Art journaling with Whimsical Leaf Lady

Hi!
Elina here with you today, sharing my latest mixed media page I made in my Moleskine art journal book:

I had so much fun playing with the Whimsical Leaf Lady stamp! To start with, I stamped the image twice on white paper, and colored both faces, using two different color sets of my alcohol markers. The lady with red hair and purple leaves was a nicer match to my black/yellow/white page background, so that's the one I chose for this project. The other green color themed lady will be used later for another project.

Black paint marks I pressed on the page background with my gelli plate. To mute down the dark color I brayered some white acrylic paint on top, and added hints of yellow paint here and there. Before gluing down the main image I decorated the background with stamping.

I placed the lady on the bottom of my page, but then realized that to my taste there was too much open space on the top of the page. I decided to make a bit larger collage of the leaves in her hair: I re-stamped the larger set of leaves on white paper, colored them with alcohol markers, cut out, and layered on the page. I do love the image as it is, but I think that this version is also quite cool!

Hope this page inspires you to take a fresh look at your VLVS! stamps; they can be used in so many various ways!

For this art journal page I used the following VLVS! stamps:

Whimsical Leaf Lady Face
Cross Marks Background
Carved Xs
Rows of Numbers

Wishing you a wonderful day!

Art Journal Page: Once Upon A Time

Hi VLVS! Friends,
Elina here with you today, sharing my latest art jounal page I created in my Moleskine book:

Inspiration for this page was the amazing 'Vornii The Bookish' stamp image by Brian Kesinger. I'm a big fan of his style and truly armire his talent; his gorgeous, detailed dragon images take my mind directly to childhood story books. I've always been quite a bookworm, and I loved creating this reading themed art journal page, using the reading dragon as my main image.

I started with stamping the image on white paper, using heavy semi-glossy laser printing paper and black Memento ink.  For coloring i used my Promarker pens.
Once the coloring was finished, I fuzzy cut the image with scissors.

There are quite many layers on this page: I started with gluing down paper strips that I had cut out of an old book. The book page pattern looked quite busy on my art journal page, so I calmed it down by a adding a thin layer of white gesso on top. For spreading the gesso I used an old bonus card; I think it's the best tool when you don't want to cover the page completely but rather to add just a hint of white here and there.

Once the gesso was dry I glued leftover pieces of light beige cardstock and strips of burlap paper on the page background. That was just fun random collaging without too much thinking. For gluing I used liquid collage glue (matte acrylic adhesive); the same media I also used for adhering and sealing the fuzzy cut dragon image.

Creating this page made me smile; I hope you have a chance to do something you like, too!

For this page I used the following VLVS! stamps:

Vornii The Bookish by Brian Kesinger
Row of Scribble Squares

Other supplies:
Stamping inks (Memento 'Tuxedo Black'; Stazon 'Saddle Brown')
Promarker alcohol markers for coloring
White gesso, old bonus card
Collage glue stick; matte acrylic adhesive
Old book pages
Leftover strips of cardstock and burlap paper

Wishing you a wonderful day!

Fairy Girls on Art Journal Page

Hi VLVS! Friends,
Elina here today, sharing with you my latest art journal page:

Mirroring a stamped image is not difficult. For this you need a smooth, non-porous surface that is a bit larger than your image to be mirrored; the backside of a large pattern stamp or a piece of EZ mount foam work well. 

I stamped the image on a piece of EZ mount foam, pressed the stamped foam on the paper, and the EZ mount foam transferred the a mirrored version of the stamped image on the paper. Easy!



I wanted to color the images with alcohol markers, and therefore I chose a water soluable ink for stamping. A pigment ink may have created a bit more crispy mirrored image, but also the water soluable ink worked fine. Some of the lighter lines I reinforced with a black marker before fuzzy cutting the images.





For the page background I used a piece of a watercolored page I had painted a while back. I glued the paper with some bookpage pieces on the page and added acrylic paints in white and grey on top. Simple and fun!

For this art journal page used the following VLVS! stamps:

Girl With Wings

Punchinella/Sequin Waste Border

Row of Scribble Squares

Have a nice day!

