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. 

circles and flowers

This is my entry for this weeks challenge over at the Craft Barn (all details can be found here)








I started by shaking some yellow brusho powder on my page, spritzing it with some water and using a sponge brush to color the page
















Next I spritzed some darker colors (purple, marine blue and black) and hit it with some water.


















Initially I intended to color circles from a stencil, instead I just outlined them with different colors of pens.
















Next I used my favorite background stamp set and stamped all over the page in a very precise manner (not) 
















That was the circle part done, now for the flower part I glued down a whole bunch of flowers on the left side of the page (you could imagine that these are part of a very large circle)








And what is a flower, or a page, without some butterflies,wright?

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.

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?