Mindfulness in black and white

Hi and happy Wednesday!
The geometric 'Visometry' stamps by Visible Image keep on inspiring me. Especially when stamped repeatedly next to each other, creating large patterns.
This time I played with the large hexagon from the Visometry Set 6, and used for creating the background for my art journal page:


For colouring I used only cold grey markers, as I wanted to keep the background simple. To some areas I added some doodling on top of the grey colour. Colouring and decorating the background was a perfect mindfulness exercise!


The quote text is stamped using Visometry Alpha 1 set. Before gluing down the picture I inked the left part of the page with black Distress ink which lifted the picture a bit from the busy background.


Such a fun page to make! Who says you need to buy a printed colouring book for practicing colouring mindfulness!

For more information on the Visible Image Visometry stamp sets I used please click on the pictures below:





Wishing you a colourful day. I'm so happy you stopped by!
Hugs,
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Scrapbooking layout with die-cut and hand-sewn embellishments

Hi!

I hope your weekend went well. Did you watch the Olympic Games in Rio? I'm not a huge fan of sports, but the big games always get me stuck in front of the TV. However, when watching my hands always need something to do, so if I'm not knitting I work on my paper crafting projects.

This Saturday I stayed up long waiting for the men's jaweling final to start. While waiting I decided to make a scrapbooking layout using a photo of my daughter I had taken earlier that day. The page design had to be simple enough to highlight both the lovely photo and my beautiful new Sizzix/Tim Holtz dies, and at the same time be a perfect TV evening project that could be finished in front of the TV. So this is what I came up with:


I started with cutting a large rectangle of white cardstock, and embellished it's two corners with a die from the beautiful Sizzix Mixed Media #2 die set. The magnetic platform is of great help for keeping the dies perfectly in place while cutting- a true must have in your stash!
Then I took a simple leaf die (the one with 3 leaves) from a new Garden Greens Sizzix/Tim Holtz Thinlits die set,  placed it on the edge of the rectangle, and run through my Big Shot. I repeated the step a few times, without paying too much attention on the placement of the die. Too symmetrical is boring!

I glued down the die-cut rectangle on a sheet of craft paper, and traced a border around the edges. In addition, I continued the leaf patterns, attaching the die-cut leaves on the traced border. Once done, I punched a stitching line on the pencil-drawn line.


Stitching the border and leaves took quite a while, but I loved the outcome! For stitching I used three strands of standard white embroidery floss.


Once the border and leaves were finished I attached my photo on the white rectangle. For this I used two-sided tape, but used only a small piece of tape in the middle of the photo. I was going to stitch a border around the photo which would attach the photo anyways on the background. In addition, punching stitching marks through two-sided tape is tricky, and I avoided that by using tape only in the middle of the photo.
I used a metal die as guide when punching the stitching line (a bit older Framelits die similar to this one). It worked perfectly!


The simple layout does not have any journaling, and a simple title underneath the die-cut rectangle. The little heart is die-cut using the 'Heartfelt' Bigz die, and for cutting the title I used an older Decorative Strip Die.
As final step I coloured the leaves with a white pencil. I thought about adding white paint splashes, but then decided to leave them out.
For securing the ends of the embroidery floss I taped the entire page on a sheet of white cardstock, hiding the floss ends between the two papers.
Done!


I'm very happy with how the page turned out. Maybe I will put it in a frame later :)

Wishing you a great day. Thanks for stopping by!

Love,
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Crazy cats on a self-made background

Hi and Happy Saturday!
When browsing through the web I came across a fun challenge blog, Pile It On! There are many inspirational and great challenge sites out there, but this one takes them all to a new level: The task is to make a project (card, scrapbook layout, altered item, ...) using more than one challenge. How cool!

My take on the challenge is a card with fun stamped and die-cut elements:


I started with embossing small dots a piece of white cardstock (love *this* Tim Holtz/Sizzix embossing folder!), and continued inking it with dark grey ('hickory smoke'), black ('black soot') and red ('fired brick') Distress inks.

