Why?

I think that's a question a lot of us ask when hearing about the tragedy of flight 9525 of Germanwings.
I tried to create a serene page in remembrance of those unfortunate people.
I sprayed Dylusions in different hues of blues and purples and spritzed water on top which reacts with the ink

Added some white paint splatters (very addictive and always difficult to stop)

Added gold star stickers, each for one of the lives lost and the question why (I might have found a good opaque white pen, a simple correctionfluid pen)

I'm just in time to enter this week's Craft Barn challenge where the prompt was to create an interesting background using either inks, paints or brusho's.

K3 & eclipse

I made 2 new pages in my ARTicles book.
The first one is about a Flemish band called K3 who announced last week that they were quitting after 17 years, it’s not that I’m a fan or so, their public are mainly kids, but still I wanted to include it in my book.

I started by collaging blocks of patterned paper on which I wrote some of their hits 

I took out my sewing machine to add some real stitches. (although the sewing machine is still not my best friend) I must say it went a lot smoother then last time, even changing the color of thread, I know the sewing is not up to scratch, but only practice will get me better, no?

Then I applied a light coat of gesso and divided the empty space in equal lines to add my rainbow colors (inspired on one of their outfits), the color was added using inktense pencils.

I added some music notes to the rainbow and finally stenciled a woman’s face 3 times, one in each color of their hair (they were known for that: there was one blond, black and ginger)

The second page is about the partial eclipse we could see here past friday, this is my interpretation:

I started with adding blue acrylic paint with a credit card as background.

I wanted to add some interest and texture with a paper napkin, but when I thorn it and laid it down it reminded me of a city, exactly what I wanted to create next with gelli prints. No need for that anymore.

I stamped birds onto gelli prints and cut them out.

I wasn’t able to catch the beauty of the sun however.

In fact I’m not that sure about this whole page, maybe I still change it. 
What do you think?
And do you want to join in the fun of journaling about everyday life?? Hop on over here

Flower

This week the challenge over at the Craft Barn is to make something flowery.All the details can be found here.

This is what I came up with

I started by selecting 3 sheets of patterned paper to make the flower for which I found a template here.

These dictated me the background color for my spread in my newspaper journal, I used a fuchia inktense pencil. Did some stamping on top with a heart script (which I also used on the inside cover of the journal) in black stazon and some diamonds in a green shade.

Next I stenciled the face, gave her red lips and green eyes and added this flower in her hair.

The flower didn't turn out like the example, but that's okay, I distressed the edges with walnut DI and added a gem in the center.

The border got another color of inktense, a mauve one this time and I stenciled some flourishes in white acrylic paint.

Have a nice, creative weekend all.

St Patrick's day

Happy St Patrick’s day

I am not Irish and where I live we do not celebrate St Patrick’s day, but every year I’m surprised how green everything turns where people do celebrate. I saw a picture this weekend of Chicago and how they even turned the river green and was immediately inspired to make a spread about it in my ARTicles book.

I wrote down the words that came to mind when I think about St Patrick’s day: green (off course), lepicorns, gold, rainbows and clovers.

With these words in mind I got to work. Painted my page lime green , I was surprised on how glossy this paint is, can’t stop touching the page J. Added some stenciling in another shade of green (something else then all the shades of grey you see these days lol)

 

Then I made all my elements: I cut a wizard in 3D, okay it is not exactly a lepricorn, but I found him cute and the purple fitted the green very well. A pot filled with gold: the pot is cut out of cardboard, painted black and sprinkled black embossing powder in it while the paint was still wet, the golden coins are punched with my small circle punch out of a gold metallic sheet which I ran through my embossing machine first to give them a bit of texture. The clovers are cut out of a sheet of green paper, sprayed some adhesive on it and sprinkled with green glitters, just love them

I painted a rainbow coming out of the pot, or actually it ends in the pot isn’t it? And glued down all my elements. Added an Irish quote in the rainbow saying:

May your troubles be less and your blessings be more and nothing but happiness come through your door.

You see, it doesn’t always have to be gloom and horror in my ARTicles book, it becomes whatever you want it to be, you can make a book with all the festivities in a year,…

Want to join me over on FB?

newspaper junk journal

The inner pages of this truly “junk” journal are made out of newspaper and the cover was a cereal box in a previous life.

