Wednesday, March 30, 2016

WOYWW 356

Wednesday? Really?
It doesn’t feel like wedsnesday to me, probably because we had Monday a day off I think it is only Tuesday J
Before I show you my desk I want to show you my son’s


Since we moved to our new craft room I’ve been able to keep my desk in more or less good shape, he however not yet, I think it might be age related (or I hope so).
But admitst all this mess he is still able to create and have fun, recently I’m amazed at what he is doing all on his own.
Here for example is the stove he made out of a cardboard box
  

Complete with an opening oven door which even has a grill in it and turning nobs, pretty amazing he.

Now on to my desk and what is on it


You can see my ARTicles spread for this week in progress and my sketch book where I write down my ideas and sketch out very roughly what I want to do ( don’t always work that way but often I do)



That's all for me for now, but if you come back on sunday you can see the completed page.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

JAM 12 favorite season

My favorite season is just starting, spring.
The fresh new beginning of life, still full of hope.
I started by writing the word spring with a piece of rope, this is one of my hardware store finds for the let’splay theme of March.


Next I painted everything in a fresh spring green.


Finally added the only rub ons (that was the creative challenge with this prompt) I have in my stash but which coincidentally work wonderwell with the theme.


Sunday, March 27, 2016

ARTicles 2

Hello,
Hope you had a great Easter and a lot of chocolates to enjoy.
Another week has passed so I'm here to show you  my pages in my ARTicles book.




Because the 21th was the beginning of spring I've created a spring spread, with yellows and a lot of flowers (which I hand drew and of which I'm quite satisfied thank you very much) and added this poem
Spring is here
Let's give some cheer!
Flowers bloom, trees grow,
water falls, winds blow.
Bees buzz, kids play,
say hooray! Spring is today!

Sadly the 22th everything turned black here in Belgium,
I made a separate entry in my book about these unfortunate events.


The next couple of days I didn't really felt like crafting, so my next entry is only on the 25th with a summary of all the good things Belgium stands for:
  • good food (waffles, french fries with mayonaise, chocolates and beer)
  • nice cities ( Bruges, Antwerp, Leuven, Brussels,...)
  • we also have famous people like Jacques Brel, René Magritte, Stromae, ...
  • Kuifke and The smurfs are invented here, as is the saxofone.
  • we also have a wicked sense of humor, look at our "manneken pis"
  • AND we are resilient and have a sense of solidarity.

Yesterday I wrote about the René Magritte plane that was presented earlier this week to the public. The plane is decorated with 2 artworks (La clairvoyance and Le retour) from the surrealist painter Magritte. Also the inside wasn't forgotten and has sky and birds on the overhead compartments and an image of René himself in the front.


Today is Easter of course and I found some Easter bunny tips for life:
  1. don't place all your eggs in one basket
  2. there's no such thing as too much candy
  3. some body parts are meant to be floppy
  4. the grass is always greener in someone else's basket
  5. let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits
That's all for me this week.


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

the day after - WOYWW355


This is my workdesk today, the day after the cowardless tragic terrorist attacts in Brussel, only 20 km away from my home.
Luckily none of my relatives or friends are involved, although there were some lucky escapes, my cousin’s son for instance usually takes that metro to go to union but just not yesterday, he ran to catch a train instead. Or some of my colleagues had to take a flight but luckily not that early, they were heading out to grab a taxi at the moment the news was running in from the attack.
Also I’m glad that my son is still at an age (6 years old) that he doesn’t stand still at these facts, he was only disappointed that their planned outing with school was cancelled because a bomb exploded in Zaventem.

So what is on my workdesk today, a page in my ARTicles book, although I was planning on turning it into a positive news book, I just had to make this to process everything.
I made a black page because this is one of the blackest days in our history,
the date in red for all the blood that has been shed
and stars for all the lives that have been taken, notice that I made them white, I did that because we need to stay hopeful and don’t give in to the fear and panic the terrorists want to create.


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

JAM 11 favorite place

My favorite place is by far my home.
Ok, I like to go on holiday, to the beach or on a daytrip, but I’m always very happy when I return home.
And when I wouldn’t have all those trips I still would be very happy just spending time home.
I have  everything I need their, a comfy bed, a garden, the people I love and don’t forget my craft studio.
The creative challenge we got from Tiara with this prompt is to use torn or ripped paper, I’ve created a scene with our house all in ripped paper, even the circle is ripped.


I added some stamping, lovely creatures in the sky, flowers in the garden and lost of hearts representing the love that fills our house.  


I addeds some magical dimension to the hearts as can be seen here on a close-up.


