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!

Mixed Media Summer ATC Swap

Hello! Here's what I made for an ATC swap here in Finland, themed Mixed Media Summer and organized by Taru.



I had plenty of gelli prints with summery colours, so I began to work my backgrounds from them. I also added some mists in different shades of green, and was happy with the colour palette that reminds me of a summer evening just before dark.

For inspiration, I had several challenges, starting with Mixed Media Place and their gorgeous mood board, also with a feel of a summer evening.



The mood board has some delicate white flowers and seeds, and I decided to decorate my ATCs with lily-of-the-valley shaped chipboards from Wycinanka.



Before glueing them in place, I gessoed the chipboards to make them completely white and heat embossed them with an embossing powder that has a particularly lovely golden white shade. It's called Angel Wings Gold by Lindy's Stamp Gang, and it is indeed white with a hint of gold. The colour was very hard to catch in the photos, I'm afraid. But try them if you get a chance. I only have a couple of Lindy's powders but they both are this kind, shining in two different colours and with a high gloss, enamel-looking finish.



At Art-Piaskownica, the challenge theme was Stamping.



The stamped part in my project are the dark blue leaves. I first stamped them on a tissue paper, tore pieces of it and glued them in place with acrylic medium.

I have previously used stamped tissue paper on my beeswax collages, and recently I realized they are a cool thing to add to other mixed media projects, too. The white tissue paper becomes invisible and the stamp shows very well, even on uneven surfaces where it would be harder to stamp directly. You can also prepare these papers in advance, if you feel like trying some new stamps but can't think of a project just then, for example.

Like this:



I'm also joining the challenges at

Craft Stamper: Anything Goes
and Mixed Media Monthly: Altered Embellishments

(For the Craft Stamper magazine, I hope my submission counts as one project, since this is a set of very similar cards. If I were so incredibly lucky to be picked as the winner, I do have three of the ATCs still left that I could mail for publication.)



A few more photos to follow...







I'll end today's post with the full set of 12 cards, photographed with my unfinished acrylic painting as background!



Thank you for popping in and commenting, as always. Welcome back next week to see another post with the cards I received in this Mixed Media Summer ATC swap!

Vintage Bottles − An ATC set for Scrap Africa August Mood Board 77

Hi! The lovely August mood board at Scrap Africa inspired me to try my new Art Journey set of stamps with vintage bottles.



Here's the beautiful blazing purple/violet mood board, with so many possible ideas of inspiration! I was particularly inspired by the bottle theme, obviously, plus the watercolour flower painting on the top right that made me think of making a painterly background with dye inks.

Did you know that you can join the Scrap Africa challenges with any kind of paper crafting, be it layouts, cards, ATCs or off the page projects?



I am also joining the challenges at Lost Coast Designs Blog, where the monthly theme is Watercolor Background, and the Artistic Stamper, with Anything Goes.



The watercolour effects of my ATC backgrounds are made with Distress Inks. Both that and the stamping technique I used were taught by the Dutch stamping artist Liesbeth Fidder at one of her popular workshops in Finland last spring. Liesbeth showed us how to make a watercolour looking background with Distress Inks, a spray bottle of water and an acrylic block. Until then, I must admit I had not used my few Distress Inks a lot, since I prefer pigment or permanent inks for stamping of actual images. I know there must be so many ways to use them that I just haven't thought of, and this definitely became a favourite!

I also like that there are more bright colours available, and the mini pads that are more economical to get in many colours. When I bought my first Distress Inks, they were mostly in earthly shades (which I normally love, too, but with this technique, the brighter colours really get to shine!)



I made the larger piece of paper into ATC sized cards at this point and stamped the bottles with black Staz-On. The next thing was to remove the background colour from the image area with chlorite. As said, all of this I know thanks to Liesbeth, who is also a very nice teacher in addition to being a great stamping artist. I warmly recommend joining her workshops if you ever get the chance!

For those of you who live in or near Finland, Liesbeth's workshops have been organized by Askartelu Amalia in Espoo, in case you are interested!

For a finishing touch, I just added a bit of Inka Gold in Turquoise and Violet in the borders and corners.

Here are the cards one by one. They are all available for trade, and I'll update when they aren't anymore. Feel free to ask here in the comments or wherever you see me in social media!

1 and 2


3 and 4


5 and 6


Thank you for looking! I look forward to trading these! (I'm in Finland, but international mail is fine, too.)

