Round Robins coming to an end

I participate in three Round Robins. Two returned home safely. They were part of the RR coordinated on milliande (15 artist, 15 journal, 15 months) and the second one on Doll Dreams (Doll Dreams Basic Round Robin art journal swap). I am so glad with the addition of those who participated and I thank them for the beautiful pages in my art journals. It is such an amazing idea of my art journal travelling from The Netherlands to the UK to the USA and to Australia. My art journal went to those countries that I would like to visit once:-)) Still one art journal travelling around ~ the Flower Fairy art journal ~. It will soon be back home. Here my contribution to two Flower Fairies art journals. These journals will be travelling back to the United States. Have a nice Sunday!

March challenge on DD

Dolldreams.ning.com comes to an end till the end of April. Ady will continue to promote her art on her blog and her facebook, while we will continue swapping on dolldreamswapsandtrades.blogspot.com. I guess the March challenge will be the last on dolldreams.ning.com. I hope the challenges continue.

We received a free image from Ady for the March challenge. This is what I made of it. I printed the image on  a A4 canvas. I did the job using prismacolor pencils, acrylic paints, a black Copic marker and a stencil.

Something like zentangle

Based on the prompt 'Confused (confusion) with journaling' I created this page. I love how this page came out. While working on the  page I thought of doing something like zentangle in her hair.

Prompt 2: 3-D page with the numbers of this year 2013 and a quote that suits you for this moment (add journaling).

Card Sketch Challenge - March

The challenge in this swap was to use the card sketch by Jane Eubank. Instead of circles I used flowers, cut with my Cricut Expression and using the Art Philosophy cartridge. For the sentiment I used Nellie Snellen  multi frame die and alphabet rubber stamps.

I started the second card, but totally forgot that I had to focus on the sketch. I used a circle punches, a scalloped punch and my Cricut Expression to cut a small doily. The first layer on the card is the residue of Gina K. paper. I did not want to throw it away after I coloured and cut out the image. I cut the image out with the Spellbinders Nestabilities 'Peony'. It makes a nice background for this card. After I finished the card I noticed that it is a nice card, but it doesn't do justice to the swap. Yeah, I had to start all over again, hehehe.

So I started this card based on the sketch. Using Spellbinders Nestabilities for the circles, alphabet rubber stamps, two ribbons and some embellishment to complete the card. Spellbinders Nestabilities: Inverted Scalloped Circles, Labels Thirteen, Peony and Nested Pionsettias. Most of the times I make an envelope for the  card.

The other greeting cards and colored images

Here are the rest of the cards. These cards are not sent; they have no destination up to now.
Used: Make it Colour blending cardstock from Make it Crafty, Cricut Expression, cartridges Storybook, Wild Card, Plantin Schoolbook), die cuts, The Greeting Farm rubber stamp, Sweetpea rubber stamps, Copic markers, Prisma color pencils, Uniball Signo white pen, various patterned cardstock or paper, foam tape, ribbon and gems.

And some coloured images. I don't have a destination for them yet. They will be mounted on a greeting card.
No surprise, huh? ^_^

A rubber stamp image from The Greeting Farm ; love their cute images.

Sweetpea rubber stamps: love there rubber stamps. Just an amazing quality of rubber stamps and I am a proud owner of a nice collection of there rubber stamps.

You can see on the edge that this nice image is not cut yet. Just stamped her on Make it Colour blending cardstock and colored her. Lovely image.

A lot of handmade greeting cards

Sometimes I don't know in which angle to search for my mojo. It takes a while and even when my mojo is there, it seems like I'm still searching. Crazy huh? But after some difficult moments I finally created a couple of cards. Three Hello cards for a swap and the rest created in between.

Created the circle and the tag with my Cricut Expression. The bird on the branch is cut with a die cut Creatables from Marianne Design. The greeting is from a HeroArts clear stamp collection. The tag is on foam tape.

I call these types of cards 'simple Stampin' Up cards'. I love easy, nicely made cards. I used a Martha Stewart punch and another punch (brand unknown) to create borders on the patterned card stock. I used clear stamps and a scalloped Stampin' Up punch. The flowers are on foam tape.

I did a post with these masterpieces I created a couple of weeks ago. Here I use one of these masterpieces. The tags cut with my Cricut Expression using the Art philosophy cartridge, a production of Close To My Heart. I love this cartridge a lot. It has numerous possibilities. I printed the greeting on the tag and used a cute envelope clear stamp to finish the card. To lift the card I put foam tape under the tags. Cute?

Handmade envelopes

Whenever I can I recycle envelopes or make them. These were made with patterned paper from a cheap block of patterned paper, but really sturdy for envelopes. The pink envelope is made out of heavy paper, thicker than the patterned paper. On the back I decorated the envelope with a scrap piece of patterned paper of the same block. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the back of the envelope. Turned out very beayutiful ^_^

I think these are the last cards that I have. I added a sentiment under the word Accessorize. Now they are postcards. You can also see the back of one of the postcards. 

Another postcard, but this is a recycled one. I did quite a few recycled postcard in the past and I use card board for the back or coloured paper. This time I used coloured paper and I left the back blank so the receiver can use the postcard.

As seen on ...

