It’s the 10th of the month! That can only mean one thing: I’ve got a new instalment of Inspired by to share!
Inspired by is a blog series by my friend Riikka and I. We decide on a theme (and that theme can be anything from a film, a book, a painting, to an item, colour scheme or material) and then we create something with that theme or thing in mind.
We keep what we’re making a secret until reveal day on the 10th, when we show you and each other our creations.
Rörd by IKEA
We were in the mood to alter something again. It’s been a while since we transformed the Moppe and so we headed for our local IKEA’s once again. Riikka had noticed these Rörd figurines among the new collection and thought these might be cool to use!
I had pictured them larger than they actually are, so I almost didn’t find them. They are only about 3′ or 4″ high. They’re made of aluminium and surprisingly heavy!
I put them on my desk in the living room and picked them up every once in a while, thinking that a good idea would come eventually.
It didn’t. Not really.
But the black coating did remind me of a blackboard and when I received a white uni Posca marker 0.7 mm in the mail, I put one and one together!
Conclusion
I usually have a whole back-story to my take on the theme, but this time there really is no further rhyme or reason behind the decorations. I just had fun doodling one evening whilst watching a couple of episodes of Gilmore Girls.
The Posca went on like a dream and dried almost immediately. I only smudged it once!
I have tangled every day since Inktober started, so some of the doodles are inspired by the tangles I did in the days before.
That’s it! Nothing more, nothing less!
That means you can now hop over to Paperiliitin and see Riikka’s take! I think it’s going to be good!!!
Hi there! Welcome to the Nathalie Kalbach and Friends Summer Hop!
If you would like to start at the beginning of this hop, then please check out the Stampendous Blog. They’ve started hopping on Monday, so there is loads to discover there!
I’m sharing this iconesque Fashion Dame today:
Here’s how I created her:
1 | Cut a sheet of grey board into four 4″ x 6″ pieces.
2 | Set two cards aside. Cut a rectangle window in one of the remaining cards and a Gothic arch in the other.
3 | Use Archival Ink to stamp the Fashion Dame and her attire on one of the plain cards. Cut the Fashion Dame pieces out.
4 | Give the Fashion Dame pieces a coat of gesso and the other cards a coat of gold acrylic paint. Leave to dry.
5 | Use the Art Deco Wallpaper Stencil to stencil the background card in turquoise and dark blue. Use embossing ink to stamp a halo with the smallest of the Kaffee Klatch Cling Stamps, sprinkle on some Vintage Jade embossing glitter and heat set the powder with a heat tool.
6 | Take the Gothic window card. Use an old plastic (credit) card to apply gold paint to the card through the stencil that comes with the Elephant Foam and Cling Stamp Set. This will create a nice raised texture. Leave to dry completely.
7 | Take the rectangle window card. Use embossing ink to stamp with one of the stamps of the Fiesta Cling Stamp Set. Sprinkle with Blueberry Cheesecake embossing powder and heat set the powder with a heat tool. Use your finger to apply a bit of pink, blue and gold paint on top of the embossed frame.
8 | Adhere the Gothic frame to the background card and the rectangle frame to the front of the Gothic frame.
9 | Apply colour to the hands and face of the Fashion Dame with Neocolor II’s and a watercolour brush. Use acrylic paint to paint the lips and clothing.
Use one of the Fiesta Cling Stamps to stamp on top of the cardboard pants with embossing ink, sprinkle with Blueberry Cheesecake embossing powder and heat set to create the patterned pants. Stamp over it once more with the pants stamp and Archival Ink.
Stamp and emboss the jacket with embossing ink and Mint Macaroon embossing powder. Add black dots with a Posca marker.
10 | Adhere the Dame to the icon frame and add small turquoise dots with a Pearl Pen.
11 | Leave the card as is, or paint an old frame pink, apply gold stencilling with the Art Deco Wallpaper Stencil and adhere the Fashion Dame icon to the front of the frame.
For more inspiration, featuring Nathalie’s fabulous stamp sets check out all the wonderful projects in this Summer Hop!
