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…
Day 8! One I’ve been looking forward too. The prompt for day 8 could not have been more perfect: Make an old book into something new.
I’ve been wanting to alter a book for a long time, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I grew up loving books with all my heart, cherishing them, taking good care of them… to alter and change a book has felt a bit big and scary, you know, like I’m crossing a line. But no more! This beautiful old thing, that is sadly falling apart anyway, will get a new life as an album documenting this year (The title is “The Conquest of the World”, which of course I feel is very fitting):
I’ve been researching for a while on how to do this thing, so today’s prompt really… prompted me get started! One resource I’ve been looking at is Noel Hyman’s vids at Paperclipping . Noel (and her husband Izzie) makes really high quality vids, and Noel has a lot of good ideas and is very pedagogical. I highly recommend having a look! I feel much more confident now, having seen a few examples. Other than that I try to find examples on Youtube from mixed media artists.
The book plate is filled with little cogs and pebbles and beads, and I’ll fill it in with some glaze to encase it all, but I wanted to take these photos first, since it takes ages for it to dry properly. The word in the book plate is “Create”, which is my One Little Word for 2012. I’m so excited about this book, and hope to fill it with lot’s of stories, memories and photos from this year. Onwards and Upwards!
Hope you liked the photos! Thank you for stopping by. Keep creating!
Righto; Week 1 of 52 over and done with. When I embarked on this project on January 1st I was honestly a bit worried that it would be another bright-idea-when-your’e-hungover-the-day-after-new-year’s-eve sort of thingy. Sure, it’s only been a week, but on the other hand I could have quit on day two…
So, the prompt for day seven: Make and use a stencil.
My first thought was that this felt very trendy. But also very retro. Making your own stencils and using them for collages or prints on textile was very popular when I was a kid. Then it sort of got a bit goofy. But now it’s trending again, and there are a lot of beautiful stencils made by popular brands today. Tim Holtz is a good example. And it’s sort of being taken to the next step.
Well, I haven’t done anything like it in a long while, and certainly not by using any cool techniques, but since one of the purposes with this 365 project is to learn a lot of new stuff, this was sort of perfect, I think.
I’ve been following Julie Balzer for a while, very talented mixed media artist with loads of great ideas and designs. She made this excellent tutorial that I found only a couple of days ago. Go check it out and don’t forget to give some thumbs up:
This was perfect for this prompt for several reasons.
I got to use up some of the plain tags from my stash, that I bought many years ago
I got to practice using my distress inks and my blender tool
I got to mess about with sprays and mists
And i now have several pretty tags to use for gifties in the future. Yay!
So, I went ahead and prepared two stencils, as prompted. I drew and cut them out by hand. The first one similar to the one in the tutorial:
I followed the tutorial as best as I could, and the result felt very rewarding. You can’t see it on the photo, but on the purple one it says “Nobody Rains on Your Parade”:
Also I made this stencil with hearts on it. It’s not long before Valentines, after all:
I tried some different inks, colours and sprays, loads of fun! You really should give it a try:
In the end I think I ended up using distress inks and stains, chalks, watercolours, mists and color wash. Oh, and some stamps and water resistant stamp pads of different varieties. I also tried using a little leafy twig as a stencil, sort of. But since the result got kind of fuzzy I drew a pattern on top with some Sakura pens. I might add some more details later, or maybe an embellishment.
Yesterday I started my 365 project (read more about that here), and I started it off with making this tiny little grungy squash book (2×2 inches). I didn’t get a good photo yesterday so I wanted to add some. I’ve never done one of these before, but thanks to this awesome tutorial by Rach0113 it went totally OK and I’m pretty pleased with mine!
Have a look at her tutorial on YouTube and don’t forget to give her thumbs up!
Neat, huh? Get those inks out!
I hope to put some tiny family photos in this sometime in the future, it’s perfect for small wallet sized photos and some tiny notes!
Happy new year, everyone! 2012 is here, and with it a whole new fresh year full of blank pages and ideas and possibilities. Awesome!
I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. But I knew I wanted a project to focus on this year. So when I found Noah Scalin’s 365: A Daily Creativity Journal (also available as Kindle edition) I just thought it was the perfect thing for me this year. 365 prompts for doing something creative every day. And a small space to make a note of what you did.
Noah Scalin started his project Skull -A-Day back in 2007 (hello, SKULLS! I see it as a sign I’m destined to do this…) and somehow, some way, by himself or with the help from his friends, made a skull every day for a year. He used every technique he new and then learned new ones.
