Mail Art Monday - Celebrate!

Hi friends, hope you all had an amazing weekend and a wonderful fathers day yesterday. It's monday so I have another fun project to share for this week's Mail Art Monday. It's a postcard from my Scrap Collage master board series. So this piece is cut from that huge master board  which I showed you a while back. This is piece 5 I think... I have been working on many at the same time so I lost track of how many pieces I made already. Anyhow, this one I had not added much to except for some color and stars. I used some white gesso over the card leaving out the Lady (which is from Carmen's Veranda) and then added some color with Marubu watersoluble crayons. I then took a yellow sharpie and scribbled in some starry texture with a STAMPlorations stencil (which I won from last month's challenge, yay!), then added some star sticker, spatters with white gesso and a black border with a Krink Marker. Love how the image of the woman just pops out. 

I would like to enter this in the following challenges 

LCD challenge for this month of the theme Postcards (super fun challenge and very easy, so join in the fun :) 

Have an awesome Monday and thanks so much for stopping by!

MailART Monday: Bee Happy

A little ode to the bees on today's MailART Monday with stamps all from Lost Coast Designs. I made a little notecard and ATC for a swap over at Art Chicks Studio facebook group.

The ATC swap was centered on a resist technique and I stamped the doodles circle in opaque white colorbox ink, heat set and colored the card with distress ink and a blending tool. A classic resist technique. The bees are stamped over the card, wings glazed with crystal lacquer and added some color to the body. Stamped the dictionary words on it randomly and sprayed some mica sprays over it. The outline is tarnishes brass distress stains and matted on black card stock. Simple yet very effective :)

The little card was done the same way with addition to "Bee Happy" letter stamping.

The yellow and blue colors make me very happy! A hint of spring time to come :)

Stamps used from LCD:

Doodle circle background 

the bee and dictionary is from Bugz set

Other materials:

Technique tuesday broadway alphabet set

Hema alphabet set

Distress inks mustard yellow, peacock feathers and tumbled glass

tombow markers

colorbox white ink

crystal glaze

distress stain tarnished brass

Ranger mica spray lapis, honey and corn flower

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Mini Art Journal: Kiss

Last week I showed you some work in progress pieces of my experimentation's with The Crafter's Workshop Gold Gesso and I've taken the Klimt image to work on for an Art journal spread.

The Gold Gesso was a base on the Klimt print on which I have applied some metallic rub-ons with my fingers. The gesso provides a smooth surface on which the metallic paste just glides over. I have used some purple, green and red colors. The gold outline of the rectangles are still clearly visible and that gives it a fun effect. The Open Rose is a rubberstamp from Carmen's Veranda, which I stamped with memento black on sticker paper, colored with Letraset Pro markers and cut out.

I cut the page to size and glued it to my art journal and added the rose to it. Then got some vellum and stamped some lyrics from a Prince song this image reminded me of; "All I want is your extra time and your.....KISS"
(eta: yeah I know it's "I just" instead of "all I" but I glued it in before I realized the mistake... oh well, it's all part of the process ;)

I stamped the hand carved heart stamp a few times for the fun of it and cut and outlined the lyrics and this is what the finished spread looks like :) It's something fun and different and I definitely liked how the rub-ons work on gold gesso. Definitely going to experiment with that more. Also Carmen's Veranda has a this Klimt Kiss as a stamp and see what I made with that over here. 

And to ring in the weekend fun, let's all sing along to  - Kiss - from Prince :) 

Thank you for stopping by and have a great weekend :)

namasté

Mailart Monday: a ghostly halloween

It's october 31st and that means it's finally Halloween. I made the above postcard for a fun swap, the blue ghost postcard exchange hosted by my friend Amanda at Letter Letter. The objective is to send and receive a handful of postcards to your assigned group of penpals with the message written with blue ghost ink (see a great review of the ink here by S.J Mills). So it's readable with UV light only! It's super fun and I have participated in the last couple of years too.

