Sunday Postcard Art - Flower Fairies and a freebie

 Hello friends and visitors, hope you are keeping well! It's been an age and a half since I have last posted, the reason is that really I am not into blogging anymore, and only blog now when I have been asked to do so. And like my last post here, I was again invited by the lovely Mandy to host another Sunday Postcard Art Challenge, this time with the theme of Flower Fairies, as the title of my post suggests. So here goes, my Flower Fairy Postcard:

I decided to choose an image from one of the wonderful Flower Fairy books by  Cicely Mary Barker. 

I love these fairies, they are so sweet and whimsical. So I cut a piece of card to size, created a background collage with strips of washi tape and scrapbook paper and then simply fussy-cut some other images, including the fairy of course, to try and create a balanced collage. It turned out quite busy, but I just went with the flow, without too much thinking, and this is the result...

Below some details still.

Now, because I know many of you started to follow me because of the freebies I sometimes share, I have created a Flower Fairy one for you, specially since it's so long since my last one.

If you would like to have the full resolution one to print, please email me, but please only use them for personal use!

Well, that's it for now, - short and sweet. I cannot say when I will blog again, it may well be a while, so if you are interested to see more of my work, the best place to do that is via my Instagram

And if by any chance you would like to play in the postcard challenge, all you have to do is CLICK HERE

Thanks for your visit and happy crafting,

Astrid

Tag Friday for A Vintage Journey

 Hello friends, - it's the last Friday of the month and that means that when it's a month with 5 Fridays, like this one, we have a Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey.

Well, tags are always fun to make and as I was making a tag to add to a journal anyway, I decided to play along.

I started by creating the leave that I wanted to use as the focal point for my tag. On some strong card I played around with my Distress Inks and Sprays until I had more or less the colour I wanted, and then I cut and embossed the leave with one of Tim Holtz's 3D Embosslets (at least I think that's what they are called).

Next I glued a couple of old book pages together to give them some strength, cut out a tag shape and then zig zagged around it with my sewing machine.

The final steps were to add some scraps of paper and other collage elements that were flying around my desk, including the leave of course and then I just inked around the edges and that was it. I'll leave you with some more photos and if you would like to get some further tag inspiration, do head over to A Vintage Journey

to see the fabulous tags my teamies have created.

Thanks for your visit, stay safe and happy crafting!

xxxxx

Friday Postday, December journal

Hello lovely friends and followers, thanks for checking in here this Friday, which from now on will be the day I post here.

Today I am sharing some pages from my December (almost) daily journal;

I used the Eileen Hull journal die to cut the cover from mounting board and then decorated it with various Tim Holtz products, - collage paper, ephemera, a paper doll and some stamped elements.

Here are a few details:

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The background to this lovely lady was a stamped piece of card, using one of Tim's new background stamps, to give her something to stand on I added some cheesecloth, adhered with mat medium.

A few ephemera tugged into the side and some splatters for a wintry feel.

Here is the back, just some coloured collage paper.

I added some glitter to the berries, to add a bit of sparkle.

The inside of the cover was made with a piece of Stamperia rice paper. I used a lot of traditional Christmas colours for my cards this year, and wanted to use some different colours for the rest of the journal.

Alright, now to some of the inside pages. All of them in my favourite vintage style, using scraps of rice paper, paper serviettes etc from my stash, - so good to use up some of those hoarded pieces. The challenge is always to integrate these scraps into the rest of the page, using paints, stamps etc.

For the top side I used another bit of Tim's collage paper. He did another coloured Holly one for Christmas, which at first I regretted not getting instead, but now I am actually glad, as this one I can adapt to whatever colour scheme I am working with....

This page uses another scrap from the Stamperia paper and a paper doll. I tried to pick up some of the colour from the paper in the background.

I always think that  adding some shadows to these collaged people really helps to integrate them into the page.

The quote I found in a wonderful alternative advent calendar which has a quote for each day.

Another wintry page. At the bottom I added some stencilling with a brick stencil to link to the bricks on the image. At the top another bit of the collage paper.

And a close up of the stencilling....

And here is the final page I will show today, using a paper napkin for the main image and then some paint and stencil work to pull it all together.

As you can see I also used some washi tapes to kind of frame the main image.

Well, that's it for this Friday, - a lot of photos today...…

Like usual, thank you so much for your visit and I hope you can find some creative time during these last few busy days before the 25th!

xxxxx

Chickadees or Coletits?

Hello lovely visitors, today I am sharing another spread in my nature journal, you have all been so kind and encoraging about it, so thanks for that!!

It's not always easy to find suitable subjects to draw and paint here in the Northern Hemisphere in February. The weather has been so cold and windy, it's hard to even go out for walks. So for this spread I took inspiration from photographs, what I can see from my craftroom window, and my imagination...