I don’t think I have a theme quite as clear, but on the other hand I’m really going for “no rules and if there are any I’ll change them and I’ll make it up as I go along and will try to be a bit laid back”. I know if I start by drawing up a lot of rules and stuff I will just cripple myself. I will try to follow the diary and make notes in it but as Noah says in the introduction, it’s fine to change the thing of the day to something else. But I do want to create something every day, and there are a few things that somehow feels connected or relevant in the overall framework of this project:
I want create something every day, but exactly what does not have to be something big or huge or everlasting
I will mainly try to use materials I already have in my stash or recycled materials
I work in a lot of different mediums and therefore all techniques and mediums are fare game
It can be something handmade
It can be something written
It can be something musical
It can be a photograph
It can be a self-portrait
It can be a beautiful home made meal or a pretty desert
It can be a frikkin’ doodle in a notebook
It can be the act of simply documenting my life
It can be private, it can be public
It can be any act of creativity even if it’s dressing up as a living statue and pretend to be the ad hatter and have a tea party at the train station
I will take a photo every day, even if it’s just a picture of my boring breakfast
So, you see, it will simply be a whole messy mess. The point is not to go on a crazy artsy rampage (well, maybe a little) but to learn something new, to try and actively think about ideas, their origin and what I do with them. About being aware. About becoming a better photographer. It’s about trying to finish a few things I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and by the end of this year I hope to have a rather extensive documentation about my life in 2012, and a record of me moving forward and… I don’t know, grow as a person? Letting myself nerd out and be happy?
I won’t make any promises to myself to always have time to blog about it, though. I will try, but it is not likely that the Internet will break if I don’t. A simple recap will do just fine.
So: TODAY. Day 1. January 1st. I took a photo of myself. I made porridge and took a photo of that. I spent a whole lot of time cleaning up my crafting space, sorely needed. But that’s my go-to thing when I try to procrastinate, so…
Today’s prompt was to start small and get over that first threshold. To make something small that would fit in the palm of my hand, and to use materials close by. No problem there…
I saw this tutorial for a squash book on YouTube a few days ago, and have been itching to use my distress inks, so I decided give it a try. I don’t have a lot of photos of this, it got a bit late and I couldn’t get any good light (maybe I’ll try again tomorrow), but this is what I made:
I have started making some Christmas ornaments, and of course the most fun is to make something for your family. I decided to make these little hearts for my mum and dad to put in this tree, and I wanted them to look a bit vintage, so I painted the hearts in several layers of paint and then sanded the edges down a bit. When I decoupaged them I added some crackle glaze on top.
The photos are of me and my brother when we were growing up, and there is also one of our old family dog, who we all miss dearly. I thought this would be a nice way to add some memory keeping to our Christmas, and something a bit different than a mini album or a scrapbook page. There are so many fun ways to preserve those memories!
I’ve managed to take a lot of photos of Tricks this summer, and some of my favourites is from the weekend when she visited my parent s and me at the summer cabin. We had a lot of sunshine and spent some time relaxing down by the water, talking about life and love and plans. As she tried out the water I took a few shots, this is one of them.
The spot where she’s standing was my favourite spot when I was little, because it’s full of soft, green, luscious sea grass, and it isn’t too deep, so you can just stand there and let it tickle your toes. Somewhere deep in my stash I found this old patterned paper from Basic Grey, which I think originally is a Christmas paper, and from one of their retired collections (Figgy Pudding). It’s been one of those papers I’ve loved so much that I haven’t used it. But I just thought it fitted well as sea grass and sea weed.
This is what the journalling says:
“I remember how wonderful it felt when I first got the opportunity to invite my best friend to the summer cabin for the first time, and get to show her the place I think is the best on earth, to show her the place that filled my childhood with so many adventures. It became an instant tradition, and now it’s not even a proper summer if Sara doesn’t visit.”
I’m really glad I took the time to scrapbook this photo. I have so many great ones from all the years we’ve been friends, it’s really time to make them more accessible.
The Swedish webzine “Allt om Scrap” publishes an inspiration issue every Sunday, and last Sunday they posted some layouts from a challenge they did. I didn’t have time to do it last weekend, but I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, so I took some time yesterday to do it, since it really did feel like a challenge. Listen to this:
May only contain patterned papers. Must use acrylic paints and 4 different stamps. Have to have one type of overlay and at least 3 tags. And finally, it must have sewing machine stitches.
