Craftorij Summer Challenge week 8

Today is the actual LAST DAY of CZC 2016! Gosh what a what a fun and creative ride it has been! So far I should say because like I said in my last post, I still am behind with the prompts of week 9, but well, I will take my time with those and post when I can. It was at times impossible to make something each day, so I made them in batches when I had some time to play creatively. But it was such a fun journey and I'm glad I stuck with it so far.  I have the cards ready for week 8, I will share those with you now.

CZC 48 - Big, bigger, biggest

the heart

background done with distress stains and water. You can see I have been fun with my nexw stamps from from carabelle, keisercraft and viva las vegastamps

CZC 49 - depict an emotion

I chose sorrow

The background is a page where I rolled off extra paint from my brayer. On the left a leftover piece from an embossed altas page which is a bit of the ocean, stamp from Viva Las Vegastamps (I LOVE this half face stamp) and drops from Designs by Rynn. The quote is from the book Cloud Atlas written with fudenosuke brush pen. I also used a sakura gellyroll stardust pen for glitter highlights in tear drops and words.

CZC 50 - use washitape

The background is with a dylusions inks and waterspray, used a lot of masking tape and main image from VLVstamps (colored with promarkers) and rounds stamps from katzelkraft. Like so many of you, I have a collection of washi tape, but I really want, need, love it and can hardly can resist the urge to buy more.

CZC- 51 - use a text balloon

mixed media back ground on scrap book paper, first a layer of acrylic pant, gesso and oil pastels, then clear gesso through a stemcil which I colored with ecoline, Stamped over with stazon and various stamps. lady from a vintage fashion magazine.

CZC 52 - use a post-it

the strip on the bottom on the bookpage is a post it I masked something with. ink spatters done with fountain pen ink and syringe, lost coast designs and carabelle stamps. also used pearl rubs and distress crayons and a fineliner for depth.

CZC 53 - steampunk

Combination of stamper's anonymous brett weldele stamps and Viva Las vegastamps with nautical themed washitape. gears and cogs embossed black card stock which I distressed with bronze, gold and black metallic Liquitex INK. added bronze lines with an edding paintmarker.

A post on week 9 (CZC 54-61) will follow soon (hopefully next weekend) but it has been such an awesome ride so far! Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Namasté

Craftorij Summer Challenge week 7

Gosh, the end date of July 31st for this challenge is in sight and I have been in perpetual catch up more. I am sure I won't be able to finish all the cards before the deadline, but well, I will give it my best shot! Sharing the cards I have done for week 7 with you today.

CZC 41 - insects

background is made with brush and bubblewrap

Stamps by joy crafts and artemio

CZC 42 - use aluminum foil

From my soda can of San Pellegrino limonata. used distress inks and my new acrylic INKS! from Liquitex in bronze and gold.

CZC 43 - movie

I have a pathe unlimited pass and go to the movies regularly. I always keep my ticket stubs and over the years I have some pretty bad movies. Thought this quote from hitchcock was pretty fitting. movie strip stamp from lost coast designs, hitchcock from carmen's veranda, spatters from katzelkraft, alphabet stamp from studio g/pear tree.

CZC 44 - Use one word

stamps by inkadinkadoo and eline's handlettering

dylusions sprays and tombow markers

CZC 45- your fave place

my art room pictures of really old izone polaroid of my art room in various states overlayed with stickers of my own work as well as a "craft brew beer" label which I thought was fitting.

CZC 46 - use a comic/cartoon

Stamp from Brett Weldele (a comic book artist) whom designs for stampers anonymous. Colored with distress stain Wild honey, adhered on a marbled book page and spattered acrylic bronze and gold ink over it.

CZC 47 - use a picture

used one from long ago, june 20015 in chicago. A trip which I actually WON through a contest at Boom Chicago Amsterdam. It was a magical time. Stamps from carabelle and kaisercraft.

That is it for week 7. Hope to be able to post an update on week 8 and 9 soon.

Have a great weekend and Thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Pen Hack: Tinkering with TWSBI's

A few weeks ago I told you about my joy with writing with the TWSBI clear fountain pens and teal inks. When I was cleaning pens again last week I discovered a fun fact/pen hack I wanted to share with you here.

I recently pulled out the nibs from my Online Best Writer Campus Calligraphy set and I thought it looked quite similar to the nibs on the TWSBI mini and ECO. So I pulled those out from their housings too and yes, they do look the same size!

