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!

Xmas Selfie: Layout for Scrap Africa Sketch 82

Hello there, and Happy New Year to each and every one reading this post! December is a busy month for many in the craft blogging world, but I seem to have done the complete opposite, having had an unintentional blog break for all of last month.

The darkest time of winter has been a bit tough on my family this time, and I hope the new year brings more energy for new projects. January will bring more daylight, that's for sure, and that already helps! Ideas and plans I already have plenty of. More about that soon!

Meanwhile, it' s sketch challenge time again at Scrap Africa!



Here's the sketch by Denise van Deventer.



I didn't do a lot of Christmas themed crafts this year, but now with this sketch I was inspired to. (I think it goes really well with both wintery and summery themes!)



So I chose a selfie with my little one from previous year's Christmas Eve.



I made my layout while we were at our country cottage for the holidays, so I took the extra challenge of having less supplies to choose from. For instance, I didn't use any store bought scrapbook papers, but combined my gelli prints with some re-used packaging material.



The alphabet stickers, the metallic purple flourish washi tape and the date stickers are all I took from my stash at home. The snowflake and the glittery star stickers were bought for the kids at Lidl (supermarket) and Flying Tiger (dollar store, kind of). The tag with a pocket is also from Flying Tiger, and the snowflake paper is from the stickers' package.



I started the background with a gelli print, made the stars with a texture paste through a stencil, and added some splashes with water and my new Gelatos. I got the Bright Colors set for myself for Christmas, and the colors are indeed deliciously bright! The pale blue I used here is just one of the lighter shades included in the pack.



Some red and turquoise Stickles dots give the finishing touch.





I was also inspired by the challenges at Challenge YOUrself (Happy Holidays) and Mixed Media Place (Mood Board).

At Challenge YOUrself, the continuous theme is that there must always be a photo of YOU in your layout! I take a lot of selfies and enjoy scrapping them, so that suits me well. And for those of you who don't already scrap self portraits so much, this challenge is a reason to!



In the mood board at Mixed Media Place, I was particularly inspired by the combination of sparkle and earth tones, different letter types and of course the stars!



Speaking of how dark we have it here in Finland, I looked up today's time of sunset in Espoo and it has already been at 3.28 pm. Here's a photo I took at 4.12 pm. while writing this. Note that it is considerably less dark now that it has snowed! We didn't have a white Christmas so that week it was already pitch black at 4 pm.



The upside of the northern location is that the amount of additional light is really notable each day that the spring gets closer! And of course with snow, blue moments like the one in the photo can be quite special and beautiful.

I've never been to the northernmost part of my country in the winter, during the phenomenon called the polar nights. It means simply that the sun does not rise at all during the midwinter days. In Utsjoki, the next time of sunrise will be at noon of January the 16th, can you imagine that.

Thank you for for your visit! I'm particularly thankful for all the comments, as always.

Mixed Media Christmas ATCs for Scrap Africa

Hello again, and happy December! I created this set of Christmasy ATCs inspired by the December Mood Board at Scrap Africa.



I was particularly inspired by the textures, glitter, festive mood and shades of red. The rose in the top left corner made me think of using a stencil, so I started the background with stenciling some structure paste.



I worked the background in one large piece, about A3 size. I actually started it with a scrapbook layout in mind, but couldn't think of an inspiring photo to combine with it, so I decided I was more in an ATC mood this time.



When creating with a paper of the size A3, there's actually enough for both scrapbook layout and a row of ATC backgrounds. A3 short side is a quarter inch short of a regular 12x12 scrapbook paper, but I don't mind a difference this small in my projects. I think it's handy and economical to buy art paper for mixed media scrapbooking, even though the sizes have not been created with scrapbook albums in mind.



Can you guess what other media I have used?



There are quite many layers actually. Over the stenciled paste, I first painted some parts with tube watercolours and other spots with acrylics. You can perhaps see the fluorescent red that pops out a bit. That, for example, is an acrylic paint.



I used two different lettering stamps that are among my very favourites at the moment: historical script-looking Liesbeth's Letters from Art Journey and an old one that looks like scribbly handwriting.



For the main embellishment, I used wood veneer Christmas trees that I had first gessoed white and then heat embossed with a white gold shade.



I also used paper scraps, washi tape and a velvety flourish fabric tape.



I am also joining the following challenges: Christmas at the Artistic Stamper, and Merry & Bright at the Mixed Media Monthly.



Thank you for popping in! Do check out what the rest of the DT did and join our challenge at Scrap Africa until the end of December!

Vielä mahtuu jouluaskartelukursseille Espoossa!

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

Heippa! Tässä vielä viime hetken nosto joulunajan askartelukursseistani Espoossa. Kurssipaikkana on Espoon työväenopiston/Omnian uusi tila Tapiolan keskustassa, osoitteessa Itätuulentie 1.

Molemmat kurssit sopivat sekä vanhoille tekijöille että askartelua vasta aloittaville. Työväenopiston kursseille voi tulla myös muilta paikkakunnilta, ei tarvitse olla espoolainen!

Ilmoittautuminen tapahtuu netissä www.ilmonet.fi tai puhelimitse 0206 924 44.
(Huom! Puhelinpalvelu vain ma klo 12−16 ja ti−to klo 12−15.)



Mixed media -jouluaskartelu käynnistyy jo huomenna tiistaina 15.11. infokerran merkeissä.

Infokerralla tutustumme hieman tarvikkeisiin ja toisiimme, pohdimme mahdollisia projekteja ja neuvon lisähankinnoissa varsinaista kurssiviikonloppua varten.

