Lost July 27, 2009

If you’ve been to this blog before, you will know i am an admirer of Michelle Ward (and a not-so-faithfull-crusader… i love her crusades, but time keeps running out so i do not participate  frequently). When i was asked to contribute to a book for Michelle because her sister Shannon died a year ago of cystic fybrosis, of course i participated. Like i participated in the Pink Wink, which you can find here.
Begin of july the book arrived at Michelle, this is my entry:

What i could not share fully share on the page, other than a piece of the lyric, is the beautiful song of Anouk. She is a Dutch singer and performer. I like to sing her songs, while Richard my husband plays the guitar (don’t misunderstand: she does a better job!). This song is one of my favorites. When i made the page, i knew i wanted to share the song in a post, so here it comes:

(Michelle: hope you like the song! i know you have a passion for music and LOST and roses are meant to be red seemed so *Winky* that i could not resist working the lyric in the page. Now you know the complete song. By the way, did you see the tattoos on her arm?).

If you want to read the post Michelle wrote after recieving the book, you will find it here. The pics of all the participants are to be found here. Special thanks for this project go to Julie Prichard, Lisa Hoffman and JeriAn Geller. LADIES thanks for taking such great initiative AND collect, gather and work hard to make it the beautifull book it is now!

More portion control February 20, 2009

In her latest crusade, Michelle Ward tells us about portion control. I think portion control, together with repetition, and a color regime, makes our eyes wander through a piece of art. If everything is clear right away, there is no reason to ‘wander’ in the piece. Your eye gets attracted, is curious what is to come… I think most of us work with portion control, even subconscious.

These days i am into fabric, and less into painting. But in fabric there are lots of possibilities to make portion control. With lace for example, or with see through fabric.

I stamped with bubble plastic, after years of searching, the big ones arrived with something i bought on the internet. If all the circles would have been crisply stamped, it would have given a nice, but uninteresting picture, is my guess. Now it looks grungy, interesting and i haven’t done a thing yet with it. Take a look.

To me it already looks so great, that i am still thinking how i am going to use it in my journal! If you are interested in more portion controll i suggest you go to Michelle Street Team blog and look what she and the other crusader’s did with this. They did some marvelous things, so of you go!!

Tagged February 17, 2009

Janny, an art friend of mine {you can see her beautifull work here } tagged me. And most of the times, i do not cooperate on all kinds of awards. I recieve them with gratitude, but there is something in side me that resists. But this time, i thought it was funny. I was to put the 6th photo from my 6th map of digital photos here. No kidding, this was the picture…

If you read my last post you can see why it fits so well. This is Richard and me on our wedding day, almost 11 years ago. At the pond near our home. Romantic isn’t it? (if you think i look a little bit tired: YES i am tired. Six weeks before the wedding i gave birth to our oldest daughter, and she had lot of stomach cramps and cried a lot, so i was tired. Now she is almost 11….)

okay, here is the beautifull baby girl that escorted us to the ceremony.Don’t you think she looks so adorable in that dress?

Okay, now all you readers, feel TAGGED and go search for the sixth photo in the sixth map. WHAT IS YOURS?????

Valentine’s day February 14, 2009

Valentine’s day… a card for my love, he just doesn’t know yet  that he is going to get this one *GRIN*

And something can be put on my TADA list, because this is for Michelle Ward’s 28th crusade Portion Control.

And the month is NOT even half way… I intend to do some shaping up and controlling later this month!

Scents and …. fabric & wishes December 31, 2008

Michelle Ward’s new crusade is long up, actually it is the last day to play for this one.

The pages have been made in my journal for ages, do not know what happened that i still haven’t uploaded them (yeah, christmas things, cards, kids… LOL).

I am fond of scents and as i wrote to one of the other crusaders, it can bring back memories from far, far away (like kindergarten). I am not the type to change every season from parfum… Think i am little bit conservative on that one. For summer my favorite is Clarins, Eau Dynamisante and it smells like soft sweet lemons and when it is getting hotter, you smell it better. On oil base (important so it can not cause sun burn, i have a very sensitive skin…).

And some strange thing: i like to work with the stick of Tombow. Not because it is such a great adhesive (i admit i have had better ones) but because i love the soapy smell. A friend of mine told me she likes to stamp with stazon, for the smell (which is not healthy by the way).