I'll also be linking this page to the biweekly Craft Barn challenge where the theme is circles in the background as the page is a circle.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

ARTicles 1

I am blowing new life into my ARTicles book.
My last entry dates from 25 July 2015.
I'm changing the concept a bit in that way that I will create a double spread per week and try to journal each day about some good news I have read.
Here is my spread from this week


What good news did I gather this week?

a story about a man who created a garden filled with lovely scented Shibazakura flowers for his blind wife  which took him 2 years, how romantic. It has now turned into a tourist attraction in Japan.
 2 stories about the Syrian refugees. 

One about how 2 young Dutch students got the idea of recycling all the lifevests and boats that are washed upon the Greek beaches and turn them into much needed backpacks for the refugees
and another where WWII refugees write letters of hope to Syrian child refugees.




I also found this neat project Google is working on, called Cultural Institute, where they digitalise and virtualize art works. They recently also created a 360° video from one of Breughel's most famous work, the fall of the rebel angels. Check it out, this is totally awesome.

And lastly a story about a woman who offered to pay the grocery bill of $7 of the person in front of her in the supermarket queu because he had forgotten his wallet. A month later she found out that this person had made an anonymous donation of $10000 in her name to a cancer foundation.

All one for one heartwarming, positive stories.
In a world that seems to be focused on the negative I think it is necesarly to search for the good and beauty, otherwise we all will become bittered.

Interested in joining in? 
GOOD NEWS... you can.
Just join the ARTicles FB page and share what you've created that was inspired by actuality in the broad sense of the meaning: this can be the news, hitlists, movie releases, personal news....
something you create and in a couple of years you flick through and get teleported back to the past.





Saturday, March 19, 2016

masterboard to card

I promised on wednesday I would show you what this masterboard


would turn into.
Oops, the days have slipped by and it is already Saturday.
Well with the moto better late then never here is the card I made with the masterboard


I justed stamped this amazing image on it and cut it to size.

How did the masterboard come together?
I started with a large piece of watercolor paper and grabbed all of my circle stencils (because the biweekly theme over at The Craft Barn is to use circles in the background)


First I applied some texture paste through one of them.Then I went to town with my Dylusions spray inks.
Next I added some more stencilling and stamping with a stamp

 I made from anti-scratch selfadhesive felt from the hardware store, which in its turn is this month's Let's Play theme 


I still have plenty leftover from the masterboard ready for a next project in the nearby or not so nearby future, we'll see.




Wednesday, March 16, 2016

WOYWW354

Hello,
O you're here to see my desk are you
you're sure...
well, 
if you insist,
here it is


Let me talk you through it. On the far left I have a masterboard, which I turned into a card just after taking this picture. Unfortunately for you I can't reveil it just yet because I only mailed it this morning and I know for a fact that the recipient follows my blog and that would kinda spoil the surprise, won't it. But if you really want to see the end result be sure to come back on friday.
Just in front of the masterboard is my journal where I started a new page with some string, this is for the let's play challenge where this month's theme is using stuff from the hardware store.


Moving to the actual working space, is my ARTicles book, it's been a while since I did anything in it, I started it last year to journal about things that grab my attention from the actuality. If you want to know more about this book just click on the ARTicles tab above. I also have a fb page which you can join if you'd like to and share your work.
It's after seeing Marits chronicles pages here on wednesdays that got me thinking of this project again and got me convinced to pick it up but a little different this time. As previous I did a spread per subject, now I will be journaling everyday about something positive I've read. Each sunday I will then share my finished page for that week.


Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment, I always look forward to wednesday.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Relax

R=relax in the alphabet of happiness.

Refuse to let worry and stress rule your life,
and remember that  things always have a way of working out in the end.

Coloring mandalas is considered to be relaxing,
so I attempted to draw one and colored it in with a combination of inktense pencils and staedtler triplus fineliners.
I stamped the robot with his dog and colored them with my bright set of spectrum noirs.
.


To me it looks like the robot is comforting his dog and saying just relax, don’t worry.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

JAM 9 favorite food - use a straw

I didn’t have to think long to figure out what my favorite food is, chocolate off course, mmmm...
And how lucky am I to be living in Belgium, besides waffles and beer also well known for his great chocolates.

I pulled out my gelli plate and made a print in chocolate brown using a straw as a texture tool.
Next I added some hot pink using the straw as a stamping tool and blew some brown ecoline around.
So in fact I used the straw in 3 different ways.
I wanted to create the illusion that is was raining chocolate so I stamped raindrops and highlighted them with glossy accents.
All around the border I glued down chocolates from a napkin.
And then…well then I got stuck


I put the page aside until some inspiration would hit me,
but unfortunately it didn’t,

so I took the drastic decision to gesso on top of it and start all over.


