Art Journal - My favorite books - 3 - Harry Potter

The 3rd page of the series. This time it's about the Harry Potter books. I loved the series and had to do a page about it. The phoenix was the first thing that came to me when I thought about it. So here it is.

The video:


The picture:

Not long ago I bought the big case of the Faber-Castell Polycromos. I wanted to use them and test them out on a black background. So I used them on this page. Sadly they didn't shine as much as I had hoped for this page and needed something to paint over it. Gouache was my way of doing it, because I didn't want the shine acrylics would have had.
At first I wanted to paint the feathers in but I had some orange and red pattern paper on my desk. So why try to paint feathers, which I have never done before, when I could just cut them out and glue them on. They added abit of dimention and I know, had I painted them, they would never have given me the same result.

Hope you like the page. Let me know...

Art Journal - My favorite books - 2 - Fairytales

Here is the second page in the 'My Favorite Books' - Series. It's about fairytales.

Here is the video:


And a photo of the finished page;

On this page I used an image transfer. It wasn't the normal put gel medium down onto the page and peal away the paper. Instead I coated the images with Gel medium at least 8 times in horizontal and vertical layers and let it dry completely overnight. When the paperbacking is peeled off, the image is transferred to the gel medium and the image is translucent.

It was perfect for what I had in mind. As I wanted the background to lightly peek through the fairies.

Art Journal - My favorite books - 1 - Pride and Prejudice

I'm started a new Art Journal about my favorite books and books that inspire me to do an Art Journal page. The first page is about Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Here is the video of the page:



Here you can see the page itself:

It is the first face I ever painted. I have drawn some faces in the past, but never colored them. It was harder than I thought it would be. Especially the details of the face didn't come out as I hoped they would.
It was done with watercolor paints, acrylic paints, oil pastels and a black marker.

Swap 2013 - page 3

I almost forgot to post the pictures of page 3 but here they are. I loved working with this one, because I never worked with a prima collection before and the papers were just sooo pretty.

The first page is just decorative, I cut and stamped a few images and glued them onto the flap. I closed the flap with a coin envelope closesure and tied a little charm on the end of the string. 

On the inside of the flap I used a deep edge punch to form a pocket. The pocket holds two small tags. The other side has a pocket as well and inside it is a big folded tag for 4  4x6 pictures.

The flap on the other side has a photomat. The decorative elements are only glued on partially so a photo can be tucked underneath them. I distressed all the edges and put some glossy accents onto the clocks surface.

On the inside, I just matted the page. I added two flaps with eyelets in them, so they can be tied together to hold them closed. On the inside of the flaps are journaling spots.

The big tag inside the page also holds a pocket. I put two cut aparts from the paper line into the pocket and matted the tag itself to hold more pictures.

Swap 2013 - page 2

Here are the pictures of the 2nd page I decorated in the Swap. I tried to be more shabby chic with this one. I like the look of shabby chic but I am not that good at it. My strength lies elsewhere.

 For the first page I went into my limited stash of trimms, laces and doilies. I formed a pocket out of the small flap and covered it in pattern paper and decorated it with trimm and a Prima stamp I had in my stash. For the inside of the pocket I used a script stamp for the background and a piece of a paper doily. The tag is covered in pattern paper and distressed.

 For the inside of the flap I distressed a piece of pattern paper and inked it with frayed burlap. I punched out a few small butterflys and used small pearls to accent them.
On the other side I used a piece of pattern paper and used gesso as my ink. The photocorner are metal embellishments form my stash. I gessoed them and glued down the edges, so the page would hold a full 4x6 picture.

On the other side, the flap is covered with a piece of pattern paper. To decorate it, I used a piece of crochet lace from my stash and made a tab out of a metal embellishment. I decorated the circle with flowers from my stash.

The inside of this page is just decorated with a piece of pattern paper, so a big picture can be placed. The other side has a pocket with 3 tall journaling tags. I stamped the tags with the  My Mind's Eye, Lost and Found stamp set. I used a small paper doily from my stash for a photomat.

On the big tag inside the page, I glued down a  paper doily. The round metal embellishment I had used on the tab on one of the flaps, fit perfectly inside. So I gessoed it and glued it ontop. I pit a small butterfly in the middle to tie the pages together.

Swap 2013 - Page 1

Here are pictures of the first album I decorated for the swap Laura is holding. I loved the pattern paper. It was colorful and fun to work with. It was something I would never have bought myself but that in itself was what inspired me the most.

On the first flap I made a pocket from the paper and put two tags in it. The tags are stamped with Tim Holtz stamps I had. I fuzzycut a flower from the pattern paper to extend the pocket abit.

On the inside of the flap is just matted and I glued down some photocorner for a big picture. The other side has another pocket with a 6 1/4 x 4 1/4 tag in it. On the pocket I used some Martha Stewart punches.

On the flap on the other side of the page I just decorated the top, no pockets.

On the inside, there is another pocket on the flap with 2 small tags. The tags are stamped with Tim Holtz stamps. The pocket is formed with 3 small cut-outs from the paper collection. The other side has a piece of pattern paper in the background. Two small accent strips out of a blue pattern paper are glued on the top and bottom. They are both punched with a Martha Stewart punch and only glued on the very edges, so a photo can be tucked behind them.

