Jääperhonen

I keep an eye on and post for about 10 different challenges, part of them are weekly and part monthly. I enjoy making challenge projects, because that way I get to use techniques/ colours and or stamps that I might not otherwise try. Sometimes it can happen that several challenges have overlapping themes that can be combined, and at best they inspire the project to become more than what it would have otherwise been.

I was originally planning to post this butterfly card only for the Rubberdance January challenge (Frosty Blues). I used an old butterfly stencil and applied crackle paste... and encountered a number of problems: The paste ran underneath the stencil, the paper crimpled and when the paste was dry, it didn't attach properly to the base and started crumbling away. I tried attaching the loose chips with Glossy Accents, but wasn't satisfied with the result, and decided to dump the project: after all I had already posted for the challenge. A week later I checked the Paperilla-card challenge, and found that they wanted a blue card... I couldn't help thinking about the discarded butterfly image hidden somewhere on my shelf, and decided to take a new look at it. Motivated by the fact that I could post it for both challenges if I got it done before the end of January, I set to work... I added Glossy Accents over the butterfly image, shading with Distress Inks, light blue Stickles, some white beads, heat embossing and some more GA to adhere pieces of the crackle paste that still insisted on depatching from the paper... and here it is, not at all bad after all :)

I am also posting this for the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday challenge (Anything goes, so why not?) The butterfly theme had me thinking about flying... so I chose a sentiment on wings, that I really feel fits well, and I'm posting this for the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge (Up in the clouds)... and I believe that's quite enough challenges for one little card!

Vaali epätäydellisyyttä

Tämän viikon P*skis pyytää värejä pinkki-oranssi-keltainen. Todettakoon, että tagissani värit ovat voimakkaammat kuin annetussa väririvissä, syytettäköön siitä Dylusions-musteita.

Aloitin tagin leimaamalla kauan sitten hankkimani Zetti-laiman kirkkaan keltaisella Distress-musteella, johon lisäsin kirkasta kohojauhetta. Laskin sen varaan, että kuumentamisen jälkeen siihen ei tartu muut värit... suihkautellessani pinkkiä ja keltaista mustetta päälle meinasi kyllä usko loppua, mutta kostealla paperinkulmalla kun pyyhkäisi, niin teksti tuli aina uudestaan esiin. Oranssia suihketta minulla ei ollut, väri syntyi pinkin ja keltaisen sekoittuessa. Keltainen värisävy jäi pohjassa aika sivurooliin, sillä pinkki mustesuihku oli ydympi kuin etukäteen ajattelin.

Kuultopaperille leimatut perhoset olen tehnyt aikaa sitten, ja päätin käyttää kaikki kerralla pois, eli niitä on kolmessa kerroksessa. Niissä on kaleidoskooppi-kohojauhetta, joka jättää pinnan röpöläiseksi ja kimaltavaksi. Osoittautui liimailun, ompelun ja taivuttelun myötä, että kohojauhe ei ollut oikein saanut kunnolla tartuttua kuultopaperiin, ja sitä vähän lohkeili pois. Lopputulos on kuitenkin varsin iloinen ja pirtsakka tekele näin harmaalle talvipäivälle.

WOYWW -it's wednesday again!

It's Wednesday, and that means it's time to hop around the world and peek at crafty desks. Not much to show here today! I'm on a short holiday with my daughters, and this is what I've been up to in our little boat cabin: I've been going through Linda's list of official tangle patterns and messing up my calendar. I also found out that the daughter who generally isn't so interested in crafting, loves doodling in her school papers...hope she got some new ideas too :)

So many were worried about our dog last week after she chewed my knitting needles to pieces, that I took a pic of her in the living room before we left home on Monday afternoon. As you can see, she is sitting on the sofa looking healthy, cute and innocent. The only thing that suffered from the incident were the needles. You might also notice, that the table is empty from crafty stuff: my husband ordered me to gather everything away, since I would be gone for a couple of days. He claimed to be worried that the dog would find something to destroy, but I believe he justs wants to be free of my mess. 

