Inspired by | Artful Adventures in Mixed Media

10 September 20179 November 2017 | Marsha.

Can you believe it’s September already? It’s been raining cats and dogs over here, so it honestly feels like Autumn too. I’m hopeful though that there are still some days to come with enough dry spells to enjoy a cup of tea in the yard with a bit of journaling or reading on the side.

So today’s the 10th, and that means Riikka and I have a new Inspired by to share with you! This time the theme is:

Artful Adventures in Mixed Media by Nathalie Kalbach

As you may know, Nathalie is a friend, and I did not buy this book. Receiving it was one of the perks of being part of her Creative Squad, but I’m sure you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t recommend it if I didn’t love it.

Artful Adventures in Mixed Media (aff. link) is a book full of stories, prompts, tips, instructions as well as mixed media techniques to get the creative juices flowing.

This book can not only help you get an enormous amount of creative inspiration and mojo out of your next vacation/trip, it also encourages you to explore nature, your neighbourhood and it gives helpful pointers on what to look for in museums and galleries.

Nat also shares about being inspired by books and movies, extraordinary people and artistic friends.

The book covers all the things Riikka and I regularly do here with Inspired by, and more: It’s is very much about Nat’s journey into art, and she shares a lot about who and what inspires her personally.

I especially enjoyed reading about her travels and looking at her personal photos.

Taking notes

I found the book incredibly inspiring, and I read it like a textbook, taking notes from the first to the last page.

You can really get a lot out of it if you decide to go deep. I plan to work my way through the assignments in the book, starting with chapter one.

I created a new Pinterest board especially for Artful Adventures, bought a small Traveler’s Notebook and gathered supplies for art making on the go (that I’ve yet to use off the premises, but… at least it’s ready to go!).

My first focus is on my own neighbourhood and the city I live in.

Following the prompts in the book, I created a checklist of things I want to see and do, that I now carry with me in the new notebook that lives in my purse.

I’m also taking note of events that are happening in the city.

Not that I didn’t do that before, but there are plenty of annual events that we always intend to go to, but in the end never attend because of life, laundry or another lame excuse…

The fact is that if you don’t make time for adventures, they just won’t happen!

I’m also embarrassed to say that Amersfoort is a beautiful old city and I’ve hardly visited any of the major tourist attractions in all the years I’ve lived here.

I haven’t even been to all the local museums yet. It’s ridiculous! But I’m doing everything to correct that!

The result

I don’t have anything to show you except photos. Ironically I haven’t felt like creating anything for weeks now… I seem to be far more interested in being outside in nature, out and about in the city and visiting museums. Which is exactly what Nat suggests in the book, and I trust that the creating will follow eventually.

So… whilst I’m exploring the city, you can have a look at what inspiration Riikka picked up on her family trip to London.

Or you can go here to Nat’s blog, where I shared what I created after an Artful Adventure in Amsterdam last month!

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.

Creative JumpStart 2017

28 November 201612 May 2017 | Marsha.

Yay! I’m sooo excited to announce that I’ll be participating as a teacher in Creative JumpStart (CJS) 2017!!!

Nathalie Kalbach is running it for the 6th time and this will be the 4th (!) time I get to be a part of this awesome, annual, one-of-a-kind online event!

It’s just the best way to start a new creative year in January. You learn techniques, discover new materials and connect with other artists and crafters.

Throughout January participants get access to 27 downloadable videos from 27 featured teachers, called ‘JumpStarters’.

See for yourself:

Click on the image below to go to Nathalie’s site to find out more and sign up!

Note that all links in this blog post are affiliate links, so if you decide to sign up through these links it is possible that I will get a percentage of the sale.

You get 27 videos for just $40 (USD) if you sign up before November 30th.

In December the price will be $45 (USD) and once January is here it goes to its normal sale price of $50 (USD).

Sooooo… what are you waiting for? Have you seen all the amazing artists that are teaching?!!

Inspired by | Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

10 November 201613 May 2019 | Marsha.

It’s the 10th! 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.

If you have been following us for a while, this month’s theme should not come as a surprise… It’s a film, it’s directed by Tim Burton… It’s…

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

The film is based on a trilogy by Ransom Riggs, though from what I understand, there are a few differences. I haven’t read the books, but now that I’ve seen the film, they’re at the top of my reading list!