The tag from the big pocket of the page I decorated with scraps of the paper. I just cut 1x1 inch squares and rounded 2 opposite corners. The sentiment is from the same Tim Holtz stamp set I used on the other tags.

Nap in the Garden - Layout and Video

I made a new video. This time I documented the creation of this new layout. It's about the first dog we had and how she always napped in the sun.

Here a photo:

Here is the video:

For the layout I used the Hope Chest Collection by PinkPaislee. I also had the Die-cut pack. I used 3 different alphas. The first one is a green felt chipboard alpha from the Lush line. The second one is from Webster's Pages and the third one is by Basic Grey.

The stencil I used is made by myself. I applied a thin coat of gesso through the stencil to get the cascading boxes down to the title.

To embellish the page I used bottons from my stash as well as a bit of twine. I kept it simple because the background paper was very busy. As a last step I used some ColorWash - Espresso to lightly splatter the layout.

The layout is a response to Nicolejones911 1000+ subbies challenge. If you don't know her videos, you should hop on over to YouTube and check them out. They are fantastic. So many wonderful ideas. 

Congratulations to Nicole on reaching 1000+ subscribers on your channel. You deserve each and every one of them and I  hope you get lots more.

Something different - a Mouse

The following card is my take on shabby chic. I scrap-lifted the design from a tagswap I did a while back.

The background paper as well as the flower are made with the Glitz - Vintage Blue Collection. The image of the mouse is from an old sheet of diecuts I bought at a fleemarket.

I entred this card into the following challenges:

Anything Goes Challenge! - Paper Crafting Journey
HIMCR #113 - Freestyle! - Hiding in My Craft Room
Anything Goes - Frilly and Funky
Animal Antics - SimonSaysStamp.com - Wednesday Challenge

Place in Time Calendar - Part 1

Here are the first 6 months for a Place in Time calendar I'm working on. It will be a gift for my grandmother.
It's 8x8 and will be mounted on the Graphic 45 8x8 Easel Album. To embellish the pages I just used the Cut-Aparts from each month and the Chipboard Tags 1.

1. January                                              2. Febuary

3. March                                                4. April

5. May                                                   5. Juni

Progessive Swap

So I entered the progressive Swap Laura Denison is holding. All the information concerning the swap can be found here.

In short:
We are organized in groups and send a naked album with a few papers from person to person. At the end we get a completed album back. My album is traveling to Israel, Italy and Sweden. How great is that?
I can't wait to see what I get back and what my fellow swap-partners send me to work on. I know it will be a great experience.

Here is a picture of the package I send on it's way today:

I won't tell you everything I put in it, but I chose a Basic Grey Collection for my papers. I also included some embellishments for inspiration. They are not enough to finish the book but I wanted to give my swap-partners a starting point.

As the guidelines stated, I included a notebook for everyone to write a short note about themselves. I made the book myself and will post some pictures, when I get it back.

In the next few weeks I will post the pages I will design of everyones books. So come back every now and then.

Heaven Sketch challange - 8/13

Here is a quick layout I did yesterday. It is the answer to the Scrapbook Heaven challenge 8/13. Here is a picture of the sketch:

I know it is already september but I am still behind on my christmas pictures. This layout brings me one step further to finishing them all. The pictures I used here are 3 christmastrees from my family.

I used some old Graphic 45 collections for this layout, mainly Christmas Past I cut out a tree from one of the papers as well as the little stamps.

Wall of Ancestors

Today’s piece is a part of my ‘Wall of Ancestors’. I was going through some of my grandmother’s old photo albums and discovered quite a few pictures I had never seen before. Most of them are of people no one remembers but I couldn’t believe that I found a photo of my great-great-grandparents on their wedding day.

They work great with my already existing pictures of my family in my hallway. Now it is really the ‘Wall of Ancestors’, as we like to call it. Now there are 6 generations of my family up on that wall.

As with most of my old pictures on that wall, I used the Basic Grey – Little Black Dress Collection and embellishments for this piece as well as I Am Roses flowers. The Collection just works perfectly with black and white as well as sepia colored photos.

I can’t wait to get the rest of the pictures I found copied and up on my wall.

Little Child Of Mine - Layout

Here is another layout. I cleaned my crafting area and found alot of loose embellishments and before I put them all away in my stash again I thought about using them up. 

The layout is about my godchild shortly after she was born. I know it looks more like a baby boy layout with the blues but she wore a yellow onesie in the picture and it didn't work with any of my pink papers.

I used random papers I had left from a few Webster's Pages Collections. The embellishments are all leftovers found around my desk. I can't tell you what manufacturers they were from. The only thing that I added and know what they are, are some Melissa Frances Mini Accents I've had for years.

Heaven's Sketch 6/13 Challenge Response

The following layout is a response to the Heaven's Sketch 6/13 over at the Scrapbook Heaven blog.

The layout will be about my bestfriend and me sitting outside enjoying the one day of sunshine we had this year haha. I don't have the photo developed yet so I put in a piece of white cardstock as a placeholder.

