrylic paint.

Loving the result.
Of course this has as a side effect that I start to hesitate about what to do next.

First I thought about using  this owl image

Then I thought of creating a disco scene

But after a good night’s rest it dawned upon me, flowers.

I'd like to enter this page for The Craft Barn challenge: stencils and masks.

butterflies to the stars

Today I used stamps, regular ones and found objects, to create my background.

For the found objects ( like some lego, bottlecaps, toiletrol)

I like to use my gelli plate as stamp pad, brayer it up with a juicy layer of paint and stamp away. As an added bonus I have some wicked printed papers.

The stars are stencilled and outlined with a white gel pen. 
The butterflies traced with a stencil and cut out of patterned paper.

I would like to enter this page to following challenges

The Craft Barn weekly challenge: stamping

The Craft Barn weekly challenge: stencils/masks

flowerart

So we already have used stamps as a focal image, to build up a scene, write a quote, next in line is homemade stamps. 
I started on a page that already had some interest from cleaning of stamps and stencils from the previous page (owlsome)

I used 4 of my handcarved stamps

The flowers are stamped on a piece of tissuepaper 

I would like to enter this page to following challenges:
The Craft Barn weekly challenge: stamping
Craft Stamper Take It Make It Challenge for September where the theme is take a stamp, anything goes

Owlsome

Yesterday I showed you how I used stamps to create a scene, today I will be showing how I used a stamp as focal image.

I choose a cute little doodled owl stamp.

But first things first, the background.

I started with a layer of distress stain: brushed corduroy and a hint of rusty hinge. Followed with some stenciling with walnut DI and metallic acrylic paint.

A  border of washi tape which I distressed with antique linen contains the page.

Slam bang in the middle I glued my owl which I had stamped on a piece of underpaper (you could not reconstruct the colors if you wished to).

Last but not least, yet another way to use stamps, I stamped the quote: don’t forget to be owlsome.

The great escape

Stamps are so versatile, you can use them as a focal image, build up a scene, create a background with them, make your own stamps, use found objects as stamps….

For this week’s Craft Barn challenge I created a scene with different stamps.

First I colored the sky blue and the grass green with brushos to set the scene

then came the stamping (which is not pristine due to the nature of my journal). I stamped a tree surrounded with all kind of flying creatures: birds, dragonflies and butterflies. On top I added splatters with a wet paintbrush which I dipped in the brushos. (warning: this is very addictive and is very hard to stop once you started) I also added a bit of gold by swiping the page with a card to tie in the page with the page next to it (which has gold lettering). Finally I added a rubbon with the text The great escape. 

Prompt60 #3 green/book design

What is prompt60? I hear you say.

Well, this is an initiative of Daisy Yellow, you can find her here.

She describes it as:

Prompt60 is a new series of journaling prompts that will challenge you with sparks, ideas & quotes. My goal with this series is to inspire and gently nudge to do something creative in your journal. The challenge will help you strengthen both your artmaking & writing practice. The series will contain a mix of topical creative writing prompts, ideas for how you might get those words into your art journal and all-around fun ideas.

#1 was to get yourself a journal, check.

I skipped #2 as this prompt was to draw a mandala and I am not a drawer. 

#3 is to create a page about the color green.

So I started with some olive distress stain.

 Next I started my ” treasure hunt”  for green in my collection of paper.

I collaged them to the page, leaving a margin around the edges, as this is the type of space you see in a book layout.

Added black acrylic paint with my finger as paint brush around the images, the right page felt perfect but the left page just wasn’t doing it  for me (yet), so I added some green paint on top of the black and that was exactly what it needed. I added the quote Do what you love what you do all around the edges.

This is a totally different page then I usually would make, but am very pleased with the outcome and that is exactly what art should be about, trying new things without worrying about the outcome, just having fun creating. I still need to work on the free flow of creating, I am often still worrying about the outcome. But instead of procrastinating I should just DO, what is the worst thing that could happen? That I don’t like it? So what, turn the page, start over and have even more fun.

hummingbird

This week’s challenge over at The Craft Barn is animals and prompt # 243 in the Embrace your art 365 is use a magazine picture.

So I took a National Geographic magazine and browsed for an image that spoke to me and this hummingbird did.

Then I got started with the background, I had seen a  nice background in one of my art books, to reproduce this I needed to mask off some lines and paint the areas in between to resemble sun rays, issue #1 I wasn’t able to reproduce the brushstrokes, so I colored the blocks completely in.

Next I thought black in between the blocks of color would pop the colors even more, so I painted the space in between with black acrylic paint, argh not convinced (issue #2). 

Then I thought maybe I can mask the black with some washi tape, so out came the drawer filled with tape, but no that wasn’t it. But hey,  I had kept the masking tape I had used to create the blocks,

maybe I can use them back, so I placed them back but in different places as before,

okay better, but this page just wasn’t doing it for me, so I took the bold decision to turn the page and start all over.

I had some left over paint on my palette which I scraped on my page with an old credit card, instantly fell in love with the texture and colors of the background.

Glued down the image of the hummingbird which I had torn out and added the following quote with a gold gel pen:

Spread your wings and let your spirit soar.

This page finally got together so smoothly and quickly, I really shouldn’t fight the page, but let it flow.