Flower Power

Hello fellow Crafters,

Happy Wednesday to you all ! Today Valerie is asking us to use flowers in our project. This is what she said:

"Hi everyone! 
It's Valerie here with this week's challenge! 
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, so let's add some flower power to our projects! I'll be excited to see if you stamp some flowers, create faux flowers, use a mask to create a flower background or come up with some other original idea for sprinkling a few petals on your project!"

Here is mine :

I started this page in my Art Journal with a piece of paper that was slightly smaller than the pages in the book. I made some masks (stamped the flowers a couple of times on copy paper and cut them out).

I then started stamping 'Carol's flower' small and 'Carol's flower' big all over the paper, using the mask so I didn't overlap the images. I then started colouring the background. I used a few different shades of green (Copics). I quite like the blotchy finish; I think it looks a bit like watercolour. I was going to colour the flowers pink but I liked them white, so I just used some grey markers to shade them and yellow for the hearts.  The girl is called 'Froggie' en is part of the new release of Stampotique Stamps. She was stamped separately on a bit of white paper and coloured with Copics, clear embossed and cut out. I then cut a slit along the top of middle flower and slid her in. The sentiment was made with a Dymo labeler. The last think I did was glueing the page in my journal. 

Thanks for stopping by !

Hope you like it......

Does my new hat make me look fat ?

Hello fellow Crafters,

Today I made another Art Journal spread with two Lost Coast Designs stamps. It was an easy one as the background was almost done because it is one of my Gelli Prints from last week.

I started off with glueing the gelli print in my journal. I then stamped the 'Perspective floor' and the woman, with the saying that comes with her, with black Versafine ink on white card stock and clear embossed them. I then cut the floor to the shape I wanted and cut the woman out. I die cut a circle around the saying and at the same time cut a circle slightly bigger to mat it. Once I knew where everything went I stamped the pointing finger (Deep Red) three times, used my home made O-ring stamp and doodled the border around the page and around the circle with the saying. I then splattered some India Ink on the pages and did some random stamping with grey StaZon.  Lastly I glued everything on the page and that was that. 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like it.....

If I only had a brain..

Hello fellow Crafters,

Today we have the first 'Koningsdag' here in the Netherlands. It is when we celebrate the birthday of the King and there is lots going on. So I went to a market in our village hoping that I would find some nice bits for Mixed Media like lace,  fabric or old books. Alas, no such thing... it was mostly 'a load of old tat' !! It was fun having a look though.

When I came back I decided to do some more Art journaling and there was one more I had to do for my series of the Wizard of Oz and this is it :

I painted the pages with acrylic paint in a few green, ochre yellow and brown shades (gesso first). I then rubbed bits off again with a baby wipe because I didn't want solid colour. I used a Dylusions stencil with Distress inks in green and brown to do the leaves. I highlighted some of the leaves with a white gel pen. I used 'Fax to Wolfgang' and brown Archival ink to stamps some text on the pages and used two homemade stamps; one a rubber O-ring I glued on a woodblock with brown ink and a harlequin stamp which I made from some foam packing material and white ink. I also went around the edges with a blending tool and some brown ink. 

The flowers were stamped on white card stock with yellow ink, I doodled the middle and clear embossed them. after cutting them out I glued them on text paper and cut them out with a little border. I then decided where I wanted them and glued them on the page. I even used the bit I cut off the most right one and glued it down the bottom. Next I stamped 'Scarecrow', (designed by the very talented Janet Klein)  coloured him, clear embossed him and cut him out. I glued him on the page on some washi tape. The last thing was to print out some more lyrics of a song from the film, cut it into strips and adhering it to the page. 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like it.....

Birthday cards and gelli prints...

Hello fellow Crafters,

Today I made some birthday cards. I finally had the chance to play with my Gelli Plate this week and made some nice prints. I used a couple of bits of these prints to make these birthday cards.

