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!

You are Here: Stamped Art Journal Pages

Hi there! Just in time to write the last post of November, I'm posting this art journal spread inspired by the monthly challenge at Viva Las VegaStamps!



Here's what the mood board looks like, accompanied by inspiration words: gold, warm, yellow, tans, browns, vintage, black and white, background stamps, doodles, harlequin, diamond, distressed, polka dots, swirls, circles, hearts, stripes and more!.



I used many of the mentioned elements indeed!



All stamps are from Viva Las VegaStamps.



I'm also joining the following challenges: Altered Eclectics, and We Love 2 Create. Both of these challenges run with the same theme every month, Anything Goes as long as it's Mixed Media.







Thank you for your visit and comments!

Red Shades and Hexagons: Another Mixed Media Fall Colours Tag

Hello! Here in Finland the winter has come early and the earth is already covered in snow. It came so early indeed that I'm still finishing my last pieces with fall colours!

Today I'm posting a tag similar to the one I made last week as the DT for this month's Scrap Africa Sketch Challenge.





A couple of process photos, the first depicting how I used Glossy Accents in some of the hexagons and the second trying all the elements in place.





I am entering my tag in the following challenges: Bumaga-Maraka: It's All in the Details. I chose Bright/Shiny Accents, Circles and Hexagons. And Crafty Life: Anything Goes.













Thank you for your visit, and especially all the comments, as always!

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!

Dark Green and Hexagons: Autumn Tag for Scrap Africa Sketch 80

Hi! November is here, and it's Scrap Africa sketch time! (Sorry for posting late!)



I was happy to work with this one since I love hexagons.



I've been admiring the cool mixed media tags that people do and wanted to give it a try.

I started by colouring two manila coloured tags with Distress Inks. I often choose to work on more than one piece, especially if it's something fairly small or something I haven't tried before. If one does not work out, there'll still be the other, and maybe it works better in one colour than the other.



I recently got some Prima Resist Canvas Shapes and this is the first time using them! I dyed them with mists and let them drying. Next, I cut hexagons in different sizes, and gave some of them a glossy finish with the Glossy Accents glue. The canvas shapes and hexies would take pretty long to dry and it suited me fine to leave them overnight.



I then went on making layers for the tag backgrounds. I stamped with two different text stamps and heat embossed them using Lindy's Stamp Gang Midnight Teal powder. I also used thin gold-foil striped washi tape and acrylic inks.



Next, I arranged the hexies and swirls in place, adding some white and dark blue sewing thread.



And on top of it, I had these really pretty cardboard and vellum poppy flowers. I still wanted to add a bit of something so I glued some micro pearls on the flower and some Perfect Pearls and Stickles onto the flower and on the side.



Thank you so much for taking a look! I hope to see you again here and of course joining the challenge at Scrap Africa!

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!

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!

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!