Seinfestijn and Hand lettering workshop

Last Sunday we went to a great little festival at the Seinfestijn (which was held at the SeinWezen in Haarlem, a very cool old building from the train station now re-purposed for creative and fun stuff like this!) where there was a mini crafty market and the Papier Atelier with mini-workshops organized by Monique from the Happy Makers Blog. Yes everything was mini, but I totally loved it, it had such an intimate and crafty vibe. Was busy as hell though!

I saw on the HMB she was organizing the papier Atelier with a hand lettering workshop given by Poppy Red Design and to get my creativity flowing again I really wanted to join in. Though the workshop in the afternoon was fully booked, I was really happy they added an extra workshop for 12:30 -13:45 so I jumped right on it and signed both me and my hubs up for the mini workshop. It was sooo much fun! It was great to practice with different fonts and techniques.

 

The idea was to write/draw a quote on A5 sturdy water color paper, fist pencil it in and then out-lining, filling out with a dip pen and India ink. My quote is from a part of a poem by Emily Dickinson 'Forever is composed of nows' 

(co-incidentally it's Poetry month this month!)

Well the 1,5 hours just flew by as by the end of the workshop I had only penciled the quote in. Erasing and realigning, I'm such a nit pick when it comes to layout.

But this was the product I took home. And I finished it off as I fortunately have dip nibs and India Ink at home.

You really need a steady hand to create such sharp outlines!

 

This is the finished product all set in black ink. I added Emily's name on the bottom and then let it dry for a few hours. The scariest thing was to erase all the penciled in lines. But thankfully that went well.

 

The piece on the right is made by my husband, he used 'Don't panic' from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. He has a few more things he penciled in to outline but I really love how we chose 2 very different styles of lettering. When he is finished with his piece I'll show the end result.

So thanks again Monique and Birgit for the super fun workshop!

Thanks for stopping by!

namaste

Printemps Lily - Lost Coast Designs Monthly Challenge

The sun is starting to give some warmth, the skies are clearer, the flowers are blooming and birds are sounding happier... could it be that spring is finally here? 

It is just in time for the monthly challenge at Lost Coasters Reviewers blog, as this month's theme is spring.  I made a card which I called 'Printemps Lily'.

Printemps is the French word for spring. 

The stamp I used here is Lily from the art nouveau / art deco section at Lost Coast Designs. This theme just really fits her, I think. I colored her in with pro-markers and matted the piece a while back (you can see that whole process here). Recently I was cleaning up a section of my craft room, I found this piece again and felt I should really make something with it. The result is the card you see here. Things I added are prima flowers with pearl drop accents, negative butterfly in green scrapbook paper, accented the sided of the matted piece with green pearl rub and added the sentiment stamp 

'The nature of this flower is to BLOOM' 

which is by the Octopode Factory. 

This sentiment fits right with the feel of Lily I was going for here.

Show is your springtime zest and join us with this Monthly Challenge at Lost Coasters Reviewers. Read the rules on how you can win a 10$ gift certificate to spend on Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda by participating in the challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

namaste

La Mal du Pays

I recently finished reading Murakami's The colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of Pilgrimage a beautiful hardback copy which I received as a birthday gift from my wonderful colleagues (they know me so well! Last year they got me 1Q84 which I absolutely loved). What a wonderful book. I am smitten with Murakami's writing. It's like magic, the world he creates within these pages. And I am also thankful for the translators who capture and convey the feeling so well in another language (I read in English mostly). One phrase from this book really struck a chord with me because it phrased exactly what I had been feeling for a while now, but could not capture into words.

'La Mal du Pays' which translates from French as 'melancholy' or 'homesickness' roughly, though it is deeper, as explained in the book. This feeling has been resonating in me, quietly but surely, and growing stronger. I found the need to visit the neighborhood I grew up in more frequently these past few months. And a deeper feeling of homesickness had arisen, each time I visited I wanted to go back as soon as I could. Being there was immensely sad, yet very comforting at the same time. The home I grew up in is no longer there. Well, the apartment I grew up in is there, but all sense of 'home' is more or less gone. I miss her, my mother. So odd to think she has been gone from my life for nearly 9 years now. I suppose La Mal du Pays resonates that groundless sadness in my heart called forth by maternal absence in my pastoral landscape. Being in the neighborhood where she and I spent so much time together, resonates that sentiment within me.

 A pilgrimage is something we all must undertake at some point. The journey I have been making in these recent months might be considered as such. And I'm not sure where it's going to lead me. Murakami's books are comforting in a way, as open endings leave room for endless possibilities...

namaste

A Game of Bingo - a Lost Coast Design blogpost

From march 11th to 30th we had a 50 shades of green bloghop at Lost Coaster's review. It was a lot of fun and a lot of great entries were submitted. Check out the winner!!! I had a lot of fun digging out all my green supplies for this project and make that mail art piece I showed a few weeks earlier. I ended up making the above mail art piece as well, and because it technically wasn't all green I didn't submit it to the bloghop. But I wanted to share with you how I made this piece of mail art anyhow. So hop on over to my 'A game of bingo' blog on Lost Coaster's review (which is my first contribution to the blog) to read what elements I used to make this mail art piece.

Thanks for stopping by :) 

namaste