The front:

And the inside :

I took two of my Gelli prints, cut them to the right size for the cards and stamped the 'Feathery Bird' from Lost Coast Designs on it. I used a sentiment from a clear stamp set. I had to cut it apart to stamp it as I did. I also used a clear 'speech bubble' stamp from another set and repeated a bit of the bird on the inside of the card. I used some more of the Gelli Prints for the happy birthday message inside. 

I used some black card stock to mat the front panel and the birthday wish. 

That was it ! Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like them.....

Step-by-step Art journal

Hello fellow Crafters,

I quite often get the question of how I do certain things. So today I thought I do a step-by-step Art journal. I hope you let me know what you think, not just of the spread but about the tutorial as well.
Now, make yourself a nice drink (or pour yourself a glass of something), sit down and enjoy !!

Today my theme was "The Wizard of Oz" again.  As I mentioned in my last blogpost HERE,  I am quite partial to this film and recently I managed to get the Stampotique Stamp series, designed by Janet Klein together. I decided to use the "Cowardly Lion" today.

Start by applying Gesso over the pages of your book, then let this dry. 

Meanwhile paint some white card stock with Gesso and let this dry as well. You can use a heat tool to dry both your journal and your pieces of card stock if you are impatient like me .....

Paint the card stock with yellow acrylic paint and set aside to dry. I will explain later why I used painted card stock and not just yellow paper. 

Now the fun really starts, take three colours of your choice; preferably two shades of the same colour and some white.

Paint the pages of your journal, light in the middle darker around the sides. I used a paintbrush to apply the white and lighter blue and then used my fingers to apply the dark paint around the edges. Set aside to dry.

Cut out some circles from your yellow painted card stock, use a die or do it by hand.

I put the acrylic paint on this card stock because I was going to use my Faber Castell Stamper's Big Brush pens and wanted to blend an move the colour a bit. That only works on a non porous background. 

I used two shades of yellow, one of orange and a red to colour the circles. 

Next, back to the journal and some stencils. I used the same white paint and a Tim Holtz stencil to put some stripes on the page. This is just to create a bit more interest and texture. 

Here's a close up of how it looks. 

Next, another stencil with Distress Ink in a similar colour to the background this time. Now this ink you can just wipe off if you don't like the result because it is water based and won't adhere very well to your non porous background. I found though that when it's on and dry it is perfectly OK and won't come off.

This is what that looks like. I now needs some black :

I used some cheap black craft paint for this and made it a little thinner with some water. I used a cookie cutter for the circles and made some splatters by tapping a loaded paintbrush.

This is what it looked like and I think the background is mostly done now. 

Later on you will see that I changed my mind.... A girls prerogative I think ! 

Here is the Stampotique "Cowardly Lion" stamped with Memento black ink, he is ready to be coloured.

Almost done here, but not quite....

Here is the finished article, looks rather handsome, don't you think ?

Now I smooshed a Versamark Inkpad over my coloured image. Be careful if you do this over watercolour pencils (or anything else that reacts with moisture) because it will smudge. You have to dab it instead of smoosh it.... I found that it doesn't matter with alcohol markers. 

Then sprinkle clear embossing powder all over him and melt the powder with a heat tool.

This is what he looks like after embossing. I think the images look so much better because the colours become even more vibrant and there is that lovely shine of course. 

After cutting the image out I use a "B" Faber Castell Pitt Pen to go around the cut edges. That way you won't notice if you did't cut it out perfectly.

Next, I found the sentiment I wanted to use on the internet. It is a verse out of a song from the film. I printed it on white paper and cut it into strips.

After you've done all this it is time to have a look at how you want the lay out to look. I usually move stuff around for quite a while until I am happy with it....

Here I decided that big circle was too big and cut some more smaller circles from it.

So I glued the circles down on the page and decided it needed something more.

I did a tiny bit of background stamping, not worrying about stamping on the circles as well. I used another Stampotique stamp for this called : "Fax to Wolfgang" designed by Amy Wilson Wellenstein.