Here are the links to the other designers participating in the hop today:
Stampendous is kindly giving away three prize packages of Nat’s foam stamp sets. So don’t forget to comment for a chance to win and be sure to check out the Stampendous Blog to find out more! The give-away is closed! Winners are announced here!
Ooooh… and before you leave! My post for the n*Studio Creative Squad is coming up on Tuesday, so be sure to check out Nathalie’s blog next week to see the spin off project I created with these leftover pieces:
The strawberries in my garden are not quite ready to harvest yet, but these strawberry die cuts are just as sweet!
I started this project with a card in mind, but my collage turned out so pretty that I just couldn’t bear to cut it up. I decided to put it in a frame and now I have a happy Summer decor piece instead!
Here’s how I created it:
1 | Take a sheet of 6″ x 6″ Through the Lens Wood patterned paper and brayer it with a very thin layer of white paint to create a whitewashed effect. Put aside to dry.
2 | Find collage papers in red and green shades. I found these in my stash of monoprinted deli paper, leftover from another project. I like using deli paper for collage because of its translucent quality.
If you don’t have any monoprinted deli paper on hand, you can use other coloured translucent paper instead. Or you can custom print some with a Gelli Plate.
The marks on the red print were made by pressing a piece of stripped corrugated cardboard into the paint on the Gelli Plate before pulling the print. The marks on the green print were made with the Bouquet Embossing Folder.
3 | Use the Strawberries die set to cut several strawberry overlays out of the red paper. I used eight strawberries for my composition.
4 | Die cut a couple of the leaves and as many calyxes as you think you’ll need out of the green paper.
5 | Adhere the strawberries to the sheet of whitewashed Through the Lens Wood patterned paper by applying a thin layer of Matte Medium under and on top of the strawberry parts.
6 | Use the Bunch of Flowers 1 die set to cut small flowers out of thin white (printer) paper. Adhere them to the collage with Matte Medium.
Add flowers hearts cut out of monoprinted deli paper. Use one of the overlays from the Tags & More 9 – Sparkle set to cut a whole bunch of small circles at once!
Leave the collage to dry completely.
7 | Trim the collage down and add it to a card with Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape. Or… mat the collage with Celadon Green Soft Finish Cardstock and frame it!
Hi there! Today I’m sharing my Creative Squad project for May over on Nathalie Kalbachs blog!
Each Tuesday the team shares a themed project on Nathalie’s blog. This month the theme is Elephants Never Forget and all projects feature Nat’s Stampendous Elephant Foam Stamp Set.
Wondering what this is?! Head on over to the n*Studio Blog to find out!
Easter brunch is a tradition in my family and we tend to have the same festive foods on the Easter table each year. I usually buy a bunch of spring-coloured paper napkins to put on the table, but this year I thought it would be fun to decorate cloth napkins with fabric paint.
Steps to decorate the napkins: 1 | Read the directions of your fabric paint. If you want to be able to put your napkins in the laundry later on, it’s safe to prepare the cloth as stated in the directions before you start stamping. (Or you can just fly by the seat of your pants like I did…)
2 | Back a couple of scraps of craft foam with Clear Double-Sided Adhesive. Use the Easter Eggs die-set to die-cut the three overlays and one of the coordinating solid eggs each. Also cut an extra solid egg each out of just craft foam.
3 | Assemble the foam stamps: peel the backing from the solid egg and stick it on a coordinating (just craft foam) egg. Then peel the backing from the same sized overlay and stick it on the double foam solid egg.
4 | Adhere your stamp to an acrylic block with a little strip of Clear Double-Sided Adhesive Tape or a non-permanent adhesive roller if you want.
Use a brayer to roll your fabric paint onto the stamp or use a sponge to dab the paint on.
You want to cover the stamp evenly with fabric paint, not too thick and not too thin either. Also keep an eye out for excess paint in the stamp crevices, because this will cause blobs of paint in your stamped image!
Practice stamping on a fabric scrap first if needed.
5 | Stamp your pattern. Work fairly quick so the paint doesn’t dry on your stamp.
6 | You can also adhere more than one stamp onto one acrylic block for quicker fabric coverage.
