New art journal: Inspired by Donna Downey!

Lasr week Ilse Hobbelen showed us a great tutorial on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog about making your own art journal! I really wanted to try something like this for some time now, so this was what I needed.
The tutorial is great, with clear step by step instructions. Ilse made her art journal with a leather cover. I made one with red bookcloth because I didn't have any leather. I didn't make the rounded flap either.
I folded five signatures of heavy weight watercolor paper of 30x24 cm so each page is 15x24 cm.

And now comes the fun part...Inspired by Donna Downey's inspiration journal with extra signature I created some extra pages of a much smaller size in between the other pages.

(I used pieces of watercolor paper, where Donna used big manila tags.)

I love to watch Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday video's, seeing the proces of how she creates her art journal pages. So I decided to use this journal for trying all the techniques and pages she shows in these video's.

Here is my first page, inspired by this video:

The double page was just a little bit too big for my scanner so on the bottom of the page, one line of bricks is missing in the picture...

I used the Bricks template van The Crafters Workshop, with acrylic paint. I sponged the paint on the page.

I  slightly colored the seams with a very soft pencil and rubbed this with my finger. I added the text with paintmarkers. I finished the page by distressing it with my Stazon black inkpad.

As you can see I didn't put the small pages between each big page but added these randomly through the art journal...so this page doesn't have the extra page in between.

I'm working on another page right now...hope to be able to show you this one soon!

TFL!

Sandra

Playing with collage sheets!

I have been playing with some collage sheets from Nancy Baumiller. I love her colorful art and using her collage sheets make it so easy to create an art journal page. I used Wild Things and Borders & Bits. Just print, cut out and glue down, do the Big Paintmarker Attack and add some journaling or a quote!
This is a double page I made in my small art journal. The pages are only 20x13cm, but if you do a double page you get 40x13cm! So fun and challenging! This time, instead of a landscape doublepage, I did it in portrait size:

I did a page in my big A4-sized art journal too:

And I got some ATC's to show you, now the swaps have ended.

The theme for the swap at Scrapfever was 'Shoes'.

I made 7 ATC's, more or less the same, so I will show you one:

The background is from the same set of collage sheets as mentioned above: Wild Things.
I made my own mask of a shoe print, stamped it and embossed with black embossingpowder. With a white paintmarker I added some extra lines.
I edited the background and the text first (in Photoshop) and embossed after printing the ATC's.
Here are the ATC's I got in return:

For a swap at Scrappers Anonimous, with the theme 'Birds', I made these:

Again, I used some collage sheets from Nancy Baumiller: Zetti Bird Junction.

I created the ATC's in Photoshop first and added some accents with my paintmarkers and Neocolors after printing.

Here are the ATC's I got in return:

And of course, I did some collage 'thing' with magazine cut outs!

But I can't show you yet....

So, here's a sneak peek:

TFL!

Sandra

Guest blogging!

Do you want to know all about this page and see how it came to life step-by-step?
Look here. I'm guest blogging at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog for Art Journal Every Day.
Thanks again, Julie, for inviting me! I loved to be your guest blogger for today!

TFL!

Sandra

She Art: Courage

I finished another She Art girl...the first one of week 3 of this great, fabulous online class! I'm a little bit sad that it is the last week of the class already, but I'm also very happy about all the things I've learned and the inspiration it has brought me. And for all you girls out there that wished they had taken the class too....The class will be opened again for you on the 11th of April. Make sure you register in time! You won't regret it!
You can find all the details here.
Week 3 is all about 'getting personal' by using your own personal things, like drawings, letters, pictures, anything. We learned about designing vintage clothes for our She Art girls, as well as modern fashion and even your own clothes!
So here is my take on week 3:

Ok, I'll be honest...We're talking about 'getting personal' right? So I will tell you something personal...The girl on this canvas doesn't look like me at all! But it represents the 'me' I sometimes wish to be. I think she looks strong and confident. No, I don't think of myself as being a coward and I'm pretty satisfied about who I am right now, but I could use some more courage sometimes...The courage to step out of my comfort zone and be the woman that I would like to be, especially when it comes to my art and what I want to do with it.

For the background I used the top layer of a paper napkin. It had a print of the dutch landscape on it and after all, I'm a dutch girl! I added some paint and stamps to the background to add more texture.

For the girl I was inspired by these magazine cut outs:

(Yep, jeans...that is definitely me! Lol..)
I used the cut outs as a template to create the girl's clothes, out of paper scraps. I created the sleeves and the different parts of the coat in several layers instead of cutting it out in one solid shape.
I love this She Art girl and I think I will give it a nice place in my living room so it reminds me of 'Me-to-be' all the time!

TFL!

Sandra 

More beautiful every day

Sassafras is doing a monthly challenge from now on! This month it is about blocking, which means creating a rectangle or square shape on your layout.
My Sassafras stash is not very big at the moment. I hope to buy some new papers soon, so for this month I used the Bungle Jungle collection again.
Here is my layout:

I didn't only use an old collection of papers...I also used an old photo! (lol)

So, let's call it retro, ok? I think even the colors are retro!

By the way, the alfabet is from Rewind from Kaisercraft. The words 'every day' are handcut.

I did some freestyle stitching on my sewing machine too and splashed some white paint on my layout.

How about 'freestyle retro'?!

TFL!