Now my vision was to create a box of chocolates.
So I drew a grid with a heart in each one.
Then I took a paintbrush and used the back to stamp dots with,
brown outline for the milk chocolate, colored insides for the fillings and outsides for the wrappers.


The last thing I needed to do was to create a lid for my box.
So I took a  piece of paper of which the pattern is luscious and just perfect for a box filled with yummy chocolates, cut it to size and cut an inner circle out, on the inside I glued a piece of transparent on which I wrote my quote from Forrest gump with a gold and black posca pen

Life is like a box of chocolates
you never know what you're going to get


Don't you just want to open this box and indulge on those wonderful chocolates?
I know I do J

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

WOYWW353

Hello and welcome fellow deskers,
Without further ado I present to you my desk 


Let me walk you through.
From left to right:
My art journal displayed at my latest page (details can be found here) because I just love the happiness this page spreads.
Just underneath my journal are some left over gelli prints from this page and the draw groovy book I told you about the other week.
I just finished the round page you can see underneath the set of spectrum noirs yesterday, it’s for the JAM challenge I am taking part in and it’s about my favorite food, I will blog more about it in detail tomorrow, but here is a sneak preview
  

that's also why you can spot the box of straws on my desk, that was part of this challenge.

In front of me is the project I started on in my alphabet of happiness book. We are at the letter R, which stands for relax, so I thought I would draw a mandela.  I’m coloring it in with inktense pencils and staedtler triplus fineliners.


Here is a close-up of the page in process.


Thanks for hopping in and before I work some further on this page I'm privileged to travel around the world  and see a dozen workspaces from other fellow artists.
Have a nice day and see you soon.


Monday, March 7, 2016

life is one big party

This weekend I went to the DIY store searching for things that I could use as an art supply.
Why did I do that?
Because, according to Carolyn, using supplies that aren’t meant to be used as a craft supply frees you up of the worries whether you are using it correctly, because there is no right way, because it wasn’t meant to be used as a craft supply.
Logic, right?
So what did I find... this gluing aid that is used to glue down tiles.


And what did I use it for... as a texturizer on the gelli plate


Isn’t that one awesome print.
The minute I pulled it from the gelli plate, it screamed party to me.
So I added some funky stenciling, dancing girls, swirly embellishments and the quote:
Life is one big party, enjoy every minute of it.


So this is my entry for this week, I did find some other possible art supplies. 
Curious what they are? 
Stay tuned and you’ll find out!

Sunday, March 6, 2016

clean and simple 2


While rediscovering my alcohol inks the other week (full post can be found here) I created this 10x15

by applying AI on a gessod piece of cardstock, which I then ran through my embossing machine with a flower embossing folder. Used my Versamark ink pad to go over the raised flower, sprinkled on silver embossing powder and heat setting it.
For my card I only needed to add a sentiment and matt it on black cardstock before adhering it to a manila cardbase.


Although the base was messy to make, the card was easy, quick, simple and mess free to make (as the base was already done a few weeks back), so I hope this still qualifies for the biweekly Craft Barn challenge which is clean and simple.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

love


Let love fill your heart instead of hate.
When hate is in your heart,
There’s room for nothing else.
But when love is in your heart
There’s room for endless happiness.

Our next letter in the alpha/dictionary challenge over at The Craft Barn is L, which stands for love in the alphabet of happiness 

I wanted to use a resist technique with crayons and Distress stain (a newly rediscovered art supply, thanks to Carolyne Dube, more details of me rediscovering distress stains see here) to color the background. But unfortunately it didn’t turn out as expected, as these heart shapes 

didn’t really appear once I went over it with crushed olive Distress stain.


Oh well, no time to linger about. 
I typed out the definition on my typewriter (several times I must add as there is no backspace on a typewriter arghh),
Fussy cut this cute doggy in 3D and added some washi tape with hearts. Because the page was still a bit bare I started stamping (stars, doodles, butterflies) and doodling some myself.
Now it’s starting to look like it’s finished.


Wednesday, March 2, 2016

simple and clean - WOYWW 352

I don’t mean my workdesk, simple and clean is the current challenge at The Craft Barn.
When I first read the challenge I didn’t have a clue as what to do because I usually don’t do simple and clean, especially the clean part J

After some browsing on pinterest found some ideas and set to work on some cards, usually don’t do cards either but coincidentally it turns out I am in need of some cards as there are some birthdays coming up. So how does my desk look like after creating a clean card, well not that clean I must say.


For those curious how the card turned out, here it is


We also needed to include a flower and a sentiment.

Now I still have some more ideas, but first I'm off seeing what everyone else is up to. Not familiar with WOYWW, hop on over to our wonderful host Julia at  the stamping ground.