Déjà vu?

My computer gave up a few weeks ago and, after getting new parts, was restored to a point in january. I am sure I’ve posted some of the next cards allready, but can’t find proof… Then probably it was only on facebook. (Or just because they’ve been waiting to go online for several months?)

PC is fixed now, and in a better spot in my house which means I can sit rather comfortably behind it, and all the diseases are slowly diminishing.

I’ve visited the Art Specially Event in Nijkerk at the 10th of April, and ofcourse didn’t stick to my budget. Which means I now own a small round gelliplate and pan pastels. I couldn’t remember at the event WHY I didn’t get it before or what had put me off, but I did remember as I was playing around with them at home. It means a new range of products I am going to need to collect…. It’s probably my subconscious trying to keep feeding the addiction, as I have told myself I’ve got enough stamps and cannot get more. Still many many uses with the ones I’ve got. So I am only allowed to get materials that are used up. Like glue and the new distress inks, markers. I didn’t intend to get new media… really…

Ofcourse now you expect a post about my experiments with it – but alas, as I’ve said this is about older cards from before my trip to Nijkerk. (It was a strange trip. No constant talking in the car, no questions, no ” Mom,..Mom..Momm!). It was strange. I thought I’d love it, sing out loud with my music, feel “free”, but it wasn’t like that. The music didn’t do the trick. My mind was still going everywhere and nowhere. Probably because I had an extremely busy week I was a bit numb. The event was good, I participated in a take and make (gelliplate and pan pastels…) and got my mojo back. I hadn’t been crafting in a few weeks due to ” reasons”  (had moved my crafting supplies and wasn’t sure I liked the new storage, not used to it, not wanting to make a mess (tired), got a cold etc..)

I’m digressing, again.

Cards…

Made with cutoffs from other cards. Glue them on cardstock, add some finish to it (I used Mod Podge decoupage glue) and stamp a sentiment on it.

This one has been almost finished for a year or more. I had just the panel with the mermaid, not sure if I had put the dots (paper pen dots) in the swirls then, that might have been a later addition. All I did to finish it is (maybe add the dots and) frame it… Chocolate Baroque mermaid and Designs by Ryn swirls and School of Fish.

Chocolate Baroque text and Sweet Pea Stamps (discontinued) Meredith Dillman’s Lady in Green. Stamped onto a background made with acryllic pewter paint.

The reverse stamp of a stencil of Designs by Ryn onto glossy cardstock, and one of her Colibries.

Also reverse stamp of a stencil (Hibiscus) onto clossy cardstock and a Hummingbird. Text is from the Boadicea sheet from Indigo Blue

Text is from Quietfire Designs, background stencil is Japanese Anemone from Designs by Ryn, and the dove is from a dove/pear themed Chocolate Baroque stampsheet.

Art Journey stamps against a pewter and silver acryllic paint mix background.

Hmm I’ve shown this one, haven’t I? Or only on facebook? In that case: It’s the Queen of Hearts by Rachel Anderson from Sweet Pea Stamps (discontinued). Crackle backround is Indigo Blue. The pinkish background is a leftover piece from a year ago.

The leftover piece on which the queen of hearts is stamped is from this set of cards, I even mentioned in the post I saved it (it’s the piece of paper I cleaned my brush on…)

 

 

Trying out that beautiful blending I see on many of the Lavinia cards. This looks quite ok but is not entirely right, it’ s missing a branch or something at the top. All stamps are Lavinia stamps, and the treetrunk is stamped twice to create a higher treetrunk (the stamp is only half the cardheight size).

And now, in gallery form and with some more detail pictures:

Silver moon rising

Moonshadow

Silver White moon man

Silent ascension begun

Fill me up with dreams

I saw this stamp at De-Stempelwinkel and liked it a lot, so what do you do then? I wonder where the text comes from, who wrote it.

Anyway, the card. I made it in the last 2 or 3 weeks, and I forgot what I did on the background. There’s lots of stenciling – I see some art deco arches (Stampinback.nl?) in wild honey slightly on the card, and sunbursts (Dutch Doobadoo). sec, getting the card…. aaah the white in the background are giant stitch crosses from a A3 sized stencil from Marianne Design of Joy Crafts. It’s a reverse print of the stencil. So 3 stencils, it was getting a bit busy. I had this new stamp and watned to try it out, so why not this card?