I started by gluing 3 newspaper pages together to give them some sturdiness and let them dry on a washing line

Whipped up a batch of homemade gesso with following ingredients: white paint, glue and gypsum powder.Gessoed all the pages and cover, couldn’t hang this on the line because the pins would make marks (although this could be interesting too), so laid a couple of large plastic bags on the floor and laid them there until dry.

This gesso is really gritty, next time I will substitute the gypsum powder with some baby powder and see how that turns out.

I made 5 signatures of each 2 pages, I cut them to 25x18cm to fit in the cover.

I decorated the cover as followed: painted it in metallic colors and stamped some text randomly 

glued some tissuepaper on top which I stamped all over with butterflies.

I reinforced the border with some ordinary purple masking tape which on the outside was beautified with a flower stamp.

On the inside I collaged some vintage styled scraps, gave it a whitewash and stamped this heart shaped text. 

I wanted to add some beads to the binding and tried to make my own for the first time, watched some tutorials and got to work. I love how you can turn paper (scraps of paper in fact) in sturdy, wonderfully patterned beads. It was time consuming though but worth it in the end

I used a 3 hole pamphlet stitch to bind the 5 signatures, adding the beads on the outside. 

Really like the end result.  The only thing I find a little annoying is the space between the signatures on the inside binding, between 2 signatures you can see the cover. Maybe I should make the spacing between the signatures smaller? But I measure the spine and evenly divide that, otherwise it would look odd on the outside, no?  Is this something you always have with this binding? Maybe it disappears when you add to your pages?

Simple Birthday Card

While rummaging through all of my scraps I found these backgrounds made on photo paper way back.

Perfect as a base for some cards. I used an orange one, I believe it is red and orange DI blended on glossy photo card with a blending tool.

Added a stamped butterfly and the sentiment Happy Birthday.

Glued it on a card base and finished.

Simple, but effective and beautiful.
Now on to the rest.

March

The 2 prompts for this month’s calendar challenge over at The Craft Barn are: yellow and rabbit.

I came to the strange observation that although I adore rabbits I apparently don't have anything in my stash, except for a small rubber stamp and some napkins.

I started out with this paper collage which I cut from a larger sheet I’ve been working on this past week.

  

 I’ve been clearing out my scrap papers, I keep them in boxes like this 

For when the right project comes along, but it just keeps growing instead of used so I decided to use all those bobs and pieces and glue them down on a large sheet of paper.

I just used a large sheet of drawing paper, nothing fancy and not that thick, I thought all those layers of paper would add strength anyway.

Here are some pictures of the collage in progress

 It was so much fun doing, just grabbing, gluing and no thinking.

After I cut my piece I painted half in yellow and the other half green with an old credit card.In the grass I stamped some wire (like a fence for the rabbit’s cage) and in the yellow sky some circles.On the bottom I added a border of paws.

I stamped the doodled sun on a piece of the collagesheet and cut it out, isn’t it amazing.

All I needed to do now was cut out my rabbit out of the napkin, glue him down and I added some Fun Flock from Stampendous in the color cinemon toast. I have had this for years in my stash but never seem to have used it before.

refugee

According to Amnesty’s international annual report of 2014 there are more than 50 million refugees and the world's politicians have miserably failed to protect those people in great need. Instead of putting time, effort, energy and money in helping those people, all these resources have in fact been used for the opposite, closing the borders and making sure no refugee can enter. Reading this makes me feel rather ashamed, the story hit me and I needed to give it a place in my ARTicles book.

I started out with a collage of a roadmap

Unifying it with gesso which I brayered on

Colored it with some yellow gel sticks and grunging it up with yet another bit of gesso

Then I made a barb wire stencil and used it to create a pattern, Amnesty International has barb wire in his logo and we also place refugees behind barb wire.

Next I added a wall with texture paste through my brick stencil

colored them red with a gel stick, added a butterfly image from a napkin on which I stamped text and made sun rays to add my quote: everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself.

Here are some detail pictures

If you are interested to join me on an ARTicles journey, hop on over to my fb page and join in the fun.

butterflies and flowers

Prompt#59 = butterflies and flowers.

I sprayed some Dylusions on my card and let it sit like that to dry, I like how it formed an edge.

I used a stencil and a damp baby wipe to create a subtle depth.

Added this script stamp, which is just so fine and detailed.

And glued down some pieces laying around on my desk: a piece of that trellis die and a butterfly I had over from a previous project.

I wanted to add some roses on the trellis so I used some crepe paper for this.

Not sure about the end result yet, was even doubting whether to post this one.