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.

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

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

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.

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 it’s this month’s theme over at the Let’s play challenge.

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!

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.

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.

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.