Ooh ascension… fill up… drops rising up, but not in the sea, it should be more dreamlike, more moonlike. Silver waterbubbles. I stamped in on top of the text, as I figured the text would be visible enough – I think I should have wiped a bit more embossing powder off it at the text, but the look I wanted (bubbles going before the text) has succeeded. Embossed the bubbles with pearlsilver embossing powder.  Also added a fairy, but removed her wings (wiped the ink from the stamp) and only very slighly went over her with a wet brush to mix the colours in her dress more. She’s a moonghost now, hardly visible, like when you try to hold on to a dream.

I added drops of glue onto the bubbles for some body, I wanted to know if I could get the same effect as glossy accents with it. Tip: don’t put the card in upright position when it has drops of something on it.

LAst but not least, I wanted to use some dies agan. It’s been ages since I used them. I didn’t want a forest scene, or sea scene, but some sort of mix between it. Like seaitems but above ground, like a fog in which magical things can be seen. The thing the items have in common is the coloursetting. The backcard is coloured in Stormy sky too, and the middle matted card has the crushed olive and forest moss.

It’s a strange card. But is it strange in the way it’s supposed to be, with water elements in the air, grass in a sea? Is it dreamlike strange?

This is my second entry to Designs by Ryn Customer Creation Challenge – May.

Not sure if the text is featured enough for the Challenge of De-Stempelwinkel, which is Surrealism these two weeks. (Oh wait, they sell also the stamps from Designs by Ryn!) I hope dreams are surreal enough!

Fantasy Lavinia

I’ve gotten some new stamps from a brand called Lavinia. I had liked their stamps for a while, but they are not available as rubber stamps, only clearstamps so that put me off a bit. I prefer rubber stamps as I do not have to worry about the kinds of inks I use on it, e.g. Stazon is not advised for clear stamps (it contains a solvent), but what other non-solvent ink is there that can stamp over acryllic paint and is waterproof after drying?

Still I went ahead and ordered some. I also want to try and work more with sprays, as I don’t use them often or find it hard to use them with stencils (hardly ever get a nice image). Yesterday I learned something important: Take an empty mister, put a little bit of water in it and spray your ink spray into it. Shake, and spray. The colour tone is much lighter, making it easier to work with. Anyway, didn’t know that before.

The cards:

I think the above card was the best one of the series. Stamps used: Zen-plant, Large Path, Freya. With the other cards I experimented a bit more.

Although the next one isn´t bad either, like a misty place in the forest. I´ve used the Zen-plant stamp here and the Tree Root.

The last has got some mistakes, like the upper right corner (I just noticed) – I can glue it in place though. Other thing is the fairy Freya, I stamped her but it didn’t cover enough. I stamped again, this time putting something under the paper, not just the cutting mat, I think I just put a cloth underneath I think? Not sure, but this time the image transferred better, but not exactly at the right place. Let’s call the ghost image a special effect 😉

I also tried a mirror stamp technique, as I saw in a shop they have a special stamp with which you can mirror another stamp. I thought, let’s try it by stamping onto my acryllic block and put that on the paper. Didn’t work extremely well, I won’t repeat it, but the effect is ok. What did I do? Mirror the root of the tree, so it looks more like  branch from a tree then a tree itself. Stamps used: Zen-Plant, Freya and Tree Root.

A magic song

I was running late for another entry for Designs by Ryn for the March challenge, so I decided to post this for the April challenge instead. And what a coincidence: the main stamp I used is on sale now! And one that I don’t have is on sale as well, so I think I’m going to order that one as a birthday present (ok my birthday has allready passed, and I got myself plenty of hobby-gifts, but hey, one more stamp…or a stamp and stencil…or two…)

How I made this card

Start by gathering pink/lila coloured paints. I don’t really like pink, but I think in a moment of sanity loss I had ordered some pink paint. So I decided to make a very pink card.
Also, I had bought the Winter sheet, to which I’ll refer to as the Celtic sheet from now on – it removes some mental limits to its use. Pink isn’t really a winter colour, so perfect for this stampset (to show that it’s also nice on non-winter cards).

Pour drops of it onto glossy or very smooth A6 cardstock, and press another piece of cardstock on top of it. Wiggle it around a bit, pull apart, turn one cardstock, put togehter again, pull apart, etc. Divide the paint with the papers so the entire surface (or almost all of it) is covered.

Then, spray with glimmer mist (or water, but a tutorial I once saw they used the glimmer mist because of a special reason I forgot). I had also used perlescent paint by the way.

