Winter decoration

I went to a tools/gardening/animal supplies/flowers/decorations shop with my parents last Saturday. My firm intention NOT to buy any Christmas stuff vanished when I  saw a Christmas tree with donkeys instead of ornaments. Too cute to be left there. Then I got the star light string and the bird (which will nest in my door wreath soon) and voilà:

A friend of mine insists that this is not a donkey but rather a crossbreed between a donkey and a rabbit, thus a "ronkey", or "Hesel" in German. I think I will call it "Peng". We saw an extremely furry guinea pig in the shop which looked like it had just exploded with a loud "peng". My cats would not approve of a guinea pig, so the ronkey it is, and yes, he will be called "Peng". Probably not funny for non-German speakers, but does he look like he cares?

Christmas is coming

Here are some of the Christmas cards I have made so far this year. They were mostly commissioned by friends or are to be sold on a charity Christmas market:

Supplies:

Cardstock, various patterned papers, dies and punches, stamps, watercolour pencils, Ranger Distress Stickles, Distress Ink and Archival Ink, Prima flowers, baker's twine, stickers

Story

Supplies:
Dylusions spray inks, Ranger Distress Ink, acrylic ink, stencil, stamps, Molotow marker

Tags

Sometimes I need time off from larger formats:

The background of this is almost completely CASEd from a video in which Tim Holtz demonstrates his new stencils:

Supplies:

Cardstock, Archival Ink, Distress Ink, Distress Paint, Distress Stain, Distress Stickles, wood accents, tickets, stamps, stencils, lace, punches, eyelets

Life is good

Supplies:
Gesso, Ranger Distress Stain and Distress Stickles, Dylusions spray ink, Faber Castell Gelatos and Big Brush pen, stencils, tissue paper, Glitz and Echo Park patterned papers, stamps, Prima flowers, tickets

Couple

This is the first finished page in my small journal:

Supplies:
Dylusions spray inks, stamps, stencils, Archival Ink, Memento pigment ink

The man of my dreams

Inspired by a technique demonstrated by Dyan Reaveley on the Ranger website

Text:
If I could paint the man of my dreams, he would definitely be colourful. (And if he could also dance...)

Supplies:
Dylusions spray inks, Pitt Artist Pen, Uniball Signo gel pen, Ranger Distress Paint, stencils

One for the girls

Supplies:
Gesso, Ranger Distress Ink, Distress Paint, Stickles and Distress Stickles, Pitt Artist Pen, stickers, stamps, rub-ons, Prima flower

Words

Guess what needed to be cleaned:

Supplies:
Ranger Distress Paint and Distress Ink, Adirondack Color Wash, stencils, stamps, rub-ons, old book pages, Molotow marker

Just float

Another page that started with wiping off excess ink from stencils:

Supplies:
Ranger Distress Paint and Distress Stain, Molotow markers, Pitt Artis Pen, stencils, Dylusions spray ink

Quotes

Supplies:
Old book pages, matte medium, fabric, various dies and stamps, watercolour paper, gesso, Ranger Distress Ink, Distress Stain and Distress Embossing Powder, Pitt Artis Pen Big Brush, acrylic paint, acrylic ink

Aim for the moon

Supplies:
Faber Castell Gelatos, rub-ons, Pitt Artist Pens, stencils, acrylic ink, Ranger Distress Ink and Distress Stickles

Pink...

... is the naughty version of rosy. Or whatever the appropriate translation into English may be.

Supplies:
Ranger Distress Ink, Distress Paint and Distress Stickles, Archival Ink, old book pages, stamps, stencils, Dylusions spay inks, Prima flowers, rub-ons, Posca markers, Uniball Signo gel pen

Colour your world

At some point the pages that take all the excess ink from stencils also deserve to be finished:

Supplies:

Various spray inks, watercolour pencils, acrylic ink, stencils, stamps, Uniball Signo gel pen, Pitt Artist Pen, Ranger Distress Stickles, Distress Paint and Distress Stain, Prima flowers, washi tape

Total chaos

Experimenting with various media resulted in an admittedly very chaotic background. I added the text on a certain day and someone immediately knew how this page had come about when looking at the journal. More positive chaos this time:

Text:
Currently there is total chaos in my head

Supplies:
Ranger Distress Ink, Distress Stain and Distress Paint, various spray inks, tissue tape, stencils, stamps, gel medium, Posca marker

Get up

When just keeping swimming was no longer the only choice for me I made this:

Text:

Fall - get up - adjust your crown - move on

Supplies:

Gesso, Pan Pastels, Ranger Distress Ink, stamps, Posca markers, Ranger Distress Stickles

Just keep swimming

This page is one of the results of what might qualify as "art psychotherapy" - along with the circus page. Just keeping swimming was about the only choice I had a few months ago. The background was already done when I finished the page, and it seemed suitable to cover it up with gesso almost completely.

