Having a three year old little girl...

...makes you create the funniest things! My little girl Laura loves to play in a tent. I have a little tent from IKEA but it takes a lot of space in my living room. And the weather lately isn't so sunny either to put it in the garden outside....So I decided to transform my dinnertable to a tent for her! We have a big dinnertable, big enough for eight guests. Normally part of the table is filled with my computer, but still this leaves enough space to eat or scrap...or play! I took an old sheet and with a lot of help of my sewing machine and some creative imagination...voilà!

Now, I just have to pull away some chairs, hang the sheet over the end of my table and we have a tent!

Laura loves the little mailbox in the 'door'. Her big sister loves to play the mail(wo)man so they both have a lot of fun.

And see that little window on the side? So cute! 

And you know what the best part is? I can still work on my computer or even scrap, while she is playing under the table!!

TFL!

TCR#21: Having a juicy good time

It's been a while since I made a layout...I think about two months. My last layout was for The Color Room (palette #13) and now my first layout since ages is again for The Color Room.
This was the color palette:

I love these colors! Still, it was hard to make a layout. Let say..it's a start but I can do better...

Here is my layout:

I scraplifted a layout of Ronda Palazzari. I love what she did with the embossed circles and wanted to try that technique too...and it worked! I created some parts of a watermelon myself, with watercolor paint.

TFL!

More art journaling!

I graduated from Art Journaling Week ! And now I'm entitled to use this heart shaped art journaling badge and let everybody know! How fun is that?! Thanks Julie !!!!

Of course, I wouldn't feel free to use it here if I hadn't done any NEW art journal pages this week. And I didn't make just one, I made three pages! Yep, I'm definitely on a roll ! LOL

Thanks to Julie's tutorial about lettering I made this one:

This has become the first page in my new art journal 'treasure'. I loved the quote Julie used in her tutorial so much that I wanted to use it too.

The background is painted in turquoise green. I scraped some silver paint on top with an old creditcard. The lettering is pretty much the same as in the tutorial because I wanted to try them all.

My second page is totally different!

Although it doesn't look funny (because of the colors) it is a funny story.

It is about a huge spider I had to deal with last Saturday. The spider is becoming bigger and bigger every time I think of it...lol.

I saw the spider suddenly while I was working on my computer. I'm not realy afraid of spiders but this monster made me jump from my chair. Normally when I see a spider I kill it with a piece of paper or a newspaper, but to crush this one...No, thanks...So I yelled at my hubby for him to be my hero but he didn't react because he was still asleep! So far for my hubby hero...!!

So, I decided to wait and see....but then this monster started to move. Iiiiieeeuw! He fell on the floor, in the middle of my computer wires....so I had no choice than to be my own hero! I grabbed my shoe and started looking for him. I finally found him in a corner under the curtain. When I lifted the curtain he RUN away! OMG, those spiders can run fast! And than..I crushed it with my shoe...had to slap it three times! Done!

Of course, I took a picture of the spider before this all happened and used it on my page.

By the way, I painted the background in silver first. Than I sort of distressed it with a big paintbrush with black paint and another layer of white paint. I decoupaged some pieces of an old book on top and distressed some more. The shoe print is a stencil which I made from a picture I found on Google.

The little ghost is from some old Nikki Sivils papers. 

And here is page number three:

This time I was inspired by all the rain we are having lately here in the Netherlands. It should be summer but it feels like it is autumn already. Lots of grey, cloudy and rainy days. And this week is the worst! Flooded streets, flooded basements and happily for me, only a son coming home from school completely soaked!

This is also what the journaling is about, which is written (in dutch) in the silhouettes. These silhouettes and also the skyline, the frame and the butterflies are magazine cut outs. So fun to do!

And last but certainly not least: my dear hubby has been infected by a creative virus too!!! If you would know him you would probably laugh because he has never ever been a crafter. He is a workaholic and when he doesn't work he is on his bike speedcycling or (since recently) running. And between all that he is watching sports on tv...

Somehow, seeing me getting messy with all the paint, creating, making art journal pages inspired him to try to create his own masterpiece too! We both love colorful art, with inspiring quotes and a bit graffiti-style. Making his piece of art he was inspired by Ruud de Wild, a dutch dj and also an artist.

We had a lot of fun, creating together. It is a good thing we have a big dinnertable, so we both had enough space to work. Here is my hubby's art on canvas:

I love it.

What do you think?

TFL!

Art Journaling part IV: The Art of Good Enough

Is it part four already in my art journaling attempts?! Time flies! Which also means Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's art journaling week is almost coming to an end unfortunately...
The page I'm showing you right now is one I am very proud of. I'm so happy how it turned out! When I started I had some rough lines in my head about how it should be and I hoped the details would come while working on it. And they did!
First I want to show you my newest treasure. I was on my way to the store to buy some white paintmarkers and sort of bumped into a flea market. And there I found this:

Costs: 1,50 euro !

