My scrappin' life

I still do! a layout using WOW! embossing powders

 

Ahhhh, finally summer arrived in our part of the world! And isn't it lovely!?

I so much enjoy the sunshine and the warmth! Anne is studying for her exams in the garden, getting a nice tan. Doors and windows open all day, laundry hanging in the back yard, walking barefooted all day, Marlijn going to the swimming pool...

Anne and I just said to each other this morning, we wish it would go on like this until about october :)

The layout I'm sharing today was made for WOW! Embossing Powder. My husband and I are together for 26 years and in march we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. 

Let me show you how I created this page. First I sprayed glimmer mist at the top of the paper and dragged the paint down the page using a bank card. I stamped the heart with Versamark and embossed it with WOW! Primary Ebony. 

After that I stamped the heart a second time on scrap paper and cut out the inner part with a craft knife. Now I could use it as a mask laying it on top of the embossed heart.

   

I put a piece of Punchanella on top of the mask and filled the dots with Versamark using a piece of blending foam. 

Then I took away the punchanella and the mask and embossed the dots with Suzy West Honey.

   

After that I put the mask back on top and sprayed the heart with glimmer mist. The embossed parts work as a resist. If I would have put a piece of kitchen paper on top after spraying the dots would have been totally clean. But I like how some of the glimmer mist pools in the lower parts of the embossed texture and wanted to keep it that way so I let it dry by air to get this specific look. 

   

To create the black letters on the tag I traced them with an embossing pen and then embossed them with WOW! Primary Ebony. 

   

To add the blue color on the edges of the heart I used a brush and glimmer mist.

Finally I placed a piece of torn scrap paper just below the top of the page and stamped along the top using the Vintage Wallpaper stamp set with Versamark and then embossed with WOW! Primary Ebony again.

The little stars were made using Punchanella and Stazon ink.

 

   

I hope you liked my little tutorial and found some inspiration to use WOW! on your own layouts!

 

Slush Puppy Fun

Hi everyone!

I hope your all enjoying a nice 4-day weekend! I am! Especially the lovely weather which is much better than expected.

Today i want to share with you a layout I created for the Scrapbook Adhesives^TM by 3L blog.

I used my E-Z Runner Permanent to adhere pieces of book paper on the cardstock, Then I put stripes of Washi tape around the book paper and let some Wild Plum glimmer mist run down the page. Then I used the E-Z Runner to put the the paper circles and the picture on top. It is so easy applying the adhesive around the round edges! I also used this for the paper embellishments.

For the heavier embelishments I used Crafty Power Tape, one of my all time favorites. This adhesive is so strong and so easy to use. I even used it to adhere the heart jewel.

For the flowers and the word awesome I used 3D Foam Squares – White, Regular Size. They are great to add some depth to your page. I also used them for the buttons and the metal number that has a gap on the backside that needed to be filled in order to be able to apply it to the page. The foam squares filled the gap and stuck the number to the page at the same time.

Finally I used DODZ™ for the the flies in the middle of the page. I made these by hand with wire and beads a long time ago and just found them again while I was looking for something else. Happy findings! :)

Products used in this layout:

 

And here is a little something I created yesterday. Check back later to see what I used them for :)

Wishing you all a lovely, sunny and creative weekend!

Hello!

Today I want to show you are 2 tags I made a while ago and are up on the Tattered Angels blog today. The background of both tags was covered with Gesso, only this time I did not spray the chalkboard and mist.

I took of the lid off the bottle, dripped some Firefly chalkboard on my misting mat and put the tags on top with the right side down. After the chalkboard dried I dripped some Wild Plum glimmer mist at the top of the left tag and let it run down, repeating the same procedure from the bottom up. To create the splashes I  just let the glimmer mist drip from the straw that is inside the bottle. The dots on the book paper where made with punchanella and Stazon ink.

Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you a lovely and creative week ahead!

Art journal page with tin foil and alcohol ink using Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L adhesive sheets

I have been using cheap tin foil on cardstock before, embossing it for texture and adding alcohol ink for color. I wanted to use this technique in my art journal too but since I can't put the whole journal in an embossing folder I had to do something else to get the texture.

For this page I punched a bunch of butterflies from cardstock and glued them on my page. Then I covered the whole page with an adhesive sheet from Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L and carefully layered the tin foil on top. I rubbed the tin foil gently with a cloth to make the butterflies under neath pop up.

I added alcohol ink, Stazon ink, stamps and rubons and used punchanella to create texture. I finished the page with a couple of butterflies punched from book paper and the quote.

If you have created something with tin foil, I would love to see. Please leave a comment with link so I can have a look!

Thank you for stopping by today! 