I very much enjoyed the film. When I look at the trailer now, I can see that I was focused on understanding and following the story. I’m usually all about the visuals, but not this time. There was just too much to wrap my head around!

I always think it’s funny to see the same items and themes re-appearing in each theme Riikka and I choose for Inspired by.

This time it was ‘time’, which also was a big theme in Alice Through the Looking Glass and it seems that no Inspired by is complete without a ship this year! We’ve also seen birds before and photos and maps…

Source: FoxMovies.com

Whilst browsing the website of the film, I found out that Miss Peregrine’s house is not a set, but an actual castle in Brasschaat, Belgium.

My dad used to live in that town and because the castle is located off the main road through the town, it’s likely that we drove past it many times. I don’t believe it’s visible from the street though, but it’s still cool to know that I’ve been that close to it!

It was also fun to learn that Peregrine refers to a peregrine falcon. My surname is Valk, which is Dutch for falcon.

Peculiar photographs

I had no idea what it all meant. Did I want to do something with the bird? Did I want to do something with transformation? The peculiarities as superpowers? With the bird’s eye view… the photos, the maps, the vintage…

I wished I had old photos that I could use. You know: peculiar ones. I also thought about WOII and that time period or if I could think of anything with a house like that.

I went through a basket of ephemera to look for an old map and I think that made me think of my art journals.

I must have mentioned them here a million times before: I started my first art journal in an old book that I found at the local thrift store. It’s a 1930ies book with photos.

In that first book they’ve all disappeared behind a layer of gesso. Luckily I hunted down a second copy of the same vintage book (because I loved the paper so much) and there are still some photos left in that one.

The photos are silly. I haven’t read the book, but it’s a young adult book about a group of girls and boys that are making a film and they dress up in costumes for it.

The project

I found two photos that were usable. I decided I wanted to place them behind squares of plexiglass and then I went from there: I added alcohol inks, marked with Posca markers and stamped with StazOn ink, inspired by what I learned from Azoline at a workshop last April.

The stamps are from different sets by Azoline, Birgit and Zorotte for Carabelle Studio.

I used this piece to try stuff and then I repeated what worked on the other two.

You can’t really see them, but I’ve also added some small round stickers because I remembered that Jake’s grandfather had used them to mark the location of the time loops on his maps.

Conclusion

There is so much more to this film that I could have explored. I could have gone in deeper, I could have made it more personal by exploring some of my own peculiarities. But the timing was off and all I really wanted to do is to get out of my head and just make ‘something’.

Somehow we always choose the most complex themes when there is too little time to really explore them… The result is fun nonetheless.

The outcome does remind me of the collages I did in September. Maybe I was unconsciously continuing where I had left off, maybe it’s the format (size is also about the same) or maybe this is just my style, right now. Who knows!

The piece with the red alcohol ink is my favourite. I was hesitant to use red because I was afraid it would turn out looking like blood. I really like the look of the plexiglass. This is something that I want to explore further.

But let’s not keep you any longer! Riikka wants to show us what she’s created too. You can visit her on her blog Paperiliitin. I can’t wait to see what she’s come up with!

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Through the Lens Scrapbook Page

26 January 201612 May 2017 | Marsha.

I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog again today, sharing this scrapbook page I created with the new Els van de Burgt Studio Through the Lens patterned paper!

Els has shot all the images for these papers herself and some of these were even photographed in the Dutch city that I live in!

My page is about a different city though: Brussels in Belgium. On a beautiful sunny Saturday in September I took a train there to meet up with Krisje and she showed me the sights!

Steps to create this page:

1 | Create a photo collage.

Photo collages are my go-to method to get more that two photos on a scrapbook page. The one you see here was created in Picasa and I printed it to a size of about 7,75 x 5 inches.

2 | Trim a sheet of 12″ x 12″ white cardstock to 8,25″ x 11,5″ and adhere it to a sheet of 12″ x 12″ kraft cardstock.

3 | Choose three to four coordinating patterns from the Through the Lens paper packs.