This is the inside. It is an old storybook:

Thanks to Julie's tip about taping a few pages together to create an art journal out of an old notebook, I started taping:

And of course...a lot of gesso!

And thanks to my sweet mother in law I got some great magazines to try the collage technique again.

This is what I cut out:

(This picture was taken at about 10pm...sorry for the reflection of the flash..)

This time I didn't forget to paint the background!

I started with fresh green. Than I scraped some yellow on the page with a creditcard.

After that, I used some sequin waste as a mask for the white dots.

I glued the images down and added some extra details with paint. Don't you love the painted sun glasses?

And how fun is this: the 'hat' of the doll on the left is a picture of a handbag! 

I also outlined the images with black paint.

I added some yellow dots, outlined some of the white dots and also added some.

I wrote down the title which was in my head since I started this page.( I got the inspiration for the title and the journaling from an article in a dutch magazine.) I thought it would be a perfect title to start my art journal!

And as I promised you in my previous blogpost: journaling!

Lots of journaling!

The journaling is in dutch. I quoted the lines from the article which spoke to me the most.

I will try to translate it a little:

The art of Good Enough.

Life isn't a game.

Why do we get tempted so often to do more, better, funnier, cleaner, more beautiful?

The art of good enough is also the art of stopping with comparing.

Let go of perfectionism.

A little bit less is also ok.

Imperfection is the key to more peace in your life.

I hope you can see the influence here of Teesha Moore's art.

I love the different lettering in the journaling...but there are much more possibilities for lettering. I just read Julie's latest blogpost. It is all about hand lettering for your art journal! Read more about it here.

TFL!

Sandra

Art Journaling part three: Feel free like a bird

Another page for my art journal! This time inspired by a masking technique by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journaling Week. It wasn't a new technique to me, I had simply forgotten about it. Of course I had never done it on an art journal and certainly not with a self made mask.

So I took another piece of watercolor paper. No gesso this time. I found a gorgeous shape of some birds in a magazine, called Flow. I attached it to some aslan, so I could use it again if I wanted to. Than I sprayed two colors of glimmermist (Twilight and Forrest Green). After I removed the mask I traced a thin circle around the birds by using a plate. So far the planned part of this page!

But than what? I decided to just start with some doodling around the circle with blue watercolor paint. I filled the white space with red paint. Still, it was not what I liked...so I added some yellow to blend with the red. Et voilà! That looked good! I added the title and finished the page with a white paint marker.Yes, I know....no journaling! (Question: Can I call it an art journal page than or would it be just an art page now???) Promise, my next page will have some journaling!

Here it is:

It is so much fun to try all sorts of techniques in my art journaling!

TFL!

Art Journaling part two: Act silly

I think I have found a new addiction this week (as if scrapbooking wasn't time consuming enough..lol) and it is called Art Journaling! Or you might call it Creative Therapy as well..in my case...(lol again) !

Let me explain this a little bit: I was working on a card for a challenge. I wanted to send in my work for this challenge not because I like making cards so much, but because of the prize you could win  (oops!)...I do make cards now and than just for fun, just be creative in an other way. Well, I spent a big part of my afternoon on cardmaking and the results at the end: zero inspiration! I'm not even gonna show you the results!

So I was down and grumpy and decided to try a next step in art journaling after dinner.

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer had a great tutorial on her blog this time, working with pieces cut out from magazines and great painting- and doodling techniques. She was inspired by Teesha Moore. I had found Teesha's blog during some previous bloghopping so I knew her work already and have often wondered how she did it. Thanks to Julie's tutorial I had a new starting point for my art journaling. 

And here's comes the part why I call it Creative Therapy as well: I had a great time again, making a collage with the cut outs from the magazines. (Unfortunately no Vogue or other glossy's in the house..), painting, etc. It was far past midnight before I finished my page but I was more than happy with the results.

Here it is:

The image is a combination of four different pictures, which I found in the magazines I had laying around. Funny detail: the head is from an add of H&M Fashion, the body came from Quest (of all magazines..! Yeah, I was a bit desperate searching in this one..), the lemonade came from an add too and the big flower came from an add in a health magazine. Still, I would love to try this technique with some real glossy magazines...

First I covered the watercolorpaper with masking tape, just to add some more dimension and 'gesso'-ed it. Then I glued my images...and then I realized I had forgotten to paint my background...So I painted it afterwards! Instead of outlining the image with black paint (like I planned) I left a little line of white space around it, while I was painting. I also stamped with some bubble wrap. I used the other end of my paintbrush to stamp the golden paint. I cut out the title and outlined these with a black marker.

The only thing I'm still thinking about is if I should add some more journaling.(Journaling is one of my weakest points..I admit...) What do you think? Should I add some more words?

Today, Julie is having another (!!) great blogpost to help you start with art journaling. She has a great video with some fun techniques and an awesome video about her own art journal. Go check it out!

And last but certainly not least: Julie featured my first steps in art journaling on her blog. She wrote such nice words on her blog about me..(blush)..Thanks so much, Julie! Again!

