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!

Beeswax ATCs in Detail

Hi again, and happy Sunday! I just realized I didn't include these detailed images in my Beeswax ATCs post on Friday, so here they are! (For more information, check also all earlier posts labeled Beeswax here.

I made these for a swap at ATCs for All, and kept also a few to myself, as I feel I have maybe kept a bit too few in the past.

However, cards number 3, 4 and 6 are still available for trade - if you're interested, just let me know either here in the comment section or on Facebook. I'm happy to trade!
Edit: All cards are traded now!

1 and 2




3 and 4


5 and 6


7 and 8




9 and 10


Thank you for coming to see my cards!

Beeswax ATCs with Chipboard

Hi! I'm participating in a napkin themed ATC swap at ATCs for All, and decided to make it beeswax collage again! I wanted to add something extra on my cards this time and chose to use pieces of this tiny heart patterned chipboard from Wycinanka. I painted the pieces black to begin with.



I cut smaller pieces from the chipboards, which would have been wiser to do before the painting, but I didn't. So I had to add paint onto the edges where I had cut. I then sorted suitable pieces for each card and used Glossy Accents glue to attach them.



I am also joining the Dimensions themed challenge at Mixed Media Monthly.

ATCs are a bit of a challenge in regard to 3D embellishments, if you swap them internationally like me and have to think of packing them for mailing. So I was super glad to realize these chipboard decorations from Wycinanka are thin enough for ATCs!



For more information on beeswax collage making, check this old post of mine and all the others under the label beeswax!





Thank you for looking and happy weekend, everyone!

Easter − Layout for Scrap Africa Sketch Challenge

Hi everyone, and happy April! The sketch at the new Scrap Africa Challenge inspired me to scrap a photo of our Easter decorations.



Here's the lovely sketch by Scrap Africa owner Denise van Deventer.



I am also joining the challenge at Scrapcraft.ru themed Wood and Decorative Tape.

I used wood in the embellishments − firstly, the heart that was silver coloured in the beginning but I sanded it to let the woodgrain show a bit more and inked the sides to suit my colour palette.



The bird I glued on the photo is also of wood veneer.



I'm not sure if it counts for the wood theme, but the challenge also inspired me to use birch bark! You can see it as a strip on the right side of the photo and in the die cut flower on the left side of the photo.













Here below is the photo I used in the layout so you can see it from a bit closer!

In Finland, willow twigs with decorations are a typical Easter thing to do. Feathers and flowers made of colourful tissue papers are the traditional ways to decorate the twigs, but I was using washi tape and eggs covered with foam clay. Those were super easy and fun to do with kids, by the way. Even pretty young ones, like our 2-year-old, was fine doing it with just a little help!



Thank you for looking in and Happy Springtime to each and everyone who's reading this!

Serenely Joyful − Layout With Favourite Gesso Technique

Hello to you, and happy Friday!

In this layout, I'm with one of my favourite persons, and I've also used gesso in one of my favourite ways.

I had several challenges as my inspiration, firstly More Than Words: Bliss & Gesso.



The title, Serenely Joyful, is a dictionary definition of Blissful (1. serenely joyful or glad).

Bliss, the noun, would be (1. Extreme happiness; ecstasy. and 2. The ecstasy of salvation; spiritual joy.) but I loved the sound of Serenely Joyful and wanted to include the word Serene, so that's why the adjective.



The photo I scrapped is from nap time with our 2-year-old. Those are serene moments of days that are otherwise quite busy. Well, serene in most cases − absolutely not always if the little one is too excited to sleep!

I find it such a luxury to be able to sleep during the day, and cuddling with my baby, even more so. So that's why Bliss.



For my background, I wanted to use a bit of both sides of a 7 Dots Studio paper, but had only one of it. That together with the sketch I used suggested cutting a corner and replacing it with another paper. (Already done when I remembered to take a photo!)

They are from the Dreamer and Destination Unknown collections from 7 Dots Studio.

In the planning stage, I check that this is where the corner will be...



According to this sketch I used, from Let's Get Sketchy, March Week 4.



And here's a detail of what I like to do with gesso! I use it to glue layers of tissue papers or napkins, which gives a cool texture and a bit of a pattern at the same time. Lunch sized napkins usually have a middle layer that has a nice lighter version of the pattern, if it is otherwise a strong one.

This is actually a technique I invented myself (not to say I'm the only one!) just by experimenting, when I was quite a beginner with mixed media. It resembles decoupage, but the napkin is meant to be wrinkly here and the image not necessarily very clear. I learned this when I only had white gesso thinned with water, and the white gives a nice background for adding further paint.



I used the gesso and napkins to fade the line between the two different papers.



Here are some close-ups of that area in the finished layout.





And the same thing in the opposite corner. I particularly love the tissue paper with the tiny flakes of gold!



I added some golden modeling paste, using punchinella as a stencil.



I am also joining the Chevron Challenge at Challenge YOUrself!





And the 7 Dots Studio Challenge themed Parts of Your Face.



And We Love to Create Challenge 7: Anything Goes Mixed Media.

The children don't love the time I'm scrapping but they do love to see photos of themselves and their dear ones!

Those of you who have small children (or have had when you started scrapping), I'd love to hear your secrets of how and when you find time for your crafting! Do you do things together with your kids, at night when they sleep, or when the other parent takes care of them, or something else?



Thank you for your visit and comments, I appreciate them greatly!

