A tribute to Eric Carle

The Craft Barn calendar challenge is asking for pink and butterflies. I've done a butterfly on one of the previous pages of this collage calendar, so I had a bit of a challenge getting going and wondering what I could do about not repeating myself.

Ever since I started this collage calendar, I have smiled at the memory of Eric Carle books. His style is intriguing and inspiring, and one of my favourites is the story of a little caterpillar eating it's way through all sorts of stuff and ending up a butterfly. So that's approximately what I did, though I didn't have space for all the eating! I started with some background stamping (all stamps from Rubber Dance) and a layer of acrylic paint scraped over. So far I've just used paper scraps for this calendar, now I used some ribbon for the stem of the plant. After adhering everything I did some sewing and finished of with Sharpie pens. Lovely bright colours to make anyone's day!

When my daughter looked at this she first asked what the purple blob was (the chrysallis) after which she noted that the eggs are missing... Oh, well... kids do know and notice it all, don't they? I'm just going to be happy a fifteen year old actually bothers to stop by mom's desk and shows some interest in what's happening. And if someone wonders about the eggs in the future, I'll claim the eggs are hidden on the backside of one of those leaves :)

The previous pages of this collage-calendar can be found here:

January
February

March

April
May

June

July

Pink and Butterflies

This months Craft Barn calendar prompts had me scratching my head, because pink just didn't hit me... but then I realized that Dylusions Bubblegun pink is not my only pink spray, I have one subtle one from Tattered angels! I noticed it would pair nicely with the tan colour of the old bookpaper I'm using on this calendar, and at last got myself going. I'm also posting for the Craft Barn weekly challenge (Spray).

I stamped some flowers with gesso in the background. They aren't showing as much as I thought, but that's ok. The moth stamps are from Designs by Ryn (I'm interprting that moths are butterflies, in Finnish they are called "night butterflies"). The other stamps are from VivaLasVegaStamps and the stencil from Imagination Crafts. I'm guessing this is as close to shabby chic as I have ever been so far!

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

Blue and white

The Art journey August challenge is blue and white. I've been wanting to try stamping on Grunge Paste, and now I got around to it! Also posting for the Craft Barn weekly challenge (Sprays). I think this card and envelope are quite cool, though it might be that mailing them will require an extra stamp because the relief is a bit heavy.

I started with a watercoloured piece of cardstock and applied Paperartsy Grungepaste, which is a claylike modelling paste. Mine is quite dry, so I didn't have to wait, just sprayed some water on my stamps and pressed them in the paste.

I added colour with sprays, watered down acrylics, Derwent artbars and white embossing powder... and some details using the other stamps from the Art Journey tulip set. While I had the stamps out, I used Distress inks and spritzes of water to stamp the images on the envelope. Love a bit of mail art when I get the chance!

Woyww #325

Here's my desk this Wednesday morning, the morning sun is shining from the opposite side of the house (from the left through the living room). I'm posting for the fun and addictive worldwide deskhop (woyww=what's on your workdesk wednesday) hosted by Julia. I have been working on two calendar pages at once. It was quite fruitful: when one came to a halt, I had an idea what to do with the other one, and when that started to feel difficult or needed to dry, my mind had sorted out how to continue with the first one... Ever tried something like that? 

This of course led to quite a mess, so last night (as I moved to finishing touches) I had to clear all the papers away that I've used for the colourful collage calendar you can see at the top of the picture. The mixed media one is underneath it. Still some ribbon and stamps and paperscraps hanging around... I'm working on three calendars for the Craft Barn calendar challenge. It seemed like a good idea at some point in the spring, but right now I'm just sighing in relief that they are done for the month. I know I'll be glad I did it when I get to give them for Christmas! Lot's of work and little playtime is getting expensive, cause I've been shopping :) All sorts of goodies are just being shipped, not arrived yet. Besides, a Finnish craft store is shutting down and good bargains are good bargains, right?

I wish I might...

The Paperartsy challenge this past fortnight has been gels and mediums. I do have some, and haven't really used them for much, so the abundance of tutorials and inspiration has really been useful and fun. Since the new Craft Barn weekly challenge happens to be sprays, I'm posting for that too. I have used heavy gloss gel (Liquitex) to make skins on (the two) embossing folders I have... Here's a card I put together with one:

I tried spraying the skin as it was and drying with a heat gun, but I found that the thin edges of the skin stuck to the scrap paper I had underneath, so I adhered the skin to a card base before I continued spraying. I tried lots of sprays (Lindy's, Dylusions, Perfect Pearls, Tattered angels...) and other stuff (inka gold wax, perfect pearls, wink of stella...) to enhance the texture, but a lot of it seems to wipe of, so I decided to leave the feathers as a background. I stamped the flower from Jofy 31 and the sentiment from Rubberdance affirmations sheet on some silk card, heat embossed with clear embossing powder and sprayed with all the same sprays I used on the background (practically all the blue and green sprays I have). After cutting them out I stamped the flourish and some extra petals on the leftover inky bits and cut them out too. After assembling and adhering them on the card I added a touch of Glossy Accents, and while it was drying I did a bunch of stamping on the envelope, cleaned up my desk and wrote this.

