Saturday, September 29, 2012

Forest Day

Saturday! Tina made a delicious spicy cake, I brought my drawings, we gathered all our stuff, and took to the forest to take pictures for a post for Clemmensen&Brok
These are just a few I took with my phone camera.





I think we were a bit late in the season. We didn't find many as many porchinos as we had hoped for. But it was a beautiful trip all the same :-) 
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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Sketching

Next Saturday, my dear friend Tina and I will make a trip to the forest, and maybe, if we are lucky, we will find some wonderful fungi to cook. Our little future city escape kindda inspired me to go all analogue and grab paper and chalk :-) I root for sunny weather Saturday!




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Playing with pencil shavings: Marta Altes


Thursday, September 20, 2012

More hand carved stamps

I found these old images on my computer - the stamps were a give-away quite a while ago, so the stamps themselves are a'stamping far away :-)

Sunday, September 16, 2012

I know Autumn is coming, when ...

... the fresh hazelnuts are here
... I start organizing my yarn by color
... the Orpine is blooming on the balcony
...and pumpkins are smelling rosemary in the oven
With the risk of repeating myself; Autumn is my Absolute Favorite Time of Year. And it's almost here! *Yay*!!!
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In this Autumn issue, Sweet Paul is making mushrooms from felt and paper. Here and here.


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Carving Your Own Stamps From Erasers

There are so many wonderful, gorgeous stamps to buy, but another way of expanding your rubber stamp collection, is by carving your own. You can use most erasers for this, and create simple patterns for background stamping, or detailed motifs of any kind—flowers, symbols, letters or whatever your imagination and patience bids you.
Part of my own hand carved stamp collection
This floral vine is inspired by an indian wood block. 

Right-click the image above to save it to your computer, and print it to fit the size of the eraser you have chosen for this stamp.

Transfer the motif to the eraser (use the old pencil transfer trick drawing on the edges, flipping the paper placing it on the eraser, then drawing on the back side of the paper so the first drawn lines are transfered to the eraser.)

If you are drawing your own image, you can simply draw directly on the eraser, or sketch on a paper until just right, then transfer as described above.
Begin carving carefully around the edges,
then trim off the rest of the eraser surface.
Test to see if you got all of the little bits and pieces carved clean,
and trim the edges using a knife, so you have a better feel of the figure when you turn upside down to stamp.

The wonderful Geninne Zlatkis is in my opinion a master of stamp carving. Visit her at Geninne's Art Blog where she also shares her beautiful watercolors and so much more :-)
She even wrote a book on stamp carving which is brand new–due out in October. 
Another really great "carver", with her own very distinct style is Mimi The Rainbow.

I hope this was helpful, and that you have fun carving you own rubber stamps :-)

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Contemplating a pair of earrings and perhaps a necklace


And writing in my Gratitude Journal on my telephone :-)
Tomorrow I'll do a How-To on carving a stamp, but I need daylight to take the pictures. The days of long Summer nights are over now, and have been replaced with cozy dark ones, perfect for lit candles and warm tea :-)


Sunday, September 9, 2012

Making Lavendar/Rose Body Scrub

This weekend has been all softness and ease. With time to read, cook and ... make body scrub :-)

This salt scrub here is ridiculously easy to make, but oohhh, the luxury it brings about! 
Just mix fine salt (you can also use caster sugar) with your favorite body oil. I use almond- or abricot oil from urtegaarden.dk, and add a few drops of essential oil. Done!
I had some dried rose buds that I crushed and added, only because I though't looked puuurdy, it isn't necessary, and the one I had, had been in the drawer for quite some time, so they didn't add that much scent.


The little glasses make great gifts, perhaps with a small wooden spoon attached :-)

The body scrub works wonders in the shower, but is also soothing for the hands after cooking or doing dishes.
Gently rub it in, and rinse well with warm water.
Be careful in the shower when using it. As with all oils, it makes the floor quite slippery.

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The Lucky bags are nearly sold out again. Thank you so much for buying.
I shall hurry up to make more...
:-)

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Making collage from Lucky Bags

Thought I'd make an example of what to make from one of the little lucky bags. Not that you need any help—I thankfully see the bags leave the shop one by one, sometimes several at a time. Thank you so much for this :-)

I find matching the elements for the bags, pondering the coherence between objects very inspiring, so I couldn't help making a collage using the elements of one of the bags.
I chose this bag as inspiration (had to use different picture lottery cards, though, since most of them are one of a kind). The bag sold out while making this collage. Luckily there are more to choose from, and more to come.

Images from the process:
Selecting stamps and deciding background pattern 
Stamped background and glued on music sheet 
Dapping acryllic paint (using a piece of tissue paper) to tone the background down
Stamping
Sanding rose paper for a patinated look
After this, I placed the elements and moved them around a lot to see where they were best placed, used a few more stamps and glued everything on.

Buy lucky bags here.

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Posie Gets Cozy

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Coffee Owl in Mad & Bolig Magazine & Hello Pernille :-)


I was so happy to find my Coffee Owl in the magazine Mad & Bolig this month :-) Thanks, guys!
(»Mad« means food — not crazy ;-) and Bolig is »Home« :-))
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I'm now sharing office space with Pernille from Illustrafil :-) I've been looking so much forward to this :-) I just love her work :-) : Pernilles website. And blog
Actually this came about from chit-chatting here in Blog-land :-) Wonderful things spring from this place of e-meeting folks! Grandiose! :-) 

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Monday, September 3, 2012

New »Lucky Bags« in the shop

Made 10 brand new bags Saturday with lots of goodies to use in your collages, cards, tags or art journals. Already 5 are sold out; you can see all of the bags below here.
Took a few additional photos of the parts for the shop so you may get a better idea of what's inside each bag :-)
You can click on the images to go to the shop.
I am also working on a collage, using similar objects as in one of the bags.

S O L D


S O L D

S O L D



S O L D

S O L D

Each bag measures 10x10 cm and contain a selection of my favorite materials, carefully put together to suit one another, in color or theme, for your collages, art journals, greeting cards or other art work.

Thank you :-)

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Jam Season

August prooved quite the Month of the Berry! Since late July, we have been picking and plucking until our hands were sticky, and pots and bowls bulged of ripe juicy redcurrant, raspberry, blackberry and blackcurrant.

 

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I recently started watching the tv-series 30ROCK, and I have to say: I'm smitten! Jack Donaghy cracks me up completely. The other day Jack was going to perform a sketch live on the show, sucked, but wouldn't give up:

Jack: »Once I set my mind to something I have to accomplish it. Ten years ago I was an inch and a half shorter than I am today, sheer will power. If I don't figure this thing out by Friday, then failure wins and that's not acceptable.«
:-D
An inch and a half shorter ... Sheer will power!! Couldn't stop laughing!