I used the red and teallish blue one from the Metal pack and I choose the wood patterns with red accents from the Wood pack to go with them.

4 | Back the paper with Clear Double-Sided Adhesive and use the Fitted Circles die-set to cut circles.

For the multi-patterned circles I just taped some of the different patterns together with a bit of washi tape on the back before I die-cut them.

5 | Adhere the circles to the paper in any pattern you like. Place the photo too.

6 | Add a title and journaling.

For the title I backed black craft foam with Clear Double-Sided Adhesive and then cut the letters I needed with the Alphabet 1 – Caps die.

7 | Die-cut the triangular banner from the Banners die-set out of a scrap of white Soft Finished Cardstock. Cut it in half and place the two arrows on two of the circles.

8 | Add peel-off sticker circles and (leftover) Shimmer Sheetz confetti to finish the page.

Happy scrapbooking!

Supplies:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
967 Alphabet 1 Caps
1117 Fitted Circles
1153 Banners
TTL001- Through the Lens Metal 6” x 6” patterned paper (coming soon)
TTL003- Through the Lens Wood 6” x 6” patterned paper (coming soon)
2571 Jacky’s Dolls in Circle
Shimmer Sheetz
Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape or Sheet
Cardstock (12″ x 12″ coming soon)

Other:
Cardstock (12″ x 12″ kraft)
Craft foam (black)
Fineliner (black)
Date stamp
Ink (black)

Inspired by | Light

10 January 201612 May 2017 | Marsha.

Hi there! It’s January, it’s the 10th… It’s time for the first Inspired by of 2016!

Inspired by is a monthly challenge. My friend Riikka and I 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.

When we were discussing themes a while back, we both agreed that January’s theme had to be ‘easy’. So no books or films, but something ‘light’, like… Well we really didn’t know! We decided to think about it for a couple of days.

I don’t remember how many days it took, but one day as I was planning a light-bulb went on in my head. I was going to write ‘Inspired by: something light’. And then I thought… hmmm… LIGHT! So ‘light’ it is!

I took my time coming up with my take on it though. I was thinking lamp, or something lightweight or maybe something about winter darkness/light.

But I also happened to have video-making on my mind… Creative video-making, but not necessarily the craft kind, if you know what I mean.

I would love to explore and learn more, so I’ve recently signed myself up for a course. And you know that the French word for light is lumière, right?! As in the Lumière brothers, the first film makers in history!

So in my mind it became plausible to make a video for this Inspired by. The course hasn’t started yet, but I have already started to record some footage for when I need it.

Last Thursday we visited Antwerpen and whilst we were driving into the city, I saw this poster that said ‘Anselm Kiefer’. I couldn’t read the rest, so I googled it: there was a free exhibition of one of his works in the former Raamtheater. So we decided to go see it!

We had no idea where or what the former Raamtheater was, so that was an unexpected bonus. That’s why I love following my curiosity: you just never know what gem you might find!

Please remember that I didn’t record the footage with publication in mind. You will see that I don’t seem to have a steady hand and that the quality is poor. But hey… I have to start somewhere!

https://youtu.be/HT3V3zmofWY

I can’t wait to see what Riikka has come up with! Be sure to visit her at Paperiliitin!

Start off the new year with a… Creative JumpStart!

4 December 20156 December 2015 | Marsha.

Woohoo! I’m excited to announce that I’ll be participating as a JumpStarter in Creative JumpStart (CJS) 2016, run for the 5th time by the awesome Nathalie Kalbach!

If you’re not familiar with CJS, it’s a one-of-a-kind online event to kick your creativity into high gear in January 2016.

Learn techniques, discover new materials, and connect with artists and crafters.

Throughout January participants get 25 downloadable videos from 24 featured artists. I’m honoured and happy to be one of those artists, called ‘JumpStarters’.

See for yourself:

Head on over to Nathalie’s site to sign up and for more details!

You get 25 videos for just $45 (USD) for a limited time if you sign up before December 31, 2015 at 11:59 pm (EST)!

But wait – it gets better: sign up for my newsletter and get $5 extra off until December 11th!

So what are you waiting for? Start off 2016 with a Creative JumpStart!!!