If you're wondering what this WOYWW is all about, head over to Julia at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.fi, she will explain everything... and you will find other much more interesting desks to peek at! (Sorry I don't know how to make a proper link with my ipad.)

New year: time to wake up!

The Craft Barn challenges to make calendar pages all year long... I decided to play along, since these will make a lovely Christmas present for someone at the end of the year.  For January, the prompt words were aqua and snowflakes. Since this fits in with a couple of other challenges I've been keeping an eye on, I am also posting this for the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge (Winter Stamping) and the Rubberdance January Challenge (Frosty blues). Since calendars in Finland usually run from Monday to Sunday, I drew my own grid at the bottom of the page and stamped the days on it.

I happen to have loads of old book pages that my parents found while renovating their attic, and I am personally challenging myself to combine them to the challenge prompts.The book these pages are from contains sermons, obviously for a whole year. Hence I chose the first sermon for the first Sunday of the year, and the topic is "Now is the time from your sleep to wake up" It's funny how language can change in about 150 years, the words are in a funny order, and the font is so difficult, no one is going to bother to read further than that!

I started of with a sheet of sturdy Canson Imagine. When the grid for the days had been done, I painted the background with watercolours. I forgot to fasten the paper and it curled quite strongly, that is why it is still fastened to cardstock with paper clips. Luckily it has 11 months to straighten out! After sewing the piece of old paper on the background. I used a couple of different stencils to add texture and and some floral stamps to build my image. I regret not stamping the tree much higher up. It would have looked better (it has a very low stem) and I could have built a hill for it with layers or crackle paste... now the banner with "January 2016" was used to fill the empty space. I used quite a bit of glimmery stuff (pearlescent acrylic paint, embossing powder and stickles) and some small white pearls to embellish the sheet. The edges have been covered with crackle texture paste, but that doesn't really show on the pics.

A winter flower

I'm entering this little card for the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge (winter stamping). The stems of flowers that stick out from the snow are important sources of little seeds to eat for many animals. I remember being amused when I learned in school, that they have an official name in Finnish "talventörröttäjä" one word that means approximately "something that sticks out in the winter". This happens to be the very first stamp I ever bought, and I remember thinking it can be used for all seasons.

I made this background while experimenting with my distress inks ( it's only some water spritzed over them) and felt it looked like snowfall. The stem was already stamped when I realized that grey ink would have been sufficient... Couldn't do anything about that, so I added the sentiment in black and some Black Soot DI on the edges to keep the image in balance.

Salmiakkiruutuja ja vanhaa paperia

Tämän viikon p*skiksessa pyydetään vinoneliöitä, joita suomalainen voi kutsua myös salmiakkiruuduiksi, ulkolainen pikemmin harlekiinikuvioksi. Päätin hyödyntää vanhempieni vintiltä löytynyttä vanhaa paperia ja Gorjuss-tyttöstä. Salmiakkiruudukko on Chocolate Baroquen reuna/taustaleima, ja se on leimattu sekoituksella ruskeita Distress musteita. Leimasin musteenjämät yläreunaan, siellä kuvio ei oikein erotu.

Taustapaperi on revenneestä 1800-luvulla painetusta kirjasta, jossa on saarnoja sekä pyhäpäivien tekstejä. (Poistetun) kannen nahassa oli homepilkkuja ja sivuista osa puuttuu ja osaa on joku ötökkä syönyt, joten raatsin irrottaa niitä. Kävi kuitenkin niin, että käsittelyn edetessä paperi ( ja myös siitä tehty kortti) alkoi haista niin pahasti, etten tiedä tuleeko näitä jatkossa käytettyä. Alunperin paperin haju oli ok, mutta kun leimasin vedellä suihkautetulla leimalla ja kuivasin kuumailmapuhaltimella niin haju muuttui lähes pistäväksi, eikä se sitten oikein hälvennyt, kun oli kerran aktivoitunut. Jos joku tietää miten ummehtuneen kellarimaisen hajun saisi kotikonstein eliminoitua, niin tieto otetaan ilolla vastaan! Haaveilen käyttäväni noita sivuja rippijuhlien kutsukortteihin... ehkä ne pitää tehdä jotenkin kuivemmilla menetelmillä.