PanPastel.... answer to the knocking of your soul

Years and years ago I bought some chalks to use on my scrapbookpages. I never really liked them and didn't use them much, just to color edges and maybe for some stenceling. I still have a box with 9 colors and it looks brand new. So when some of my friends started posting on their blogs about PanPastel and how excited they were about them I thought that they would be just like those chalks and not something for me to use.

Boy, was I wrong! They told me enthusiastic stories about PanPastel and said I had to try them, that I would LOVE them and that once I used them I would want to have them all... they were right!

So here is my first try on PanPastel and YESI LOVE them, and YES I want all the colors now :)

I fist covered a piece of cardstock with book paper and covered it with Gesso. Then I stamped text and images with black Stazon and added a thin layer of Gesso on top of that.

I sprayed at the top of the page with Glimmer Mist (Dragonfly and Key Lime Pie) and let the paint run down. After the paint was dry I added a tissue paper cirkel that was sprayed with Harvest Orange. I used Gel Medium to do that so the sprayed color smeared a little around the edges of the circle and stamped the coffee stain on top. The dot's around the circle are made using Punchanella and distress ink. Then I started adding color using PanPastel. I filled in all the white spaces and also layerd color on top of the glimmer mist and the orange circle.

I randlomly stamped with a texture stamp and Versamark and added more PanPastel which created the darker green texture. The pink dots were made using a stencil and PanPastel. The leafs and the little butterflies were also colored with PanPastel. After adding some Gesso to the poppies I colored them with yellow PanPastel.

PanPastel Colors used: 580.5 Turquoise, 680.5 Bright Yellow green, 430.5 Magenta, 250.5 Diarylide Yellow, 100.5 Titanium White.

What a great product to work with. These pastels are so smooth and the colors so rich and deep. And the special tools made it so easy to use them whether I wanted to color a big area or just a tiny little spot. I could mix them, layer them and erase them. This was only my first try but my mind is spinnig with ideas. I want to try them on different surfaces and combine them with different mediums. I want to learn what else I can do with them. I want, I want, I want.... the only thing I need right now is a little bit of time! :)

Go to the PanPastel website for product information, colors and tutorial videos. Click here or on the PanPastel logo in my side bar.

Have fun and remember to answer to the knocking of your soul! ;)

25 people + 1 house + 5 days = fun family retreat

Last week we had our anual family vacation again. Family as in my family in law. Grandma, her 5 children with their partners and children make 25! This year we went to a farm house near Purmerend in the middle of a beautiful Dutch environment. At times i felt like a tourist in my own country :) We went to Purmerend, Volendam, Zaandam, the Zaanse Schans and Amsterdam. We had a lovely week as always! Here a little impression in pictures:

In the car on our way back home Marlijn started to cry. She was so sad that we had to go. I told her that things like this are so much fun especially because we have to go home after a few days. If this would be everyday life it would not be that special anymore. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happend!"

And now it's sunday evening already... tomorrow morning the alarm clock will ring again and everything will be back to normal.

Wishing you all a wonderful, sunny and creative week. Make some beautiful memories!

Art journal pages with WOW! embossing powder

Today Powder Puff Girls team blog post is up on the WOW! embossing powders blog and here is my project:

The background was a result of Nat and Julie's "Second Floor-challenge". The challenge was to use something from your stash that you had never used before. I had 2 boxes with effect salt lying around for about 2 years and never even opened them. I just splashed some Ecoline in my art journal and sprinkled salt in the wet ink to see what would happen. I wasn't to impressed with the effect at first and put the pages aside, moving on to something new.

But they were still somewhere in the back of my mind and then i found the MM masking tape on the bottom of one of my drawers and I thought that might look good on those un-used salted pages.... and that's how these pages were born.

I used a dress doll shape from Basically Bare and covered the top part and the bottom part with Versamark (I did not color the cardboard shape) and embossed it with WOW! Clear gloss ultra high. I sprinkled tiny little glass beads in the heated embossing powder while it was still hot and fluid. Then I painted the skirt with acrylic paint and stamped on it with Versamark using the WOW! Vintage wallpaper stamp. I embossed it with WOW! Earthtone Honey regular. The stars behind the dress form where made using Punchanella and Versamark and then also embossed with WOW! Earthtone Honey regular.

Thank you for stopping by today! Hope you have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Intohimona Skräppäys 2012, Finland (long post, lots of photos!)

Hei!

Wow, I can't believe I was teaching in Finland at this very moment already a whole week ago!

Time flies! But finally I have some time to update my blog and show and tell how awome Finland was!

On friday morning I took the train to Schiphol airport where I met Marsha at noon. Unfortunatelly Revlie couldn't go and Marsha was so sweet to step in for her. Our flight to Helsinki left around 2pm. Our connecting flight to Jyväskylä had a little delay so we arrived there around 8pm.  Riikka and Minna picked us up from the airport and drove us to the Peurunka Spa Hotel, where we met Mira from Amelia Askartelu, who organized this event and invited us to come to teach.