Mail Art Monday On Craft Envelope

Hello VLVS! Friends,
It's Mail Art Monday! Elina here, sharing with you my very first mail art project!

For some reason I had only admired gorgeous mail art projects here in our blog and in Pinterest, but had never before tried it out myself. I love the idea of not just sending something beautiful and handmade to a friend inside an envelope, but also creating art on the envelope itself!
Decorating this craft envelope was so much fun that I'm convinced it will not be my last mail art project. Quite the opposite; my head is already spinning with new ideas!

Here's how I made it:

I used a ready made craft envelope, and before starting I gently opened completely using a kitchen knife. I started with stamping a few images on the envelope front, letting the images continue on the backside, too.

Using a piece of white paper as mask, I continued decorating the back lid. Masking was not absolutely necessary, but I wanted to leave a blank border around the lid.

The address shall be written inside a thought bubble. I sketched the bubble with a pencil, and drew over the sketch lines with a black marker.

I colored the main images with color pencils, and added some hightlights to the thought bubble and patterns, too. Light tints look great on dark craft background!

 

Here's the finished project:

Backside looks like this:

For my mail art project I used the following VLVS! stamps:

Whimsical Kids in Futuristic Hats
Punchinella/Sequin Waste Border
Typeset Scallop
Rows of Numbers
Carved Xs

Other supplies used:
Craft envelope
Coloring pencils (white, yellow, orange, light and dark green)
Pencil
Thin black marker pen

Happy stamping!

Mark Maker ATC's

Hi VLVS! Friends!
Elina here with you today, sharing my first projects as a brand-new member in this amazing VLVS! design team. I’m so excited to start this journey with you!

In just a few months’ time I’ll be travelling to Netherlands to attend a great stamping event, ARTSpecially. I’ve been to a few workshops in Netherlands before but this specific one will be a new experience for me. But I’m sure it will be a lot of fun!

My crafty friend who has participated in this event before suggested that I should bring a pile of ATC cards with me. Event participants will swap them during the weekend, and for being able to join the fun I’d better be prepared. I love ATC’s and do have quite many ready in my stash, but I thought it was a good idea to make a few more:

Many of my projects are very colorful, but I also like to play with contrasts between bright colors and grey tones. Like on this ATC set: To highlight the cool stamped main images I colored them with grey markers, and placed them on a grungy orange-yellow-brown inked background.

The patterns on the bottom of the background were made with a stencil: I first inked the background with Distress inks, placed a stencil on top, and lifted some of the ink by misting the stencil with water. Once dry I decorated the background with VLVS! pattern stamps.

I hope these ATC’s will get new owners in April!

Supplies used:

VLVS! stamps:
20162 Carved Xs
20165 Cross Marks Background
20161 Punchinella/Sequin Waste
20168 Mark Maker
19359 Whimsical Boy in Hat
7605 Sandwich Board/Large
6727 Clown Face
7658 Clown

Other Supplies:
Stamping inks: Memento - Tuxedo Black; VersaFine - Onyx Black; Archival Inks – Saffron; Plum
Distress Inks -  Rusty Hinge; Walnut Stain; Ripe Persimmon; Mustard Seed
Stencil: Crafter's Workshop - Corncob Etching
Water mister
Cardstock in white and black


Thank you for stopping by!
xx Elina

Welcome to our Design Team for Winter 2018!

Hellooo HELLOOOO!

First > HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Then > Help me usher in the new Design Team for Winter of 2018 won't you?

You'll recognize some returning members, including one of our previous GUEST designers! Then we have quite a couple NEW faces, as well. We are beyond thrilled to work with these talented artists.

Returning we have: 

Corrie Herriman
her blog

Fiona Paltridge
her blog

Michele Kosciolek
her blog



We are welcoming BACK:

Sue Plumb
her blog

Tera Callihan
her blog

Brand new to us is:

Majo
her blog

Elina Stromberg
her blog

Can you believe this line up?!?!?!??

A FLOOD OF INSPIRATION IS COMING YOUR WAY!
(stay tuned)