With the weather as it is (59°F / 15°C) and alot of rain I am in the mood to scrap alot of bright colors. The Basic Greay - Picadilly collection is perfect for this.

As I don't have any 12x12 paper for this collection anymore, I needed to come up with a solution to get a 12x12 layout. The white stripes are leftover scraps with a white distressed pattern. All the other papers used are from 6x6 papers.

I embellished the page with chipboard pieces from the colleciton as well as some overlays, dimentional stickers and rub-ons.

Kathryn Scraps - Layout Week - Day 3 Challenge

Here is the third challenge from Kathryn's Layout Week over at The Scrapbeach. The following picture shows the sketch:

The layout is about my 21 year old cat Lizzy. I am her servant since I was 10 years old. She is still the queen of the household, even though she can't see that well anymore. She still expects that everything has to go her way like every other cat :P

For the background I used a 12x12 sheet of cardstock and coated it with gesso. To tone down the white I sprayed the background with Glimmer Mist - Gumdrop.
After the paper was dry, I drew my sunburst pattern and used my Color Wash sprays to get the blocks of color. The colors I used are Butterscotch, Red Pepper, Sailboat Blue and Meadow. To get the lighter colors I just mixed the Color Wash with a lot of water and used a paper towel to blot of the excess.
Because I knew the spraying wouldn't be pristine from the beginning, I didn't even try. To define the outline of the sunburst a bit more, I outlined the rays with a black pen.
The papers and embellishments are from the Basic Grey - Picadilly collection. The bright colors were perfect for the background.

Kathryn Scraps - Layout Week - Day 4 Challenge

Here is the fourth challenge from Kathryn's Layout Week over at The Scrapbeach. The following picture shows the sketch:

The layout is about Schloss Weikersheim. I stayed close to the sketch and only placed the embellishment cluster on the right side over to the left.

I used the Crate Paper - DIY Shop Collection for the layout. Only the background paper is from Basic Grey's Fruitcake collection. I outlined all the papers with a black pen and bend the tails of my banners up to give them some dimention. To embellish the page I used the stickers and diecuts of the collection.

Kathryn Scraps - Layout Week - Day 2 Challenge

Here is the second challenge from Kathryn's Layout Week over at The Scrapbeach. The following picture shows the sketch:

The layout is about a trip we took to Rothenburg ob der Tauber in south Germany in 2011. I altered the sketch slightly:

I used the Basic Grey - Picadilly Paper Collection. To embellish the page I used the die-cut shapes, fabric stickers, chipboard stickers and journaling cards from the collection. The papers and diecuts are all inked with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. I used the colors of the background papers in each quarter of the page to tie them together.

Kathryn Scraps - Layout Week - Day 1 Challenge

Kathryn, over at The Scrapbeach, is having a Layout Week. Each day, she is posting a new layout with a sketch as well as a process video. If that is not enough to get our creative-juices flowing, she  challenges us to create a layout from the sketches.

Here is the Sketch from the first day of Layout Week.

As you can see, I stayed quite close to the sketch:

I used the Crate Paper DIY Shop Collection for this layout. The photo frame is distressed. The layers of the different pattern papers are all outlined with a black pen and then slightly distressed with my fingermail to give them abit of depth. I then used some diecuts and stickers from the collection to embellish the page.

2 for 1 Post!

I'm back with 2 months for my Mixed Media Calender.  

Here is the first month of today; May:

The page started with some floral pattern papers I had in my stash. They are torn into smaller pieces and then glued onto the page. I whitewashed the paper and added, with The Crafter's Workshop Mini Branches (TCW251s) and Mini Chickenwire reversed (TCW259s) stencils, a bit of texture. 

I stamped every leaf stamp I could find in my stash in greens and blacks at the bottom of my page and whitewashed the whole thing again. To get a bit more color onto the page I used some Broken China and Crushed Olive Distress Ink and spayed it with some water. A polkadot and grid stamp added some visual interest.

The next step was the images from an old gardening book. I just glued the flowers and swallows onto the page and put a coat of modge podge over the images. I outlined them with markers in brown, violet and green and painted over the images with my acrylic paints. I outlined the images and put another coat of modge podge over them. 

To finish the page I doodled around the page with a black pen and used some stitching stamps. I added the olive green chipboard letters and the page was finished.

Here is another picture of the page:

The second month I finished is november:

This page started with blue pattern paper at the top and brown pattern paper at the bottom. I whitewashed the top and put some green paint over the brown pattern paper to create some kind of landscape. I used the Mini Branches stencil from The Crafter's Workshop again to get the feel of trees in the background.

The mushrooms are cut from different pattern papers and glued to the page. I outlined them with a black pen. I used some of my Faber-Castell Gelatos to shade the mushrooms. 

Some doodling on the mushrooms and adding the letter-stickers and I was done.

That was it from me today.
See you all in a bit with another month.

Mixed Media Calendar - July - Video

And another first! My first video. I thought I would  try it. I'm still learning so be kind . Haha!

Here are some pictures of the Mixed Media collage I did for the month July:

,

And the video:

 Hope you like it. See you next time.