Doodlailuharjoituksia

Addicted to technics -haasteessa pyydetään doodlailua. Piirsin korttipohjalle saniaiset TCW-sapluunan läpi, ja tässä viikon aikana aina joutessani täyttelin kuviota.

Kuinka sattuikaan, juuri pari päivää ennen kuin kävin kurkkaamassa haasteen, yritin täyttää art journaliin tarkoitettua tekstiä doodlailemalla, ja jäin kolmannen kirjaimen jälkeen jumiin kun en halunnut toistaa itseäni. Olin ( ja olen edelleen) motivoitunut harjoittelemaan tätä jaloa taitoa, sillä minulla se ei ole "verissä"... Mutta löysin apua netistä: tutkin erityisesti tätä Zentangle -aiheista sivustoa, ja kokeilin sieltä joitakin kuvioita, toisia paremmalla, toisia huonommalla menestyksellä. Harjoitukset siis jatkuvat.

Jälkihuomautus:

Kun kaivelin kortin käyttöön, totesin että se näytti vähän viimeistelemättömältä. Päätin lisätä varjostuksia lyijykynällä, ja Glossy Accents lakkaa. Lopputulos on varsin makea ja esittelykelpoinen. tosin kun 3/4 kortista oli peitetty (ja käsi varsin kipeä pusertelusta) tajusin, että kuvio rajoittuu saplunaan, ja olisin voinut hoitaa saman sapluunan kanssa kirkkaalla kohojauheella. Ehkä ensi kerralla sitten!

WOYWW it's Wednesday again!

It's time to peek at desks all around the world again! Find the other posts at Julias blog here!

I chose a different perspective this time, just to show that I'm not the only one that has storage problems in this house. The opposite wall is bursting with a minor part of my husbands comic collection. Most of those cardboard boxes house comics too, I have no idea where he is wishing to build new bookshelves, since we have them everywhere... so even if I cleaned up my mess, this room wouldn't be neat! My socks are without knitting pins, because the dog ate four of them yesterday, while she was home alone, the only one left is sticking from the yarn.

As for the desk... My mum realized I'm using old book papers and offered to bring me some old book pages that they found in their attic. I said sure, and she brought me four age old books, printed between 1840 and 1890... lovely gothic style lettering. I complained that they were in too good shape to be wrecked, I had hoped they were so broken that the pages would have been spread around. Actually the larger one (on the right, under some templates) is moldy and broken enough, with pages missing already.

I tried doodling in some lettering for my art journal, only to realize I'm no good at it: after the second letter I just couldn't think of new doodles for the third... so I decided I need to practise. I've drawn some ferns on the card through a template, and I plan to check out tangle patterns on the web, and fill those in. Perhaps I can get that lettering in my art journal done after that! The silly wood veneer piece next to the ink box is for a mojo wheel that I plan to do for my art journal. I go to a wood craft class for fixing old furniture, and used some time to cut that out... it is to be seen if it will work the way I wish :)

I didn't have time to peek at many desks last week, but this Saturday I have a work trip, and I plan to use the bus time to snoop around other WOYWW desks! Join in the fun!

A moment in time

I am posting a last minute entry for the 6th Chocolate Baroque colour challenge: an ATC-card.

Last autumn, on a cold morning after the first really frosty night we were walking with our dog in a nearby patch of trees, and all of a sudden it was totally quiet for a moment. This was notable, since there is a railway, motorway and many apartment blocks right nearby, but there we stood on the path waiting for the dog to inspect a spot of grass, and it was so quite, that we could hear leaves falling from the trees. The frost had taken some of the trees by surprise and the leaves were frozen and crisp and made a blink-blonk-sound as they bumped into branches on their way down.