And this is the final product. Everything adhered to the page. I used some washi tape to put the lion on and also here and there under the sentiment. Lastly I went around the sentiment strips with a black pen and put a date stamp on the page. 

Thanks for stopping by ! I hope you enjoyed my first step-by-step tutorial.  

ATC swap

Hello fellow Crafters,

Just a quick post to show you what I made for this month's ATC swap over at the Stampotique FB page. Everybody has received them so I can show you.

The lovely Nikki Woodward has organised this again and to thank her for there trouble I sent her some ATC's as well.
Here goes :

For Tracy Abson :

This was the card I made for Tracy. I used Dylusions, twinkling H2O's and copics to colour the image which is of course "Bob's in time out" designed by Daniel Torrente and sold by Stampotique.

This was the ATC for this month's challenge 'Colour Saturation'. I used Caran d'Ache water soluble crayons for the background, model paste for the letters, patterned paper for the heart. The heart is "My Heart" by France Papillon which you can buy from Stampotique.

This was a bonus ATC which was made using acrylic paints, homemade harlequin stamp,  copics to colour the image, bottle top, a bit of washi tape and  the "You give me wings" stamp from Stampotique  designed by M. Sabina Raita. 

To Arwen I sent the same ATC's and one extra because she commented on my posting on FB that she really loved this one. So I decided to send this one to her as well together with a card in her favourite colour : purple :

This card was made with Pan Pastels, Copic Markers, India ink for the rings and splatters. The image is "Hunk" by Daniel Torrente sold via Stampotique. Also the "Crow line " is from Stampotique; this stamps was designed by Janet Klein.

I made this ATC for a challenge on Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge blog. You can read my original post on this HERE.

And last but certainly not least I sent the "Live your life in colour" and "discover" ATC's to Nikki, the organiser of this wonderful swap and added the following card : 

This card was made using Dylusions and Glimmer spray and Copics to colour the image. I used some background stamps and stencils and also my trusty bottle top. The Stampotique stamps I used for this card were :

"Banner" by France Papillon

"Bob's in time-out" by Daniel Torrente 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like them.....

Marilyn

Hello fellow Crafters,

Today I made this tag for the 35th Challenge over at Tag Along. It was set by the very talented Carol and she chose 'Pin-ups'. I found a stamp in my stash which is supposed to be Marilyn Monroe and I thought that was close enough !

I painted the tag with some pink Craft paint and stamped the bubbles with white ink and clear embossed it. I didn't emboss the image because it was nicer but because I was too impatient for this white ink to dry; it takes forever.... 

Anyway, I stamped a bingo card stamp over the top with grey Stazon and then used black ink to go around the edges of the tag. Marilyn was stamped on white card stock and coloured, clear embossed and cut out. I also stamped her on the tag directly to get her shadow on the tag properly. Unfortunatly that didn't work so I still had to colour in bits of it with a black marker. 

I drew a bit of a floor under her feet with a grey Big Brush Marker. The letters are stickers and lastly I put a black mat under it and put a ribbon through the hole which was secured with a staple. 

Thanks for stopping by !! 

Hope you like it....

New release Stampotique - Join our Bloghop !

Hello fellow Crafters, 

If you are a fan of our Facebook page you may have already gotten a sneak peek of some of the new images we are excited to be releasing today.  We hope you will join us for the blog hop to see a variety of those images.

There are lots of new images from our favorite stamp designers and we are proud to welcome one of our newest stamp designer, Magda Polakow, whom you have seen tons of her fabulous creations here as part of our design team.  We think you will find a few stamps that you can't live without.

Join us through the blog hop for your chance to win some random goodies, we will be randomly drawing two winners for a $30 gift certificate for Stampotique stamps at the Stampotique online store.  The new stamps should be available over there now.

Also, make sure you hope all the way through for an exciting announcement on our Stampotique Designers Blog for an additional chance to win some goodies and some additional recognition as an artist.

You should have arrived to my blog from Sarah Anderson  if you did not arrive from there you may want to start the hop at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog.   When you are finished visiting my blog you will want to hop on over to Carol Fox.