My candles have a lovely scent, and are of a wonderfull color purple, but I do not know which scent it has, only that i bought them with Trendhopper. Which is a Dutch shop, so of absolutely no use for most of you crusaders….

My winter time parfum is Jill Sander. I wanted to make a page of it, but that got in between things, so you get that later.

As i wrote before, i am into fabric these days. I made a fabric book for a partner in crafting, Yvonne. Now that she recieved the booklet, i can show you all the pages, although i just forgot a few pages…. (so me, i do that all the time, annoying, must be on my list for 2009: DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE PICTURES OF WHAT I CREATE BEFORE I SEND THEM AWAY!!!)

Let me end this post with wishing you all the best for 2009, with a lot of flowing creativity, good health, genuine love and lack of any financial troubles! (my card says: a beautifull, sparkling 2009)

Sneak peak of a surprise for Yitte December 20, 2008

Yittes daughter went to the States and brought me a tube of texture magic. At home in Holland, we found out we had to pay more shipping costs then the tube was worth because it was parcel post. Yitte (or Yvonne, her actual name) said that she wanted to pay shipping costs and that i would reward her with something i made myself. OK, nice gesture!!!!

Like i told you a few posts before, i am into fabric at this moment. And Yitte is always very creative with fabric (as you can see in her blog here). So it was going to be something with fabric…. More i will not say, because it is going to be sent to Yitte on monday, and i still want it to be a surprise. Edited: because Yitte and i alway tend to the same colors (blue and brown, which are beautifull, but always is just TOO much) i decided that brown and blue were forbidden colors. A colorfull book, it is called All the colors…

So here a sneak peak!!!!

Mixed media group: party!!! December 19, 2008

I am a proud member of the Mixed media diva’s, a dutch yahoo group on…. yes, mixed media. This month the group exists 5 years and we honoured our founding diva with a mixed media banner. Aproximately 20 members made a banner to make a festoon. Here is the one i created:

The front of the banner. It is made from fabric i dyed and embossed myself.

And the back… Spray painted paper, ooh i love the glimmer mist. This is green gold. Glimmer mist is one of those products that i really finish and buy new ones of. (Or don’t you have tons of products that you use once a year??? I admit: I do have those!)

Elly: congrats on this great, creative and warm group. If you want to see more of the banners made for Elly, you can find it in the post of Dymphie .

It has been a while: back on track with…. gesso! November 23, 2008

Hi all of you. It has been too long since I made a post. Busy life and work kept me from blogging, nothing big or negative. Happily it did not keep me not from CREATING!!!!

Michelle Wards latest crusade is about gesso.

HEEEE girl, I am a truly gessso girl, so that was eayspeasy. BUT ALSO A LOT OF FUN, to dig through my digital photo stash and see what i have made in all these years. If I see progression? Don’t know, hard to say, but what i do see, is a lot of fun, sometimes repeating (minor) problems (i have difficulty in sleeping, and i see that return in my journals every now and then). And what I see is that i like to use every new technique, material or whatever new i can lay my hands on. At the moment I am into fabric and (something completly different ) in metal.

OK CHECK THESE OUT: the girls from ten second studios. They make hilarious videos on tuesday (taco tuesday) and they have cool tools for working on metal, now to be bougth in their own internet shop. Maybe later some pics….. NOW FOR THE GESSO!

This is an oldie, but shows well what gesso can do.

You see my hand (with gesso on it) and i painted on dark brown craft paper. On the parts that i gessoed, you see the paint is lighter/brighter. So it gives interesting contrast to the eye, without being too big of a contrast, it adds a little mystery (to me it does)…

Maybe on the next pic you can see it even better.

Maybe now you think gesso will just work on paper. But it works on fabric too:

Here I dyed a piece of thin cotton with Radiant rain daubers, and before i just stamped these little flowers on the fabric with gesso. Oke, i would maybe not do this for fabric that goes in cloth, but this is for journaling projects, so i don’t mind loosing a little bit of softness (it does not get really sturdy, only if you would take a LOT of gesso).

