small sketchbook

I am an adventurer on 'Wanderlust 2016' (see sidebar on the right) ;-)

Kasia - one of the resident teachers at the year long online workshop - suggested to use an a6 sketchbook for practicing. There are no well assorted craft shops near me that stock affordable good sketchbooks or notebooks so I remembered that I have all the supplies that i would need to make one myself (surprise, surprise ... :-P)
So I unearthed my bind-it-all, assembled some paper and started. The covers are pieces of cardboard I threw some decoart acrylic paint and acrylic paint misters onto and that I decorated with hand carved stamps.

 Front

 Watercolor paper on the left, different, quite thick paper on the right.

Back

Thanks so much for stopping by and having a look.

Hugs, Suzanne xxx

two more pages in my scrap - book

Hi all ...
I had to completely rebind my scrap - book because it was much too fragile. That done I finished two more pages after I finally got the digital images from mischief circus.

Thanks so much for stopping by today ... that means a lot to me.

Hugs, Suzanne xxx

scrap - book, literally

Good morning all.
After the last few days of incredible heat I'm indulging in the lower temperatures we have today. O course I'm happy that summer arrived fnally but I despise sweating ...
That said I'd love to share the book I made from scraps, a scrap - book, literally. For as long as I can remember I just love all things paper, that's something I could be busy with for hours and hours - if I could spend the time.
For the last weeks I admired the 'Ramsjboeken' (example) the enormously talented ladies did in different workshops at de Craftorij in Ede, NL. Since it's too far away for me to just hop over and join I tried my own version of such a book as I understand it. It took me some time to figure out some sort of closure since I don't know how they stitched the books together, but I'm quite happy with the result. I used the covers from an old and outdated book about software - and this what I came up with:

cover front and back, spine

 with open flap:

and now I leave the choice to you if you'll go on and have a look at some od the pages in the book ;-)

Now I'm very excited about how many pages I'll be able to create in the near future ;-)

Thanks so much for stopping by, have a wonderful day everyone.

coffee - AJ Page

Hi and hello everyone ...
Today I'm sharing a art journal spread I finished today - took me quite some time, with the heat and all that.
It's just a 'warm up' to fill my new (recycled, actually) Art Journal - will show this tomorrow, have to go to bed ;-)

Involved were - as far as I remember -
gesso
Aladine Izinks spray
Stampers Anonymous rubber stamps classics 6
washi tape
image from magazine
cardboard sleeve from a coffee in the train
water soluble wax crayon
crackle glaze

Thanks so uch for stopping by and having a look, it's so highly appreciated.
Have a quiet week ...
Hugs, Suzanne xxx

au revoir :-(

 We have a very nice and cute little (well, 13 yrs and of course higher than me lol) French guy with us, an exchange student.
He likes my stuff - or so he says - and so I dug up my BIA and made a notebook for him as a good bye gift. I do hope he'll visit us again, for holidays or such, I grew quite fond of him.
I used gelli plate prints and some stamps, mainly frm Artistic Outpost and Chocolate Baroque.

covers front and back

 

inside front and back

 

I hope he'll like it :-) he's a guy after all and as far as I know most girls do love all kinds of notebooks more than boys ...

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day.

Hugs, Suzanne xxx

mini albums

Long time no see ;-)
Oh yes, I wish I had much more time to tinker with all sorts of books and more talent to do art Art Journaling ...
At least I've been able to make two mini albums.
One of my uncles invited my family to celebrate his 80th birthday. He doesn't wish for anything so I thought I'd make an album. I'm pretty sure someone is going to take pictures so my thought was he could have those pics developed and collect them in this album. I won't torture you by showing each and every page but I want to share a few impressions:

front and back:

... a few pages, TAGs and pockets ...

and the spine

___________________________________________

and I also made another, more feminine one ;-)
I'm sure you know pink isn't 'my' colour at all - but there was no way around, pink is what the woman likes ;-) ...
So I went for a little compromise and used a vintage/shabby chic pink paper pad.

front and back

For those I dug out some graphic 45 papers I bought at some point and that were hiding in my cupboard.

Some pages and TAGs:

 

 and the spine

Thank you so very much for your patience and bearing with the pic overload ;-)

Hugs, Suzanne xxx

solitude

Hi all ...
This is another page I made recently ... I already had the background in my watercolor paper book.
The stamp image of the man and the fuzzy cut elements on the left were sitting around on my desk as well as the heart stamp and the ant. So I just added the TH stamps, the background stamps, and the branches.

I hope it's more or less coherent, made it without any thinking or planning, done utterly intuitively by an autodidact :-)

There's not really a story behind this. 

Solitude often is considered a negative condition within our society, wherever you go or have a look you are told how important it is to have lots of friends, lots of hobbies, company ...obviously it's a shame to miss anything that's going on and I observed that many people don't seem to be able to be on their own.

For my part solitude is mostly just a bliss ... it's essential for me to get back to myself, feel myself ...  only I don't get it very often.

From time to time I'm secluding myself from society, from people ... searching for solitude. That's nothing personal, not that I don't like the people connected to me any more, it's just that I'm scared of using touch with myself. Recently I noticed that those phases tend to last longer and longer, sometimes it's just hard for me to keep in touch with people ... Perhaps those times are more prolonged because it gets harder to find healing solitude ... I don't really know.

Anyway, I'm here.

Hugs, Suzanne xxx