Kurssin hinta on 40 €, josta materiaalimaksun osuus on 8 €. Ilmoitathan, jollet pääse ensimmäiselle kerralle! (4 paikkaa vapaana)

Kurssipäivät ovat:
tiistai 15.11. klo 17.30−20, Tapiola, Itätuulentie 1 (käsityöluokka)
lauantai 26.11. klo 10−16, Tapiola, Itätuulentie 1 (ateljeeluokka)
sunnuntai 27.11. klo 10−16, Tapiola, Itätuulentie 1 (ateljeeluokka)

Mixed media -tyylinen askartelu on monenlaisten tekniikoiden yhdistelyä ja kokeilemisen iloa. Viikonloppukurssin aikana opimme useita helppoja tekniikoita, joilla saa aikaan persoonalliset joulukortit, lahjapaperit tai pienet lahjat. Tutustumme muun muassa gesson, akryylimaalien ja leimasinmusteiden käyttöön. Sabluunoilla, leimaamalla ja painamalla syntyy upeaa jälkeä niin valkoiselle paperille kuin vaikka vanhoille kirjansivuille.

Viikonlopun aikana ehdit tehdä runsaasti kortteja pikatekniikoilla tai vaihtoehtoisesti jouluisen minialbumin muistoille tai ruokaohjeille, tai tuunata valmiin esineen. Voit tulla myös vain kokeilemaan tekniikoita, oppimaan ja ihastumaan! Kurssilla ei tarvitse osata maalata eikä tarvitse olla askarrellut aiemmin.



Myös viime vuosien suosikkikurssilla
Joulukortit mehiläisvahatekniikalla (kuva yllä) on vapautumut yksi paikka (kannattaa ilmoittautua myös jonoon!) Kurssin hinta on 29 €, josta materiaalimaksun osuus on 8 €.
sunnuntai 20.11. klo 10−16, Tapiola, Itätuulentie 1 (ateljeeluokka)

Tervetuloa kursseille!

Hello Friend − Layout for Scrap Africa Sketch Challenge 78

Hi! Happy Friday, and happy September! It's monthly challenge time again at Scrap Africa!

I felt like making a light and neutral coloured layout with some mixed media elements on the background. I'm still using my Krafty Travel Kit I joined the Counterfeit Kit Challenge with last month.



This month we have an elegant simple sketch with a circle around the focal cluster.



I'm also sharing a couple of photos of how I got the layout started. For the background, a cardstock colour called Straw was suitable for my idea, light but not completely white. I had spread a very light layer of gesso on it previously. The journaling card, the gold and white striped straw and the paper with the crosses or plus signs are from my Counterfeit kit as well as the cardstock.



Due to having a toddler at home, I quite often start my projects at night, choosing materials and trying different layouts. If it's already late at that point, I don't necessarily do anything else but just "sleep on it", and next day I have a better idea of how to go on.

The photo with my messy table below is about a trick I have learned at patchwork quilting.



That is, for checking if the layout still looks mainly white when I add the plus sign paper and the blue journaling card.

Sometimes it's hard to compare the lightness value of different elements from up close, so it helps to look from a distance. Blurring your eyes a bit or taking a blurry photo, like I did here, confirms that the other elements are fairly close to the background in lightness value. I wanted it to be this way so that it's just the photos that pop out from the background, not the whole cluster of elements.



At the point of taking the photo above, my 2-year-old had been drawing beside me, and I wanted have the mark of his pen on my background, too. He and his brother are also the stars of the layout, so it felt like a nice way to keep a memory of his first drawings!



In addition to the doodling, I used mists, white and gold structure pastes, yellow Paint Pen and turquoise Stickles for the circular frame.





The chipboard rocking horse is from Wycinanka. I used blue acrylic paint on it first, let it dry and embossed around the edges with Midnight Teal from Lindy's Stamp Gang. Last layer is clear embossing powder. The separate stars that came with the horse just have the blue paint and the clear powder layers.



Apart from the thin washi tape strip in the top left corner, I felt like no more embellishments were needed this time!





Thank you so much for looking. I hope to see you at Scrap Africa!

Sweet Macarons − Bookmark Set for Scrap Africa

Hi everyone and welcome − it's mood board time again at Scrap Africa!



I made this set of mixed media bookmarks inspired by the lovely fresh colours of the mood board, especially the aqua colour. And of course, the delicious macarons! They are from a scrapbooking paper and I added the glossy finish on each one with Glossy Accents.



Above is the lovely Scrap Africa Mood Board 75 by Denise van Deventer!



Whenever I intend to create with pastel colours, my palette tends to go a bit darker or brighter than the original inspiration. But that's perfectly fine at Scrap Africa! Our boards are not colour challenges and are therefore free for your own interpretation.



I used Gelli printed papers, leftovers of scrapbooking papers, stenciling, stamping, heat embossing, and for mounting each macaron image, I had old wallpaper pieces.

I am also joining the Summer themed June challenge at Wow! Embossing Powders and the Bookmark challenge at Art Piaskownica.



In this photo I had the flash on so it caught the Glossy Accents finishing really efficiently!



The bookmarks are sized 2 3/4 x 10 inches. I wanted them very large to have a lot of room for different collage elements. That does make them too tall for a carry-along book, so if I want to keep them in good condition, they are best suited for reading at home. Nowadays I often have many books going on at the same time, so I need plenty of bookmarks!



For us in Finland, the beginning of June already counts as summer and this is also our end of school weekend. We're leaving for our summer cottage right after that and I've been busy packing some crafting supplies to take with me. I'm also taking the kit I made for guesting the Counterfeit Kit Challenge, so I'll be sure to create some more with those products this month!



Before that, you're most welcome back tomorrow to see the Forgeries on the Fourth here at my blog and at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site! There'll be cool ideas for DIY embellishments and other replacements of our inspiration kit.

Until then, happy Friday!