Elizabeth Craft Designs

Inspired by | 3

| Marsha.

Inspired by: a monthly challenge by Riikka Kovasin and Marsha Valk

Three years ago my dear friend Riikka and I decided it would be fun to see a film (each in our own hometown) and then create something inspired by the things we saw in that film. We would keep our projects secret from each other until ‘reveal day’ when we would post them on our blogs.

We both enjoyed it immensely, so we kept coming up with new themes to inspire us. Month, after month, after month… And now we’ve arrived at our 37th Inspired by!

We’ve covered 8 films, 2 books, 2 cities, 1 ballet, 1 TV miniseries, 4 paintings/artists, 1 fashion designer, 1 fashion campaign, 4 pieces of music, 2 magazines, 6 items/materials, 1 photo safari, 1 album cover, 1 colour scheme and of course we scraplifted each other at one time.

If I’ve counted correctly, I created 19 scrapbook pages, 1 mini book, 3 sewing projects, 11 art journal pages, 10 mixed media canvases/panels, 1 bracelet and 5 up-cycled items.

I would not have created these things if it weren’t for Riikka and our monthly challenge. I’m forever grateful to her. Thank you so much Riikka!

Inspired by allows us to play and create as we please, not limited by rules, formats or materials. It enables us to grow and discover new things.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I’ve learned whilst just preparing for Inspired by. I would not miss it for the world!

Well, enough of all that talk! Let’s get to this month’s theme!

This time we decided to be inspired by: 3. Yes, 3.

The first thing that popped into my head was: 3, I can do that! I’m one of three kids!

Or… I can do 3 materials, 3 colours, a triptych… What was the 3rd Inspired by again?

Songs with 3!

Am I revealing my age now?! Hahaha! Wait for this one:

I found that first Sesame Street clip whilst I was looking for the pinball machine. It’s from (one of) the first Sesame Street episodes that aired in the US. Did you see Jim Henson juggling? And the crayon doodles around the numbers? How cool is that!

I remember watching the Pinball Number Count as a kid. It wasn’t a favourite, because it’s looooong and booooring and in my memory I had seen it over, and over, and over again.

Apparently my appreciation of contemporary art and pop music was still in it’s developing stages… I didn’t even realize is that the song is sung by the Pointer Sisters. Wow, Sesame Street was right on trend back then!

Of course I had never heard it sung by the Pointer Sisters before, because it was dubbed Dutch in the Netherlands. The Dutch version doesn’t sound half as hip!

Anyway: I skipped the photos of me and my siblings and all the other stuff I had thought of and I concentrated on the Pinball Number Count. There are so many elements in there to be inspired by! I decided to recreate the last scene in the clip.

In the end I did not set myself any limits on colour or the amount of materials, but as Jack Johnson’s song was the first song I came up with, I thought it would be fun to reduce some of the clutter in my room and I reused/recycled a couple of things that were on my table from earlier projects!

Here’s what I came up with:

Marsha Valk | Inspired by: 3 // art journal spread

Materials: monoprinted deli paper and cardstock, cardstock scraps inked with Ranger Adirondack and Distress Inks, Letraset Promarkers, Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics and Matte Medium, Caran d’Ache Neocolor II, several black and white pens/markers, washi tape and a Elizabeth Craft Designs Peel-off Sticker.

Happy 3rd birthday Inspired by!!!

And now I’m going to head on over to Riikka at Paperiliitin, because I can’t wait to see her project!

Inspired by | Birdman

| Marsha.

Inspired by: a monthly challenge by Riikka Kovasin and Marsha Valk

It’s Spring! It’s March! And it’s the 10th of the month!

Which means today my wonderful friend Riikka and I are going to show what we’ve been working on for our self-imposed challenge Inspired by! We challenge each other each month to create something with a particular theme or thing in mind.

This theme or thing can be anything: a film, an object, a painting, an artist, a city… and for this Inspired by we decided it would be fun to take the Oscar Winner for Best Picture.

This was a risk, because we usually know our Inspired by themes well in advance, but as you know the Academy Award Ceremonies were only two weeks ago. And there were 8 nominees, so we had 8 potential themes on our hands. What if the winner was a film that wasn’t in viewable in our local cinemas? What if it was the one we already had as a theme? Or what if the winner would not inspire us?!

Luckily for us, the winner was Birdman:

But we were also unlucky, because… oh (Bird)man!

This film is a mammoth as Riikka likes to call it. This was a huge theme to deal with for one measly Inspired by project. Not in the way of costumes, colours and décor, though there certainly is something there too. But what I mean is that it’s huge in the sense of the theme(s) the film addresses.

This is what I wrote down the morning after I had seen the film: It’s about the inner critic, it’s about that there is no escaping your faith, it’s about fathers and daughters, about putting human life in perspective, taking risks, humiliation, failure, preconceived judgement. Your worst nightmares. Fame measured by the amount of Twitter followers.

There is so much that I’m still thinking about what I saw… But what stood out for me was the inner critic. Because I have one. A nasty one. And it has been really loud recently, so I decided to write it a letter. On a scrapbook page.

I had to start silencing my negative inner voice right away because I haven’t scrapbooked anything in a while… The mantra ‘I’m not listening to you’ helped. A bit.

I decided to use one of my gelli plate prints. I love how intuitive gelli printing is and that the result (almost) always looks good. I also decided I didn’t want to over-think embellishing and to use some discarded bits and pieces that were already on my desk.

I’ve tried out new supplies and (new to me) techniques in the last couple of weeks and there was more than enough to choose from. None of these try-outs were intended to become ‘something’ and it was fun to make ‘something’ out of these ‘nothings’.

Marsha Valk | Inspired by: Birdman

The particular ‘nothing’ I used was a piece of card on which I had applied alcohol inked Elizabeth Craft Designs Shimmer Sheet, Silk Microfine Glitter and Wow! Fab Foil with the help of a Elizabeth Craft Designs Transparent Double Sided Tape Sheet.

Even the photo I used was one I had taken for an Instagram challenge, but hadn’t posted because the voice in my head said it was stupid…

Marsha Valk | Inspired by: Birdman

Conclusion: I loved the film. It’s really powerful and it was interesting to use a film like that for Inspired by. Especially at this time, for me, with my loud-mouth inner critic! Who BTW came back from recess the minute I noticed a spelling mistake on the layout… After I had scheduled this blog post… So I had to correct it and take a new photo… Oh boy.

I want to write: well, that’s it from me today! But that’s not actually true. I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog today too, so there will be another post up in a couple of hours!

But first visit Riikka. I’m sooo looking forward to seeing her Birdman inspired project!