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Sometimes you just need something small and fiddly to craft while you can’t move about much, while you lie on the couch feeling fatigued and sorry for yourself. Say, if you are feeling really under the weather. Just in time for Valentine’s. So: These tiny little paper roses are perfect. So easy to make you can do it even if you have a fever, promise!
There are plenty of tutorials for these out there, but I followed this one by Ann Martin over at All Things Paper. Excellent! Be sure to check out her other projects and tutorials as well.
There is a special place in my heart for recycling, and so I decided to make these paper flowers out of newspaper. There’s this local paper that someone sticks in our letterbox once week no matter what notes we put up. It’s fairly annoying: It takes about 2 minutes to flip through, and then it goes directly in the recycling bin! Such waste of paper. So, I thought I’d give it another round before it got tossed out.
I cut long strips from an entire spread, and was lucky enough that one of the pages had a huge picture in it with a big blue sky. So, folding the strips in half I got the blue colour on both sides of the strip, which lead to the blue effect in the middle of the roses.
Quick, easy and so very pretty! Love making my own embellishments!
Stay safe everyone. Thanks for visiting!
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I remember watching a scrapbooking video about 6-7 years ago here this woman was raving over using tape on her projects. At that point it wasn’t washi tape, but shiny, colourful plastic tape, some with metallic patterns. I remember my reaction, how I couldn’t understand it at all, why use tape? So, fast-forward to present day and the washi tape craze. I’m stuck in the middle of it. The trend has completely exploded and so many brands have their own take on this product; so many different pretty colours, patterns and textures. I’ve read in some forums how some people wonder how they will ever use it all, and I wonder: Did I Overbuy?
But then I think: How could I? You can use it on EVERYTHING. Layouts, mini albums, cards, tags, altered items like books, frames and boxes, on embellishments, or make it INTO an embellishment itself. Use it to decorate your phone or diary or calender, use it to tape something on the fridge and make the world a brighter place. So, lot’s of uses out of those yards of tape, huh?
Why not use it to embellish a shape for a card or a layout? I made this card to day with a hot air balloon as a theme, really easy peasy and great fun to make. Just draw a shape, turn the paper over, tape the back side, flip it back and cut out your motif. Done! On this card used both store bought paper tape, and some handmade tape I made myself with masking tape, tissue paper and stamps.
Hope you like it!
I have not had time for a proper update for a few days, but that does not mean I have given up on my projects! Since last time, I have taken photos daily, gone for a photo walk in a frosty forest, written a little bit on a story almost every day, made some samples for wedding invitations for some lovely friends that are getting married this summer, celebrated my 2-year anniversary with my boo, and generally making some plans for some exciting things in my life. Feels pretty awesome! I completely approve of this projects, it’s so much fun!
Can you believe it’s almost been a month?
Tonight I wanted to try some more masking techniques, and so I decided to turn my last experiment inside out. So I cut out a bunch of clouds and adhered them to thick cardstock with some 2 way glue (easy to remove after adding all the colour). I had to help hold them down a bit when I worked with the distress inks, but other than that it worked just fine! Here’s how the cards turned out:
Some happy cards to give away to happy people! Love how they turned out! But I’m feeling like I need to invest in more colours regarding distress inks. Like, all of the colours…
Hope you had a great Monday and stay crafty!
Just a short Sunday post for a quick update. Time and energy has been sparse this week, so what little I’ve had I’ve spent on small creative sprouts, such as journaling and photography. I’m still keeping up with my incentive to take a photo every day, but I also went out on a little photo walk this weekend. It was one of the first really crispy winter days we’ve had so far, and everything was covered in frost. So beautiful. Can’t help but grab my camera then, you know?
Another new thing I’m trying out this year as a part of my Create 365 project is art journaling. I used to keep a good old fashioned diary all through my childhood and teenage years, but haven’t kept one for many years now. I guess I’ve found a lot of other ways to document my life and deal with stuff. Lately though, I’ve been more and more interested in starting and art journal; a place to be creative but also a place to be more personal and private. Just for myself.
This is how one of the first pages turned out:
Today’s prompt was to make a unique print, and cut an image out of a potato (But, I’m sick to death of potato prints. There’s just something about the mixed smells of potato and ink… *shiver* So I used an apple instead). I wanted to use the shape of the apple itself, since it’s simply so beautiful. Also, unique organic print for almost no money. Pretty neat!
I tried to do a couple of prints with different inks on some watercolour paper. Most of them came out really well! I worked on them some more by blending some distress inks, and also used a bit of watercolour and mists. I got 3 prints I really like a lot, and think I will use them as backgrounds in my 2012 book soon, and also in my recipe binder. Here’s an example of one of them:
Thanks for stopping by!