Here are my projects with some of the new stamps:

This ATC was made using the following new stamps:

10018.A1 Typewriter Alpha 

2433.1 Dog 

This Easter card was made using the following stamps:

10018.A1 Typewriter Alpha

2432.Q Bunny 

This birthday card was made using:

6175.T Happy, Happy, Happy

4141.Q Kitty Squad (I only used one of 4 kittens in a row)

You'll find all the new stamps HERE 

Have fun hopping, we will be pulling the random winners of the blog at our next challenge on April 23, 2014.

Roc Nicholas

Valerie Wilson

Kaz Boughton

Sarah Anderson

Corrie Herriman  (you are here)

Carol Fox

Astrid Stulemeijer

Kay Wallace

Kathi Rerek

Coby vanWilligenburg 

Nellie van Leeuwen

Janet Klein

Sam Read

Arwen McCullen

Kristen Catalano

Claudine Criner

R.Maria Sabina

France Papillon

Tanja Kewel-Neef

Jackie Payne

Kim Howard

Gez Butterworth

Sue Davies

Magda Polakow

Stampotique Designers'Blog

When Pigs fly...

Hello fellow Crafters,


Happy Wednesday ! Today the lovely Sue set the Challenge; she wants us to make a postcard sized project. This is what she said :

Good morning everyone, it's Sue here and I'm delighted to be hosting this weeks challenge. I'm sure that every crafter has had that block where their mojo has packed it's bags and gone on holiday. I know I've sat and looked at a sheet of card and had no ideas at all. One way I've got to get over this is just to decide what size or shape I want to make. So I pick a card or a tag, or in this case a postcard. Postcards are great fun and it's amazing how much you can get on a 6x4 (inches) area. So this week I would like you to make a postcard. Have Fun!

Here is mine:

I started with cutting a postcard-size (6"x4") piece of paper. I sprayed it with Tattered Angels dark blue shimmer spray. I used a Tim Holtz stencil and white ink to put the numbers on and a TCW stencil and pink paint to put the flowers down. I then accentuated the flowers with Twinkling H2Os in pink and also used a white paint pen for the details. I also used a text stamp and black ink to create some more interest. The flying pig was stamped on white card stock and coloured with copics and clear embossed. I put some scraps of paper and doily under him to make him stand out more. The sentiment was stamped with Versamark directly on the postcard and white embossed. 

I used the following stamps :  

Flying Pig

When Pigs fly

Fax to Wolfgang 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like it....

Art journaling day...

Hello fellow Crafters,

Today I have spent doing two Art Journals, both pink, one for the Round Robin via de Craftorij and one for me.
I will start with the one for the Round Robin. This one is for Marjan van den Hoek; I hope she likes it.

I started with painting the pages with Fresco paints. I used two shades of pink and some off white. I used a doily stencil with paint which gave this lovely soft effect. I used a PaperArtsy ledger stamp and grey StaZon for the background together with my trusty plastic bottle top. 

The floor (Perspective Floor; part of) and the girls (Showgirls) are Lost Coast Designs Stamps. I bought these at the Art Specially event. The text stamp was the freebie they gave away on entering the exhibition. I love these stamps together. Everything was stamped on white card stock, cut out, embossed and glued on the pages. I also used another bit of perspective floor in the left hand top corner. Lastly I dripped some India Ink on and drew the border with a black marker and a white paint pen .