Old is New Again − Counterfeit Kit June Challenge 3

Hi there,

and welcome to June Challenge #3 at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge! The prompt is
"Old is New Again: Showcase the oldest item in your kit in a new & fresh way!"

My oldest items were the floral papers from The Sweet Blossom Stack by Die Cuts with a View: one 12x12 paper and a 12x12 that has tags in different sizes.



I picked three other papers in shades of aqua/mint green/teal. I cut the solid mint green cardstock in half to make a 6x6 card.



This was the perfect moment to open the Studio Calico wood veneer package I got recently...



I was once again crafting at night so I didn't get to take process pictures, I'm afraid. But here's the finished card!



In addition to the papers and wood veneer, I used stamping inks, 7 Dots Studio Alpha Stickers, Geometric Neon Washi tape from Papermania Docrafts Capsule collection and Liquid Pearls glue paint in Mint Green.

Although I didn't have any of their papers this time, just the alphabet, I was also inspired by the Gardening challenge at the 7 Dots Studio blog!



Another challenge theme that inspired me was Berries at Studio Leto.



I'm really happy with how the fuzzy cut painterly flower and branch look in the card! The paper was restless to use as such, and that's probably why I hadn't used it. It definitely needed a new and fresh look from this challenge!



For those of you who aren't familiar with the The Counterfeit Kit Challenge, it's is all about putting together our own kits from what we have, inspired by actual kit club kits. I'm happy to be their Guest Designer this month and got to Counterfeit the May kit from Hip Kit Club. If you want to see what else I included in my kit, it's here!



Thank you so much to Leslie and the team at Counterfeit Kit Challenge for inviting me as the June 2016 Guest Designer! It has been a lot of fun and I continue to be inspired by the kit I created. A ready made kit is also very easy to take with me when I spend some summer weeks in the countryside, so that's an extra plus side!



Thank you for coming and hope to see you again soon!

Amazing Glass House − Counterfeit Kit June Challenge 1

Hello! Today's the day for June Challenge #1 at Counterfeit Kit, where I am happy to be the Guest Designer this month.



The challenge prompt is to be inspired by one of these mood boards at Burnett's Boards − you're free to choose one that works with the color/mood of your own counterfeit kit!

The images that you see on the main page are only partial so if something looks promising, take a closer look!

There are some really gorgeous color combos & moods... This one seemed spot-on for my May Hip Kit Club inspiration this month:

Neon Wedding



The neon colours inspired me to use the yellows and pinks of my kit. And I loved the decoration with the hanging glass pieces and the alphabet in different colours. The letter O in the word LOVE has a metallic finish that made me think of using my sequins. Instead of alphabet, I cut out and decorated two arrows from my kit.



In the background, I've used some gesso and acrylic paints in neon orange and yellow. I thinned them with water so that I could splash them like watercolours. There is also some pencil doodling and stamping.



I used washi tapes and strips of my papers to create the background for my photo.





I'd love to see you pop in and link your own challenge project at Counterfeit Kit Challenge. It'll be so fun to see what mood boards everyone will choose!



Thank you for coming!

Hellos and Bows − Forgeries on the Fourth for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge

Hi again!

I am honoured to be Guest Designing for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge this month, and at CKC, the Fourth of each month is for Forgeries!

In other words, we look for DIY solutions to replace some of the items included in the original inspiration kit. This month, it is the May Kit from Hip Kit Club. The image is from their website and it is their Embellishment Kit, more precisely.



And here's what I made!



I had just learned an easy way to make a tiny bow, so I decided to make paper clips with bows! I learned it from a Finnish crafting friend/teacher/shopkeeper Mira Ekonen, whose tutorial can be found here! There are images, but if you need guidelines in your own language, just Google "fork bow" and plenty of tutorials will come up.

I didn't have ribbons in matching solid colours, but I'm really delighted with these polka dot organza ones that I found.





Other items that I love in the Hip Kit Club Embellishment Kit are the handwritten-looking word stickers and chipboards. I had just bought the Sizzix die set called Warm Winter Wishes, where one of the dies is the word Hello.



I made the words into stickers, backing my paper scraps with 50 mm wide double sided tape before I die cut it. Rather than in craft stores, in Finland and Sweden you can find a wide tape like this in Biltema, a car supplies store of all places! It is also very economical and good quality.

Thank you for coming, and don't forget to pop into the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog to see what handmade embellishments or other items the regular DT members did!