The perfect letter - art journal spread

One of the fantastic consequences with starting crafting again is that the content of my mailbox (the IRL mailbox that is) has become more diversified. Not only bills anymore, but a card or a letter now and again. Sending cards means recieving cards... The wierd thing is that the crafting part really shouldn´t have anything to do with it, but when I stopped making cards I also stopped sending anything by mail and used the oh so much easier phone communication opportunities instead. But really, how much more fun is it to find something in the mailbox compared to the inbox??? :) No matter if it is a short note on a white paper or a store bought card. That is the theme of my art journal spread.

I doodled a frame and stamped around it and white washed the patterned paper inside with gesso before adding some stamping and watercolors. My journaling is on a letter inside the envelope.

It was fun making this, and the journaling was a meaningful process for me. :) So thank you More than Words Challenge for the theme that made me think and create. I also loooved the sketch! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Mixed media page

 Last night I had a loooong crafty session with my mom over zoom. She has dreamt of learning to paint for a long time, and for Christmas I gave her an acrylic set. She's been hesitant to dig in and "destroy" the white canvases... And since we haven´t been able to meet up nothing has happened. But last night, over zoom, she got hooked. :) 

While she tried out the paints I did a journal page using some watercolors and doodling over a collage of book pages.

I tried to match the colors of the right side of the spread which I did a while back. 

I'm entering this in the Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge Anything Goes:   www.creativeartistemixedmedia.blogspot.com.au 

Now I'm off for a day of birthday celebrations. My partner turns 50 and we will have a calm but really nice day in the beautiful spring weather. Thanks for stopping by!

Mixed media Mary Poppins inspired something...

Hello! I've had a quiet day all on my own. These are strange days for sure. But my partner is showing up with his golf bag tomorrow for a couple of days of out door activities and good food. That will be nice. So, today I cleaned my awfully neglected home, played with my cat and had fun with my inks, paints and sprays. This is what I did:

I loved this month's Mixed Media Academy's mood board and colors and went all in trying my best with the stuff I have. 

I had so much fun adding layer after layer after layer.... Need to learn when to stop, though. I also need to learn to put the lids on my bottles when done with them. I made a mess out of my newly cleaned craft corner when overturning a bottle of spray ink, lid off, all over my desk and had it dripped down on the floor. Oh my, the only thing coming out of that alive was my journal. Small blessings!!! After hysterical wiping and back to crafting I noticed my hand...

This is after trying to clean it. I suspect it will stay for a while... Well, I'm a mess. I've been a mess for almost 50 years and I guess that will not change. I'm happy about most of my page, the layers turned out quite nice. I'll propobly add som personal journaling about my process of learning to accept my quirks and being different (which is not always easy where I live, trust me!). 

Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Mixed media journal page

Monday - not my favorite... But I have a page that is all about favorites to share. I saw the prompt over at Mixed Media Academy for March "Life is an art, live yours in colors" and thought I´d make a page about what makes my life joyful.

Colors, watercoloring, doodles are some of the most important things for me to light up my life in these very strange times, so I incorporated that in my page. 

Usually I write a lot on my pages, but this time I thought I'd let the colors and the techniques speak for themselves. So I added a lot of watercoloring and doodling, som stenciling with modeling paste and spraying with favorite colors - green and blue. I also added some yellow as a contrast and as my third color from the color challenge. That´s it. :)

Thanks for stopping by, I'm returning to zoom...

Pug Christmas Card

 Happy Saturday! This morning I´ve been working on my stock of 2021 Christmas cards. With this it contains exactly two,.. But, if I do one a week until December I´m good. This one is made for a close friend of my mom's and I've known her all my life. She never had children, but she has always had pugs. Right now she has two and she states that they will be her last. The pugs are her world, so I thought I'd make her a card with a pug. She's gotten some before, but it is quite a few years since the last time, so I think she will be happy.

I was inspired by this pin for todays inspiration challenge over at SCS. I colored with watercolors and the light bulbs got a coat of glossy accent for some shine and texture. I also went over the sentiment with my glitter pen.

I'm entering this card in The Holly And Ivy Christmas Challenge - anything goes.

Last night I finished a journal page I've had in progress during the week. I found these awesome napkins on my shopping spree last weekend. They have the image of a colorful woman that sparked my inspiration. I felt the urge to actually try to paint a person for the first time. I have always been afraid of that but I thought what the heck... So I did. And it was so frustrating and so much fun. 

Yeah, I know, she looks really wierd but I did her all by my self taking another step (patting my shoulder). This journal is all about trying new things, exploring, trying, having fun, and journal about things that matters to me so I don´t care about the result, it's the process that counts. I incorporated the napkin and journaled about inspiration and I used some favorite quotes on the subject. The more personal journaling is tucked away on the tag. The poem by Langston Hughes is an old favorite which I´ve meant to use for a while. I only used the first part.

Thanks for stopping by and have a beautiful Saturday!

Some Maremi inspirated fun

 Hi! Today the watercolor challenge over at SCS is going abstract with circles inspired by Maremi's video. Super fun! As always I had this idea in my head but it didn´t really turn out that way. But I´m happy anyway. It was fun and, if I had had a heat gun, also relatively quick. Hope my new one will arrive sooooon!!!!

I painted circles with watercolors and doodled, added a sentiment and a rhinestone, done. It was fun that the inspiration video today was by Maremi, since I´ve been watching her a lot lately. It´s lovely to hear her chatter away on her long videos with inspiration while crafting myself. She is amazing. My own journaling is nothing like hers, and I use it to try things, journal my thoughts with a lot of writing and nothing I would share. But I did try out a page the other day, using her free papers inspired by this and this youtube video. Wasn´t going to put it on my blog, but since the challenge is inspired by Maremi, I could just as well. Be gentle!

Oh, well, I learnt a lot and had tons of fun!!! And since I do put it up on my blog I'm entering it in the Time Out Challenge "Do your thing different". And boy is this different... I never use cut out pre made images, never journal like this with just the intention to make something nice. I always have my writing as the main object and doodle and paint according to that. But I think I´ll try some more non journaling pages in the future. 

 Back to work after a lunch break! Have a great day!