June tag

Well, it's the last day of the month, so I guess it's ok to make a third post for the day? I had actually given myself permission to skip the Tim Holtz June tag, but because the Paperartsy challenge asks for stencils and the June tag uses stencils as stamps... well, they just seemed to go together. I am also posting for the Craft Barn weekly challenge (Stars OR Stripes).

The delicate diecuts almost disappear in the background...

I used TH Tracks and TCW Stripes for the front of my tag, inking the simply with ink sprays in green and blue. I added some more sprays and Distress Ink around the edges. I enterpreted the tag to have kraft diecuts on this base, and used a Memorybox die to cut out two flowers. The text is a Paperartsy stamp. I thought is was ready, but then my eyes caught this shrink plastic butterfly that's been hanging around on my desk for some time, and I decided it could go on too.

As for all my previous tags I also embellished the back. I used just the track stencil this time and added some PA stamps. My feeling is the feather is the quill used for writing the sentiment. My next job is to do a spread in my artjournal and prepare a pocket for this. 

Improbable and beautiful

When the Stampotique Designers challenge changed to "Give wings", I knew I wanted to dress this little skull figure :) After an inventory in my stamps I decided to use wings from the Stampinback Idiot flowers kit and Jofy flowers from Paperartsy, dressing them all up with some gelli prints. Besides the Stampotique challenge, I'm posting for the Stampinback challenge (flying things) and the Paperartsy challenge (stencils, in the gelliprints).

Here are some pictures of the process... I've been doing a lot of cards with this kind of backgrounds lately, but I'm not getting bored yet!

Some traces of this project to be seen
in the scraps under white gesso

Green spray from Lindy's Stamp Gang and
homemade paint spray with FF Carribean Sea.

Stamping on gelli prints and other scraps...

Some more stamping, actually I'm sorry I didn't know where to
stop, I think I would have preferred this without these plants.

The background with everything glued in place.

The finished card.

I was planning to give the image a light grey skull with the yellow peeking from the eyes... but it looked so dead, I decided to use he cutout eyes on the yellow background. After finding this sentiment in one of my Eclectica-stamp sets, I decided the grey skull was as if something dead left behind... I stuck it on, and decided not to mount this on a card base, because it might work nicely in my art journal too.

Yellow Irises

I had a green-blue background lying on my table... and a small blue dragonfly made with shrink plastic ages ago. They seemed to fit together, and since I just saw lots of yellow irises blooming by the lake where my family has a summer place, they seemed the perfect choice. I am posting my card for the Rubberdance colour challenge (yellow-green-blue), the UnrulyPaperArts reader art quest ( The Great Outdoors), the Stampinback card challenge (Things that fly) and the SimonSaysStamp challenges Monday (Summer) and Wednesday (Anything goes).

Actually (for a change) this went about the way I planned it and didn't take long (since the background and dragonfly were already done). The Iris stamp is from VivaLasVegaStamps and the dragonfly is the larger one from Rubberdance.

layers: 4x6 card, torn paperstrips (+glue), white gesso
yellow acrylic paint, clear gesso, blue ink sprays

stamping with Stazon

Bleach: effects the sprays, not the acrylic paint, so the
turn yellow. On the left there are spots without the paint 

colourpencils to add a deeper yellow

some stamping with a Harlequin background (RD)

Mounted on card and added dragonfly

I love the way this turned out, the texture in the background and the vintage feel of the flowers :)

A closeup of the texture

When you are lonely or in darkness

I have been following the DLP-prompts in my art journal this year. Not every week... and this is my first page in June. Who would have imagined that holiday means less craft time? Not me. The DLP June prompts have been about travel journaling and especially about drawing in the journal. The third prompt (There's no place like home) and especially this post by Päivi Eerola encouraged me to give a try. Obviously what the drawing looks like doesn't really matter if you colour it in nicely... I'm posting my spread for the Craft Barn weekly challenge (Bows).

