Mini Journaling with Moodiversary and Art Marks Summer Challenges

Hi! Today I'd like to share with you couple of fun summer challenges that I can recommend for anyone who feels inspired to art/journal but maybe has just a few minutes for it daily, which was often the case for me this summer!



DeeDee Catron and Jenn Engle's Moodiversary uses the same mood board for the whole month, but there is a new link-up for prizes every week. My link is to Week 3, which will expire within a day, but you'll find Week 4 in DeeDee's blog when the time comes.

The delicious Moodiversary Board is here and the reason for the challenge is to celebrate the first year of DeeDee and Jenn's monthly inspiration posts called Mixed Media Moods. So the inspiration will continue after this month, on their blogs and YouTube channels.



I was inspired by the organic forms of the skeleton leaves and the tree on the bottom row, and the door one row up. Plus all the colours of the challenge, but particularly the yellow paint shade, Pollen, and Royal Fuchsia and Desert Turquoise.



Rae Missigman's Art Marks - A 30 Day Summer Challenge has a prompt word for each day, and the challenge encourages you to only use a set time, say 5-10 minutes, to "make your marks" each day. You can find the prompts list at Rae's blog.

I've been catching up with the prompts in no particular order - maybe some prompts felt more ready than others to emerge from the different backgrounds of each side in my mini book, actually!

Here's Day 9, Free Form:



Day 20, Scratched:



Day 16, Mirrored. This is not in the same 3 1/2x3 1/2 inches mini album as the others. I wanted to experiment with a slightly larger format so this is another junk journal, about 6x8 in size.



What could suit the Mirrored prompt better than this good old way of printing on both sides of a spread/folded paper, that many have surely have done as kids! I added some pencil and carbon on the one side of the spread to make my butterfly not completely mirrored, to reflect the idea that a mirror does not show everything there is.

Day 17 prompt of Dripped is the last for today!



I made my mini album specifically with these quick challenges in mind. It is an accordion book and the page size is 3 1/2 inches. I'll be back another day to show more of how it looked in the beginning, what different papers I used for backgrounds, and so on!

On the pages next to Free Form, you can see that some background papers are more finished than others, and I may want to keep them as they are. But more about that later.



And the covers, oh, they are such a fun idea even if I say so myself. The size of 3 1/2 inches might ring a bell to folks around my age or older, that is, those of us who already used a computer before the year 2000. Let's see if anyone can guess what I used.

Thank you for popping in and commenting, as always!

Skräppäyskurssia Espoossa!

Hello! I'm writing in Finnish this time, since it's about my next scrapbooking workshop in my home town Espoo, Finland.

Heippa! Parin viikon päästä maanantaina 26.9. alkavalla skräppäyskurssillani on vielä reilusti tilaa, joten lämpimästi tervetuloa kaikki uudet ja vanhat skräppääjät!

Enemmän tietoa kurssista löydät blogin Workshops-välilehdeltä eli tästä!



Kurssi-illat ovat 26.9. ja 3.10. klo 17.30−20.45 ja paikkana on Espoon työväenopiston uusi toimipiste Tapiolassa, Itätuulentie 1. Kurssi on tarkoitettu erityisesti skräppäystä aloittaville, mutta pitempäänkin harrastaneet ovat tervetulleita, totta kai!

Kurssi toteutuu jos ilmoittautuneita on vähintään 10, tällä hetkellä ilmoittautumisia on seitsemän. Ilmoittauduthan viimeistään tämän viikon perjantaina 16.9., jottei kurssi peruunnu liian vähäisen osallistujamäärän takia!

Krafty Travel Kit and Mini Album − Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop

Welcome to my part of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Members' Blog Hop!

If you're already following the Blog Hop, you have probably come here from Tina's blog. If you want to start from the beginning or got lost along the way, head back to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog to find the full hop order!

A couple of months ago in June, I had the honour to be a Guest Designer at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog. It was so much fun to put together my own kit, and even more fun was to have my kit then handy to create projects for the whole month. The inspiration kit was the May 2016 Kit from Hip Kit Club, bright and cheerful, and I called my kit Hip State of Mind.

Here you can see all the projects I made with the June kit, and here is the direct link to the one time I had joined their challenge with my own kit before that.

This time, the monthly inspiration kit was chosen by Lisa Hausmann, who as a European member of the CKC Design Team wanted to pick a kit from a European club. Lisa's choice was the March 2016 kit from Papierwerkstatt. You can also take a look on the kit on Lisa's Pinterest board here!