7 | Don’t forget the solid side of the stamp. Stamp the solid egg first and then stamp over it with the overlay!
8 | Once you are done stamping, I recommend checking the directions of your fabric paint again. Some paints need to dry for a certain time and/or need to be heat set in order to become permanent and washable.
I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog today, sharing this new colourful, vibrant project!
I don’t believe in new years resolutions, but I do choose a word for each year. Just to start the new year with intention. It’s a new chapter after all!
I have thought long and hard about how I want this chapter to feel and I came up with: bright, active, upbeat, happy, buzzing… vibrant. So that’s the word I chose!
I always like to create something that I can look at to remind me of my word throughout the year. I usually create a canvas or a scrapbook page, but this time I decided to add something vibrant and shiny to a shadow box frame!
The idea for it came from these scraps that I had left after die-cutting rainbows with the new Rainbow Sky die set:
I also happen to be studying the life and works of Sonia Delaunay for the Love Art Happy Life E-course that started January 1st! The shadow box frame is heavily inspired by her Electric Prisms. I love her art and it fits my word so well!
But before I started die-cutting Shimmer Sheetz, I experimented with coloured paper first. It’s a good thing I did, because I found out that a combination of layering and inlaying the pieces worked best for me.
Here are the steps to create the layered, checkered circles:
1 | Choose the paper/colours you want to use and then the sizes of Fitted Circles you want to layer. I looked at Sonia Delaunay’s work for colour inspiration.
2 | Cut squares of Clear Double Sided Adhesive to the size of the Fitted Circles you have decided to layer.
3 | Cut the paper in squares to adhere onto each quarter of the Clear Double Sided Adhesive squares. The paper squares in the photo are huge: you really don’t need that much excess paper!
4 | Position your Fitted Circles dies on top of the paper. The point where all four colours of paper meet, needs to be in the exact middle of the Fitted Circle.
5 | Die-cut the circles.
6 | Adhere the checkered circles one on top of the other.
7 | Optional: add leftover Rainbow Sky pieces!
I used the same steps to create the Shimmer Sheetz shadow box frame. I found that I did not need to use the Metal Adaptor Plate this time, but most times I do use a Metal Adaptor Plate for the best results when die-cutting Shimmer Sheetz.
Last week my mom and I went to the theatre to see Dutch celebrity Paul de Leeuw perform some of his songs. One of his greatest hits is ‘Vlieg met me mee’, a parody of a Eurovision Song Contest song.
The main lyric translates as: ‘Fly with me to the rainbow’. It’s a silly, humorous, sing-along (love) song that brings back happy memories for me and it’s the main inspiration for this shadow box frame!
Here are the steps to create something similar:
1 | Cut a sheet of Soft Finish Cardstock to the size of your extra deep edge frame (my frame was 6.3″) to use as the mat. Use the largest Fitted Circle to create a window in the middle of it.
2 | Die-cut the Hot Air Balloon and the Rainbow Sky parts out of coloured cardstock.
3 | Use one or two of the chains and/or ropes from the Chains 1 and Ropes 1 die-sets to create the landscape. I cut two scraps of green cardstock to about 3″ x 6″ and used the chain/rope dies to cut each scrap down the middle.
4 | Ink the die-cut edges of the four pieces with Distress Ink.
5 | Cut a sheet of light blue paper to the size of your frame. Adhere the green scraps in an overlapping way to create the landscape.
Notice that in the photo my light blue paper and the green paper don’t exactly match up. This is not a problem, as this ‘shortage’ will be covered by the circle mat later on!
6 | Assemble all die-cuts and use Clear Double Sided Adhesive and foam tape to adhere them to the scene.
7 | Add the mat and the scene to the extra deep edge frame.
Mine came with a spacer to separate the mat from the image, but you can achieve something similar by adding craft foam or foam tape to the back of the white mat.
Other: Extra deep frame (I found mine at Action, a local discount store, some time ago)
Cardstock (red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, blue, dark blue, purple, brown)
Distress Ink (Fossilized Amber, Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass)
Foam Tape