For size comparison: the online calligraphy nib flanked by TWSBI eco and mini nibs and the 0.8 width of Online is just as wide as a 1.1 width of TWSBI.

This opens up a whole set of new possibilities for my TWSBI's.

I switched the Online calligraphy nibs with the TWSBI Mini and Eco (keeping the feeds from the TWSBI pens) and it works like a charm! They write wonderfully and are less 'toothy' than the original TWSBI nibs. If you're interested in swapping out your TWSBI mini and ECO nibs you might be interested in this useful post on fountain pen network. A disclaimer: Be advised that tinkering with your pens/nibs is always at your own risk and might void your warranty at the manufacturer. That said, being able to tinker with your fountain pens makes then a lot more fun to use in my opinion :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Namasté 

Mailart Monday: Transferring and Layering

A few weeks ago I told you that I hardly ever used transparency layers on my mail art. Well I later realized that that is not exactly true. I have used a few transfer techniques in my mail art, like the packing or clear tape transfer technique. You can get some really fun and multi-layered effects when you use this technique in your (mail) art. An example below:

This piece is made on a background of laid paper (Crown Mill) and fountain pen inks drippings. Then layered with a stencil and blue-green paint. When that was all dried I took an image out of a vintage fashion magazine and adhered it. I always love the contrast of the grey-scale tones to the colorful background. The theme for this postcard was for the Handmade travel postcard at Creative Collage group on Swap-Bot so I wanted it to have more themes layers and I took a page from a vintage atlast and made the packing tape transfers. The packing tape layers are somewhat transparent so the background does shine through. Before I glued it all down with my trusty UHU gluestick, I sealed the background with some gel medium. I used a credit card type card to smoothen it all out on the page and let it dry before adding more to the card.

I used a few rubber stamps in the travel theme from Tim Holtz and Paper Artsy Electica's and stamped it on with Staz-On Jet Black. The sentiment "many years later the only place from which to begin" is also stamped with Brilliance lavender ink. I love how all the layers came together and fit into the theme. Hope this inspired you to use some packing tape transfers in your mail art as well. 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Craftorij Summer Challenge week 6

It's nearly the end of July! and I'm falling behind with my CZC posts and also prompts. The weather has been pleasant so I've been outside a lot more enjoying the sunshine. But I have made the cards for week 6 already, so I'll share those here with you today.

CZC35- use circles

I used carabelle, dylusions, inkadinkadoo and Designs by Rynn texture stamps, stamped with Staz On and colored with Lamy violet and akkerman blauw Fountainpen inks. I like how this all pops out from the page!

CZC36 - the horizon

Art specially city skyline stamp stamped with Staz on. Colored with mont blanc blue hour, diamine teal, Lamy violet and pilot red fountain pen inks. Also used Derwent artist pencil sunset gold to outline the city sky line. I wrote the quote "the horizon is an imaginary line that recedes as you approach it" by Ginnifer Goodwin which I thought was fitting.

CZC 37 - umbrella

Used one of my fave VLVstamps, the umbrella ladies, in combination with designs by Rynn drops and eline brush stamps used as ground. Made water sdrop spatters with akkerman blauw and bezuidenwoud green fountain pen inks.

CZC38 - use a tea bag

I usually drink green tea and for this theme I set some dark earl grey tea and colored some papers with it. Used a couple of tea bags and matching stamps. The girl and other stamps are colored with tombow markers.

CZC39 - create a border

Made with stamps from de Stempelwinkel (non sequitur, roaring 20s)

Also entering this for the July "anything goes" from the stempelwinkel.

CZC40- use green and yellow

I used lost coast designs sungodess stamps (I left them white for the CZC 27 black and white challenge) and for this one I colored in with green and yellow toned tombows.

Still have some prompts to catch up on week 7, but hopefully this weekend can be filled with creative productivity :)

Have a great weekend all and thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Inky Goodness: the magic of Alt Goldgrün

Recently I was going through my ink collection to ink up a new pen and I was thinking, man what is an ink I have a love for but not used in ages. Rohrer and Klingner's Alt Goldgrün was the first thought I had and I went with it. And yes, when I used it again I should make a mental note that I really, absolutely should use this ink more! In this ink spotlight I shall show you why :)

First I chose a pen to pair this ink with and I went with my Omas Arte Italiana Vision in Liquid green. It has a gorgeous juicy B nib which I knew would bring out the shading well. And I wasn't wrong.

The above pictures are excerpts from my mindfulness metta meditation journal on clairefontaine paper. This ink has some amazing shading! And also some beautiful golden sheen.