After wetting it, wrap it in kitchenfoil. Wrinkle it and let dry.

Meanwhile, clean your dining table on which you sprayed perfect pearls mist because you managed to leave only 2 small A6 sized spots open to craft on on the edge of your craftsheet.

Ofcourse I have not taken a picture of the results at this point. Wouldn’t want you to spoil the surprise for you, just try for yourself!

I did this technique also with some other colours for another challenge, these are the results near the end. 4 cards, 2 backgrounds, (actually the right paper is where I put on the remaining paint, as I hate to throw away those leftovers.) The paper on top are the colours for the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge.

 

On the next picture you can see the foil effect very well.

HEre too, and here you can see how shiny it is. It is very shiny. A bit too much, so I covered it with stamps and ink. (Ofcourse I wanted to try out the new celtic stamps too.) Colouring the celtic symbols was tricky – I can’t paint inside the thin lines and making everything white is a bit boring. To bring out the figures more I added the blue.

I chose for white embossing this time, as it fit the celtic symbols. Gave the fairy a bronze colour and blue hair, blue and red dress and green/brown leaves/feathers. Some bronze/brown in the wings and harp, and accented the eyes.

 

I like the shiny bit above her head, like the harp produces magic.

Before matting it onto a white card I lightened up the edges a bit with some lila colour.

It could be a winter card still. Or it could just be a mystic summer card. Hope you like it!

Magic in the mist

Another card for the Designs by Ryn january challenge:

The above image is a scan of the card, it doesn’t show the glossyness.

I all started with this, made with bister and a bit of Wild Honey distress ink and maybe the red is stamped with fired brick distress ink:

Design by Ryn stamps used: Fish Scales and Sea Bubbles on the left card. The patio stone is on the right card, but that is still as is, and not finished. Hmm no, I think I stamped a tiger on it… still not finished though.

The fairy  was made for another card but not used, I coloured a background then stamped and embossed with clear embossing powder. The dragon emerges from the mist, both myst-ical creatures ;).

 

The dragon was embossed using left over embossing powder from another card, I stamped with imbossing ink and poured the embossing powder over, the embossing powder was allready a mix from a previous time. I used mainly stream (dark blue), white and distress tumbled glass embossing powder. Then I took a brush, added some water and removed the bister inside the dragon or spreading it out more. Then I consealed the dragon a bit again by adding Wild Honey distress ink.

I then put glossy accents on top.

The photo’s of the unfinished card outside look best in terms of colour. It’s time for longer days!

Thank you all so much for visiting, as I find it hard to find the time to visit others! Leaving comments on blogspot blogs takes even more time due to blogger not “recognizing” wordpress accounts as valid acounts, it keeps wanting to verify I’m not a robot. Why can’t they just get along.

Oh I forgot about the background: made myself ofcourse, red and green spray ink (dylusions I think), stormy sky distress ink (to match the fairy wings) and distress paint walnut stain.

Stay warm and positive, and if you’d like to receive a real card, wobbly and not perfectly glued, then send me your adress. (The wobbly and not perfecly glued part doesn’t show on pictures luckily :P)

 

Home sweet home

Playing with bister, it gives nice backgrounds but then what to do with it? Well, why not stamp over it and use the bister as colouring of the image.. And so I did. I stamped a fairy castle over it, the red representing the magic that flows from the building, or the pixie dust. It’s actually an underwater castle (Chocolate Baroque), so it could also be a mermaid hideout. Tiny mermaids then, as the castle is small.

After that I added more colour around the image, the green is added distress ink (ink on an acryllic block + waterbrush).

I then created the frame, it was on bright green cardstock. I stamped over the frame with several tree stamps / leaf stamps from Chocolate Baroque. I say frame because it is a frame but placed behind the center image. I cut out the inner part of the backing paper to save weight – 20g is reached quite fast.

I placed a stencil, a Crafter’s workshop one that has to do with underwater (forgot the name), and applied blue distress ink through the stencil. Next, I applied molding paste (moulding paste? I know one is unhealthy fungus and the other means shaping, but which one is which.. hmmm…). The paste absorbed some of the colour of the ink beneath it and got a nice blue colour. I cleaned the stencil and replaced it and added a bit of perfect pearls blue powder on it. (Gah me and names).

Last I glued the main image on the frame and added the glossy accents in a non straight and non-clean line all around the image/frame. It’s quite hard to try to make the line wiggle and look like applied with a shaking hand when you intend to do so.