We had a lovely dinner with Elina, ‘Creomi‘ and Riikka. The dessert was quite interesting. Dill marinated pineapple, raspberry sorbet and licorice… Uhmmm, what can I say... interesting! LOL!

On saturday I taught 2 workshops and Marsha one. I was surprised by how relaxed the Finnish girls were and how independend. No stress at all, although especially the masking workshop it quite intens with lots of information and techniques. Such a pleasure to teach here!

 


There was a wonderful buffet for lunch and dinner with lots of Finnish food. Things we had never had before but also some food I recognised from trips to Sweden and I loved. Yummy!

On Saturday evening after my last workshop we went to the Areena. This was a hall filled with tables where people could crop and around them several shops where the croppers could get their supplies. Great concept! I was so happy to discover a little shop specialized in Washi tape! It's called Teippitarha which means Tape Garden. But I thought it was Tape Heaven, LOL! The owner Janina shippes everywhere and she has these special envelopes that hold up to 10 rolls of tape and cost only 2 euro's to ship, so check out her website if you love washi tape too! :)

Riikka surprised us with some beautiful and delicious "typical Finnish" gifts in a lovely bag she made for us using fabric from a Finnish designer. 

This is a picture from her blog.

Marsha got the Jaffa one and me the green one. On my bag are prints from street views of Helsinki. When Marsha and I went into Helsinki on Monday morning we actually spotted the big wheel and we went into the market place of which there is  a print on the other side of the bag! So fun!

Here's a picture of all the lovely gifts we got from Päivi (Pamppa) & Kaarina the book about card techniques they wrote, from Kaarina issues of Ihana, the magazine she owns (she also interviewed us for an upcoming article :)), from Maiju a book she wrote (thank you Heini for all the translations! :)), also about card techniques, from Mira a set of punches, a t-shirt and a lovely magazine called Inzpira and everything else from Riikka. Thanks girls, it was a big surprise and very much appreciated! :)

On Sunday morning Marsha was teaching the first class, which was a long one, 4 hours. So that gave me the oppertunity to go outside, walk to the lake, enjoy the sunshine, the lovely surrounding and the quiet peacefulness! The wheater was beautiful and I sat on a bench for a while looking over the frozen lake, feeling the warm sun on my face.

After that I went back into the class room and sat at the table next to Marsha playing a little in my art journal while she was teaching.

After lunch it was time for me to teach again, this time Marsha and my workshop were overlapping.

After the workshops and cleaning up Minna drove us to Helsinki. I think it took us about 4 hours to get there. This gave us a chance to see a little bit more of beautiful Finland and a lovely sunset. Thank you Minna for driving us and telling us all kinds of things about Finland!

 

The next morning we got up early, had breakfast and then took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport where we put our suitcases in a locker. Then we took a taxi into Helsinki where we arrived around 9 am.

What a lovely oppertunity, that we had some time before our flight at 2pm to get to see a bit of Helsinki. The wheater was wonderful again. We first went to Tuomiokirkko, the Catherdral of Helsinki and were surprised to see how sober it was inside. Then we went to the Kauppatori (market square) which was not complete yet, to early in the morning I guess. So we went into the Market Hall that is right next to the sea side. Wen we opened the doors we didn't know that it was a market hall, we just were curious because we recognised the building from my bag. Such a nice surprise. A lot of food, typical Finnish food like Reindeer, Moose, a lot of fish, Finnish bakery and even bear! Bear? Are you kidding, really? Yep! And it only costs 160 euro per kilo, lol!

After that we went back into the center and had coffee with cake at Fazer's. Mmmmmmm!!!! Particularly Fazer's classic chocolate (Fazerin Sininen maitosuklaa) is famous throughout Finland!

Then we walked to the train station, a beautiful old building, did some fun shopping on our way there and then took a bus back to the airport. We arrived just in time to check in for our flight back home.

After a good flight we arrived at Schiphol airport from where took the train home. Marsha got of after 45 minutes and I continued for another 2 hours and 15 minutes to arrive in Groningen where Erik and Marlijn were waiting to pick me up.

What a wonderful weekend it was, but how good it also was to come home!!

Huge Kiitos to Riikka, Mira, Minna and all the lovely ladies that made this happen! I really, really hope to go back one day to teach in your wonderful country!

And thank you Marsha, for all the fun and for being such a great travel companion and room mate!

Have a lovely weekend!

 

Über*Media, acrylic paint online workshop by Nat Kalbach

Don't you just love acrylic paint? I do!!

Do you know all the awesome things you can do with acrylic paint? The possibilities are endless. And my friend Nathalie Kalbach knows how to work them to create the most wonderful projects. Would you like to learn how to use them in optima forma too? Here's your chance with Nat's Über*Media online workshop.