Sandra

Sketchy Thursdays #3.10: Believe in your dreams

I wrote it before and now I write it again...what is it with the sketches of Sketchy Thursdays that inspire me to create rightaway? It is getting a bit scary too now...Yesterday, I was browsing through my digital scrapkits because I felt like doing a digital or a hybrid layout. I had just visited a blog with lots of digital layouts which inspired me extremely. It has been a long time since I made a digital layout, simply because I love the feeling of paper in my hands much more than staring at my screen and just do some (a lot!) mouseclicks.
And what happened today? The DT of Sketchy Thursdays has been playing with a digital kit for this week's sketch! And challenged us to do the same! Do I need more persuasion to do some digital scrapbooking? No!!
The advantage of digital scrapbooking is that it is much faster than traditional scrapbooking...so here is my layout:

A sketch for a double page layout!

At first I wanted to make a one page layout or maybe even squeeze the two pages in one, but as soon as I saw this digital kit, with the open book, I knew it would literally be a two page layout.

The kit is called One wish by Mystique Designs, which was already in my 'digital stash' for a while.

The pictures I used were some great oldies of my youngest daughter in the summer of 2009.

Maybe it is fun to show you the originals:

How fun is that, huh?
And my layout came to life when I saw this book in the digital kit:

The rest is all about adding elements, changing the size, erasing parts, adding shadows, etc. I think my compliments to the designer of this digital kit are fully in place. She did a great job!

TFL!

Sandra

Week 2 of She Art...layered clothing and scenes!

Week 2 of the She Art class has started last Monday. This week is all about layering in clothes and making scenes. Here is my first canvas of this week:

(size 30x30cm)

I painted the bakcground with acrylic paint and added some texture with my script stamp and some other stamps. The flowers and the wings of the butterfly are toplayers of paper napkins. I cut out the bird from some paper scraps (after tracing a mask...). The dress of the girl is all about the technique of this week: layering. I love how it turned out...although I'm not completely satisfied. Yes, I know..you all are probably frowning right now, thinking 'What's wrong with the dress??!'..I can't say exactly what I'm missing so I guess it is just the perfectionist in me...

I did some shading with my Neocolors and added some rubons and some doodling. A little bit of fingerpainting with some white paint and some distressing with my black inkpad were the finishing touches!

TFL!

Sandra

She Art, nr. 3!

I'm so glad I decided to sign up for the She Art e-course! At first I didn't know if I should do it, simply because it cost my complete 'art budget' for this month but I'm soooooo happy I did it! I love making these girls on canvas and the possibilities are endless...sizes, clothes, backgrounds...and why only girls??
This week I hold on to the girly thing, because after all it is a SHE Art class...not a HE art class..although no one is telling me I'm not allowed to create cool boys on my backgrounds..(lol)
Well, here is girl number 3:

This background has some layers of purple, blue and turquois paint. I used the top layer of a printed paper napkin to create the pattern with magnolias. I stamped some details with my script stamp and painted some white stripes with the side of an old creditcard. After I glued down my girls I added some more paint, stamps and rubons.

Tomorrow week 2 of She Art starts where there will be more about layering in clothes, more about texture and creating scenes. I can't wait!!!

TFL!

Sandra

Sketchy Thursdays #3.03: Beautiful you

I don't know what it is with the sketches at Sketchy Thursdays...Every time I see their newest sketch I feel a sudden need to create something with it...if possible right away! I guess their sketches must be very inspirational...I don't have this feeling when I see other sketches on blogs like Pencillines or Creative Scrappers. This thought just struck me when I finished my layout this morning.
Anyway, here is my take on sketch 3.03:

Finally, I used my Hollywood Vogue papers from Webster's Pages! I won this collection after a challenge in October last year and since I got them I couldn't find the right picture..or the perfect inspiration.

This picture of my 10 year old daughter Danique was taken last Wednesday, when she was all dressed up for a costume party at school. 

She wanted to be a gothic for one day...! I quickly shot three pictures of her, outside in the freezing cold at 8 a.m. which explains the look on her face, I think...But right after I shot picture nr. 2 I knew it would be a great picture. And just after I had edited the picture I knew which papers to use to create a layout. Sometimes, at moments like this, I love it when things come together!

TFL!

Sandra

She Art girl, nr. 2 !

Last night I had another 'Get Messy'-evening! And again, it worked...I created She Art girl, number 2! And I loved it!!!! Again!!! Every second of it!!! I got paint and glue on my fingers, paint on my table, I had supplies spread out on the table and floor everywhere, used papertowels lying around, scraps in between....and I completely forgot the time...My hubby asked me at 1 a.m. if I had planned to go to bed or wanted to work all night..Oops!
Well, I finished my canvas this morning...only a couple of lines with a marker and some finishing touches with my inkpad ..et voilà!

(size 18x24cm)

TFL!

Sandra

My first She Art girl!

I started Christy Tomlinson's e-course this Monday: She Art! And I had never expected it would be this much fun!!!! So many techniques already in week one, with great examples and Christy is an amazing teacher!! I'm so happy there a still over two weeks to go and I can't wait to see what's next.
This morning I finished my first She Art girl on canvas and I'm very satisfied about the results. Not 100% satisfied because the neck and shoulders didn't turn out the way I wanted. But I'm sooooo happy I was able to make a messy background. (You must have noticed my work is mostly very 'clean'...) I did lots of layers on this one, just like Christy showed us in her video's.
Here it is:

(original size 18x24cm)

Still so much to learn...but I'm loving every second of it!

In case you think: Wow, I would love to do that e-course too! I would love to get messy with canvas, paint, paper, etc....Christy is starting another She Art e-course on April 11th!! You can read all about it on her blog.

TFL!

Sandra