I had a vision of making my stamped cat an alley cat, and for creating a proper background decoration I die-cut bricks from red cardstock. The die I used was a new Tim Holtz design, one of the three dies from his Sizzix Thinlits Mixed Media set #3.
After gluing down the bricks I stamped on them and brushed them gently with a dry brush and white gesso. Loved that grungy result!



The Crazy Cats by Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous are adorable! The matching Sizzix die set is easy to use; especially if you are using a magnetic platform underneath to keep the dies securely in place while cutting.


The party hat and the balloons are from the Crazy Birds accessories stamp set. 


It was such a fun project to work with. I love playing with collages like this!

I'm happy to enter this card to the following challenges:

Pile It On, #114: Make your own background

Crafting By Designs, August: Anything goes

Creative Moments, #100: Anything goes

Inspiration Destination, #99: Anything goes

Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog, #291: Anything goes

Sisters of Craft, August: Anything goes

The Crafty Addicts, #22: Anyghing goes/Use die-cuts

Craft Your Passion Challenge, #325: Anything goes

Through The Craft Room: Anything goes

Wishing you a nice weekend! Hope you have time to do something that makes you happy ♥.

Hugs,
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Card with stencilled background for August Take It Make It challenge

Hi!
Have you already had a look at all the amazing DT projects and entries for our Craft Stamper August Take It Make It challenge? Gorgeous projects, aren't they! It's so inspiring to see all the various ways that stencils and masks have been used- in case you have not yet had a look I suggest you follow this link to the challenge post and this link to see more DT inspiration put out for you!

My second August project was a card with stencilled background:
 
Card with stencilled background

When working with projects like this I usually use a white cardstock for the background. However, this time I worked on a leftover piece of paper with light patterns; I just added more colours with yellow, orange, brown and green Distress inks.

For decorating the background I used a stencil by Carabelle studio and black and brown Dylusions paints. The Tim Holtz ink blending tool works perfectly for stencilling with paints, too!
After drying I added more texture to the upper and lower corners of the background, using golden texture paste and a Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stencil.


The foreground image is one of my favourite stamps by Dina Wakley. For colouring the image I used watercolours, acrylic paints and a white gel pen.

Detail of a card with stencilled background

I lifted the foreground image from the background with a piece of corrugated cardstock that I cut a bit smaller than the fussy cut image. Foam stickers would have worked just as well, but the corrugated cardstock is a much cheaper way to do the same trick!


Card with stencilled background

I hope the amazing projects on the Craft Stamper blog inspire you to take out your stencils and masks and I'll soon see your project among the challenge entries. 'Anything goes', as long as you use stamping somewhere on your project.

Wishing you a great weekend!

Hugs,
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Easy DIY key ring with shrink plastic

Hello my friends,
Today I'm showing you an easy super fun project you can make in just fifteen minutes: A DIY key ring!



For this project you need your favourite stamp, StazOn Ink, alcohol markers for colouring and shrink plastic. The stamp I used was from Visible Image Visometry collection- I love those geometrical shapes!


I started with stamping the image on clear shrink plastic. The instructions on the shrink plastic package suggested that I should sand the plastic sheet first, but with my good quality stamp, sticky StazOn ink, and ProMarkers it was not necessary. The colours sticked on the plastic sheet without any issues. Note: If your shrink plastic sheet has two different sides, stamp and colour on the grainy side, not the clear one.

After colouring I cut the stamped image out, leaving a thin border around the edges. Before heating the image with the heat gun I punched a hole on the piece- an important step to do before shrinking!
If you don't have a heat gun the shrinking can be done in a regular oven, too. Just follow the instructions on the package.


Then I just attached the coloured charms at the both ends of a metal chain and put the chain on a key ring. Done!

This project is fun to make with kids, too. They can do the stamping and colouring, and adults can help with the shrinking step!


For more information on the Visible Image Visometry stamp set I used please click on the picture below:



Wishing you a wonderful day!