The second journal I made for me. Since I was a small child I was always very fond of the 1939 film the Wizard of Oz. So when I finally bought the last stamps in my 'Wizard of Oz' collection I was very happy. The first one I used was the tinman and this is the page I made :

Again I used the same three Fresco paints and when they were dry I put a layer of Tim Holtz crackle stuff on. A bit of an experiment as I haven't used it yet. I then rubbed some black paint over the page so that it went into the crackles. Not sure what to think of it... I then did some background stamping, used my bottle top for the circles and a stencil for the little dots and drew the stitch lines along the edges. I used three Stampotique stamps :

My heart

Tinman 

Fax to Wolfgang

I stamped the heart 5 times, 4 times on text paper (Basic Gray) and once on patterned paper (also Basic Gray). I cut them out and adhered them to the left page. Tinman was stamped on white card stock and coloured with Copics, clear embossed and cut out. I adhered him to the right hand page on top of some washi tape. The sentiment is part of the song 'If I only had a heart'  from the film and was printed on white paper and cut out. I adhered it on top of the hearts and went around each of the sentences with a black marker. Lastly I used a Faber Castell Big brush Marker to put some shade around the tinman and the hearts. 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like them......

Bunny..

Hello fellow Crafters,

I spent a lovely day crafting today. I made some cards that I will share with you at a later date. Also today I made an ATC for the Wicked Wednesday Challenge which had the theme : Easter of Earth day. I went for Easter and this is it :

This ATC was used for mopping up some yellow paint I used for something else. I stamped "Carol's flower" (Stampotique) randomly all over. I aged the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink. I stamped Tim Holtz' Easter Bunny on it with Versafine and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I them stamped the bunny again on script paper and coloured it with big brush pens. I cut it out and glued it on top of the stamped image on the ATC. I put Glossy Accents on his bow. Lastly I put the (sticky) letters and the twine on. 

Thanks for stopping by !

Hope you like it.....

April showers

Hello fellow Crafters,

and happy Wednesday to you...

Today Carol is our hostess over at Stampotique, and she want us to make something around the theme "April Showers". This is what she said:

' I love the early months of the year and to me I only have to hear the month April and 

instantly in my head the song from Bambie is playing, and I am now humming, bom, bom 

little April showers, so use water, rain and April showers as your inspiration this week xx'


Here is mine :

This is a page in my Moleskine journal. I painted the page with Paper Artsy Fresco Paints in yellow and two shades of orange. I kept it very subtle. I stamped 'Folded Tags' on the page with orange ink and clear embossed it. It is almost invisible. I then used 'Fax to Wolfgang' to stamp some random text. I used a top of a spray bottle and some black ink to make the rings. I used the 'Stack of birds' stamp for my main image but decided to cut them apart. I coloured and clear embossed them and cut them out. And because it was raining I gave them an umbrella made out of France's 'Carrousel' stamp. I drew the handle and coloured and embossed it. The drops were all hand drawn, coloured and cut out by me !!! I glued them on the page in a random pattern. When everything was adhered to the page I used a Copic Marker and coloured under the birds to ground them.

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like it.....

Enchanted

Hello fellow Crafters,

Over at the Tag Along blog the theme this week is set bij Shilpa and she chose : flowers.

Here's mine :

This tag is made from flowery pattern paper. It also has a bit of glitter but the photo doesn't show it. I distressed the edges with DI in Antique Linnen and Evergreen bough. I also used the Evergreen bough to colour the leaves for the flowers. The picture came from a collage sheet I had in my stash forever. I went around it with a black pencil. The flowers were just aged a little bit with Antique Linnen ink and then stuck on the label. The hearts are actually round bits of paper with Stickles on them. The word 'enchanted' was stamped directly onto the tag. Lastly I matted it on black card stock and put a ribbon through the hole which was stapled to the tag. 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like it....

Best of friends..

Hello fellow Crafters,

I recently discovered a new (new to me) stamp brand. It is called Art Impressions and I really like them. Last week I hopped the DT blogs and won myself some stamps. Isn't that great ! Anyway, I found out they also do Challenges and the current one is "best of friends".  I recently bought some Ai stamps and I had just the one for this Challenge :

I used Basic Gray pattern paper and matted the bits on black card stock. I stamped the girlfriends on white card stock, coloured them with copics, clear embossed them and cut them out. I also used a Simon Says Stamp stamp for the sentiment. The whole thing was then put together. Lastly I put some bakers twine with a charm around the top. 

Thanks for stopping by ! 

Hope you like it.