SDC291 - Hearts!

It's Wednesday and time for a new challenge over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog. February is around the corner and we would like to inspire your Valentine's Day Crafts with this fortnight's theme of HEARTS. I took a little departure from my usual makes which are usually non 3D and inspired by Finnabair's mixed media products and YT channel I made these decorative heart hangers. It's the first time I actually used 3D metal embellishments in this way and I definitely did enjoy the process (though it did take quite some time to make!)

A friend of mine sent me these wooden heart hangers for Christmas, for in the tree, but we never have a tree then, so I decided to repaint them for this challenge. I sanded and gessoed the wooden hearts to start off. Then I created the grooves in the heart by scraping some flexible modeling paste over it and then stamp the texture from the texture cube in them and let it dry thoroughly. Then painted it with Liquitex Paints in deep red colors as a base coat. For the top coat I used Finnabair Metallique red which gives it a nice shine and shimmer. I dry brushed matte black paint over the raised parts to show the texture more and highlighted them with Finnabair Dragon's Eye which is a high golden spark acrylic paint which you only need a little bit of to create some amazing highlights. When that was off to dry I picked out some embellishments and colored some vintage lace with Lindy's Sprays and ripped them to add to the texture.

While I was gluing everything down with 3D gel from Finnabair, which holds strong when dried but is flexible when wet, I added some glitter elements over a few glued aria's for some extra interest.

All these metal embellishments I received from a friend in a swap and I recently found them in a box I kept all these interesting brads and findings in. It felt good to actually use them in this project! Now I wonder if I can find those mini Dragonfly brads for sale somewhere as they are so gorgeous!

These heart hangers are now ready to be hung on the wall as art!

Items used: 

Stampotique stamps: Kate's Texture cube (in the modeling paste over the heart) and When your heart speaks quote stamp Finnabair mixed media: Metallique red,  Sparks Dragon's Eye, 3D Matte gel Liquitex: White Gesso, flexible molding paste, primary red, muted pink, matte black paints; Lindy's sprays, vintage lace, 3d metal embellishments, hemp twine and wooden beads

Hope this inspires you to get your valentines day crafts on and make projects with hearts in them. Please read the rules on the blog HERE and you'll find the linky page to link your project to. 

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

Art Journal Page: In Neutral (+ Process Video)

This weekend I finally had the urge to make a collage work again and I also filmed the process. This piece is made with vintage ephemera and neutral colors, as inspired by Our Mixed Media Moods mood board of January 2018, put together by DeeDee Catron and Jenn Engle.

Isn't this mood board just amazing?! I absolutely love the color scheme and I have collected a lot of vintage ephemera over the years that fits wonderfully in this theme. I also love all the layering and adding transparencies into the piece. I was mostly inspired by the bottom two right images with layering and color tone, so that is what I used as a inspiration start up point for my project.

At a thrift market I also found an envelope full with slides and negatives and I used one of them in this project. I've sandwiched a piece of type written paper in it so that you can see that through the negative. I also used Tim Holtz silhouette flower dies cut in tracing paper to add some interest.

Of course I also had to add some vintage postage stamps to the piece! You can see the whole process below in the video.

By the way the lyrics I scribbled down are from a song from the new album of PINK, which I am continuously listening to these days. 

Items used: 

distress stains in colors: vintage photo, tea dye, wild honey, antique linen, 

Metallic copper and brass. 

Script stamp from Joy Crafts

face stamp from Carabelle Studio's

Staz-on Stone Grey ink

Memento mocha 

Silhouette flowers die cut 

matte medium 

uhu glue stick 

black embroidery floss 

crafter's companion tape roller 

LOTS of vintage emphemera

I'm also entering this piece in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Layer it up

Thanks so much for stopping by and watching the video. As always your support is hugely appreciated, so if you liked the video, please let me know by pressing like on YT and perhaps subscribe to my channel if you want to stay updated on my process video's. 

Thanks again and have a wonderful day!

Someone has to clap when I go by

It's been a busy week and I have been trying to fit in some creative time in between studies, work and other responsibilities. I do often grab for my WaterColoringBook when I want some color therapy and this is one of the pages I made recently.

The composition is made with stamps from VLVS! and I have used a lot of watercolors from Wanderlust Watercolors by my friend Kata. She does small batch updates and I bought a few LE sets from her last last year and am excited to be finally using them! This is the first layer of color and excuse the lighting, these were taken under the harsh desk light, but you can see some sparkle of one of my fave colors Winter Frost. I mixed it lightly with Cypruss green for outside the bell jar. I really love the shimmer!

To finish the page I added the text "We all can't be princesses, someone has to clap when I go by." and added some texture with the bubble wrap stamp. I really love how the page turned out and I lve the fact I can'just grab my watercolor pocket book and pocket tins and just color when I really need it. 

Stamps used from VLVS! are: 

Girl with Wings 

Bell Jar 

We can't all be Princesses... 

Bubblewrap Texture 

Playing along with January's challenge at VLVS! Isn't this mood board just gorgeous? 

And you still have time to join the fun as well :)  

Also entering:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Layers

Try it on Tuesday - Fire and Ice (love this theme!!) 