Bye for now,
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Scrapbooking layout: Joyful adventure

Hi!
Hope your weekend went well. Today I'm showing you a layout I made for a Finnish challenge blog 'Jehkotar Craft Challenge'. August moodboard had a fun sketch that I flipped for my layout:


So here's my take on the challenge:


The lovely background paper is a design by Ashley Goulberg. I love her grungy style! This paper was included in a Studio Calico kit a while ago.
For this layout I added a hint of black paint and some stamping. The encouraging words are cut from a vellum sheet and attached on the background with two-sided tape.




Before adding the photo I glued down pieces of a honeycomb chipboard sheet (by Wycinanka). Some of the embellishments are glued down with foam stickers to create bit more dimension on the layout.



How fun it was playing with beautiful papers and embellishments! Making this project made me smile - hope you like it, too!



Wishing you a wonderful new week.
Hugs,
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Stencil fun with Craft Stamper August Take It Make It Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, happy to see you in my blog!

It's the first Friday of August which means that a new Take It Make It Challenge by Craft Stamper Magazine has started.
This month we are playing with stencils and masks. My favourite crafting supplies! Woohoo!

In addition to a stencil and/or mask you need to use stamping somewhere on your project. Simple, isn't it! However, before getting started I suggest you quickly read the challenge rules (you can find them *here*). It would be very unfortunate if your project did not comply with the guidelines and could not be considered for the prize or winners position. And I'm sure you would love to win our August prize:
Our generous sponsor GiogioCraft will give one lucky winner a cool bundle of four stencils:

Worth playing for, right!

There are dozens of stencils in my stash but this time I used a ready made stencil only for the quote text. A bit over a year ago I made my very first selfie stencil, inspired by a tutorial by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer in Nathalie Kalbach's class 'Creative Jump Start 2015'. The stencil came out better than I could have imagined (I still have it!), and making another one has been on my list for a while already. Our August challenge was the perfect opportunity for making a new one.
(If you want to have a look at my previous selfie stencil and the projects I made with it please look *here* and *here*.)

I used a photo from the same photoshoot, but this time my stencil became much smaller. The image fits on my mid-sized Moleskine page (last time the stencil was A4 size) and I think I like the smaller size better, making the stencil more versatile. The foil I used was again very poor quality and the cutting did not go perfectly, but overall I'm very pleased with the end result:


The background page was a 'cleaning page' i.e. a page on which I cleaned my brayer when changing the acrylic paint colour. I thought it was just perfect as it was, as I did not want the background to be too dark. The only additions I made were the stamped patterns.
For the quote text I used the Ranger/Dina Wakley 'Affirmations' stencil and white texture paste on black cardstock. 


The picture I used for my selfie stencil was this one:


One could recognize me from the stencilled picture, right?

Wishing you a great weekend. Hope you have time to do something fun!
Hugs,
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Card for August MMCC: Sunshine And Rain

Hi and happy August!
New Mixed Media Card Challenge has started with a beautiful theme: Rainbow!


Here's my take on the challenge:


Here's how I made the card:
First I drafted the rainbow in the upper corner of the background and cut a matching mask of scrap paper. I placed it over the rainbow corner and inked the other parts of the background with a few blue Distress ink colours. Still holding the mask on it's place I splashed water on the inked area creating lighter splash marks.
Then I coloured the rainbow stripes with Inktense watercolor pencils, using only a little bit of water to dissolve the pigment. Once dry I white washed the entire background by adding a hint of white acrylic paint with a brayer.


Then I heat embossed the stamped quote text (by Cocoa Daisy) on the card front, and stamped the girl face (by 3rd Eye) on white cardstock. For this purpose I needed the image to be larger, so I removed her original hair and replaced it with my own hand drawn and painted version :) I love creating little collages like that.


I hope you get inspired and play along our fun challenge! All challenge details and the gorgeous cards by the design team can be viewed here.

Wishing you a nice day filled with sunshine!

Hugs,

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