It does have an underwater feel to it, doesn’t it? So my initial idea of a fairy home – well, it’s a waterfairy home now!

This is my entry for Melissa’s Vandicrafts Artistrsy Challenge #17 – Home Sweet Home.

 

Arcane Dreams

Thinking of a title for this card, I thought it was dreamlike, hypnotized, trance, drugs… What’s with me and drugs lately? I never used it and don’t want to start now. Lack of sleep is good enough to make you feel dizzy :P.

Anyway, trance, hypnotic, that sort of fits. Arcane. Arcane! That’s it, why didn’t I think of that sooner.

So humpadabum, here she is, our Arcane musician, wielding her harp to cast her dreamspell on you.

Fairy is from Designs By Ryn, the word Dreams is from Christina Renee clearstamp set (not sold anymore), the sun is from Stampinback (IIRC), the burst is from Chocolate Baroque. The chipboard things on it are remains of the Albert Heyns promotional goods. Albert Heyn, or AH, is a big supermarket chain which regularly has cardboard/paper things to collect for kids. this time the theme is “a farmers life”. Used in this card is 1 egg and some left overs. 1 egg? yup. Slide the two most eggshaped figures into eachogher and you have a 3d egg out of paper. (top view of the egg is a + ). I hope I didn’t ruin your thoughts about this card now, that you see eggs everytime you look at it. I think I jinxed that now, having said that…

So I glued some bits and pieces onto a card, added distress paint ranomly, a Design by Ryn fish scale stamp (forgot to mention that) and some more paint.

I stamped the fairy, coloured her, then stamped her again onto tissue paper, coloured her again and decoupaged her onto the first image.

 

edit: inserted the next mage.

I changed the colours of her dress on the second stamp, but kept the colours of her wings largely the same so it would be more intense. Above photo: no sparkles on her wings.

Next I stamped the Dreams text in cherry pink stazon. I thought it would match. I have no pictures of that for a reason. The pink just screamed out at me, like a Paris Hilton pink barbie something.

So I stamped over it twice, I inked up the stamp mostly with gothic purple (left some uninked at the top) and next again in black, inking mostly only the bottom part. I added some sparkles on the wings, and drops, made a frame to mat it on and assembled it all.

Another tip: I never use a whole sheet of paper to mat my card on, as postage is 1 stamp for 0-20g, above it’s 2 stamps. And 20g is easily to get to with self made cards and envelopes. Also, I save the cut out bits to use for other cards.

Next up is Alien Art, a card made similar to this one.

Arcane Dreams is my third entry to Designs by Ryn October Customer Creation Challenge. (always anything goes, but must use Design by Ryn’s stamps).

Making of a Whispered Autumn Song

Some pictures I forgot to add. I had some trouble determining what or whom the fairy was singing too.

Decisions decisions…

Here is the card as it was then. I cut off the left side later, to balance the card more. I had wanted to make some more shade there, but it was distracting. Around the fairy are some stamps that might fit in there. Maybe the unicorns, coming in from the left of the card? All grey stamps are Chocolate Baroque, the red rubber is from Designs by Ryn, the white ones are from the set Pixie Glade by ?? (I’ve got them for quite a while). The pinkish stamp (high heels) is VivaLasVegas, as is the stamped, coloured and cut out gnome. The roughly stamped butterfly and castle are Chocolate Baroque too, as is the stamped, coloured and cut out mushroom barely seen on the left.

I stamped several images roughly and cut them out, to see how it looked.

This one looked like the sitting fairy is said, and the fairy behind her is watching her reaction while the big fairy sings.

This is the mushroom that was a left over from a failed card, and which I had wanted to use in the Psychedelic Party card but which was too big. It could be nice here, with the bird sitting on top of it.

Or would she be singing to a butterfly about the passing of days, the end of summer?

 

This one was a favourite of mine for a long time – like the gnome had been bad and got a speech. Or maybe the opposite, he was quite heroic and was praised? The gnome was stamped and cut for another card but I didn’t use it for that card. It’s a Viva las VegaStamp, and tiny, but cute.

His height didn’t match her LOS, so what if I raised him onto a mushoom? Gnomes do go well with mushrooms.

Or maybe she’s singing to a little elf castle, hoping to sing the elfs out? And that cheeky gnome just standing there, ready to do something naughty?

I think now I had too much mushroom tea and got a bit silly. What if she was having lunch with a cup of tea, and used the mushroom as a table?