HLS- january watercolor challenge

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

Art Journal: Silently Correcting Your Grammar

Have a fun and quirky art journal page to share with you today. Using one of my fave VLVS! quote stamps in combination with collage elements from vintage en fountain pen magazines.

The background was an experiment with various textures and Tim Holtz Distress paints. I've also used the a ledger and script stencil from The Crafter's workshop. I kept layering and removing pants with a baby wipe to get a distressed and aged paper look.

Created some shadows with distress crayons and added some text and postage stamping plus white and gold spatters before adhering the collage images on top.

Detail close up. I also love that the vintage magazine image also has some grainy texture to it.

Definitely love how this whole page came together!

I'd like to enter this art journal page in the following challenges: 

Stamplorations January MixedMedia challenge

Try it on Tuesday - My favorite things 

I love creating art journal pages and experimenting with back ground techniques.  

Art Journal Journey - New Year, New Adventures

Well in the theme of writing and doing something new I have started a new studies this year through Coursera online studies which is an adventure! I get to use my fountain pens even more regularly now :) 

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

Craft Stamper TIMI - January Challenge Inspiration

Hi everyone, super excited to share my first project as DT member for Craft Stamper's TIMI Challenge Blog  :)  The challenges are always anything goes and the only rule is that you have to incorporate stamping in your project somehow. Super easy and fun, right? I've made the above art journal page in my pocket journal. Let me share with you how I made it.

I took a piece of scrap book paper on which I already had applied some texture paste through a stencil. Then applied some color to it with iridescent shimmer paints which I home made with Glazing medium and Finnabair Mica in pink and blue. When that was dry I poured over some black acrylic paint and glaze and wiped it off with a baby wipe to create the shadow effect.

Then stamped various stamps in the background for more texture. The stamps used are from paper Artsy and Stamplorations.

How the background looks with the stamping on it.

Decided on the focal point being the middle gibson girl (from Lost Coast Designs) and the sentiment you are beautiful (from Viva Las VegaStamps!) The right I colored in with alcohol markers and cut out the middle face. The left is stamped on tissue paper and adhered with soft matte gel.

When this dried I cut the page to size for my pocket journal and adhered the colored face.

I added more stamping over the tissue paper and a bit more paint to blend the composition together. I love how she emerges from the misty crowd. 

Hope this inspired you to play along with this month's challenge. You can win some fabulous prizes from Visible Image this month and a winners' profile feature on the Craft Stamper blog and magazine! Read the details and find the linky page HERE.   

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

SDC289 - Swapperoo!

It's the second week of the challenge "swapperoo" at our Stampotique Designer's challenge blog and I love the theme and it's always fun to make some quirky images with swapping bits and bobs off other stamps. So I've made the above ATC to inspire you and a reminder I've put on the fridge to altert certain people I need my coffee first, LOL :D

I've used Harry Heart's body, a part of Blackeyed face and Cocoa Bird's coffee mug. And the saying "I'll Love you more after Coffee" is from this phrases cube. The background is a gelli print and so is the paper the text is stamped on. 

Why don't you join our challenge? Some prizes are to be won at every end of the month and maybe you could be one of the winners for a gift certificate for the Stampotique Store :) (Do read the rules before adding your link!)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Tree Swing (Stampotique new release january 2018)

Today I have another fun new release from Stampotique Originals to show you and that is this wonderful design by Jill Penney called Tree Swing. Isn't he adorable? I've also used another quote from this great new Quote stamp block as well as my fave texture stamp from Kate Crane and the gorgeous Hive Flowers by Arwen McCullen.

I have to say that I really enjoy working in my home made "watercoloring" book! The Moleskine pocket water color book is such a wonderful size for a daily "coloring fix" and the paper is quite forgiving too! Here I experimented on a page I have already worked on as a test with masking fluid, which failed sadly, but I worked over it with more color and it gave the background a nice texture. Without warping or damaging the paper. So it can really take a lot of wet medium! 

I also absolutely LOVE how pigmented Jane Davenport Brights set are (which I mainly used for this and added accents with Prima Shimmering Lights) and how boldly they pop off the page! Glad a got the sets last year :) 

Anyhow, check out the new releases this month HERE, our new challenge is online HERE and you can link up for that HERE (please do read the rules before linking up!) 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Friends are like stars (Stampotique New releases January 2018)

First of all wishing you all a wonderful creative and fantastic 2018! Hope you all had a fantastic NYE celebration! Made this above card for the Stampotique Originals Facebook Group and thought I'd share it here too :) January 1st also means new release day at Stampotique and I've got a fun project to share with you with a few of the new release stamps.

I've created a galaxy night sky with my watercolors in my watercoloring book with these super fun Cactus row stamp by Kira Nichols. And the quote is a wonderful one too which is from this quote #2 stamps set.

"Good friends are like stars, you might not always see them, but you know they are always there. " 

That is absolutely true, wouldn't you agree? Check out more of Stampotique's new releases this month HERE and visit our Designer's Challenge blog tomorrow where a new challenge will be announced! 

I'll be showcasing more new release stamps this week, so stay tuned for that! 

As always, thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful start of the new year!