Rohrer and Klingner Alt Goldgrün on Tomoe River paper with an Omas B nib and a faber castell #6 brush.

The ink on Canson 80gms tracing paper. Look at the delicious gold flecks in the ink when it dries. So pretty! (ETA: I noticed I have written "Roher and klinger" instead of "Rohrer and klingner" on my test pages, and I realize I always said/wrote it wrong, until now! argh!! oh well, mistakes happen, ink is still pretty and y'all know which company I mean by now, right? )

Of course I also had to make some ink wash art with this ink. I used the same technique as my previous ink washed art work and chose some fitting stamps for the theme.

I chose some magical faeries from Sweet Pea stamps (sadly shop went out of business last year :( ) which I stamped with Memento cotton Ivy (which is waterproof) on 130gms smooth stamping paper and a Faber Castell #6 brush. They are ATC sized. The left fairy is done with a "dry on dry" technique and the right one a "wet on wet" technique. A close up with my new loop tool :

I found this magnificent (excuse the pun ;) presse papiére at an antique market (used for postage stamps, I guess) which enhances the view of the artwork very nicely. With the dry technique I worked from light to dark, letting each layer dry before adding more ink. You can create some awesome shading that add variation to the piece.

With this piece I kept on laying ink on wet parts and let some dry in between. You can see a lot of the gold sheen coming through in the dress where the ink was put on heavily. I also outlined the girl with non diluted ink so she would "pop out" more. 

I am entering these magical green fairies to the "Anything goes" Challenge over at Craft Stamper's July challenge. 

In conclusion: Rohrer and Klingner Alt Goldgrün definitely does deserve to be in rotation as well as used for my art works more than it has. It's in my top 10 Sheeny-shading inks as well for sure! For more in depth reviews of this ink I'll refer you to PenInkCillin , The Pen Habit for written reviews and artwork at Gouletpens blog for more close up pictures. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté 

Mailart Monday - Each day is a new opportunity

This rubber stamp from Zenspirations designed by Joanne Fink which I found at Posthumus store in Amsterdam have such wonderful positive affirmation that inspire me in making my mail art. The pieces above are a few examples I made for swaps on Swap-Bot. 
The top piece: The background is made with acrylic paint and stencils. Then added that sentiment rubber stamps from Zenspirations, the silhouette flowers from joy crafts and the circle stamps from indigo blu. I found a great picture in a vintage dutch magazine that fit the mood of the washi tape sentiment "hello shunshine" and the zenspirations stamp. 
The bottom piece is a collage made with various left over papers from my "junk paper box", stampotique and Tim Holtz stamps, and the flower overlay I made with my Making Memories slice machine. I'm loging for sunshine and this piece sorta depicts that. 
I love how these cards came together. 

Each day does bring the opportunity for a fresh start, hope you will find yours today :)

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté

Oh what a day, what a lovely day!

Over at Viva Las VegaStamps blog a new monthly challenge has begun. This time they are also pairing it with a swap hosted through their facebook group on their events page. I love trading ATC's so I definitely signed up for this one. The theme is STEAMPUNK and I let myself be inspired by words from their inspiration post like rusty, steampunk, mail art, pipes,vintage, metal,copper, gold, bronze, nickel, handles, diving, divers and more! The pictures below of the items I made is the result of the inspiration.

Stamps used Whimsical Diver from plate 1436 and the phrase "Oh what a day, what a lovely day" (from Mad Max) from plate 1473. Some really awesome stamps are all on the plate, but I wanted to put the focus on these two in my designs.

Each of my partners (and Dee from VLV store) will get a set like this.

Close up of the ATC: The background is made with distress inks Old paper, vintage photo and aged mahogany with a blending tool. Then I took this stencil from Dylusions and dabbed some more aged mahogany through it. I have masked the diver while doing this. Stamped the sentiment with Memento tuxedo black. The diver is then colored with promarkers and the piece matted on black card stock.

I then made a notecard with the same stamps. Background (yellow notecards) went through my cuttlebug with a gears and cogs embossing folder. Fter that I rubbed bronze, silver and copper pearl metallic rubs over the raised embossed parts to make it looked aged. The diver as well as the sentiment is stamped on gessoed and brusho'd kraft paper. Matted and lined with a black marker and outlined with a white gel pen. Then adhered it all with tape runners to the cards. 

I am pretty pleased with the end result! I think I might make another one to keep for myself, but hopefully my partners will like receiving this steampunk inspired set :) 

Needless to say that I am entering these for this month's challenge at VLVs Blog, so wish me luck :) You can still enter until the end of the month, so play along if you want to.

