Gorse Fairies framed

In November 2011 I made the last stitches on my Gorse Fairies embroidery. Unfortunately the shop I had in mind to frame it stopped doing that. But when my mother heard it was still waiting to be framed, she insisted to let it frame by the same man that framed the Australia sampler. And now it’s finally hanging in our living room.

You can read more about this embroidery here.

Art Journal Simple Prompts

I’m participating in a weekly challenge on Instagram: Art Journal Simple Prompts (#ajsp52w).

The prompt for week 24 was Y. I knew I wanted to use yoga, because June 21 is World Yoga Day and we had a special lesson in our yoga class. I combined the image with hand lettering the names of a few asanas.

Quirky Dutch Summer

Quirky Dutch Summer is a series of weekly blogposts at Marit’s Paper World with inspiration and tutorials.

In the second week Jenny de Bode showed us how to make a collage with "coincidental odd scraps of paper". It was a very busy week, so I had to wait until last Sunday to give it a try.

It’s the first page in my new altered book, which I bought at our local library. I’ll decorate the cover when all pages are finished.

I’m sure I play some more with this fun technique. I saw many great examples in the Quirky Dutch Summer Facebook group. 

ICAD

This year I’m participating in ICAD (Index Card A Day) for the 4th time. There’s a weekly theme with daily prompts, which you can find at Daisy Yellow. I share my cards on my Facebook blog and Instagram on the day I create them and I’ll write a weekly post with more info on this blog.

I didn’t use the prompt for day 18 (yearbook). I choose to do mark-making inspired by the t-shirt I was wearing that day.

Yellow was the prompt for day 19. I was amazed to see how many yellow markers, fineliners, felt tip pens, gellyroll pens and coloured pencils I had. Of course I used them all!

Vitrina was the prompt for day 20. I drew a ‘vitrina’ and filled it with nice patterns.

Guitar was the prompt for day 21. I made a combo of mark-making and collage.

Day 22 was the start of a new week with a new theme (inspired by patterns, wallpaper, grids & geometric shapes). The prompt was bicycle. I found this cute image in a magazine and added one of the Little Prince quotes.

Poem was the prompt for day 23. I choose the poem of the Gorse Fairies in Dutch, because my Gorse Fairies embroidery is framed recently. I hope to share that later this week.

Today’s prompt was music box, perfect for a one-staple-collage!

I try to combine the daily prompts with (part of) the weekly theme. For me that’s the fun part of this challenge!

Eco printing on fabric

Last week I shared the start of my eco printing trial. Today I want to share a few details from the results.

There are also parts on the fabric with almost no print, not every leaf gave a nice print. But I’m very happy with the results of my first trial.

Quirky Dutch Summer

Quirky Dutch Summer is a series of weekly blogposts at Marit’s Paper World with inspiration and tutorials.

In the first week Marit showed us how to make a journal from a cheap canvas. Unfortunately the size I needed was sold out, so I bought a smaller canvas for a small journal. I just couldn’t wait to get started!

 It took me a few days to decorate the outside of my journal, . . .

. . . after painting the inside.

Then it was time to make my signatures. Luckily I had some good drawing paper in my stash in the right size. After binding the signatures into my cover I decorated the ends of the threads with some donut beads as a nice finishing touch.

In the meantime I bought another canvas in a bigger size for a second journal, which will be a variation. But first I get started with the second Quirky Dutch Summer week, which is a great guest tutorial from Jenny de Bode.

Art Journal Simple Prompts

I’m participating in a weekly challenge on Instagram: Art Journal Simple Prompts (#ajsp52w).

Week 23 had a tricky prompt: X. But I found an old dictionary at my parents’ house and it had the Dutch word xanthopsie (xanthopsia in English) in it. The perfect word for my face doodle!

ICAD

This year I’m participating in ICAD (Index Card A Day) for the 4th time. There’s a weekly theme with daily prompts, which you can find at Daisy Yellow. I share my cards on my Facebook blog and Instagram on the day I create them and I’ll write a weekly post with more info on this blog.

The prompt for day 11 was palm. I made a simple collage with a photo of palm leaves.

The prompt for day 12 was tapestry. I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to find an image in a magazine that could inspire me. This nice vase with flowers did the trick.

I shopped it up and rearranged the pieces into a nice collage, inspired by Cecil Touchon. I've already used this technique a few years ago, you can read about that here.

The prompt for day 13 was balcony. I found 2 clippings of houses with balconies and thought I could use them both. My collage grew from there. I like it!

The prompt for day 14 was thread, so I stitched some pieces of old painted book pages to an index card.

Prompt 15 was the start of a new week with a different theme (mark-making, sketching, drawing & portraiture). So out came the coloured pencils and fineliners and I made this drawing inspired by a Pinterest picture.

Prompt 16 was chandelier, not something I wanted to draw. I found a clipping of a room with a chandelier, so I thought to use part of it and draw the table and the chair.

But planning is not always working, I ended up doodling instead!

And todays prompt was wood. I made a doodle girl and put her on a wooden chair.

I try to combine the daily prompts with (part of) the weekly theme. For me that’s the fun part of this challenge!

Stitch meditation

I made a stitch meditation square with a crocheted leaf. You can read more about my stitch meditation project in this post.

It was the last square on page 3 for my fabric book.

Art Journal Simple Prompts

I’m participating in a weekly challenge on Instagram: Art Journal Simple Prompts (#ajsp52w). I made a zetti inspired collage for week 23. 

Eco printing on fabric

Almost 2 weeks ago I finally tried eco printing on fabric. There’s a good series of posts in Dutch about that on Verfvirus, this is the link to the first one. The first thing I needed to do after prepping the fabric was gathering leaves. So I had a walk in our neighbourhood, which you can see here on Instagram. I ended up with a nice collection and added some leaves from our garden.

I covered the table and gathered everything I needed.

I put the leaves on one half of the fabric, covered it with the other half, rolled it on the wooden sticks and wrapped it with cotton yarn.

I made six packages, here they are ready for the next step.

Then it was time to boil them in water with iron sulphate for 3 hours.

After that I let it cool down in the water for 2 days and rinsed and washed the fabric. Next time I’ll show the results.

ICAD

This year I’m participating in ICAD (Index Card A Day) for the 4th time. There’s a weekly theme with daily prompts, which you can find at Daisy Yellow. I share my cards on my Facebook blog and Instagram on the day I create them and I’ll write a weekly post with more info on this blog.

The prompt for day 4 was reflection. I found a quote on Pinterest and wrote it backwards, with the help of a flipped photo of the text. In the second photo you can read the reflection in our bathroom mirror.

The prompt for day 5 was tourist map. I have a few of those and decided to use one from Paris, because recently I bought a nice Eiffel tower stamp.

The prompt for day 6 was leaf or petal. It reminded me of the tulips I made some time ago. This time I painted old book pages and cut the leaves and petals freehand. I also used one of my hand carved stamps.

The prompt for day 7 was stencil. I had a nice old book page with leftover paint and a trial from a chevron stencil. The perfect background for my found poetry.

The prompt for day 8 was goggles, a new English word for me! Luckily I knew I had a precut face with goggles from a magazine, so I only had to find a matching body.

The prompt for day 9 was macaron. I found a macaron image in an advertisement, the perfect start of my collage with random paper.

And today’s prompt was sapphire. I found a photo of sapphire jewellery and thought it would make a nice hat for a person. But it wanted to be a body!

I try to combine the daily prompts with (part of) the weekly theme. For me that’s the fun part of this challenge!