Inspired by | Deko

10 November 20151 December 2015 | Marsha.

Oooh, it’s November 10th already! Which means I have another instalment of Inspired by to share with you!

Inspired by is a monthly challenge my friend Riikka and I started over 3 years ago. 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.

For this month’s theme Riikka sent me an envelope that I shared on Instagram.

In the envelope I found some awesome goodies and… the October issue of the Finnish home decor magazine Deko!

I love all things magazine and I’m especially fond of home decor magazines. Flipping through the magazine I immediately saw plenty of jumping-off points.

As it happens I also had my own home decor on the brain. This has everything to do with Marie Kondo’s magic tidying up method. I read the book in May and I dove right in: not a thing in my home was left unturned.

After a while I became less of a fanatic and there is still plenty to de-clutter left, but… Loads and loads of stuff was purged and most rooms and closets became a lot more spacious. And although that was the point, it also became painfully clear that some of my stuff and some of the rooms are in dire need of an update.

So if I’m honest, seeing the clean and perfectly styled Scandinavian homes on the magazine pages made me a bit sad. Because I wish I could update everything in a flash. And I just can’t…

I can also partly blame this on Marie Kondo, because after reading her book I became much more conscious about what I buy and even where I buy. In a nutshell I’ve discovered that there really isn’t much stuff that sparks my joy. Also: the stuff that I do think is amazing usually is high quality and doesn’t come cheap.

And then there was something that came up in a conversation I had with Petra last week. We spoke about scrapbooking, journaling and documenting life among other things. I’m not really documenting anything on a regular basis right now. Not in a journal, not in a scrapbook, not in a planner and not even here on the old blog!

Petra gave me more than a couple of things to think about and when I came home I went through my 2015 photo library. I was curious to see what events I had photographed, what events I probably would have scrapbooked in previous years and if there were any photos that would make more sense if there were some words written about them.

Cue Marie Kondo again… In my May/June library there were loads of photos of piles of stuff, tidy shelves and neatly folded towels! And I had a story to go with them!

Accompanied by some of the decorative elements that I found in Deko – of course! Like black and white doodled wall paper, yellow accents and blonde wood. I even formatted the text like in a magazine, just because it sparked my joy!

Do you have a favourite home decor magazine? Tell me in the comments, so I can check it out!

Then go to Paperiliitin to see what Deko-inspired project Riikka has created!

I’ll be back later today with an Elizabeth Craft Designs project, so be sure to check that out too, especially if you’re looking for an easy peasy Christmas project to make!

Inspired by | Not Before Sundown / Troll – A Love Story

10 April 20158 July 2016 | Marsha.

It’s the 10th today! And that means Riikka and I have created something with a particular theme or thing in mind again and it’s time to reveal the results in a new Inspired by post!

It has been a while since we read a book to inspire us, so I asked Riikka if she knew a book by a Finnish writer we could choose for this month’s Inspired by and Riikka chose: ‘Not Before Sundown’ by Johanna Sinisalo.

I read the US version of the same book, titled ‘Troll – A Love Story’ (You can read a full summary of the book in this last link!). When Riikka suggested the book, I read the description and I immediately knew that this isn’t a book I would have picked up myself. I’m not drawn to the fantasy genre at all and I had never read an adult fantasy book before. I’ve read the entire Harry Potter series… but that is as close as it gets.

Reading this book, I figured out exactly why I’m not drawn to fantasy books. I can cope with fantasy films, but I can’t cope with fantasy books, because… When it says that a creature looks part cat, part monkey and part human, my brain just freezes up like a troll bathing in sunlight.

And as the book was about this very creature, the fact that I couldn’t figure out exactly what it looked like kept bothering me until the very last page.

What I didn’t realize when we chose this book, was that I would have another disadvantage: the book is interwoven with Finnish folklore. The original title ‘Not Before Sundown’ for instance is a reference to a Finnish song. The song text is in the book, among (semi-)scientific excerpts and I had no way of knowing which parts were fantasy and which were well-known folk tales.

I’m curious to see if Riikka mentions this in her post and if maybe she saw these excerpts in another light.

Don’t be put off by my negative comments about the book. I think it’s well-written and I appreciated the set up, but it just wasn’t for me.