Can not include flowers, ribbons or lace. No corrugated cardboard allowed, and may not contain anything white!
Well… Only patterned papers and nothing white? Hello? I haven’t really done a traditional, full-size scrapbook layout before, so why not start with something difficult? Go big, that sort of thing. I got the perfect idea and I wanted Tricks in it, so this is what happened:
Yes, we like our dots ;) I really had bite my tongue plenty of times, not to reach for plain one-coloured papers, keeping the white details out, not using any string. In the end I’m pleased with the result, I wouldn’t have thought of this idea if it hadn’t been for the specifications in this challenge. Thank you, Tricks, for doing the photo shoot with me! You look really beautiful in that dotty dress!
Molly’s Scrapbooking is a Swedish web shop that sells nice little scrapbooking kits, and they’ve just had a great challenge with the theme “Weekend in Paris”. One of the challenges (#6) was to scraplift a card, and that suited me the best (see the original card by Cath here). As the season is getting nearer I decided to go with a christmas card. I made a resolution not to buy any new christmas papers this year, since I had some many left from last year, but I didn’t feel like any of them suited my layout. So i made the background pattern from scratch with embossed snow flakes and distress inks. Here is the result:
I’ve been on a big purge lately, trying to get rid of a lot of old stuff that I’ve been holding on to for years without even thinking about it. Some of it reminds me of less happy days in my life, and there is no need to hang on to them. Some of the things will come to a much better use for someone else. In the end I just want to make room for life: room to relax, room to craft and cook, room for things that make me happy, like good books and photos of friends and family and happy moments.
Some things has gone directly in the trash but most have been donated to our local charity shop, which means someone else will buy it and hopefully take good care of it :) The money it brings in will help people in need. But, when I was at the shop I found a couple of old frames in a corner, unloved, with no home, so I bought them and brought them home, and after a bit of fixing up I think they’ll look pretty great. So the whole kerfuffle was a win-win-win sort of deal.
Hopefully they’ll make a good addition for some of the photographs I’ve been taking lately. Also, I want to put some of my old family photos on the wall. Once I’m done with my purge and cleaning I hope to have these frames ready. The thought of adding something really personal to my walls feels very good.
Painting the frames
This is an easy technique to give a wooden frame a fresh look with the hint of wear and tear. I think it’s what the cool kids now days call “Shabby Chic”. I just think it looks nice and homey. And less boring than a plain frame from Ikea. But really, any cheap or plain wooden frame is good for this project. You need:
Waterbased matt acrylic paint, 2 colours: dark or sand-coloured, and white
Wax candle
Sandpaper
Brushes (I used foam brushes)
Glaze or coating after preference
Picture frame
Sand off the frame lightly and then wipe it off with a cloth. Paint it with the primer, like black, chestnut brown or sand. This will be the colour that will show through in the end. If you want some of the original wood to show, rub those places of the frame with the wax candle. Let it dry completely. The rub edges and spots you want to highlight with the candle again.The reason for the use of the candle is that it’ll make the paint come off easier when sanded in the end, and not having to use a lot of force with spare the paint you actually want to keep.
Now paint it all white (or linen or antique or maybe even pastel green or pink). Some people like the dark base to show through the top paint, in that case you’ll only need to paint the white paint on in two layers. I did however did 4 layers. Acrylic paint dries fast, so it wont take long. And it’ll look like this:
Now it only looks shabby in the non-chic sense. It is after all an old frame painted in cheap acrylic paint and it is way to bright. Now for the fun part, because when the top coating has dried it’s time to rough it up a bit. Use the sand paper to sand down the edges, and some areas that would like it had been worn down over time. Imagine your poor family portrait being hoisted around in a box and forgotten in an attic for years. Poor thing. It will look like this:
Dry it off again with the cloth and it’s basically done. If you want to keep enhancing the look there are a number of ways of distressing the frame:
Paint it with crackle paint/varnish/glaze in the areas that has not been sanded
Use half and half wood stain and glaze to darken the frame if it looks to bright
Sandpaper it between painting the layers
Use a third colour after the first and second white layer, but only on the very edges
Decoupage some old yellowing book pages on to the frame and paint over them
Splash or spray lightly it with contrasting paint stains
I am trying things out slowly, trying to think of how to organise my photos and what photo would go in what frame. This really is a very dear side project that is pure fun. It’s easy, you should try it! And don’t forget to pay a visit to your local charity shop for those finds.