I made the background by stenciling Distress Inks through the TCW Aspen trees stencil. To add a pinkish shade to the card, I decided to (at last) take a try with my Promarkers. I drew a narrow stroke of light pink on the edges of each tree and softened the stripes with the blender pen. In real life it shows more than in this picture. The leaves have been done with a stamp from the CB Autumn Edges and Distress inks spritzed with water. I stamped them on a piece of scrap cardstock, fussy cut and adhered to the ATC-card base.

start.continue.grow

I have enjoyed doing watercolour stamping with the lovely bold Banksy stamps, so I decided to combine the watercolor stamping with the VivaLasVegaStamps! January challenge.

The challenge board asks for shades of blue and tan, music notes and a theme of growth, roots and weeds... so here we are: the girl watering the tv-antennae has taken a time consuming job, but gets to watch her plant grow. This is probably the dream of a little tv-antennae seed hibernating in the ground and waiting for spring!

I have been trying to follow the Documented Life Project prompts for art journaling, and even though I have got a couple of weeks mixed up, this goes for the week 2 prompt about beginnings.Teh text at the bottom of the spread says "start.continue...grow"

The Banksy stamp has been inked with Distress inks straight from the pads: Peeled paint and Vintage photo for the ground, Mowed lawn for the plant and Chipped saphire and Seedless preserves for the girl. before pressing the image on the paper it has been lightly spritzed with water. I'm going to have to admit I made about double the amount of these before I was satisfied... I kept getting smudges on the card... that's for not washing my hands in between every stage! The images looked a little lost by themselves, so I made inky blue frames for them, and took the chance to add some sewing in my art journal.

I used some old music paper for the background. After adhering it I covered it with clear and white gesso. I painted the background with watercolours: blue for the edges in many layers, with some extra water to get it to run and dark brown in the middle area with lots of splatters. After trying my focal images on the page, I added some green among the brown and some pink among the blue to combine with the shades on the stamped girl.

I searched for "weedy" stamps in my stash and found a few different ones. You might be able to see the grass border and branches from the weathered tree. I stamped the clockface and my weeds with Archival ink (Watering Can) and learned that it doesn't stamp well on gesso: the ink seeped its way into the gesso: everything looked fine just as it was stamped, and was all smudgy when dry! I decided to try adding detail with Versafine and some stardust stamps that are cut from a VLVS magical image. This worked fine. I did my journaling with a black fude ball pen along the edges of the paper. I started my line of thought with a quote from a Finnish rock song that I quoted already on the page before (and plan to continue on the next page too) This verse says "Just let all the flowers bloom".

An owl for the wise

I am posting this owl-card for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (It's a guy thing). The steampunk owl is from the Chocolate Baroque Punky birds -stamp set.

The image has first been stamped on satin card with Versamark and heat embossed with gold embossing powder. The whole card has been coloured using an ink blender and Distress inks in different shades of brown. Parts of the owl were then bleached with water and a fine brush and some dark brown and grey color added.

Laite vai vempain?

Tämän viikon P*skiksen aiheena on laite tai vempain... piti ihan käydä noita leimasimia läpi, että mitä sieltä löytyy... päädyin polkupyörään, ja tein yksinkertaisen CAS-tyylisen kirjanmerkin.

Polkupyöräleimasin on laatikosta jonka joskus nappasin Tigeristä. Huomaa kyllä, että 2e laatikko, jossa on 7 leimasinta ei tuo erityistä laatua... kuva-aiheet on kivat (taloja, kissa, puu, aita, pyörä ja auto) mutta ne on liimattu huonosti palikoihinsa ja irvistelevät reunoilta, mikä aiheutti suttu-ongelmia, kun pohjakumin reunat osuivat paperiin. Yhden kirjanmerkkipohjan jouduin siirtämään tuunattavaksi jollakin peittävällä metodilla :(
Sinänsä vesivärileimaus antoi oikein mukavia tuloksia, kuten lähes aina.

