MailART Monday: A little bit of Kindness

On today's Mail Art Monday I wanted to share a postcard I made from my large masterboard scrap collage. It's great fun to see how all these pieces come together as individual postcards. I adhered the cut up cardboard piece (2 of 13 pieces, see piece number 1 here) onto a tourist postcard with sturdy adhesive and washi tape. Also a great way to use up all your left over postcards you don't know what to do with :) On my desk I still had some stamped words and chose "kindness" and a butterfly to add the to the card. After I sealed it with Modge Podge gold shimmer varnish, I spattered some liquitex inks in magenta over it. Lastly I made "all we need is a little bit of" with my dymo label maker and stuck it to the card. I thought it definitely finishes the piece.

It kinda looked empty without it as you can see above. This card was sent for a swap on Swap-Bot and I hope the recipient will like it. It's good to send out a little kindness every day, don't you agree?

I would like to enter this piece in the following challenge:

STAMPlorations -things with wings

Hope you all are having a wonderful Easter Monday and thank for stopping by!

Shopping Highlight: Kowalski and Gotham Comics in Valencia

This March we've been to Valencia for a week and I wanted to share some highlights with you of shops and places I loved. A note to start off: Valencia is a wonderful and relaxed city, but be aware that the Falles festivities (including ear deafening fireworks!) start from the beginning of March and end on the 19th. While we loved seeing all the wonderful Falles works every neighborhood made, the fireworks was not something I particularly enjoyed. It wasn't a 4th of july, or NYE sparkle show either, it was more a bombardment of firecrackers which were LOUD and SCARY. Honestly, we felt terrified and wished we booked a week later! Never the less, it was a beautiful city, was amazing to see all the Fallas works and definitely an experience to have been there during that time. 

Let's start with one of my fave aria's in the city and that is Russafa (or Ruzafa) which is a popular aria among young creatives. There are several streets on which you can find some amazing fun stores and in the Carrier Dénia on number 20 you will find Kowalski; Cusas Bellas Artes ATC. It's a gallery/arts supply/ vintage/books and shoes store. Now, that is putting the ETC. to work! Eclectic assortment in a small space and definitely worth the visit! 

Storefront during night fall. I love that the shops are open until late :)

This friendly lady gives you a warm welcome at the door.  

The store is packed full with art supplies, art work for sale, shoes, books and vintage items.

So much to see in such a small place! I could have spent days there and yes I did return there 3 times, much to the owner's amusement and delight :)

They also had a whole array of sennelier watercolor tubes and acrylics

And I found a great watercolor set my lovely husband gave to me for my birthday (I was in the store on my birthday actually a month ago now and it was like being a kid in a candy store!)

I put the paints in a Koi pocket watercolor travel set of which I took the pans out. I wasn't enjoying those at all so it was time to upgrade! I am loving these sennelier paints very much!

Back to Valencia in Ruzafa, Gotham Comics was also definitely worth the visit since they are the only comic show we encountered which sold comics in English as well! That was the reason my husband went to the store, me... well I found a different reason...

and his name is Sami. And he is a sweetheart!

This cute black cat greets everyone at the door with a friendly miauw and he certainly stole my heart! 

He came for pets and snuggles every time we visited!

His owner wasn't too amused Sami kept bothering us while shopping so he was told off, but we know he was just making sure we felt welcome in the store :)

Thanks Sami for helping me through Cat-withdrawal symptoms while in Valencia!

When you're in the aria have a drink at Café Berlin, and see here for more shopping tips in the aria. GNOMO is an awesome store with hand made items and illustrations as well.  

Next week I'll share some of my fave stationery stores in Valencia. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Easter weekend!

Take note when your heart speaks

This week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog the theme is Bling it On and it's encouraged that you use a lot of bling aka glitter/sparkles in your work. It's honestly a difficult challenge for me as I don't use much glitter at all in my work. But I have made the page above in my mini black spiral journal and used LOTS of glitter and I hope I did the theme justice!

I used Art Basics soft matte gel to adhere sparkly see through foil on the background, added another later of gel medium and poured the glitter and stars over it. Made sure that dried before adhering Stitch, small bee and the When Heart Speaks sentiment (which I cut out and rearranged). The images are colored with promarkers and scribbled around the edges with a glitter Sakura Gelly Roll.