Let's take a look at the Papierwerkstatt kit first!







I was particularly inspired by the kraft and neutral tones of the kit, and also the mini book idea, which you'll see in my project further down! For contrast, there is also one black paper with a flower pattern.

And here's my Counterfeit... named the Krafty Travel Kit!



With a close-up...



Here are the papers and cardstock I chose!

I was not completely happy at first to replace the black paper with these two Basic Grey flower ones with brown and purple backgrounds, but they had to do, since I simply didn't have any with black backgrounds and wanted to have some dark ones with flowers anyway. We'll see if they work for this kit or not.



From left to right: Glitz − Sunshine in my Soul 6x6 pad
Pre-gessoed and stenciled kraft cardstock
Textured light yellow paper
Prima − Just Us/Long Embrace
Basic Grey − Jovial/Nordic
4 heures 37 − 1658 Eiffel Avenue
Bazzill Basics − straw cardstock
Non-scrapbook item: a piece of wallpaper from our Red Cross thrift store
Almond and kraft cardstock also probably from Bazzill Basics
4 heures 37 − Chemin des 3 flocons
Bazzill Basics − kraft with gold foiled stars
Basic Grey − Mellow/Cultured
Basic Grey − Eva/Noble



And then the embellishments, Project Life supplies and alphabet:



Tiger aka Flying Tiger Copenhagen − cork and gold/white striped paper straws
Kaiser Scrapbook − Golden Rhinestones
8x8 Papers on top left and chipboard are of unknown brand.
PL journaling cards are from 4 heures 37, Sodalicious, and... can't remember the third one.
Chipboard alpha, unknown, cork alpha from American Crafts/Dear Lizzy, and the travel themed alpha from Papermania/All Aborad.

Some more close-ups:





I knew I wanted to join the Challenge 2 of the month in particular, where the theme is Outside the Stash: Incorporate some non-scrapbook stash into your project. I had so many possible items that they deserved to be an add-on kit of their own!



And then to my challenge project!



A Mini Album from Outside the Stash − made from toilet paper rolls!



This was a quick and simple project with memories and ideas from a craftivism workshop that I participated in last weekend. The good thing with a paper roll album is that the rolls automatically form pockets where it's easy to add hidden journaling, so I can do that later!

















Thank you so much for browsing through this super long post! To continue the blog hop, you should hop over to Jemma, the last person in the hop today! For the full hop list, check the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog here.

Thanks for looking! I'd love to see you comment to let me know you were here and happy hopping!

Vintage Style Layout for Scrap Africa Mood Board No. 69

Hi there! It's time to wish you warmly welcome to the Scrap Africa Challenge again. This time we have an atmospheric vintagey mood board that could inspire an old times page, a travel page, or anything you feel up to creating!



You have until February 29th to join!



I used this sketch from Memuaris for my layout.



I am also joining the following challenges:

The Craft Stamper Take a Technique Challenge: Text me! The prompt was to use text or script background stamps or text paper in the projects. I stamped with an old fashioned script stamp through a cross shaped stencil. I also used the same stencil to cut shapes from two papers, one with the same script stamp and another where I had previously put gold paint through a weekday stencil.



For the C'est Magnifique Mixed Media Technique Challenge, I was to add texture to the background in three different ways. I used gesso, mists, and the cross stencil in the two ways I mentioned already. I don't know if this counts as background, but I also painted crackle texture onto one of the papers that I used for matting my photo.



At the Retro Kraft Shop Challenge, it was Anything Goes this month, as long as it is with a visible hint of the old-fashioned.



You're welcome to combine the Scrap Africa Challenges with as many other challenges as you like! Just make sure that you do not combine similar challenges together, i.e. mood board with another mood board or sketch with another sketch.



The top and bottom layers of the tag are re-used kraft tags from bought clothes, and even the twine was already there. I stamped the script on the top one and embossed it to bring in a pop of white, and added the middle layer from an old Basic Grey paper with a stained glass mosaic pattern. Onto the bottom one I glued a scrap piece of a previously made ATC background, also with some text stamping!







Thank you so much for your visit, and I wish you a very nice weekend!

Skräppää kesän muistot! Kurssi Espoossa 19.9. PERUTTU

EDIT 13.9.2015: Kurssi peruttu liian vähäisen ilmoittautujamäärän takia!