Ei auta kun pestä näitä leimoja juoksevan veden alla ja toivoa, että liimaukset luovuttavat ja leimat irtoavat puupalikoistaan, niin voi mountata ne jollakin muulla tavalla! Veisivät vähemmän säilytystilaakin.

The silver fox

I am entering this card for the Rubberdance January challenge (silver and icy blue colours) and the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge ( inky backgrounds)

Like many other crafters I am still under the effect of my crafty New Years resolutions... Which means for example getting rid of old bits and pieces. I have had this inky background for some time. It is the result of experiments using clear embossing powder for a resist effect. The pattern has been dabbed onto water colour paper with an embossing dabber through a Tim Holtz stencil. After heat setting the embossing powder I added Distress inks straight from the ink pads and sprayed with a pearl spray. When everything was dry, I used an iron and copypaper to remove the embossing.

I sewed the text on with my sewing machine. A darker yarn might have been better, but this is what I started with, and so it had to stay. The little foxes are from a Gorjuss stamp set.

Open your eyes

I have had an old Finnish rock song playing at the back of my head for some time, end I decided to try and put it in my art journal. The song talks of this amusement park wheel thing at some point, so I wanted to add it to the page, even though the quote is from another part of the song. This page is practically almost ready, missing only journaling and maybe some more doodling. I am entering it for the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge (inky backgrounds) and the Stampotique Designers challenge (Color Splash)

The words at the bottom of the page say (approximately, and without rhyme)
My life was ever so boring
I stared at that boredom with my eyes shut
I opened my eyes and saw the world
I stopped to gaze at it in awe

I've been trying to follow the DLP 2015 prompts. I still hadn't done the week two prompt on beginnings, when the week 3 prompt came and was the color wheel (that fit perfectly), and made me realize what to do about the baskets on the wheel. The page has first been covered with parts of a math book. The book pages were about transcendental lines and curves, periodical functions, problems and solutions... I would have liked even more of the text to show, but the ink covered it much more effectively than I expected.

After painting the wheel I painted the baskets with watercolours. I masked them and sprayed the background with Dylusions inks. For once I got to use all the colors I own on the same page! I did some doodling with a white sharpie pen. It worked well on the black acrylic paint and on the watercolour, but as can be seen on the right, the Dylusions ink just seeps the white, and the "take a look" is very faint... but actually quite nice as it is.

It's a guy thing

My daughter is wondering how many cards I'm going to make with the same text, but somehow this is a nice, simple and versatile text. I am entering this card for the SimonSaysStamp challenges: Monday (inky backgrounds) and Wednesday (It's a guy thing)

The small yellow-green background has been made with the plastic film technique: I put yellow acrylic paint and some green ink sprays on plastic cling film and packaged a card base... And waited for it to dry. To my dissapointment the surface of the card base ripped when I opened the package, but I was able to cut some parts of it to use. The black domino-paper from DCWV gives a good contrast to the bright colours. The embellishments are grungeboard pieces that I covered first with crackle paste and inked with Distress Inks. The star has a coat of Glossy Accents and the wings have some heat embossing with sparkly and white embossing powders.

WOYWW

So it's time for a worldwide blog hop again! If you came from Julia's blog then you know what this is about, if you just otherwise got lost in cyberspace and landed here, visit Julia, and she'll explain the whole thing.

Here's the busy mess around our living room table this Wednesday morning.  In the front you can see my younger sons knees, as he is playing with the tablet he bought for his Christmas money. As usual I've spread my stuff around the sofa... But you might spot that I've cleaned the piles from above the white drawer and if you had the ability for x-ray zooming, you would see a significant change in some drawers. I've had a lovely mojo week: finished of the stuff I had going, and done several cards and cleaned some places. The mittens have changed into socks. You might spot a pile of stencils behind those shoeboxes... Last night I realized I've forgotten to do the mail art on envelopes for the cards I've finished during the past few weeks. If it's done straight away, it doesn't take any time at all, since the related stencils and stamps are already out, now I took the pile of ready made stuff and went to work... it took maybe 15 min, and the results are really satisfying:

My daughters got some new shoes last week, and I planned to empty some of my stash in them. (The part that needs to be "dashed" as someone put it on last weeks posts). I have one still left to use for that, since the other one already houses books: a couple waiting to be altered some day and a few, that I plan to rip up. Like I sayed last week, I went around some cupboards at work, and got some math/science books :)

Thanks for visiting, leave comments if you wish, and go and peek somewhere else! You can find the other desks here. Have fun!