I chose Edgar Allen Poe as focus and made the card with stamps from Lost Coast Designs, Carmen's Veranda and the Stempelwinkel. The background is made with the large grunge border stamps, stamped with opaque white and versamark. I only embossed the middle part and left the rest white. I then got some distress stains in orange and purple on my craft sheet and blotted the ink with the stamped paper.

It came out looking like this! I cut the page to size and added the rest of the elements to it and made accents with grey and black distress markers.

I blotted the rest of the ink off a separate paper and made the postcards above. I sprayed the a bit of red brusho mix and together with the drops from Designs by Ryn they look awesome ghostly (the double print also does the trick of a ghostly image!) I hope my partners will enjoy these postcards and I can't wait to receive mine!

I am entering these cards for the mixed media monthly challenge for october with the Halloween theme

 

Have a wonderful Halloween everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mailart Monday: The Traveler In You

In a few weeks I'll be traveling abroad and I have the "travel bug" in me, counting the days until we hop on the plane and fly off to our destination. In this mailart monday I have made a card combining the Travel Quotes from Lost Coast Designs and that beautiful image of Frida Kahlo from Carmen's Veranda. I stamped those on a marbled bookpage with memento tuxedo black and cut them out. The base of the card is made with stamping the doodle circles background stamp with white pigmented ink from dovecraft on white Neenah Classic Crest paper and heat setting it. Then I took my blending tool and peacock feathers, tumbled glass and peeled paint distress ink pads colored the background. The heat setting of the white pigment ink acted as a resist and the circle doodles showed through nicely.

The background needed a bit more interest, so I took one of the grunge border stamps from Loast Coast Designs and stamped a part of the text with StazOn dove grey and stone grey. I cut the text into strips and then decided on the placement.

I adhered the text and Frida image to the background and outlined it with the faber castell pitt marker. With the grey distress crayon I made some shadows on the bottom near her feet and blended it, so she looks more grounded to the card.

Lastly I created a border with the stitching lines from VLV and adhered the piece to a double sided card and is ready to be mailed out. I can't wait for my next travels to unveil a new light within me :)

Have a great day and thank you for stopping by!

namasté

Mailart Monday: Masterboard Giveaway reminder

A reminder that you can still enter to win one of the below Masterboard Mailart Inspiration cards in the mail. Just go to this blogpost, leave a comment and your name will be entered.

Edgar Allen Poe

Salvador Dali

Next Monday I will announce the winners :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Namasté

Craftorij Summer Challenge week 9 (the last batch)

I can honestly say that I really surprised myself and managed to finish the cards last weekend (even though I was pretty ill with a throat infection/flue type and could do much creative work at all last week!) The last prompts had a few tough ones for me because I couldn't come up with a lot of different stuff. But well I did my best and that is all you can do, right? So here they are, the last prompts of the CZC 2016:

CZC54-Use a selfmade stencil

The flower is a stencil I made with the MM Slice. Bakcground is made with various distress stains and designs by Rynn Texture stamps. The floral silhouette woman is from Lost coast Designs. I stamped her onto a separate paper and adhered her to the piece. Traced with a fineliner to make her more pronounced.

CZC55 - your hero/person you admire

for me that is Vincent Van Gogh.

You can read how I created this piece in my previous Mailart Monday (also do not forget the giveaway!!)

CZC56 use watercolor paint - version 1

CZC56 use watercolor paint

I used a large stamp and painted over with gouache/aqruarelle paint and stamped it on the card stock. Then I painted more/different colors to finish the piece. Version 2

CZC57 Hands

was not too inspired for this one, but LCD has some great images I wanted to use.

an ink spatted background on which I stamped carabelle and katzelkraft stamps. The hand images are from Lost Coast Designs and I stamped them on sticker paper, colored, cut and adhered them to the piece.

CZC58 Reflection

Another stencil I made with the MM Slice. The background is made with various purple distress stains and I spattered white acrylic paint over it. Then I used the stencil and dark purple memento ink and a distress tool to sponge the ink through the stencil. Looks like portraits of galaxies. This might be one of my fave pieces I have done in the challenge.

