Graffiti

A quick card for the VivaLasVegaStamps Graffiti -themed February challenge (splatters, drips, dots, orange, banksy...) and the Country View crafts February challenge (time challenge, max 30 minutes). Had a bit of a hurry with the embossing and fussy cutting, but the background was a ready piece from my stash :)

I just love this little Banksy rat balancing on a chain. I heat embossed him with black embossing ink, continued the line of the chain first with a black marker, then with an embossing pen and embossing powder. A touch of fussy cutting, and my focal point was ready. It has been mounted on thin strips of foam tape. The background is from last summer: Brusho colours dripped and dropped on ink jet photo paper. Love the effect! I stamped the background with stamps from VivaLasVegaStamps and Archival inks in black and grey.

Melanthium vulgari

Posting for the challenge at Our Mixed Media Moods. They have a beautiful moodboard, from which I took the deep wine red colour, texture, fabric/threads and black and white florals. I'm also posting for the VivaLasVegaStamps challenge (used reds, oranges, pinks, purples, splatters, drips and drops, check their moodboard behind the link) and the Craft Stamper take-it-make-it challenge where anything with stamping goes.

I made the background by scraping heavy body acrylic paints on a card with black gesso. I used some texture paste and heat embossed it with sparkly pink embossing powder. I didn't like the effect (it turned somewhat silvery) and continued with the acrylic paint, making it thick layers and continuing with the palette knife.  I mostly let the paint airdry, even though the heat gun gave some lovely bubbles (when I tried the heat embossing). The embossing powder still shows, but just as a gritty texture, which I like. All the stamps I used are from VivaLasVegaStamps: the lovely detailed flower in the foreground , the ledger and some botanicals and a plate number (the plate with the melanthium vulgari) in the background. 

Rust and fibres

I got inspired by several moodboards, and ended up with this card. I'm posting it for the VivaLasVegaStamps challenge, check the moodboard and links here (inspired by foliage, nature, bugs, wings, numbers, script, invoice, background stamps, tan, black, white, brown, distressed, grungy and Corrie's lovely butterflies in this DT-post). I'm also linking to the challenge at Our Mixed Media Moods. Their previous moodboard had lovely rusty bits and bobs, and that's when I started building the dragonfly. The new moodboard has wings, copper flower stems and fibres, so all in all the result is using everything but the magenta colours. All the stamps I used are favourites from VivaLasVegaStamps.

I like to collect rusty bits that I run into outdoors, and this nail is one of those... I used pliers to straighten it a bit. The wings of the dragonfly are from "girl with wings". I stamped the wings twice on acetate, fussy cut them and tried to adhere them to the nail with gel medium. I wanted them on top of the nail, like on a real dragonfly. It didn't work, but they attached to each other, which was a step in the right direction. The next step was Glossy Accents, which seems to have done a good enough job. The fibres have been adhered with gel medium and once that was dry, the dragonfly was stuck down with some rolled glue dots.

The background is cardboard with a layer of gesso. I stamped the Invoice and Numbers -stamps with Archival ink. This Tree Circle stamp is one of my first VLVS stamps! I stamped it with Versamark and embossed it with WOW Copper Pearl embossing powder. 

A last photo of the whole piece. Love it! And by the way, I bought one of those bright light- lamps... I'm overjoyed to be able to take pictures like this without daylight :) 

Steampunk projects

The SanDee and Amelie's steampunk challenge is asking for three favourite steampunk projects from 2016. At first I thought I might not even have three projects to show, but actually I did... I even got to pick and choose! Here they are, in no particular order: a set of ATC:s and two cards.

Original post here

Original post here

Original post here

Happy New Year!

A really last minute entry for the VivaLasVegaStamps December challenge! Check the lovely moodboard and other challenge entries here. Since the colours are similar to the moodboard at Our Mixed Moods, I'm also posting for that too. It would of course be impossible to ride a hot air balloon in space, but... who cares? I'm really looking forward to everything we're headed for in 2017 :)

I used a mixed media background (scrap paper glued on scrap card and covered with gesso), sprayed with Dylusions Calypso Teal spray. The stamp is from Viva Las Vega Stamps and I stamped with Versafine Onyx Black. I was quite satisfied how well the image turned out, even though the background is uneven. I added texture paste through a star stencil and since the spray seeped into it, I  coloured over the stars with a paint marker.

Problems with Solutions

Posting for the VivaLasVegaStamps July challenge (steampunk it), SanDee and Amelie's Steampunk challenge (anything with steampunk goes) and the WOW embossingpowders July challenge (favourite embossing techniques). I made three ATCs using the VLVS moodboard and prompts (at least steampunk, copper, umbrellas, underwater, script). I love using embossing powders with stamps, it makes images pop out and gives texture to the piece. I also love embossed splatters, here I have both stamped splatters and splatters made with chunky embossing enamel. All stamps are from VivaLasVegaStamps.