Skräppää samoista materiaaleista 3/4

Hi there, and happy Sunday! I'm posting in two languages this time, so please see below a bit for English!

Hei vaan ja kaunista sunnuntaita! Tänään on vuorossa kaksikielinen postaus ja kolmas osa Skräppää samoista materiaaleista -ringin tuotoksia. Tarun koolle kutsumalla porukalla kokosimme kukin ensin neljä samanlaista tarvikepakettia. Yksi niistä jäi itselle ja kolmelle muulle postitettiin omansa. Näistä syntyy nyt neljä leiskaa kultakin tekijältä, ja tällä kertaa pääsi käsittelyyn oma pakettini! Onpa jännää nähdä, mitä muut ovat siitä saaneet aikaan!

Kuva/photo by Taru Jehkonen

Here's my kit for Scrap with the Same Materials, a group project organized by Taru Jehkonen. She invited three Finnish scrapbookers to exchange material kits, and then we'll all be Scrapping with the same Materials!

Each of us made four identical kits, kept one and mailed one to each of the others. It's now week 3 out of 4 and everyone got to work by the kit made by me. I can't wait to see what the other ladies did! You can check out their layouts here:

Taru
Maikkis
Merkku

The making of this layout was inspired by the Creative Gym #11 challenge at Mixed Media Place, which was to choose one of tutorials in Finnabair's Art Recipes series and make your own interpretation with that technique. I chose the Recipe from July, with the theme of Rusted and Rustical.



Osallistun Mixed Media Placen haasteeseen, jossa tehtävänä oli käyttää jotakin Finnabairin Art Recipes -sarjan ohjeista. Valitsin paristakin syystä heinäkuun tutoriaalin, jonka aiheena oli Ruosteista ja rustiikkia. Ensinnäkin olen äskettäin hankkinut ensimmäiset mikrohelmeni (microbeads) ja opin mielelläni uusia ideoita, mihin kaikkeen niitä voi käyttää.

Toiseksi kesän reissukuvistani löytyi ihan mahtavasti aiheeseen sopiva kuva! Mutta ensin aloin työstää taustaa...



I started by piecing the background papers together and stenciling some modeling past in opposite corners.



To get a rusty shade, I tried mixing these two mists:



Ruosteen väriä sekoittelin yläkuvan kahdesta mististä. Otin esiin myös nuo minimistit tinan ja kullan sävyissä.



I would also use some of the Pewter and Gold shaded mists later on.

I don't have clear gesso, so I took an acrylic binder instead that is very fluid and easy to spread out. What I didn't like for this project is that it's also very glossy, so I tried to take a bit of the gloss away by mixing it with a little bit of white gesso. This is how the background looked like at this point:



This frame I had painted previously with alcohol inks and it was one of the embellishments I had included in my kit that I sent to the others. Now I wanted to make it look rusty inside, so I put in a piece of paper and took the acrylic binder again!



Olin maalannut diakehykset alkoholimusteilla aiemmin ja sellaiset oli mukana materiaalipaketeissani jokaiselle osallistujalle. Nyt halusin laittaa kehyksiin jotain ruostemaista ja leikkasin ensin kehykseen sopivan palan paperia.

I put a drop of the liquid acrylic binder in each corner of the frame and then coloured it with my own rust coloured mix of mists. I then added microbeads as much as it looked like the binder could take. The result (that you can see a bit further down) was a happy surprise, as I don't have a lot of experience with either the acrylic binder of this kind or microbeads!



Tiputin kehyksen molempiin nurkkiin ensin pisaran Lukas-merkkistä nestemäistä akryyliainetta ja värjäsin sen pisaralla omaa ruosteenväristä mistisekoitustani. Kaadoin päälle mikrohelmiä niin paljon kuin akryyliainepisaroihin sopi. Lopputulos löytyy vähän alempaa ja täytyy sanoa, se yllätti positiivisesti!



One more thing before I show my layout and that's the sketch I used, from C'est Magnifique Challenge.

Käytin leiskassa C'est Magnifiquen kuukauden luonnosta, joka näyttää tältä:


And finally, here's my layout! / Tässä vihdoin valmis leiska!



And some detailed photos.../ Ja tässä yksityiskohtia.









Last but not least, I wanted to include the story of the Peter Iredale shipwreck that's in my photo. It's located in Oregon, on the West Coast of the U.S. just a few miles of the river Columbia, where it would have sailed onto Portland if it hadn't sailed ashore and gotten stuck in the sand dunes in the October winds of 1906.

The journaling got so long that I decided to attach it onto the backside of the layout this time.

By the way, the use of tea stains for distressing the paper was another Finnabair inspiration - she seems to use tea in her creations a lot! The old typewriter looking font called Erika Ormig is one of my favourites from dafont.com.

Thanks for your visit and hope to see you again next Sunday for the last part in our Scrap the Same Materials series!



Yhdysvaltojen länsirannikolla Oregonissa sijaitsevan laivahylyn tarina tuli kirjoitettua niin pitkästi, että sijoitin sen tällä kertaa leiskan taakse.

Finnabairilta tuli muuten sekin idea, että kokeilin paperin vanhentamista teellä! Hänhän tunnetusti sitä tykkää käyttää. Fontti on Dafontista otettu ilmainen lempparini, vanhan kirjoituskoneen jälkeä jäljittelevä Erika Ormig.

Kiva kun kävit ja tervetuloa taas ensi sunnuntaina kurkkaamaan Skräppää samoista materiaaleista -sarjan viimeinen osa!