This little chickadee was mostly copied from a photo on the wonderful Pamelia's blog, but I also looked at other photographs. Here in the UK we don't have chickadees, but our native coletits are very, very similar, though apparently not related... I used watercolour pencils, Prisma Premier pencils, watercolours and even a black Tombow marker.

Like usual, I also added strips of washi, old book paper and here also a few scraps of rice paper and a little stamping on tissue.. I love playing with little bits of collage around my hand painted elements to complete the pages.

This branche is based on the budding branches of a big chestnut tree I can see out of the window of my artspace (studio would be too big a word for it lol).

And here finally a couple of feathers, they are totally done out of my imagination, I just needed something to fill up the space....

The cover for this journal, as some of you may remember, was made with the Eileen Hull journaling die. I love that with the help of the elastic, I can take the actual journal in and out of the cover, which makes it much easier to paint. Here you can see it inside the cover.

Well, that's it for today. Have a lovely weekend  and thanks for your visit like always!

xxxxx

Japan travel journal part 2

Hello friends, hope you are all well and happy.
Today I want to share some more pages from my Japan travel journal. If you missed the first part, - you can find it here.

I did another mix of collage and own made background pages. The above is obviously a collage one.
I love this junk journal style and it is such a great way to use up all these bits and pieces that we all seem to hoard.
I used some paper from the Tim Holtz Etc 8 x 8 collection. I half the page, which makes it just slightly smaller than the pages of the Midori travelers notebook pages, adhere it to the lined paper in the note book and then put tissue tape around to make it fit.

I added a little tuck spot,  and tucked a mini envelope behind it . I then  made a tiny little book to fit behind the envelope, for a few bits of further journalling. The little envelope provides more space to keep little bit and pieces, tickets, keep sakes, little photos whatever collected during the day.

Another page, done in pretty much the same way. This time the envelope was made using the Tim Holtz pocket envelope die. I glued only 2 sides, so create another tuck spot/pocket.

The envelope opens and closes  with the flap tucked behind the little heart made with the help of a little punch, when you glue down only the bottom half, it makes for the perfect closure. A tag fits in the pocket behind.

Finally just a decorative page, using Oxide and Distress Inks, an element from the Botanical Layers ephemera, some  shadow work with  a couple of a Distress Crayons, some stencilling use a Seth Apter stencil and a Distress Crayon and finally some background stamping and washi design tape.

Well that's it for today, thanks for your visit and stay creative!

xxxxx

A journey of Adventure for Countryview Crafts

Hello everyone, welcome and especially also to new followers, I am so happy you decided to join me in my crafty adventure!
This is the first of 3 projects I have been creating for various challenge blogs, and that all will be posted today. Sorry for the overload....-  as you can see from the title, this one is for Countryview Crafts. The theme this month is Anything Goes!!

I decided to play with my new Correspondence papers by the great Tim Holtz. These papers are perfect for collage, and I love playing with paper collage. I decided to make a so called W book. Tim has a brilliant tutorial on how to do this, you can find it HERE
Tim's paper collections are always perfect for this type of project as each collection includes different sized images on each 12 by 12" page. I took one that had 3 x 3" imagery, but kept the plainer side showing so I could collage over each little page once the book was folded. I'll give you a quick overview and will let the photos tell the story: As you can see from the cover, a mother and her young son set out to travel to find their long lost orphaned niece....

They think she is somewhere in France, far away from their native State of Alaska, so they go on an adventure and tell their story as they travel.

 Mama shows her son (let's call him Irvine) the globe and as they set off they know that each new day will be full of possibilities, - but will they find her?....

 As they are telling their story, they know this journey will not just be about finding a long lost relative, but also about finding themselves...

 Of course postcards are written home as they travel along....

 At last they reach Paris, and as Irvine has been such a good travel companion, he is rewarded with a flight in a hot air balloon, - what better way than to see Paris from the skies?!

Well, the story has a happy ending, the poor orphaned niece is found and they take her back to their home.....

I used the following products for this project: Tim Holtz Correspondence papers, Tim Holtz sticker book (I think these have now been discontinued) Tim Holtz Small Talk stickers, Tiny Things stamp set. Almost all of these products can be found  in the Tim Holtz section at Countryview Crafts, just click HERE.

Depending on how you fold your  booklet, their will be several pockets, so I decided to make some tags to fit inside. I used  the Tim Holtz Sizzix Framelits Die Set 8PK - Tag Collection for this, the smallest tag fits just perfectly.

 I used them double sided, for strength, so I cut two for each tag and then glued them together.
Below you can see the spine of the booklet, created with just adding some bits of string under the cover pages.

Please hop over to the Countryview Challenge blog to see what my wonderful teamies have created, and hopefully you will decide to play along, - remember, anything goes for this one!