This is what Nat sais about it:

"Acrylic Paint is my favorite Art Medium. Why? Oh boy…where to start…..LOL

There is just something about this paint medium that makes me happy – the endless possibilities on how you can use it in your Scrapbooking and your Mixed Media Projects, be it in backgrounds, embellishments, to alter your photos or for fun stamping accents or be it the way how you can achieve the most amazing color combinations or …oh wait…I almost forgot my favorite:

TEXTURE!

When I started my Über*Media Online Workshop Series I knew I would include Acrylic Paints in one of the Segments…only…I love that medium just soooo much – I have a gazillion things to share with you about it. And that is the reason why this is …and will be probably always …my biggest Online Workshop ever.

Have you ever experienced the “Blank-Page-Moment”? The moment where you have no clue where to start to get creative, yet you are itching to play and have fun? Well…the secret to conquer the Blank Page is knowing some playful and fun techniques with an easy medium ….like Acrylic Paint.

There are about 100 Techniques (actually more) , over 5 hours of video materials, 14 artjournal Step-By Steps, a Scrapbooking Layout and a Mixed Media Step-by Step Project and more in this workshop included.

I share with you everything I know about this medium…I share my thought process and most of all- you will have fun for sure  We go from about 30  background techniques to more and more elaborate techniques, we will include fun other known and new media.

This Workshop is going to make you CREATE 

Need some visual input? – check out this video:

I can’t wait to start the fun with you beginning April 30th, 2012. More information and the signup-page here Über*Media Acrylic Paint

Have a creative day!"

nat

So what are you waiting for, take that chance, be inspired! :)

I just finished packing for Finland where I will be teaching 3 workshops this weekend. Leaving tomorrow morning, going from soft spring weather to cold and snow :) But we will be staying in a wonderful Spa, very much looking forward to it!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

A hate and love affair...

Deadlines... hate them!

They make me nervous and the closer the date gets the more it freaks me out. Because I always start last minute working on the projects.

Well, why don't you start early, I hear you say! Don't you know long enough in advance that the deadline is coming? 

Yes, most of the times I do know long enough in advance that a deadline is coming. For my DT's I have set dates to blog or I get a calender at least a month before. For assignments I usually know at least 2 weeks up front. 

I tell myself over and over again to start early, to get it done so I don't have to worry about it anymore! So I can sleep at night, in stead of worrying about them! What if I get sick, what if something get's in the way?

I sometimes see other people having scheduled their blog posts weeks before they're due, while I'm typing it the day that it has to go up. Makes me feel bad...

April 15th I have a deadline for a major project. I talked about it in my "Challenging myself..." blog post a couple of days ago.

I spoke about how I had all these awesome goodies to work with and still I didn't get anything done... Well, I still did not get ANYTHING done and April 15th is in less than 2 weeks.... Yikkes!

But the point is - and that is what I realize now - I NEED those deadlines! When I reach the point that I can't postpone it any longer, when I totally freak out because I'm sure I won't get it done in time, exactly at that moment when I sit down - desperate - because I HAVE to do it now, that's when the ideas come! And usually then I get it done in no time. And when I'm done I realize that I would never ever have made the project the way I did now if I had started earlier because at that point I didn't have these ideas yet. Funny huh?

Now, knowing that, deadlines will no longer have to bother me, I now know that it will all turn out fine in the end! Right? So relax! I just hope my nervous mind will believe me when I tell myself it's ok to relax, that it's ok to sleep :)

So if you ever want me to do anything for you, don't leave it up to me when to do it. Because then you will never get your project. Give me a deadline!

Because deadlines... love them!! LOL!

Now, because I don't like blog posts without pictures I will leave you with a tag I made for the Powder Puff Girls team post on the WOW! Embossing Powders blog last Saturday: 

I used a printed label (7Gypsies) that I wanted to add color too but I didn't want the color of the words "Life is good" to change. So I covered the letters with embossing ink using an embossing pen. Then I used WOW! Clear Gloss Super Fine to emboss the letters. I did the same with the clock face.

After tha,t I stamped on the upper half of the label with the WOW! Vintage Wallpaper stamp using black embossing ink (Exquisite from Ecogreen Crafts) and embossed this too with the Clear Gloss Super Fine. I also did that with the little metal wheel I added to the clock face.

After all parts were embossed I used distress inks (Ranger) and a piece of blending foam to color in the rest of the label. The embossed parts act as a resist and the distress inks will not stick to that. After adding the color just gently whip the surface with a piece of kitchen paper.

The label was finished with some rub-ons, cute paper birds and a piece of ribbon.

Make sure to visit the WOW! blog for tons and tons of inspiration!