Delight in the Little Things - VLVS!

Hey friends, it's my last post over at VLVS! I'm sharing a little ATC and Watercolor project with you in which I made this inspiration card. Be sure to check out the blog post HERE.   

I absolutely loved being a part of this fantastic team! I hope my posts there have inspired you as much as I loved making them. My term there has ended and have not reapplied because of time constraints as I am planning on doing a new studies. But will definitely be an unofficial ambassador of this wonderful stamp company as I LOVE using their stamps in my work. 

May the new year bring you beautiful delightful moments. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day. 

Pens and Ink: Favorites of 2017

Even though my pens and inks post were few and far in between this year, I still have been using and enjoying my fountain pens pretty much daily and wanted to share my top 10 faves similar to what I have done last year. It was tough to narrow it down but these made the cut. You can see most of them in action on my instagram account Present and Connected and half of them are made by small business owners and are handmade. They are not placed in a particular order,  I really enjoy using them all equally! From left to right: Momiji leafs in night sky made by 18111.com, TWSBI ECO turquoise (special edition), Mojito by Woodshed PenCo, Lecai with Twsbi stub nib, Franklin Christoph model 45 in blue pink black (special edition), Herbert Pen Company Pink seaglass, Sailor Sapporo Purple Cosmos with music nib, Pelikan M625 Ruby with BB nib and the Edison Nouveau Premiere Seaglass LE of spring 2017 (a collaboration of Goulet Pens and Edison PenCo). Let's take a closer look at them.

WIP: You Tube channel overhaul!

Hey all, hope you have had a wonderful holiday celebration with your loved ones filled with laughter and joy! I certainly had a wonderful relaxing time and took a little time off to enjoy the festivities. Now I'm doing a bunch of work behind the scenes and did a little overhaul on my YT channel. I have also uploaded a couple of video's which I have made for VLVS! earlier this year, so if you have missed them, feel free to check them out. My goal for next year is to make and upload more process video's of my work. The tricky part is to find the time to do the editing because I rather be in my art room creating than behind the computer in my spare time, you know? The goal is to have bi weekly video's on my channel and thankfully I have a few lined up. Hopefully I can get a better sort of handle on editing time that as I go on with it. If you have any tips on that it would be much appreciated!  Anyhow, I've also tried to make the thumbnails more unified and personally like the look of it. Would love feedback on it and if you are interested in seeing more of my process video's in the future, please make sure to subscribe to my channel. 

As always thanks so much for stopping by and your continued support!

Hello Sunshine, fancy a cuppa?!

Coffee is always a necessity for me and esp. so in these dark winter days. It's the fuel that helps me through the day. I've made a quirky fun mixed media card using stamps and supplies from my fave companies this year. 

The base is made with Distress Oxides, distress crayons and glimmer mist. 

Coffee cup, beans, splatter and "fancy a cuppa"  stamps from Viva Las VegaStamps!

The sentiment stamp "you and coffee are the best" and Hello Sunshine die cut from Stamplorations 

And the tuckered out person (= me pre-coffee in the morning ;) is Blackeyed from Stampotique Originals

Over at Coffee Loving Card maker's Blog there is a fun blog hop going which I am linking this project to. 

I'm also linking this to the Stamplorations Never Ending anything goes Challenge

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

SDC288 - Christmas

Hi everyone, it's only a few weeks before Christmas and this is also the theme of the last challenge of the year at Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog. And we would like to inspire you with Christmas themed projects. 

I've made the above journal page to inspire you for this challenge. I have used india ink over a pine tree stencil, let that dry and then used magenta and green ecoline inks for the background color. Then traced the stencil back over it with a white marker. Then created the scene using the following Stampotique Stamps:

Cecil

Front door Shrubbery

Terri's Alphabet

Kate's Texture cube

Flower cube

You can link up your christmas inspired makes HERE (please read the rules carefully before entering) and the challenge runs until january 2nd. We'll be back then with a new challenge theme and also some great new releases! Hope to see you playing along in the challenges in 2018 as well :) For now we wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a great start of the new year!

Also linking this up to MooMania's Christmas theme :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Mail Art Monday - In the pale Moonlight - VLVS!

It's a beautiful winter wonderland outside and it inspired me to create this Mail Art Monday envelope using a bunch of lush VLVStamps! I've got a step by step tutorial on the VLVS! blog, so take a look to see how I created it. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

WIP: Nightly watercolor practice still going strong

Working in my moleskine pocket book at night ...

As you might have read on how Exhaustipated I get during winters (esp. when you're home sick with a strange type of flue which is going around it would seem!) I also wanted to share what helps me through these dark days. And that is color therapy in the form of doing water color practices at night. By now I have a little collection of different water colors tins filled with paint handmade by lovely artisans and the familiar brands like sennelier and schmincke. In the Black Friday Sale from a few weeks ago I've also purchased a few tins from Prima marketing series: Shimmering Lights and Decadent Pies.

Prima marketing Shimmering Lights color swabs

The Shimmering lights are beautiful golden/orangey tones with a slight shimmer. They also are quite strongly pigmented so they can be used for glazing over colors as well as being used on their own. They are labeld as artist grade paints and I'm very excited about this set. The Decadent Pies however, not as much...

Stamp by Stampotique Originals, first layer of color with Prima Marketing Decadent Pies

There are some fun colors in the decadent pie set, but even though it says "artist grade" on the wrapping labels (not on the tin like on the shimmering lights!) it behaves more like student grade watercolors. Like the KOI Water Color set I had before I ripped those out of the plastic pans and filled with sennelier colors. OK, to be fair these do behave better and are more saturated in color than those KOI ones but still did not like the set as much as all the other sets I have. The set also have 4 shimmering colored pans, but no doubles from Shimmering lights. Didn't mean for this post to turn out like a mini water color review, but there you have it.

Stamps by Carabelle Studio's, DaVinci detailler brush size "2/0"

At any rate, I'm really enjoying the self-created "water color Therapy at night" routine (next to my writing meditations) which help me through these days where I am in much of need of sunshine. It's like I said to a friend "Color is like Vitamin C and works like an energy boost in dark times" and wouldn't you agree?

Sharing these watercolory desk shots over at my desky friends at Julia's blog for WOW 444 (such a magic number!) 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely week!

Exciting news- Published + Design team update

Hi friends, I've got some exciting news to share! First off, did you know that the latest issue of MixedUp Magazine is out already? Well it is and it had a bunch of wonderful tutorials including a video tutorial of yours truly :) I've altered my Traveler's notebook midori cover and show you how you can do that yourself as well! Below a little sneak peek of how it looks now

It's got a wonderful galaxy swirl now to it and I have used all sorts of DecoArts Media products to achieve this look. So head out an buy the latest copy to see this tutorial among 100 pages of other inspirational projects and galleries!

And another fun thing I would like to share on the Design Team front; I'm super happy to announce that I'm part of the Craft Stamper Magazine Take it Make it Blog Design team :) 

So very excited about this because I always love to join their challenges and see the wonderful inspirational posts the DT makes. Now it's such an honor to be a part of it :) 

Next year I'll be sharing some projects for the monthly challenges to hopefully provide you with inspiration to join in :) 

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you all are having a wonderful day!