My other embossing folder experiment with glossy gel ended up as a transparent pocket in my art journal, you can find the post here (it's in Swedish, but lot's of pics).

I also tried the Gel on a stamp. Not being sure it would come of I took a faulty stamp for which I have a replacement. The stamp turned out to be so deeply etched that the gel didn't turn transluscent after a couple of days of drying! But it came of nicely, caught lots of detail (and all the dust that happened to be in the part torn off in the mail)... this might be a way to clean stamps! Next time I'll try colouring the gel before spreading it on the stamp... and perhaps a shallower stamp too :)

I really like this smooth side, the texture shows through the gel...

Yes, please!

I'm posting for the Stampotique Designers challenge (repeat yourself) and the Craft Barn weekly challenge (sweet and sugary) with this card.

Besides the Stampotique skully I used the sentiment and muffins from an Alice Palace stamp from Crafty Individuals. I put together an ATC, but decided to mount it on a card, since I happened to have a bubble background that fit nicely. I stamped some goodies on the envelope too... makes me feel like baking!

Want some more?

I thought I'd have to skip this week's challenge at the Craft Barn simply because I don't have any stamps with sweet things... But while searching for something else, I actually ran into this CI Alice Palace stamp and realized I could use it.

I've already earlier cut the stamp into four parts so I can use the sentiments, goodies and dog separately. The image was coloured with distress markers and I used an embossing folder to add texture in the background. Made me realize I should perhaps stock a few folders, to have options... this is the one that came with the Cuttlebug. To my satisfaction I was able to use a blue card blank and envelope from my destash pile :)

I made some extra muffins, planning to pop them on front of the image, but decided not to... so I guess I'll have to make another entry for this challenge just to get rid of them! 

Go where your muse takes you!

A very simple page for the Craft Barn August calendar challenge (pink and butterflies).

I chose a background paper with butterflies and used a stencil with them too. The background is actually a nice soft green, but the picture doesn't seem to show it... The tulip stamp is from Crafty Induviduals and the sentiment from Rubber Dance. I drew he July calendar grid behind this page, and realized to my horror, that I've also done the July calendar grid behind the July page (where June should be...) so I'm going to have to fix that somehow :(

The previous pages of this "scrappy" calendar can be found here

January 

February

March

April 

May
June
July

Woyww #324

Joining in the world wide desk hop hosted by Julia at the Stamping Ground... just a quick shot of my work-in-progress desk. I gathered stuff for the Craft Barn August calendar (pink and butterflies) last night. I have to leave for work at 9:30, planning to get the page done before I go.

I have been cooking juice lately, and I took some pictures in case some of you have never seen how that is done. Ended up documenting quite a surprise too! The cooker is a three part kettle. The lowest part holds water that is brought to a boil. The second part has a "chimney" that moves the steam to the berries. The juice collects around the chimney. The top part holds the berries and sugar (doing red currants and cherries) it has small holes for the steam to go in and the juice to seep out. Just let it cook for a couple of hours, and you have 5 litres of concentrated fruit nectar. I store it in the freezer and serve on special occasions.

As for the surprise... Well, the first litre of juice should always be poured back through the berries, it helps the top berries to get going, because they get less steam. As I was pouring it, my hand slipped and I spilled it all over the place! Luckily not very much on myself, since it is hot, but had to forget about papercrafting that night...

Adventures in grey

The VivaLasVegastamps August challenge has a beautiful Black-Grey-White moodboard. This card has been bubbling inside me since I saw it, and now I got it done. I am also posting for the Paperartsy "gels and mediums" challenge.

I watched Leandra's glaze- and medium videos last night and realized I could at last try my Fresco Matte Glaze... So after gluing newspaper on a piece of cardstock, I used the glaze to thin out my white paint so it wouldn't cover the text completely. After stamping all the images, I added a layer of clear gesso. This made it possible to continue with black watercolour and a black Inktense pencil which I used to paint the background scene and darken the frame areas.

I've been enjoying Tera's Mail Art Monday posts (I cut that little writing circle after watching the latest one :) and made a matching envelope for the card. I usually try to do these straight away while the stamps are still out... that way it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes, at least if it's kept as simple as this.