 

Close up of all the glitter and stars. 

By the way, I used the petal in this flower cube to create wings for Stitch. And those are colored with ZIG wink of Stella sparkle brush pens. Obviously I adhered those first before the other image elements. 

While it was a HUGE step out of my comfort zone I'm quite pleased with the result. Hope this inspires you to play along with this fortnight's challenge. Be sure to link up your project to the LinkzIn Page for a change on the monthly prize to win some SO rubber stamps! This month Stampotique have teamed up with Lindy's Stamp Gang and it's the perfect theme to combine challenges! Be sure to check the rules when entering in each challenge :)

I would also like to enter this piece in the following challenges
Try it on tuesday - add a quote

STAMPlorations - things with wings 

Thanks for stopping by and have a sparkly day!

You stand in your own light, make it shine

Yesterday I took out some my new supplies from my Art Specially haul this year and made the above card. I used my Lindy's magical shaker's on the text background (vintage typewriter text), Tim Holtz Alterations dies, Patio Lights and Alice from Stampotique Originals. I also used some fabulous caran d'ache Neopastels which I got at La Couronne du Comte and I absolutely LOVE working with them on my projects!

They are so bright and colorful to work with! I used the die from the TH mixed media set on heavy 200gms card stock, applied a good amount of white gesso and when that was dry, I rubbed all the oil pastels over the edges of the design. The colors really pop! The images were stamped on neenah classic white cardstock and colored with Letraset promarkers. I fussy cut them out and adhered with ZIG 2way glue pen. I applied a heavy amount of yellow pastel's around the lights so it looked like they shines brightly. Then outlined the sires and bulbs with a black uni posca marker. on the inside, I added a quote;

It's a quote I got in a fortune cookies once and it's been in my wallet ever since. A reminder to let your light shine brightly! The lettering is done with tombow markers and outlined with faber castell pitt marker.

Wanted to show you how the card looks on a white background, but the lights really shine on the black background in the first picture above :)  The Stampotique text background challenge is still on until tomorrow, so do link up your projects :)

I also would like to enter this card in the following other challenges:

Try it on Tuesday - use a quote 

Craft Stamper's Take it Make it Challenge April

Love to create - #7 anything mixed media goes

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - What's your super power?

With this post I hope to convey my power to use and blend color in various mediums and have it POP! 

Thanks for stopping by and hope you'll come by tomorrow to see what I've made for the new challenge theme for Stampotique which goes live then :)

Have an awesome day!

MailART Monday: Venturing Out

Freidrich of Stampotique Originals is fast becoming a fave stamp to use in my works. Last week I used him on the text background postcard and this week I'm sharing this MailART envelope I made. Because you can place him in various ways it's a really fun stamp. I like to place him on objects he precariously balances on.

The envelope I used this time is an A5 size and it was already somewhat decorated, but I eventually didn't like the look of it in the end. So I covered it with opaque paints from Deco Arts in the Traditions line, Red Violet, Phthalo green blue and light green. I used mostly my fingers to apply the paints from light to dark (letting the bottom layer of light green dry completely) and then spritzed some water to get some movement going and dabbing some paint away for texture. The envelope already had some texture on it, from a stencil and heavy matte gel medium. The texture showed through the paints nicely while being covered with color. I then added some more texture with Kate Crane's texture cube and coordinating staz-on inks. Lastly I stamped Freidrich on with staz-on jet black where I wanted him on the envelope.

I adhered an address label before I stuck on the colored (with promarkers) and fuzzy cut image of Freidrich. I wanted him to balance on something and I found the perfect stamp in VLVS! the Writing Triangles which stamped flipped on the side look like arrow heads. I love how he looks so very concentrated balancing on that particular point!

Lastly I spattered some liquitex inks! in silver over some spots, swiped some around the edges and adhered some vintage stamps. It's now ready to mailed off :)

This envelope contained the card I sent for publishing in Crafter's Magazine May 2017 issue. And I'm excited to announce that I have a card published in it :) Look out for a card I designed for the New beginnings theme in ready set stamp section in the magazine below:

And a close up of the card that is published :)

I'll post a tutorial on how to make this card on my blog sometime later this month :)

I would like to enter the mail art envelope in the following challenge:
Art Journal Journey - Magical Mystery Tour
It's not a journal page, but I still thing it fits the theme ;)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!