Gesso can make textures too, as you can see here in this pic. I let the gesso just flow out of the bottle directly onto the paper. (Funny also to see that i had a love for metal already 2 years ago…)

Ok, what i also saw when digging through my stash is that i use more colours. Not only the autumnal colours like ochre, brown, paynes grey and golden green. But reds, and oranges and…. oke pinks…. It is strange because for years i have been into those autumnal colours. STILL LOVE THEM, but others are great too.

Wanna see?? (Notice the red card has gesso resist too?)

And for my new love fabric, i just wanted to show you this… Lots of new techniques in it (well, for me, maybe you do them hundreds of years…. probably)

Oke, new for me was working with oil paintsticks (which i will not continue, sorry: tooooo smelly, still high of it), transferring onto lutradur, painting with lumiere paint on fabric (WOW) making an imprint of an embossing folder (the bird, cuttlebug emb. folder), i made home dyed fabric (the flower) and i used my sewing machine (that must have been 8 years ago or something). For those who want to know (like myself) this journal page is about 9 by 7 inches. See ya!

A week in my life October 6, 2008

Ali Edwards has done some great work on everyday life scrapbooking last week, and she is continuing it this week. As a avid journaler, I could not resist and said YES to this challenge.

I made a lot of pics, but to be honest: I forgot to take a lot too. Like: I am not in and neither is my husband. I am going to take an extra week to sort that out! BUT….. I made a start in scrapping with whatever I have. Because that is what it is all about too.

So here is my first LO, made with Ali’s designed 8,5 by 11 pages ‘The Story of Today 8.5×11 Overlays’ (very qualified for this task), available at designerdigitals.com . I don’t do complete digital layout often (more of a hybrid scrapper), but for this occasion it worked out fine. {Edited: the cardstock and the flower are from the Amelie kit. And the words are from Digital Poetry, all available at designerdigitals.com }

And because I always want to know these things: I took my pics with a panasonic lumix dmc fz8. I take them on the ISO setting (these with ISO max 800, but after reading Ali’s blog I changed that to max 1250). I did the scrapping in Photoshop Elements 6.0 for Mac. MUCH better and more stabile than the older version (4.0, for Mac they skipped the 5.0 version). It is worth every penny (costs about 80 euro’s, which is pretty amazing if you see the features). And no, I have no shares in Adobe, I am lucky to have NO shares at all at this nasty financial times.

Gratefull & Paying it forward August 25, 2008

Michelle Ward’s crusade of this month is about gratitude.

It is about being gratefull & paying it forward. Ok, let’s start with gratefull. I am gratefull for my family: my two beautifull daughters and my husband.This collage I made of the wonderfull holiday we spent in Florida to visit Disney World. Do I need to say we had a MARVELOUS time??

I am gratefull to have friends and neighbours. To share laughs and tears, to give and to recieve help. Some of those friends I met via blogs and yahoogroups, and we share a passion for mixed media, arts, crafting. Age nor background counts, it is that passion that binds us. (Richard, my husband, sometimes asks me: what does she do for a living, how old is she? I sometimes just don’t know and it is not because I am not interested, but it is of no relevancy). I am really gratefull for all those friends and neighbours. They make my life, our life fuller, more complete. THANX!!!

I am gratefull too for being born in a pretty rich country, having enough money to live a good live for me and my family. And being healthy, all of us, is something I thank God  often for. To live in a lovely house in a green and quiet neighbourhood, to have plenty of food and to be able to take the kids to foreign countries (and no, America we don’t do every year, we had a lot of award miles because Richard travels much for work). Did I already mention we had two adorable cats that we love so much?? They are called Ziggy (the white one) and Zara (the striped one).

Aren’t they cute?

I am aware I have so much to be gratefull for. I try to forward it to others. I absolutely do not think I can save the earth or humanity. Small acts of kindness are my thing. Sending cards to a sick friend, or to somebody that is in pain. Cooking a meal for friends when mum and the newborn are in hospital and dad and the three other kids are at home. Talking to my elderly neighbour about the life she lived (do that more often: it gives you such insight how the world has changed). I share art material with friends. I call somebody from church if I have some furniture overstock or something else that can be usefull for the refugees that attend our church. Cleaning my other friend’s home when her newborn had to stay in the hospital with a dangerous infection.

I hope you know I am not telling this to be arrogant. I hope you see how easy and small it can be. Everybody can make a difference.

YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!!