I had taken a picture of a lovely bouquet my friend had made for my daughters confirmation. Looking at this sentiment, I realized it is something I could say to my children, so I wanted to combine it with the bouquet. Here are some pictures of the process:

As for the result... well, I don't like the way my peonies turned out. The flowers were a beautiful cream colour, perhaps not to be reproduced with a black pen... and I should have trusted myself with the colour pencils all the way, not started with the markers. But I like the way the text turned out between the curvy lines (never tried that before), and the flowers (especially the mum) on the bottom row. I'm very satisfied with the effect of thickening the vertical lines of the drawing (with text I've used that for long), next time I draw I might have to dig out my calligraphy set! And I did enjoy practising combining coloured pencils for the backgrounds on the left and right. So far so good, I might try this again, but right now it does stick out among the mixedmedia pages in my journal :)

Lavender and green

The Craft Barn calendar challenge is asking for lavender and dragonflies in June. I think this lavender colour is causing me problems... I've never really liked it as a colour, and that is perhaps the reason

I'm having trouble combining it with other colours. I ended up with green (once again). Adding the old bookpaper I have as a personal theme for this challenged caused extra problems colourwise. Besides the Craft Barn, I'm posting for the designs by Ryn customer creations challenge and the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday challenge (Anything goes).

I started the page with the Designs by Ryn Anemone stencil and crackle paste. When the paste was dry, I painted the background with green mica-watercolour and used an ink blender to give colour to the flowers. The result was cute, but too neat to be combined with the old book paper, so I had to add grunge and brown shades. I used Tea dye -mist from Colorbloom here and there and a TH stencil with Brushed Corduroy ink. I also added some crackle paste to the edges of the page. I continued colouring the flowers with Distress markers. I found that the crackle paste made it possible to use lighter shades as blenders while working with the markers, kind of the way alcohol markers are usually used. Once the flowers were coloured, I added some Wink of Stella, which glimmers nicely.

I really found myself wishing I had a stamp to go with this anemone stencil! To be able to layer some flowers I used a scrap of cardstock and built two extra flowers in the same way as the ones on the background, starting with crackle paste, ending with Distress markers. I fussy cut the flowers and adhered them to cover the empty corner. The dragonfly was stamped onto the book paper with a dragonfly stamp, but the black ink was too dark for this dreamy page. I decided to fussy cut it as intricately as possible (the book paper is so thin, it was not too difficult) and turn the image around so the stamping doesn't show.

The previous pages for this calendar can be found here:
January
February
March
April
May

A dreamer

I won a grab bag from Rubberdance last winter, and I just realized that I have one image left that I haven't used. Looking at the stamp I thought this was perhaps a man, but after I stamped the image I decided on a woman after all. I used Distress markers and coloured her with the current Rubberdance June challenge colours: yellow, green and blue:

She has kind of a peculiar posture with her neck on one side and the "square" hair, but She was fun to colour in (even though I made a mess of her mouth...) and I added Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents here and there for shine and texture. I thought she would fit nicely on an ATC and cut a bluegreen piece from an underpaper. I was planning to add a quote and decided on " The sight of the stars makes me dream" from Vincent van Gogh... but didn't have space for it once the image was glued down, so I'm leaving this as it is :)

Flora

At last I got around to doing a calendar page for the Craft Barn calendar challenge ( June prompts Lavender and Dragonflies). I used some new floral stamps, and coloured a couple before deciding that the Iris would fit my calendar page...

and the other one could make a card. I added a bow on the card so as to be able to post for the Craft Barn weekly challenge (Bows).

The floral stamps and the sentiment are from a VivaLasVegaStamps stamp sheet I just bought. I've been looking at it for a while :) I'll admit I had to check Google for pictures on Irises to get ideas of how to vary the colour on the petals. The other flower is cute, but I couldn't find any references with just the latin name... if someone can name it, please do... but as it is, I can of course give it any colour I please, since I don't know what it "should" be! I stamped them on Canson mixed media paper with Versafine Onyx Black and coloured with Distress markers and a waterbrush. For the calendar page I added two dragonflies made with shrink plastic and a dragonfly stamp from Rubberdance (the large dragonfly, I believe).