I hope to be back with some more art journaling tomorrow because my hands are itching to try all the new techniques I just saw...

First steps on the road of Art Journaling...

As some of you know already I'm a big fan of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. She designs for Prima Marketing and Pencil Lines and is a great inspiration to me. I love her style of scrapping and especially her colorful art.
She is having an Art Journaling Week this week. Art journaling is something that was on my 'want-to-try' list for a while now. Julie is having a guest this week, Linda Tieu, who expresses exactly what I think art journaling is all about and why it is such a great thing to do. Please read her intro on Julie's blog here. So, after Julie's and Linda's inspirational words I decided to take my first steps...finally!...on the road of Art Journaling!
Because Julie was using watercolor paper and paints I dived into my stash. Far, far away..at the bottom of a box...I found some watercolor paper (I knew I had it somewhere...!) and to my big surprise I found a little box of professional Van Gogh watercolor paint too (completely forgotten about that one!). I wanted to have a starting point and just go with the flow after that, so I started with the same red circles like Julie did...and after that I couldn't stop any more. I kept adding color, drew some leaves, started stamping and stitching. I added some cut out leaves for some extra dimension, just like I did with the butterfly. And look at this butterfly! Normally it wouldn't have ended up on one of my scrapbooklayouts because it isn't perfect. I didn't want the colors to blend so extremely. Still, I used it...I forced myself to embrace imperfection (one of the things I hear Julie say a lot when I watch her live shows for Prima). And that's not easy being a perfectionist and control freak like me!
But that's what Art Journaling is about, right? It is just for me, no right's or wrong's, no one to judge me, no rules...just pure freedom to create whatever I want.
So guess what my first art journaling was about?

I took a piece of 8,5x11" piece of watercolor paper, folded it in half and just started painting...

And this is the result! Yeah!

Then I flipped the page, covered all the loose ends and the stitches of the embroidery with masking tape (which gave nice texture as a bonus!), put on a layer of gesso and made this page on one side: 

The text is a statement I bumped into while reading Linda Tieu's blog. I wrote it down immediately, because I so agree with her!! And again..I just started painting and see where it would end. And again..I had so much fun! It is so relaxing to create, without a goal, a reason or any rules...Creating only because I want to!

Thanks Julie and Linda!!!!

Scrapfever Scrapkit challenge: Scrap your summer!

Scrapfever started a new challenge, in combination with their scrapkit which comes every three months. The first challenge was to scrap your summer with the kit. In the kit was the Indy Girl collection of Sassafras.
I made a mini-album, inspired by an article in a swedish scrapbookmagazine, called Scrapbooking m.m. I bought the magazine during my summerholiday in Sweden. This magazine is loaded with inspiration and great layouts. Unfortunately I can't order it online because they don't send to the Netherlands but I will find a way to get more issues in the future! I have some contacts...
The cover of the mini-album has been made of chipboard and 'bookcloth' (at least this is the translation of Google of the dutch word 'boekbinderslinnen'..). The album contains five pages, all made of cardstock and binded to the cover with some cord. Every page has an envelope which holds a big tag and an extra page. One page for each family member!
In the inside of the album I put five questions about our summer and the answers to these questions are on the pages of every family member.
Here it is:

The album is held together with a ribbon, which I bought in the hometown of the famous red swedish horse in Dalarna, Sweden. The blue rose on top is made with one of the papers in the kit, with the help of a six petal punch. (I think most of you have seen this technique somewhere...)

Because the album doesn't fall open completely it was hard to make good pictures of all the pages. Some needed a little help of Photoshop to bring some extra light in the picture...

There is a lot of handcutting in the album. I wrote down all the names on cardstock, cut them out by hand, matted the names on another piece of cardstock and cut these out again. I also cut out a lot of the flowers from the patterned paper and the little blue hearts. (On these tiny hearts I wrote the numbers of the questions.) I traced the shapes of the leaves from Buzz & Bloom (which were included in the kit) on the green patterned paper, cut these out and doodled some lines with my black marker.

The answers to the five questions can be found on the tags and on the pages:

(front)

(back)

I stamped the flowers, the butterflies and the flies with the stamps that were included in the kit and colored the images. I gave the butterflies and the flies a little extra dimension with Glossy Accents.

There are also a lot of handmade embellishments in the album. I was inspired by the new CHA-releases of Sassafras. Unfortunately I don't have punches in these shapes so it involved some extra handcutting to create the embellishments...

The whole project took about two weeks for me to create but I'm very satisfied with the final results.

I would love to hear what you think of it.

TFL!

Sandra

What to do with a sleeping baby....

I was bloghopping this morning and somehow I ended up on the blog of Adele Enersen, a copywriter on maternity leave. When her baby Mila is doing her nap she imagines what her dream is about and captures it in a very special way:

Can you thing of anything sweeter than this? So cute and so creative!

There is more on her blog. Here!

Sandra

Hip Hip Hooray for Laura!

My little girl turned three yesterday! Yeah!

TFL!

Sandra