Bingorivi

Paskiksessa jälleen bingoillaan. Halusin käyttää pois vihreitä taustoja, halusin käyttää uusia kukkaleimojani... joten riviksi valikoitui vihreä - kukkia - one layer.

Minulla on laatikossa yleensä aina jämäkortteja joiden pintaan olen liimannut paperinpalasia ja maalannut gessolla. Pari päivää sitten putsasin vihreää maalia useammalle niistä, ja valitsin yhden työstettäväksi. Teksti on norjalaisen Rubber Dancen uudelta arkilta, muut leimat Paperartsyn (löysin vastikään tämän hollantilaisen firman, suosittelen). Kukat on leimattu ja embossattu mustalla kohojauheella, minkä jälkeen maalasin akryylimaaleilla ja oikein ohuella pensselillä... tunnustan, että jälkikäteen on lisätty myös mustaa tussia, kun maali peitti väkisin leimausjälkeä. Lopuksi koristelin vielä kuorenkin sävy sävyyn.

Yesterday's memories

A quick post for a quick card... for the Craft Barn weekly challenge (colouring).

The sentiment is from Paperartsy and the background is a Chocolate Baroque stamp. What made this a five-minute card is the fact that I coloured this piece in probably a year ago and found it in my destash pile :) it has been coloured with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush. I found a flower stamp that fit seemingly well with the background, stamped it on the envelope and coloured in with coloursoft pencils. I like the way they worked on the kraft background.

Woyww #323

Joining today in the worldwide wednesday-deskhop hosted by Julia. School has started yesterday, today lessons are running according to normal schedule... Haven't got any real work on my table though. I've been working on my art journal, and lifted it away last night so I could sit and browse the web :) wouldn't have been able to show it anyway, because It's DT stuff!

Last Wednesday evening I decided to dare myself and applied for the Rubberdance scandinavian DT, and was chosen. I'm going to be blogging in swedish, that's why you can see a Finnish-Swedish dictionary on the table. We have a swedish-speaking minority here in Finland, and everyone has to learn swedish at school. For me that was two decades ago... I always had an easy time with it, now I've being warming up by doing the correspondence with RD boss Bibi in swedish and at times I find myself at loss for words or spelling :)

Oh, yes... I made a cool bendy card according to Angelas tutorial, you can find my card here and the tutorial here! 

Love always!

This has been one busy week, but I got a small card made with the Rubber Dance August challenge colours (green, yellow, fuchsia). Part of what has made this week so busy is, that I have had the honour of being chosen as part of the Rubber Dance Scandinavian DT (which means I will be posting in swedish on the RD Scandinavian blog)! I am linking my card as an inspirational piece to the challenge... Happy crafting!

I have been watching some flower tutorials lately, and realized I should maybe buy some dies and try building lovely roses and fuchsia and the like... The flowers on my card are about as simple as can go, the good thing about these is they are so flat that they are easy to attach, the card fits nicely in an envelope and actually the beads keep it from flattening completely inside the envelope. I used a punch from my children's stash, adding colour with Distress inks and cutting into the top layer flowers with a craft knife, so the petals can be lifted. I used Glossy Accents to glue the flower together and adhere the beads.

I made a few bubble backgrounds using this tutorial and Distress reinkers in Mowed Lawn and Squeezed Lemonade. My main image is from Rubber Dance Art Stamps. I coloured it with Distress markers and gave it a spritz of water before stamping. Actually the spritz was a bit too big, his green bowtie just disappeared, and her dress seaped into his suit... But it is quite enchanting like this.

I like to do a bit of mail art for my cards. I used my RD Harlequin stamp, inking it with an ink blender to get a very subtle look. The sentiment was inked up with the same ink (DI Mowed Lawn), spritzed with water and stamped on top of the harlequin pattern.

A Bendy Card

I'm posting my last take on the Paperartsy flowers-challenge. The prompt video of the challenge showed Jofy flowers combined with book paper, I have kraft cards in my destash pile and I've been wanting to try making a bendy card.... all this resulted in a neutral flower card that I think would be suitable for many situations.

The card base is a 6x6 square, and I followed this tutorial for cutting and remodelling it. The two front flaps are held in a bend by tabs that fit in slits. The flowers were then stamped both onto the card base and onto book paper. After quite a bit of fussy cutting, the pieces were in place and I added a touch of white gel pen. Here's how it folds out.

I can imagine adding a sentiment like "congratulations" or "thanks" on the innermost layer, perhaps stamping or heat embossing it with white on a piece of kraft card. For the time being I'm leaving this as it is. I like to do a bit of mail art while I have the stuff out. Since it's not certain that glued pieces would stay stuck on an envelope, I just used a gel pen on a stamped flower. When the tabs are pulled out of the slits, the card fits in the envelope (just have to hope the recipient realizes how to assemble the card!)