No, I didn’t have time to post anything yesterday, but I still did something creative, so, yay me, that was 14 days of that project! I prepared some journalling for a layout I wanted to do today, and also I took some photos of two dear friends, Hanna and Janne, photos that no doubt will end up in my 2012 book. Me, Jed, Hanna and Janne geeked out yesterday and spent the better part of the day and evening playing a board game I love, “Arkham Horror“. Awesome! We beat the big beastie in the end, but it got darned close! I had such a great time. There’s something about playing a good ol’ board game, everyone sitting around a table cursing and laughing.
So, today is day 15 of the project to do something creative everyday for 365 days. This weekend I took a small pause from the prompts and just went freestyle *wink*. Today I sat down and created a layout with a photo I’ve been wanting to use for years. I actually have a sketch in an old notebook using this photo, and I am sort of glad I never had a chance to make it back then, it would have been horrible! (Seriously, think total scrapbook newbie like 5 years ago). I like how it turned out today.
I’ve noticed that often when I sit down to start on a layout I dig through my stash and pick out a pile of embellishments I like. But then in the end I often don’t stick them on. But it takes some time to NOT stick them on, because sometimes I feel like I should, if you know what I mean? I’ve come to a point now thought where it feels ok to just stop and say “You know what, this is enough for me. Glue stick down.” Because I’ve come to a point where it’s more important what the layout is about.
This is a photo of our cat Sixxten, from when he was about 1 years old. He has this habit of finding new places to sleep all the time, and he never moves or makes a sound when you can’t find him and go around the apartment looking for him, no matter how much you call. He is like a nap ninja!
Many years ago my grandmother knitted me this wonderful, super-warm jumper in a grey, Swedish wool (much needed during our winters). I had left it on the bed one day, and for some reason I noticed that the cat had been uncannily quiet for several hours (he’s normally very talkative). So I started looking for him, but couldn’t find him anywhere. I looked in cupboards and bags and closets, under the bed, under the couch, well, everywhere. I called and coaxed, but no sound or movement.
It was just by chance that I went into the bedroom one last time before completely panicking, and there he was, all bundled up in my wool jumper.The jumper was almost exactly the same grey colour as the cat. He’d been sleeping in it for hours, al snuggled up, and he was radiating an enormous amount of heat. He hardly woke up as I went to stroke him, he was in such a warm snooze-coma.
So, that’s what I created today. Overall a nice, lazy Sunday, but tomorrow is the start of another week! Stay safe, have a good one!
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Today’s prompt in the diary was to create something with tea, or with a teabag. And believe me, I tried a lot of stuff. It all looked horrible. Let’s just say that tea is NOT as pretty or great to work with as say, glittery glitter. At least if you have loose tea leafs, it’s not an easy material to work with. At best I managed to make a basic embellishment with a certain structure, thanks to tea leafs and glue. In the end though I settled for making a card for a friend with a little tag I’d saved from a tea bag, which looks like this:
Not very inspired, I know, but I really love the tag. AND; the tag still smells of apple pie, so when you go at it with your heat gun the whole room smells like dessert. Not a bad thing! Happy friday everyone, and have a great great creative weekend!
Really quick post as it’s getting late, I just really wanted to share these cards I made. Today’s prompt was to make something camouflagey or something that could melt into the background, so I scanned these pages from one of my favourite books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and made these cards. Also I made the flowers from the same print,so that they match the background. The adorable robots from Maya Road got to stand in for Marwin, the Paranoid Android. Off to bed now, but here are some pics!
Stay safe, everyone! Thanks for stopping by!
Today’s prompt in the Daily Creative Journal was to do something in a medium I’m used to, but use my non-dominant hand. So, that would be my left.
I always sort of considered myself to have pretty decent motor skills with my left hand. I used to play the viola and violin, that’s all about left-handed motor skills. I used to play the piano as well. Same thing there. But writing or drawing in my notebook, something I usually do every day, with my left hand? As you can see it didn’t go so well. All my left hand does nowdays is holding the coffee cup while my right hand is busy creating something and keeping me alive.
 My left hand can't even spell?! So, this little sketch is what I made today, based on the prompt. Not much, but much harder than I thought it would be. I actually felt a bit downhearted by the whole exercise. Then I found this and it made me feel a bit better. Moo. Also, here are some tips for us “righties” on how to train our motor skills.
Right. I’m off to my glitter cave to do something crafty. With my right hand. Bye!
Day 10 in my endeavour to create something every day for 365 days. Today’s prompt was to make something with water or be inspired by it. I didn’t have the best of days today and felt a bit moody, so the water park fun land I was going to build (who doesn’t want a water slide in the living room?) will have to wait for another time. Instead I Tried out some mixed media techniques, which cheered me up (if you can’t have a waterside in your living room, at least you can splash around with it when creating some sort of art).
Result:
I’ve said it before: I really can’t draw. But maybe I can learn?
Thanks for stopping by! Stay safe! And dry.
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