Supplies:

Ranger Distress Paint and Distress Ink, gesso, Pitt Artist Pens, stamps

Not my circus

Definitely not the page I like best, but at the time I made it it was important for me to start adopting this attitude:

Supplies:

Ranger Distress Stains and Distress Ink, Faber Castell Gelatos, Posca pens

Average???

Here's a quote I read on the whiteboard at my chiropractor's:

Supplies:
Gesso, acrylic paint, Faber Castell Gelatos, matte medium, old book pages, embossing powder, stencils, stamps, Archival Ink

My crafting buddy

With lots of different supplies used for my pages and even more cluttering the table which are eventually NOT used I sometimes find it difficult to get something done. Clutter also causes unintended messes sometimes, which could actually be nice but sometimes are simply not welcome. The pink glitter on a card for a guy sort of unwelcome.

Probably my friends and family wonder what has hit me, but honestly sometimes inspiration just hits me in an everyday situation. Or sometimes in a less than everyday situation such as getting my hair done for a wedding, which at the time I still thought was going to be a motto party with a marriage proposal before, but I am digressing...

Anyway, there was this usual hairdresser trolley and tadaaaa - my solution for the clutter problem. Obviously I was not going to get one of these, as they were frankly too expensive, so I was once again thankful about the short distance between my workplace and IKEA that I spent my lunch break getting this:

It still needs to be dressed up a bit (rub-ons, you will get used!) and might get a few hooks attached to the sides for extra stuff, but my table is already so much less cluttered.

I load it with the things I will need for what I want to work on, leave it next to the table and seriously do not have to pick up forgotten itemsoften  - more time for getting up to rinse paint brushes :-) Tidying up is also easy as I can roll the trolley to where items need to be put back to.

The two books at the bottom are my art journals by the way. Currently I am mostly using the larger one.

There is still some clutter in the room, but the trolley won't help with this. I rather need to go to IKEA again for some storage solution.

The real first page

I have this thing about first things first. (S. - I even had it before you started using this expression in almost every single meeting and you can bet it will go on the bullshit bingo card :-)

So the first finished page had to be the first one in the journal:

Supplies:

Old book pages, various dies, modelling paste, stencils, Dylusions spray ink, acrylic ink, Pitt Artist Pen Big Brush, rub-ons, stickers

And yes, the song "Fly on the wings of love" was on the radio when I made this. Actually I have to start a new post to get rid of this song in my head.

Art Journal Virus

This was the first page I started in my art journal. It remained a background for a while, because I had no clue what do do with it until I watched "How clean is your house" and Aggy was showing the people the lab results. My performance in biology classes was not stellar, so I don't even know if that's remotely what a virus looks like, but never mind - I declare this my special virus.

(Click to enlarge - until I have found out how I can left align photo here without the post text wrapped all around it.)

Text:
Finally discovered: the art journal virus
Contagious, but not dangerous

Supplies:
Dylusions sprays, gesso, acrylic paint, stickers, Uniball Signo pen

Follow your heart

This is not my first art journal page, but as it was the basis of my first banner I think it deserves to be the first one posted here:

(Click to enlarge)

Supplies:

Paper scraps, gaffer tape, gesso, Ranger Distress Paint and Archival Ink, Pitt Artist Pen Big Brush, rub-ons, stamp

Here we go

It's time for a blog about the mess I make in my craft room. How you interprete "mess" is up to you, but I can assure you that both the actual room and the output may be defined as such.

A few years ago I started scrapbooking and then discovered art journaling (thank, Nat!). Right now I am very much into stencils, sprays, paints and all sorts of mixed media stuff. Sometimes I still scrapbook, currently mainly Christmas cards, but this blog should mainly focus on art journaling.

Although I sometimes post my projects in forums or galleries I thought it was time to combine them on a blog. I will normally post in English, but since I am German there might be German or other language quotes included in photos.

There will be a bunch of posts all together at the beginning using photos of already completed projects. Newer ones will be added once available.