A last post before I go to sleep. Two weeks ago I tried the Double Letterpress technique as seen on youtube by Stamp TV. It is such fun to play with your ink pads in a different way. I finished the card today adding a sentiment and the butterfly. The sentiment is cut with my Cricut Expression and stamped with the corresponding acrylic stamp of the Art philosophy collection of Close To My Heart. I used a Spellbinder's die cut for the butterfly. Also used Cuttlebug embossing folders, Close To My Heart chocolate ink pad, Stampin' Up ink pad (forgot which color) and a Martha Stewart punch.

Creative pages

Prompt: Chaos (with journaling)
I played with acrylic paints (Folkart) and stencils; with my Cricut Expression I cut the heart which is from the cartridge Tags, bags, boxes & More. I finally used Sizzix Alphabars dies - the Doodle Block Uppercase alphabet set for the word Chaos. I also used a piece of card board as a stamp with black acrylic paint, which created (straight) lines on the page.

Second prompt: Fancy journaling on a creative background
Here again acrylic paints and a stencil from Artistcellar. I used a swirl foam stamp and used Close to My Heart white daisy inkpad; another dots foam stamp is used with Close to My Heart Archival black inkpad.  For the lettering I used Edding 1255 Calligraphy pen size 3.5. My first action to this page was gesso. Both pages are created on card board. Both pages are for the Art journal page swap - April.

Just pictures

Hurry Spring! - handmade card

Used: Cricut Expression - Create a critter cartridge, scalloped punch

Happy Birthday card

Used: Close To My Heart - Art philosophy cartridge, Close To My Heart - Art philosophy cartridge acrylic stamps, Stampin' Up inkpads

Used: Hero Arts - DesignBlocks Flowers, Cricut Expression

Copic markers: E50, 51, 53, 39, 21, YR 24, V91, 95, 99, B12, 14, 16, Y08, 11, R00, 02, 05, BG10

1 House + 1 Rabbit

Page created using card board, acrylic paints from Folkart and Decormatt, watercolor pencils (unknown brand) and a charcoal pencil. The rabbit is drawn on Gina K. Pure luxury card stock and colored with my Copic markers.

Used: W00, W1,W3 (and W9 for the borders).

Matching pieces

For this postcard I used an image from sweetpea stamps. Colored with prismacolor pencils and the skin, hair and flowers with my Copic markers. For the background of the postcard I cut out matching pieces of patterned card stock. There is a lot of colors there, so I did not add any embellishment. The destination of this postcard is Taiwan.

Another postcard, I would say semi-handmade. I got a large advertisement, it looks like a large postcard. I cut out the piece I could use for a postcard. You can read on the front: "With eyes for the world". Now I got a postcard out of an advertisement.

The back of this postcard:

Have a nice weekend!!

Hand drawn

Hand drawn black & white art journal page. Also used Artistcellar and Balzer Designs 6x6 stencils.

Don't Think .... Thank

The title is a quote I found on one of my Yogi Tea satches. It is so true that we have to thank more than think of so many things. A nice prompt for my page, I thought.

Annoying ... I tried a couple of times to fix the auto rotate function. Will try again:-((

Handmade postcard with master board piece

And here it is: my handmade postcard using a piece of my master board created with photo paper and alcohol inks.

The image is a freebie from Saturated Canary digital images. I used wooden flowers and wooden butterflies on the card. I colored them with Prismacolor markers, put some silver and red glitter glue on them. When dried I put some 3D Crystal Lacquer on them. Her legs are on ribbon and behind her head and shoulder you also see ribbon. I finished my postcard with a postcard rubber stamp on the back of the postcard. This postcard was not exactly stamped like the picture below. But just giving you an idea of the back of my postcards.

Master board pieces

For a swap @ swap-bot.com I created master board pieces. And oh, oh, oh.... I think I went overboard! Keeping a balance between background colors and stamping is the key, I think. Still nice pieces, though-_-

The idea is to create a background to use for your projects. A nice background for a handmade greeting card or to use in your art journal. Think of more ideas:=)

I used Gina K. Pure luxury card stock, which measures 8,5 x 11 inches. I used my Tim Holtz ink blending tool. For inking I used several Stampin' Up and Close to my Heart ink pads; you can see the colors in the background. I used quite a lot rubber stamps. These were stamped with Memento black ink. Then I cut the 8,5 x 11 inches card stock in four equal pieces with my Your Story paper cutter. I ended up with four different pieces of master board. Very nice and unique, since every piece is very different.

I like this idea and I wondered how it would work out with alcohol inks. I know that glossy paper is used for these inks, but I don't have any of it. So I took photo paper, which is also glossy. I took care while trying this out and I ended up with nice pieces of master board. In a next post I will load up a handmade card crated with a piece of this master board out of photo paper using alcohol inks from Tim Holtz.

One this piece I created dots on the photo paper. I used Tim Holtz alcohol inks: Caramel, Stream and mixatives Silver.

Then I tried to create kind of stripes on the photo paper. On top of that I stamped another layer using the  Rubbernecker rubber background stamp (French script) with distress ink (vintage photo). I will use these master board pieces for making cards.

You can use it as one piece or you can cut it into smaller pieces .. inchies of just little squares to create what you like. Make your master board pieces and enjoy!