The Rosetree

I bought the Rosetree set from Chocolate Baroque at the end of last year. I decided to try combining the tree image with watercolour stamping and the current CB colour challenge ( lemon, lime, pink and turqoise).

I coloured the stamps with the corners of my Distress mini ink pads. I started with the yellow flower centers, added pink around them and green for the leaves. Watercolour stamping works best with solid stamps, I ended up colouring the tree with a brush after the stamping was dry. I used an ink blender tool to add turqoise to the sky. To keep up with the watercolour effect, I covered the earlier images and spritzed some water on the otherwise too even sky, which caused the ink to run.

Just be you

 The post delivered a package from VivaLasVegaStamps! and I decided to set them to use straight away, since I had this gorgeous background hanging around after cleaning up some distress inks: spots of pink and green inks, mainly on the sides of an ivory silk card. I used the VLVS ledger and "be adorable" text stamps to add some interest to the base. I wanted them to stay subtle background images, so I spread my Distress Inks (Faded Jeans and Black Soot) on the stamps with an ink blender in stead of straight from the ink pad.

I am posting this card for the Stampotique Designers Challenge (New years' resolutions) and the SimonSaysStamp challenges Monday (Inky backgrounds) and Wednesday (Something new)

The focal point is supposed to be the text "Just be you" = the New Years' resolution, that I machine embroidered on the card. I wrote the text with a pencil on a piece of vellum, and ended up winding my sewing machine forward by hand :)  I wasn't sure if it would stand out on top of the background texts, so I placed it quite low. Afterwards I realized that the vellum didn't rip of as I had imagined and formed a nice add to the text... I just should have placed the text higher and more angled across the card (imagine a "canceled" stamp) and the card would have been finished. Now there was so much space that I had to add something, and decided on this sweet Gorjuss girl. A quirky Stampotique image might have been useful to own :)

Dreams of springtime

I have been waiting for Crafty Individuals to post a new challenge, and so it came with a fab theme:
scenes. Besides the CI January challenge I am posting this page for the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday challenge (Something new).

I felt inspired by this lovely piece of art on the CI-blog at the end of last year and this Tim Holtz tag from last spring... and built a composition using a part of the " Love is all around" collage stamp, a tree trio, birds on a wire and plants all from CI element plates. Also the feather has come from CI as part of a free selection of small stamps. I think I could place this scene on a huge card ( 6' x 12') for some special occasion, but for the time being it can stay a journal page in this watercolour scetchbook.

The "new" in this project was masking stamped images so as to place the next images "behind" the first stamps. I've always done layers by fussy cutting the top images and adhering them, and found that the worst part of this technique was aligning the next stamp so it would be where I wanted it... And when it didn't, trying to make the best of it :) All the stamping and colouring has been done with Distress Ink pads. To add a watercolour effect, I spritzed the stamps lightly with water after spreading the inks.

The large tree stamp is one of my oldest stamps, the second stamp I ever owned as a matter of fact: I got it as a Christmas present some years ago from my mother. Other not CI stamps are the meadow-ground under the large tree (Chocolate Baroque) and part of the foliage around the nest (Rubber stamp tapestry). I don't have an egg stamp, so the egg has been made with a selfcut mask, distress inks and golden spray splatters.

The meadow grasses almost dissapeared into the hill behind them, so I carefully bleached out part of the background (the grasses are also Distress Inks, and I tried to avoid bleaching them too) and added some Stickles glitter to show the flowers of. I really like the light and airy feeling this page has, and the zoom effect works nicely. I'm planing to try a "heavier" layered version with music paper and gesso on the background... when I get it done is to be seen :)