Minialbumi, taskuskräppäys vai perinteinen leiska? Löydä oma lempitapasi tallettaa kesän muistot!

Kurssillani Espoon työväenopistossa 19.9. on vielä reilusti tilaa. Kurssi toteutuu, jos osallistujia on vähintään kymmenen. Ilmoittauduthan siksi viimeistään torstaina 10.9.!

Kurssin hinta on 26 € ja paikka on Espoon työväenopiston tilat Tapiolassa, Ahertajantie 6 C, 02100 Espoo.

Päivän aikana ehdit tehdä minialbumin tai taskuskräppäystä, tai vaihtoehtoisesti voit tulla kurssille myös jatkamaan omia askarteluprojektejasi. Kurssilla on mahdollisuus käyttää suosittuja mixed media -tekniikoita maaleilla ja musteilla, leimasimilla ja sabluunoilla. Kurssi sopii sekä aloittelijoille että enemmän skräpänneille!

Kuvissa olevan, lapsistani kertovan minialbumin tein Fiskarettesille vuosi sitten, ja vaikka se oli yksi viime vuoden lemppariprojektejani, se on uskomatonta kyllä jäänyt aiemmin postaamatta blogiin! Tämä on siis yksi vaihtoehto, mitä voit tehdä kurssilla. Tarvikelista löytyy täältä ja kurssin tiedot ilmoittautumisohjeineen täältä!

Opetan Espoon työväenopistossa myös joulukorttikursseja marraskuussa, ja niiden tiedot löytyvät täältä! Samat linkit ovat oikeassa sivupalkissa, mutta nehän eivät näy puhelimella selatessa, joten laitetaan vielä tähänkin.



Hi! Today's blog post is about my workshops in Finland, so I'm writing mainly in Finnish this time. I'll just say shortly that this mini album I made for Fiskarettes Finland was one of my favourite projects of 2014 and I can't believe I forgot to post it at the time. It was really fun and quick to make, too!

Blue Overalls: Layout for Scrap Africa DT

Hello! It's time for the mid-July Mood Board Challenge at Scrap Africa!



Here's the sympathetic grungy mood board by Denise Van Deventer. I was inspired by the mood board in my choice of photos, first of all. And also by the wood, worn paint, and the hollyhocks!



I'm learning to use a crackle medium that I bought some time ago. It's fun, but I think I hurried up a bit and it didn't dry properly between the layers, so the effect was more like generally messy paint. I'm happy with how it looks on this page, anyway!



I'm also entering my layout in the Stuck! Sketches Challenge, where they had this cool multi photo sketch that I decided to use the other way round. Their July 1st sketch is up for participation until the end of the month.



My third inspiration is the Color, Stories, Inspiration (CSI) Challenge #170 For Evidence, meaning embellishments, I chose Solid Brads, Flair, Stars, Metal and Hang Something. And for Testimony, which means how we do our journaling, I did Suspend Something.


The suspended or hanging element is my journaling card & envie set hanging from the metal button. The journaling card is made of a very old playing card with a beautiful pattern in the back.



I like to reuse things in my designs and some other finds in my treasure box got in use here, too: the chip with the number 5, which is my son's age in this picture. And the Oriental looking piece I glued onto the envelope after decorating it with a white embossing powder.



Stars that I cut from old jeans and another blue fabric...



And finally, the hollyhocks! I had this lonely piece of a wind chime that I stamped a hollyhock on, using Stone Gray Staz-On ink and a cool hollyhock silhoutte stamp from a new rubber plate I just got last week from Viva Las VegaStamps! So here's some more hanging stuff and metallic elements.

This is the first time I gave a try stamping on a metal surface and it wasn't very easy - it felt very slippery and it was hard not to let the stamp move. I think it looks slightly messy, though this is the better side of my two attempts. But I want to keep learning more of this technique! I'd like to try doing art jewellery at some point, dominoes and such. All tips are welcome, if you did some of those things sometimes!



I'm also entering my layout in the Craft Stamper Challenge (Anything Goes). Check it out, there are many cool ways to use stamps in cards and other projects!

It's only Thursday morning but as I'm about to leave for our summer cottage, I'll wish you a great weekend already - whether you are out enjoying summer days or spending a rainy/wintery day in the warmth of your house! Hopefully including some crafting time!