Elina Stromberg

Hi!
A few years back I faced a crafting dilemma: I loved to color stamped images and to build collages and sceneries, but I had used those elements and techniques only for cards. Creating cards was of course a lot of fun, but my stash of ready-made cards kept growing. It was obvious that I did not need a constant flow of new cards and I had to find another way to keep my creative mojo flowing.

In the past, I had made a few art journal pages in my Moleskine book, but I never really got started with art journaling. My inner critic voice kept telling me that art journals are creative playgrounds for 'true artists' i.e. for people who fill the book pages with pretty drawings, gorgeous paintings or clever texts. I wasn't sure if I would meet those requirements.


It took me a while to realized that my art journal pages are really MY art journal pages. They are made by me, for me. The pages' main purpose is to bring me joy, and therefore I needed to use only those techniques and themes that made me happy.

I started to create pages that gave me true pleasure throughtout the creative process: I colored stamped images and created layered backgrounds with and without mixed media elements. I build colorful collages and included both fuzzy-cut and die-cut images on my pages. I stamped, stencilled, inked, colored, and doodled, and loved every page I made. So much for strict rules in art and art journaling!


This art journal spread with Vera Lane digital images is one of the very last pages in my first complete Moleskine art journal book. I loved these images from 'Little Red Riding Hood'. And the quote says it all: Rewrite your own story. Just go for it! :)


Thanks for stopping by ❤!

Hi!
Today I'm sharing with you a 12"x12" layout I made a short while back:

On Creative World 2020 in Frankfurt I grabbed an A5 sized booklet by "Urban Art Lab: Education". I love street art but I also found their educating concept quite interesting: It was all about how to introduce graffiti and street art tools, materials, and techniques to retailers so that they then feel confident to share the information with their customers. I'm guessing that even if street art looks super cool it may not be the easiest form of art: If I wanted to give it a try I wouldn't even know where to start!

 
The booklet was also visually appealing, and when I decided to use this specific photo for a layout I remembered the pictures I had seen on the small brochure. So I chose a simple grey background by 7 Dots Studio and built my collage of fuzzy-cut street art tool pictures on a strip of yellow patterned paper. I love how well it all came together!

I had two identical copies of the photo, so I cut out part of the photo and layered it with foam stickers on top of the background photo. This technique is one of my favorites (thanks Olga Heldwein for sharing it!), and I tend to use it quite often on my layouts. I'm not a big fan of high scrapbooking pages, but with this types of elements you can build layers and dimendion without increasing the height too much. I want that my pages fit into standard page protectors without issues :).


Hope this page inspires you to consider using images from magazines as your project embellishments.
Thanks for stopping by!

In October 2018 I had the great pleasure to join a group of friends on a creative weekend in Egersund, Norway. Linda and Brit, our wonderful hosts, had managed to invite Louise Nelson from Australia to teach at Okka Treff.  I booked my spot immediately after the classes were available; I could not miss that rare opportunity!


Unfortunately my weekend had a rocky start. I was supposed to take the early morning flight via Oslo to Stavanger but due to technical reasons the plane left Helsinki only late in the afternoon. After a horrible customer experience by the airline company (waiting for hours standing in the queue, no proper information of anything, no food nor drinks etc.) we finally took off six hours later. I was booked on a very tight connecting flight to Stavanger, so naturally my luggage was left behind somewhere in Oslo.
My wonderful crafty friends came to help. People lended me tools to work with, and generously provided me plenty of supplies and materials so that I could participate in the workshops fully.
Without them my weekend would have been quite miseable as the luggage only arrived late on Saturday. So once again thank you everyone (and special extra thanks to Riikka and Linda for really making my weekend ❤)



However, the additional hazzle with the luggage did not manage to dim the weekend sparkle. Louise is an amazing artist, a very good teacher and also the sweetest person. The workshops were packed with inspiration as we were introduced to many different techniques: During the weekend I painted portraits, created lots of mono printed patterned pages, experimented in mark making, tried stamp carving for the first time, and managed to finish five (!!) scrapbooking layouts. And enjoyed every minute!

When going through pictures of that weekend I realized how much I miss my crafty friends. I'm so much hoping life will get back to normal and I will get so see you all soon again!