The lovely Banksy girl has been stamped onto transparent shrink plastic with black Stazon. I turned the plastic over and coloured the other side with blue and green alcohol inks. The tricky part was shrinking the pieces, they were A6 size (about american A2) and got into horrible curls. I did my best to open the shrunk piece and squished it with an acrylic block. I guess this size should be baked in the oven? 

The text is cut from a math book (luckily the index has this title over and over again!) and the background has been stamped with the Ledger background, small gears (some heat embossed with WOW Verdigris) splatters from the Coffee Ring stamp and some chunky black embossing powder. The plastic was attached with glue dots, they kind of look like bubbles behind the surface. The bends and wrinkles in the plastic ended up being quite cool, Here you can see how fantastic the piece looks with the sun reflecting itself around the insides of the plastic.

Moona

Working on the Art Journal Journey June challenge (maps) has been postponed do many times I was afraid I wouldn't get it done! Especially since I knew what I wanted to do and it kind of scared me. I luckily dared to start playing and was happy to get inspiration from the Viva Las VegaStamps challenge using their prompts (black, white, green, dots, circles, sketchy, script, doodles...) and stamps too, of course. The sister of our dog, Moona, was run over by a car in the beginning of June... we had spent a lot of time together and really thought our dogs could visit and enjoy each others company for years to come. So here's for Moona, we all miss her. Sniff.

I started by tearing a piece of a map of our home town. I was happy to find it possible to get our home and Moona's home on the same spread. Actually even the dogs' birthplace is there, but I didn't think of that while gessoing. I used both white and clear gesso with the aim to have the homes and the route between them showing through a bit more than the rest.

I have never done an image transfer before. I looked through a bunch of tutorials on different blogs and found that it works different for ink jet prints and toner photocopies and laser prints... I had printed a large picture at work with a machine that also works as a photocopy machine. I'm sure it isn't an ink jet, but I have no idea what technique options there are for the functions of colour printing. I decided to just do it: opted for gel medium, and tried a small piece first, you can see the green in the lower right corner above. At least something transfered, so I spread gel medium over the picture and burnished well... and then waited and peeked and waited again and after maybe five minutes I lifted the paper. The edges were ok, but the middle had quite a lot of paper left on it. You can see that about half the page stuck to the image, half came off. I continued by rubbing the surface while it still was wet, but found soon that I had colour coming off too.

I left the image to dry and continued some hours later, misting with water and gently rubbing the paper away. It rolled nicely, but at times the colour came off too, especially around the eyes... I coloured the white from next to the eyes with black and brown markers (didn't want her looking like a zombie), otherwise the worn and torn look is fine. If I should do something different, I would spread the gel medium further around the image (I tried to get just the dog), it would have been easy to cover the extra green with gesso, now I lost a part of her other ear. Fixing the eye (or eyebrow) really made a difference, she looks like herself!

I started doodling text on the left page. I used acrylic paint markers, micron pens and a charcoal pen. I forgot to take a picture, but I felt it was empty and decided to stamp. Guess how disturbing the result was?!? Horribly restless and not nice at all. I hated it... a mess, the stamped images bled on the gesso and the text just dissapeared. Besides I had to sleep overnight for the ink to dry before I could start covering the stamped images with gesso. Luckily the end result is very pleasing, I used white gesso, Fresco Finish Granny Smith and Dina Wakley Umber, blending a bit with a baby wipe.

I thought this was finished at this point... untill someone noticed I had the year wrong, we are running 2016! Luckily this was easily fixed, and I ended up using a few more stamps too. This time I used Stazon, and it gave nice crisp images :) While I was at it, I spread a layer of satin glaze over the transferred picture. Part of the leftover paper on top of the image went transparent (like tissuepaper does), so it became a bit more vivid in colour.

I used a short poem-like text that I once copied from a funeral announcement. It's from Eeva Kilpi, a Finnish poet and though it doesn't translate very well wor for word, the idea is approximately

don't say that life is short

say: what a special experience

since it is not at all a question of length

but of experiencing the here and now 

Dogs are known to live in the moment, they don't worry about the past or daydream about the future. Yes, our dog does miss her sister when we do something where Moona would generally have come along (like going to swim the other day), but otherwise she doesn't really think about it, I'm sure. The mourning part is left for us humans, and I guess we'll gradually get even with it. I didn't have to shed tears making this page now, if I had tried a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have. And I'm super happy with the result, this spread will be cherished :)

Balancing...