Or this one, where the fairy is leaning toward her to listen. (Gnome is still hanging around.) I liked this one best, but I wanted some colour on the fairy.

Yup that is my table, and the workspace remaining in the end. I coloured some paper with the ranger airbrushtool and distress markers, then stamped and clearembossed the fairy and cut her out.

 

Here us the result. That note on the left, with “Fever” on it – I was trying some words for the Psychedelic party, and tried “disco fever”.

  And a closeup of the result. (and behind her you can see a big tip of mine: on all sides of your inkpad, glue down a strip, coloured with that ink and write the name on it. I started doing that on only 1 side, but then you have to stack the boxes neatly each time. So then I did 2 sides. But still too much searching. So now it’s 4 sides, just white paper and plain tape – if I would just glue down the paper it would be smudged in no time I bet, so cover it with something ink-resistant.)

(Don’t take any advice from me about cutting your stamps, as I sometimes cut the stamps first and then put them on the mounting foam, then cut them out. It doesn’t always match well, and if I stamp edges, then I cut those away after. I realize now that I should probably do it the other way around, and remove more from the cushion then from the stamp. Or would the stamp bend to the paper then?

If you remember the card, you might think: huh, but there was a fairy and a flower on it, not another fairy!

That’s right. I found the colours didn’t match, and the coloured silhouette didn’t work with the stamped and non-silhouette big fairy.

So I searched for a right sized image of something that would fit, and found this flower from Chocolate Baroque.

The flower is stamped directly on the card, anything glued on would not match with this scene, it would take away the focus of the fairy too much. There’s red glitter on the flower, the harp is shimmering gold, as is the “fur” on her wings.

A picture says more then 1000 words they say, so let me just take a picture of it now.

And now you can also see how the fairy doesn’t fit:

It’s not just her glossyness, the colours were not for this card.

 

I stored her in a box with more pretty cards / backgrounds, and put her on top of some sheets I had made with bister. She fits on those better!

Not a great picture, the detail is missing from the backgrounds, but the colours sure are great 🙂 Now I just need to make some cards out of them.

A whispered autumn song

Beautiful flower with your fragrance of Autumn
How you stand there, filled with the sun.
Do you not know, do you not feel
The change of the season, the turning of the wheel?

Around you leaves fall,
It’s Fall, they fall.
Let down your petals,
Let down, let go
Show us your seedsShow them, then sow,
For theirs is the Spring,
and for them, you grow.

Beautiful flower, so strong in this wind,
How you stand there, defying the time.
Do you now know, do you now hear
King Winter approaching, saying your end is near?

Around you leaves fall,
Like feathers, they fall
Your crown made of petals,
Goes down, goes off
Spread out your seeds,
with joy, with love,
For  you’ll live forever
It’s you, they’re made off.

Beautiful flower with your roots deep in the ground
Alone you stand there, calm in the present,
You always did knew, as you can sense
your return in springtime, winter is not the end.

The fairy was stamped, coloured with distress ink / markers and then I applied decoupage glue to her. I next stamped the rest.
She does have some bruises on her leg, that is where I didn’t apply the decoupage glue well enough and rubbed in the ink of the tree/ rubbed off the paper a bit when I cleaned her with a damp cloth. I thought about covering it with something, but I like it, it suits a Fall fairy to have some signs of withering and crumbling.  The sponging is done with a new foam sponge, I am still learning how to use it and wondering if I like them, they don’t really soak up the ink well so you get this more coarse sponging. For this card it fits, and I like it here. I’m slowly learning how to use the foam pods without getting this effect as I do like to make smoother backgrounds too.

• Fairy is a Designs by Ryn stamp,
• Flower is from Chocolate baroque,
• Feather is Crafters Companion (something magical series)
• Tree is from nonsequitur stamps / de stempelwinkel.

This card is my first entry for the Designs by Ryn October challenge.

The psychedelic mushrooms-fairy

Well she isn’t that psychedelic at all herself. Then again, usually the dealers aren’t addicted…

Here she is:

She’s got her own vices. Sitting on a mushroom, smelling the flowers.

The fair+ mushrooms + branch behind her are all one stamp, the flower is another. I also used a nature fragments stamp for the treetrunks around her. Here is another use of my home made marbled pearls.

This is my second entry for the Chocolate Baroque Colour challenge #3

One card left for this challenge! So we’ve explored our own psychedelic imagination, visited the fairies, then what else could be next then the mysterious orient?