Art Journal: Exhaustipated! - VLVS!

Hi friends! It's my turn over at VLVS! blog today to share a creation. It's almost december and all the year end holidays are coming up and for me it's always such a tough month. The business of the festivities, hustle and bustle to buy presents (buyer's stress) does not mix well with my Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I just feel sooo tired just thinking about all these busy days ahead and dealing with the lack of sunlight which is a much needed fuel for my body. Often people think I am a real Grinch when I let these feelings out, but it's not about not wanting to celebrate. Being forced to be happy about the holiday season while I'm dealing with some tough things on a physical and emotional level, sometimes just takes its toll and I rather be honest about it than fake going through being "happy camper" about "this festive season".

Anyhow, I didn't had a word for this feeling until the brilliant people at VLVS! came up with this awesome word stamp "Exhaustipated: too tired to give a shit." and OH MY what a relief it was to create this art journal page about what I am feeling! So cathartic and meditative. Also this woman stamp is just my avatar around these winter days. To see the process of this page, I invite you to go to my blogpost at VLVS! HERE which also includes a list of other VLVS! stamps I used. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and if you have any sort of similar feelings about this topic, let me know, so we can support each other in solidarity. Wishing you a wonderful day!

SDC287 - Thankfulness

It's the second week of the Stampotique Designer's Challenge theme of Thankfulness and I have this fun and quirky thank you card to show you. It's definitely a fun one to send out to fellow coffee lovers :) The base is a piece of scrap paper on which I have made some coffee rings with actual coffee. Then added color with Distress Oxides vintage photo, antique linen, walnut stain and black soot. Stamped some texture with Kate's texture stamp and splattered some brass metallic distress stains over it with a brush.

The main image is Cocoa Bird which I colored in with promarkers on a piece of sticker paper. The sentiment is a die cut from Stamplorations which I got earlier this year along with a coffee cup die cut. I am glad I got them when I did because they don't seem to be available anymore. Anyhow, the little stem the bird is sitting on is the bottom part from the cup and I've cut them all out from the paper I left in my spray box. So many spatters and glitterly shines are on the words and stem.

We would love it if you would share your creations fitting the theme with us. Share your projects HERE (please read the rules before doing so) and you could be in the running to win some wonderful stampotique rubber stamps at the end of the month.

I would also like to enter this card in the Stamplorations Giving Thanks bloghop party

with gratitude that they are giving a chance to win items from your wishlist this month if you link it up with a project you made. 

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Shopping Highlight: a stationery tour through Berlin

Last month we had a little city trip to Berlin, Germany with my husband and in-law family. Of course I also had to look up some great stationery stores there and in this post I would like to share the ones I visited. It's going to be picture heavy visual tour from here out which I hope you will enjoy.

Heartfelt Thanks!

Any day is a good day to show gratitude and I'm sharing this handmade watercolor card made with this gorgeous Heartfelt Rose stamp set from Stamplorations.

I've embossed the image and sentiment with gold honey pearl WOW embossing powder on watercolor cardstock. Then colored it in with Sennelier watercolors and handmade watercolors from Cloves and honey. Matted it onto grey card stock and rounded the corners. Then adhered it onto a 4x6 notecard on which I have adhered a piece of gelli printed paper. I like how the design comes together.

If you tilt the card into the light you can see the shimmering of the watercolors in the rose. 

Over at Stamplorations is a wonderful bloghop and annual wishlist linky party going on in which new designs are being showcased and you could potentially win your wishlist if you link up and share projects! So come and join the fun :) Want to know what's on my wishlist? Take a peek here (and I just keep adding things to it because there are just so many new wonderful designs!!) 

I'm also entering this in the Stamplorations Never Ending Anything goes challenge

I hope that all of you whom are celebrating Thanksgiving today are having a wonderful time with your loved ones. Thanks so much for stopping by and hope to see you again soon :)

Mail Art Monday: Autumnal Greetings

Not sure if you have noticed but my Mail Art Monday section has been quiet lately but today I finally had some mojo back to decorate an envelope as I also finally was getting some snail mail ready for a friend. So I thought I would share it right away as well, seeing the last days of autumn are nearing...it's getting colder and slowly the grey tones are taking over from these lovely amber tones. The base is an ivory envelope and I took a few autumn leaf stamps with a script stamp and just build from there.

And this is the back of the envelope. I used a few distress oxides to blend inwards and added come accents with a gold marker. I edged the envelope with memento cocoa ink and called it done. It took under 15 minutes to make, a nice and quick envie to get my mail art juices flowing again.

These are stamps and tools I used. Only think missing is the script stamp from Paper Artsy. From top to bottom the stamps are from Impression Obsession, Inkadinkadoo and Hero Arts. 

Thanks for stopping by and hope you all are enjoying the last days of autumn as well.