The VivaLasVegaStamps May challenge has a cool moodboard, from which I chose to be inspired by weird, unique, epiphanies, big ideas, rats, black, grey, white, sprays, splatters, grunge and numbers. Besides VLVS I'm posting for the WOW challenge (anything with embossing goes) and the Craft Stamper Take it Make it challenge (anything with stamping goes).

I played with a product I've had for ages called Perfect Resist. I saw it recently in a web shop and remembered I have it somewhere and have never used it. After some rummaging, I found the bottle and stamped the scribbly star onto coated cardstock. I guess it's some sort of wax, the medium was runny and I used a foam piece to dab it on the stamp. I added grey Brusho powder, spritzed with water and when the card was dry I stamped with the VLVS numbers stamp.

To make my focal point, I stamped the Banksy rat onto white paper with Versamark and heat embossed with black. The chain was too short, so I continued it with an embossing pen.

I fussy cut the rat image, stamped the sentiment and mounted the smaller pieces with low foam tape that can be cut under narrow areas (like the chain). The background panel got dimension from a piece of corrugated cardboard.

I stamped the star on an envelope with grey and black Distress inks and a spritz of water. Here goes!

Since I really liked how this turned out, I had to do a couple more with other sentiments... strange how different the colours look, they are actually the same!

No Pulse Yet

Here is my entry for the VivaLasVegaStamps! April challenge. Check the link for the lovely moodboard. I have been inspired by coffee, coffee spills/rings/splatters and shades of tan and browns.

As soon as the challenge was out, I dug my stash for the trusty coffee ring stamp and a bunch of go-to background stamps. The sentiment from Paperartsy was a perfect match, all the other stamps are from VivaLasVegaStamps (Coffee rings, Ledger, several different stitches). I used the stitches to make the pulse line and stamped the coffee rings with different shades of brown Distress Inks. The stamping continues over the bend in the card, part of the rings and the stitch line have been heat embossed with VLVS Ultra High Gloss Clear embossing powder. To add some texture, I mixed gesso with brown acrylic paint and added stars using a stencil.

Hanki

I've been working in my art journal for the first time this year (horrible how time flies!) Luckily I ran into the Art Journal Journey page and got inspired by the March prompt "if you go down to the woods". I found myself bugged by the fact that I didn't do anything in January and February, so I decided to incorporate the January theme (Winter Wonderland) too. After all we are still in winter weather here in Finland.. at least it's not -30 anymore like it was in January :) besides AJJ I'm posting for Try it on Tuesday (Nature) the Craft Barn bi-weekly challenge (background circles) and the Paperartsy challenge (sculpting mediums... I added cheesecloth and used a combination of gel medium and matt glaze, can't talk about sculpting with my skills, but at least this is soft enough for the flaps to work!). I was inspired by the prompt post that you can find behind the link, check it out for gorgeous projects!

I guess it's quite natural that the Finnish language has more words for snowy phenomena than English... and my art journal page is about one of them. Hanki refers to the blanket of snow thick enough to cover all details of the ground underneath (at least 30 cm in my opinion). This fell upon us a month ago, and gives the proper "winter wonderland" look. This year however we have been lucky with our "hanki": the strong spring sun combined to ongoing proper frost (-10 C this morning!) has resulted in a strong crust on the snow. This is what the "kanto" refers to: the ability to carry weight. Instead of having to walk IN the snow, it's possible to walk ON the snow. Love it. Woodlands are a CAS version of themselves and all of a sudden we are not confined to the paths someone has trod, but can wander where we please :) This is typical for spring in northern Finland, but here in the south it's a rare treat that doesn't happen every year! Our little dog is head over heals. 50 cm of soft snow meant she had to "swim" in it if she jumped of the path, now that's not been a problem for the past couple of weeks.

Acrylic paints brayered over the spread. I thought of the ground under the snow waiting for spring.

Stamping with Paperartsy stamps. I decided this looked too much like autumn.

so I added flaps to the bottom of the page with white washi tape and stenciled some trees

Tissuepaper and cheesecloth to camouflage the flaps and diecut/punched snowflakes.

The dog stamped and painted with acrylic paints.
Letters stamped on inky scrap paper and fussy cut.

Some bokeh with white paint and sequins to depict the fierce spring sun.

The flaps at the bottom of the page can be lifted up. I stamped "no pulse yet", because spring is still letting us wait... The underpart is quite ugly, but that's what we'll have when this snow melts!

A few closeups of the page. The dog is a stamp from VivaLasVegaStamps. I haven't used it before, the dog in the stamp is quite skinny and smooth, but I added fur with a narrow brush and acrylic paint. Looks like a border terrier in need of a trim, and that's our dog :) I would have liked to stamp her lower down on the page, but I had already adhered the cheesecloth so this will have to do. The faraway background trees are from Crafty Individuals and the letter stamps from Rubber Dance.

I'll fill in the ending date once the snow goes soft again :)