CZC59 - Use a transfer technique

I used two: the gel transfer of the image in the middle and the gelli plate packing tape transfer on the borders. I adhered it all to a marbled bookpage. stamps from VLVs and Studio Light.

CZC60

Stamps from joy crafts and katzetkraft

colored with tombows, distress stains, promarkers and distress crayons.

CZC61 - make something in 15 minutes

I created with ink wash with stencils, india ink and ecoline (magic ink tutorial on youtube!)

And it's indeed time to unwind as this is the last piece of the CZC 2016 challenge!

What a ride it has been! This is what the whole stack looks like in hand (minus a few which I already mailed out):

And you can flip through the album below to few all the cards I made

On to next year's challenge I say :)

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Namasté

Mailart Monday: Masterboard Inspiration (+giveaway!)

Last week I showed you a group shot of outgoing mail and I wanted to show you a closer look of the Masterboard Inspiration cards I made for this swap on swapbot.

First let me answer "what is a masterboard?" I think Ann in this blogpost on Wonderstange says it best "a masterboard is a great big multi-layered background that you cut up to make smaller pieces: postcards (4″x6″), ATCs (3.5″x2.5″), inchies (1″x1″), chunkies (4″x4″), and other forms of mailart with fun names." And that is exactly what I did when making the cards below.

I took an A4 page which was already party covered in ink residue and stamped with large back ground stamps, layered with stencils and paint and then cut them up into 4 pieces. I chose to pair the portrait stamps from Carmen's Veranda with Lost Coast Designs dictionary words and create 4 inspiration mail art cards. I stamped them all with Staz-On black but it wasn't black enough for my liking, so I traced the images with a sharpie to make it more pronounced black.

In the end I also spattered some liquid acrylics in gold, bronze, silver metallic and white onto the cards to make it more interesting. What I love about masterboards is that you cam make a lot of cards in a small amount of time.

The bottom two already were mailed out for the swap, but the top two I still have available and I decided to do a fun giveaway for them. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll pick two entries and mail out one card to each. I will pick the winners on Monday 22nd so in 2 weeks from now. If you have a preference of Poe or Dali, let me know that in the comments to and I might just grant your request :) 

Hope this inspired you to create some master board mail art cards yourself.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

namasté

Mailart Monday: summer time mail

It's the heart of summer and things are slowing down everywhere. So will my mail output and updates on the blog. Usually we're in Sweden at this point, but this year we're actually staying in the country. We're going to spend more day trips to the beach and just enjoy some time off locally. Recommendation for art makers out there: if you haven't listened to these podcasts from the Art Supply Posse team, you really should subscribe! It's hosted by Ana from Wellappointeddesk and Heather Rivard. It's fun chatter about art supplies in general, how to use your own stash more and creating space for daily art making. Also be warned as they will enable you to try some more/other art supplies ;) As I have fallen for the latest episode Color me Pencil and got a bunch of Faber Castell Polychromos to play with. I'm looking forward to try these and some other new art supplies in my time off and tell you about them soon. But since it's mailart monday, let me show you what I recently sent out into the world via outbox shots.

A shot of some hand made postcards I made for swap bot swaps: create a masterboard, put a foreign text on it and TPS mail art July. The latter I used some left over prints from my first gelli print session, stamped various circles rubber stamps in blue toned ink pads and the Mona Lisa Stamp is from Carmen's Veranda. I sent this piece for the foreign text swap and next time I'll show you how I made those masterboard cards.

I'm still doing my hera studies and this piece was sent for the CC sender's choice july swap. The background was pieced together with left over papers and then I stamped some fun stamps over them. It was a base piece to layer hera whom was stamped on Canson tracing paper. She was then colored in with letraset promarkers. I wanted to try my new liquitex gloss varnish to adhere and seal the piece. It gave a crackle effect as you can see, but I quite like the result. So another transparency layer effect on my mail art :) I like doing these!

So as I said in the beginning, my updates will be less frequent in the month of august. 

Thanks for stopping by and hope you're all enjoying the summer as well :)

namasté

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