Somehow these scrapbook style 8x8 calendar pages have felt easiest to tackle, once again it was the first of this month's calendar pages that I finished (still two June pages to do, and only a week left!). No calendar grid to be seen here, because it will be drawn behind the July page once I choose the paper for it. I have updated my May calendar post with the grid I drew behind this one. 

Update: here is the whole calendar spread. Keeping it simple: I found a nice little picture on a Studio Light cut out sheet and used it to embellish the grid. As usual, the grid follows Finnish calendar standards running from Monday to Sunday and with the names written for each day. The previous pages of this calendar can be found here:

January 

February

March

April 

May

Don't forget to fly

The mood board for the VivaLasVegaStamps June challenge invites to use green and black, scribbles, hearts, polkadots, letters, wings, drips and drops... I am joining with this inky card, and also posting for the Designs by Ryn customer challenge, the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge (Pastes), the Stampotique designers challenge #199 (Shimmer and Shine) and the Craft Barn weekly challenge (Butterflies).

I started my background by gluing torn scraps onto a 6x6 piece of paper and covering with white gesso... after which started a trial and error session: the ink sprays looked great while wet, but as they dried, the white gesso seemed to dilute them and all the "Oomph" disappeared. I added a layer of clear gesso which helped a bit, but the real solution was rubbing in some yellow acrylic paint with a paper towel. I stamped some dots and text with black, but they don't really show anymore, since I got a bit carried away with the gilding flakes! The Bubble wrap stamp and the scribbly heart were gilded with Flitterglu and Megaflakes (Morris Dance). I needed to add some black, and used my new Anemone stencil and black embossing paste.

Some Inka Gold was added to the center of the flowers.

I used rub-on letters to write my sentiment. I have tons of these basic rub-on letters, because a friend grabbed a pile that was going to be thrown away when the Finnish Geological Institute cleared their cupboards... in good old days maps were made by hand, and they had both rub-on and sticker letters and symbols for that. I used miscellaneous letters from a damaged sheet to add some interest on the edges, my original type-text stamping had practically disappeared at this point!

The little butterfly is actually the Large Gossamer butterfly on shrink plastic. Promarkers are nice for colouring shrink plastic, but can't touch stamping done with Stazon. I've previously used them on open areas of stamped images, but now I decided to try colouring the plastic before stamping the image. I happened to have a stamped butterfly lying on the desk, and for once really had use of having translucent shrink plastic: I placed the image under my plastic, and could see enough to be able to colour it well enough. After stamping I continued with gel pens. To make the green butterfly visible on the green background I gilded the edges, added a layer of Wink of Stella and covered it with Glossy Accents... and still felt the need to place it on a black part of the background!

I like the way this card turned out, green, black and gold are quite a combination!

Hidden thoughts

I started a card with my brand new Designs by Ryn stamps, planning to post for the Ryn customer challenge, the Our Creative corner challenge (This makes me smile = new stash) and the Rubberdance colour challenge (yellow, green, blue). As the work progressed, I was inspired by the Paperartsy challenge (hidden objects) and the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday challenge changed to favourite techniques, so I'm posting for them too.

I started with my go-to background technique: upcycling unliked designer paper from a 6x6 pad (you know the stuff that your left with, when the pad runs out?) I like to glue torn paper scraps on such pieces and add gesso, acrylic paints and sprays etc. If I have trouble getting my mojo going, I do a bunch of these, and usually after spraying a couple I have ideas bursting! This has white gesso, yellow acrylic paint, clear gesso and Dylusions sprays. I wanted to create a seascape and stamped bubbles, plants and fish from Ryn and framed with my trusty harlequin stamp from Rubberdance.