That said… I did have a task: I had to make something with the book in mind!

There was no way in the world that I was going to draw a troll… But fortunately I had put a couple of sticky notes in between some of the pages and there was one passage in particular that had resonated with me.

Ecke, one of the characters, thinks: ‘Odd how there can be cities and cities. Cities within cities. The dogs’ city is built up of smells. (…) Then there are different people’s cities. There’s the city of a certain kind of woman, who judges a street by the kinds of shops there are (…) An alcoholic’s city, on the other hand, consists of pubs, sausage stands, liquor stores, alleys where you can piss without being picked up for indecent behaviour (…) And he doesn’t even notice the designer boutique because it’s got no function for him, just as the fashionable lady doesn’t see that sleazy dive – it doesn’t exist for her.’

So, I started to think about my city and someone else’s city… And I started rummaging: Found this: Decided that it wasn’t pretty enough, so I created another map with Stamen: … and created this: … a double page scrapbook spread about ‘my’ Helsinki! This made sense to me, because A. it’s Finland, B. I know the way to the Karl Fazer Cafe, the railway station and a couple of the sights, but I’m oblivious to anything else that’s there and as an extra bonus: C. I was able to incorporate Thickers with a denim print.

This is important because the denim is my only reference to the book. Although in my journaling I also mention Tove Jansson… who of course is famous for books about trolls…

Anyway… I really, really, really want to know about Riikka‘s experience with the book and I can’t wait to see what she’s created. You can visit her here!

Have a wonderful day!

Inspired by | Kyoto

10 February 201512 May 2017 | Marsha.

It’s the 10th today! And that means Riikka and I have been creating something with a particular theme or thing in mind again and it’s time to reveal the results in a new Inspired by post!

For this month we chose to be inspired by a far away city in a far away land: Kyoto, Japan. We were both lucky to visit it individually. Riikka stayed in the city a couple of years ago, I was there more recently.

My visit Kyoto was very brief. I guess I was there for a mere 6 or 7 hours on a mostly grey Saturday last November. Needless to say: I only scraped the surface of what Kyoto has to offer:

I have so many more photos of that day… I’m planning to create a photo book with all the photos I took that week in Japan.

Scrapbooking this trip seems too overwhelming right now. And one scrapbook page about this day in Kyoto definitely will not do. So for this Inspired by, although I certainly could have, I deliberately chose not to scrapbook.

But what was I going to do then? Well, I first thought about the things that stood out to me thinking back. And this is what I came up with:

It’s all comes down to colours, smells, tastes, sounds, patterns and textures…

I was there the end of November, so there were beautiful fiery red maple trees everywhere. The sun came out in the afternoon, but before that it was kind of grey and gloomy. It made the red of the maple leaves, but also the red of the temple buildings and especially the colourful looks of the maiko/geiko in Gion look almost neon coloured to me.

I love incense, so I distinctly remember the smell of incense. I remember the chopstick and ceramic souvenir shops. Bamboo… A kimono shop… The (zen) garden at Ginkaku-ji… More maple leaves… I also remember it being really crowded with people, especially at Kiyomizu-dera.

OK, so I still hadn’t decided what I would do. But then I was trying out some of Finnabair’s mixed media products for Prima Marketing and the Art Extravagance White Sand Texture Paste reminded me of a zen garden!

I decided to add Liquitex soft body (neon) colours, a couple of stencils that reminded me of maiko attire, my sumi-e brushes, black ink, silver Tulip Pearl 3D Fabric Paint and a couple of different paint markers into the mix:

And here’s the triptych:

Conclusion: I really seem to like this fairly small rectangle format, so that’s why I used it again.

I’m not really sure if I like the white paper maple leaves… In hindsight I think I should have created them out of paper clay. I might still go back and do that.

I loved using the texture paste! It provided me with a bit of a challenge for the following layers, but it was fun!

And last but not least: I really hope I can go back to Kyoto some day. There is still so much to explore!

Now that you’ve seen my Kyoto, it’s time to visit Riikka’s. I’ve heard some of her Kyoto adventures already, I also know she has scrapbooked it in the past, so I’m really curious to see what she has come up with! You can see it for yourself here!