Hope this inspired you to get your steampunk hat on :)

ETA: It's totally amazing! I've been chosen as one of the July winners with this piece, huzzah!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

namasté

Pens and Ink: Vintage Lamy Studio with Kaweco Paradise Blue

Last year I shared a post on finding these vintage Lamy fountain pens named Lamy STUDIO on the barrel. And I finally got around using one of them, The mustard yellow one has an MK nib which stands for "medium kugel" which, to my pleasant surprise, writes really well! What is also a bonus is that it  takes "standard international cartridges" (it also fits a SI converter) and I put in one of my Kaweco Paradise Blue cartridges.

The steel nib writes wonderfully smooth for a 1970s/1980s school pen and has a nice wetness to it. It shows off the shading of the Kaweco Paradise Blue ink really well. It could be an excellent daily writer and with the possibility of using non proprietary Lamy cartridges makes this a very interesting pen. Note that Lamy cartridges or converters do NOT fit this pen. 

Apparently this vintage pen from Lamy can be found in two different "names" while the pen looks exactly the same. I got this info from a thread on FPN on Lamy Studio/P25 from user "dib"

"The studio was the name of the series, 25 P the article number. It is like the 27: 27 is the name, e.g. 30 / 31 or 32 the article number.

Later the 25 and 26 are called design, the 80,81 and so on profil.

I guess only the first 25 are named studio on the cap. The article number 25 P was used from the beginning, april 1969."

That is very interesting to know! More info on the Lamy P25 on FPN here and here. Also in one of the pictures there you can clearly see the P25 imprint on the barrel, while mine says studio. These are not very commonly fond anymore, so I got really lucky with that score. I have a Pink one for sale, should anyone be interested. A lot of other pens I'm letting go of are also listed there (prices are updated and I'm also accepting offers!). Thanks for having a look. 

Have a great day!

namasté 

Craftorij Summer Challenge week 5

Still going strong with the CZC/index card a day challenge! It's half way through and I'm really enjoying this year's prompts a lot :)

CZC 29 - Use an ambigram (word you can also read upside down) or palindrome (word which reads the same backward and forward)

I chose to depict the palindrome "madame" for this one. Made it with a large Gibson Women background stamp from Lost Coast Designs. The flourishes, flower and font stamps are from Technique Tuesday "Start me up Broadway" font set. I used distress and memento inks in various purple tones and a round blending tool.

CZC 30 - paint with your fingers

Used paint (yes with my fingers!) on a book page and combined stamps from carabelle The bookpage have  the words "de regen"on them and made that the focus for this piece. "Van de regen in de drup" is a Dutch saying means the same as the English saying "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". Funny how one langues uses the water analogy and the other a fire one for the same meaning!

CZC 31 - use water drops

I made the previous card (30) with water drops without knowing the theme for this day's challenge! But this is a good excuse to use Designs by Rynn waterdrops in combination with eye stamps from Hampton arts. The moth and nose is also from Hampton but has a border around it which I didn't ink. The back ground is made with Tombow markers and the blending tool mister. I also added some glaze accents on the drops. The eyes and moth is also colored with tombows.

CZC 32 is Lyrics themed and I used the Star Man collage  from Mailart Monday of last week for. But I also made another card because I got inspired by the Cherry Blossom stamp set I recently got. Colored (including the back ground) with Tombow markers. Lyrics are from the song Cherry Blossom by Paolo Nutini.

CZC 33 - emoticons

Well I am really not a fan of those standard round emoticons (as many whom are partaking in this challenge with me) but I thought I would use the word 'emote' as vocal point for this theme. This background stamp with faces from Stampotique surely does emote a numb state of being. The dude with the Bowtie is also from that line of stamps. I used memento ans staz-on ink pads. Everything is colored with Letraset Promarkers. (yeah it could also be considered for the Lyrics assignment as it's a U2 song :)

CZC 34 - use everything except black

Seeing I love color, this one was not a hard challenge for me. This was a really FUN challenge :) I sprayed a white glassine gift bag with 4 colors of dylusions ink and that was my base. Cut and pasted it to the index card and stamped the moth from paper Artsy Hot Picks on it. Colored the woman from Viva Las VegaStamps on sticker paper and combined Eline's handlettering stamps with Carabelle daily stamps. A reminder to myself to be courageous every single day.

And with this I am concluding this weeks' CZC update.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful (courageous) day!

Namasté