The really wrinkly part at the bottom is where I glued a piece of vellum,
it reacted with the glue and the paints...

Stamping on a textured surface sometimes blurs the details.
I used a black pen to fill in the spots on the fish.

I bleached out the sprays from the bubbles (= they are yellow because of the yellow acrylic paint) and encountered a problem: I wanted to use this sentiment, but it was too long. Luckily I had been following the PA Hidden objects posts, and in the night it came to me: I could make a tag. I remember smiling at a comment from this post " no-one can resist pulling a tab" - agree on that, even though this ended up a tag, not a tab :)

I made my tag with Distress inks, an ink blender and the same stamps used for the original seascape. It looked too soft and tame to go with the card, so I added Dylusions sprays once again... Except for the back of the tag that was so pretty and the sprays would have destroyed my water bleaching!

I just love this texture!

Haaveilua

Addicted to Technics haasteessa pyydetään leimakuvan "pukemista", joten tuumasta toimeen. Otin käsittelyyn Gorjuss-leiman. Tämän on kyllä ostettu nallen takia, jos voisi vaikka jonkun muun hahmon kanssa rakentaa jotain sen aikaisempiin Gorjuss-julkaisuihin kuuluvan nalle-kuvan tapaista, kun siitä ei leimaa löydy... En siis tykkää noista korvaläpistä, enkä siitä että maaston kukat ja sälä (pelikortit ja jopa kahvikuppi!) ovat kiinni hahmokuvassa -no, leikkelin osia pois. Kukat itseasiassa näyttävät siltä, että on hieno Haute Couture -mekko :)

Kortin tausta on valikoitu suttupapereista. Puut ja vähän tekstiä olivat siinä valmiina, lisäsin nuottileimat sillä ajattelen, että ehkä tyttö kuuntelee musiikkia noista korvaläpistä. Hahmo on koottu kolmesta kerroksesta:

Pohjakerros, johon väritin ihon ja takahiukset, keskimmäinen gelli-kokeilusta leikelty mekko ja kuulokkeet sekä päällimmäinen kerros, jossa väritettynä etuhiukset ja nalle. Näin upeaa mekkoa en olisi ikinä saanut värittämällä aikaiseksi, samaa tekniikkaa täytynee kokeilla muillekin Gorjuss-hahmoille.

Woyww #315-it's wednesday again!

Posting my crafty spot for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. I actually really cleaned up for the weekend, since we had guests. Carried the shoeboxes from under the sofa into the shed in the yard. Did no crafting for a couple of days... And this is Tuesday evening. The vase with flowers and the black gift box are remains of our daughter's confirmation party last weekend.

Did some colouring with my Distress markers, perhaps I'm getting the hang of them gradually! 

Got some new stash: Designs by Ryn stencils and stamps to be seen on the sofa. Haven't had her stamps before, the background rubber was extraordinarily thick, I was scared my scissors wouldn't cut through it! The images were also spaced quite far from each other, so there is a pile of leftover rubber that I'm wondering what to do something with. The stamps look great, but I haven't had time to ink them up yet... I'm feeling sorry I didn't take the moth sheet while I was at it :( 

On the floor are some backgrounds I'm making, just to get my mojo working. I took tricky 6x6 and 4x6 papers from designer pads (you know the papers that end up never fitting anywhere), glued on bits of leftover papers: stamping experiments, underpapers, receipts and such... Added a layer of gesso, and the next phase will be ink sprays. 

On the desk there is pink rubber from VivaLasVegaStamps, I won a grabbag from their April challenge, and ordered a couple of plates to come in the same mail. Actually they sent me two grabbags, don't know why... and they were almost identical Christmas grabbags! I'm going to have to do some destash and arrange a giveaway at some point... And talking about being lucky, I won a Zig giveaway on the blog of last weeks DLP featured artist, so got some pens and stuff coming at some point!

The yellow folder contains my calendars for the Craft Barn challenge. I feel a panic rising, haven't done any of them yet and June is over half way!