Stamping Day

A page for the deco "Layered Stamped"

After reading The Stamper's Sampler, I just had to take my stamps and make something layered and romantic. Luckily I just had a deco booklet to sign of the similar subject. And I had a day off, so I had the time too!

Long Ago And Far Away

Mixed media collage "I am here at last"

Here's my entry for the week's Three Muses Challenge, themed "Long Ago And Far Away".

I started with my husband's photograph, taken at Barcelona in Sagrada Familia last summer. Then I picked one of the prints I have got with Somerset Studio magazine. I worked several layers using stamps, acrylics, patterned papers etc. I also attached two self made polymer clay buttons. I love using my horrible polymer clay buttons as they are not symmetric, nor pretty but blend so well in everything I make.

For me, my life has been "I am here at last" for the last years. I have been able to do so much what I really love: be creative, achieve the things I value the most. I am very grateful for that.

18 Years Guinea Pigs

A page for the deco booklet "Unthemed".

I wanted to make a page to honor the guinea pigs that I have had as pets for 18 years. The page came out quite busy and bright but perhaps it suits with the theme.

I bought an issue of Scrapbooks etc. magazine this week. I have listened to many podcasts that have mentioned the magazine lately. It is a great magazine, even if you are not 100 % scrapbooker. If I had to choose between Scrapbooks etc and Somerset Studio, I would choose Somerset but I can understand if someone else chose otherwise. They are both great value for money anyway.

Felted Hair

Collage "Felted Hair"

Here's my entry for The Three Muses Challenge. This collage is approximately A4 size and made by cutting papers and adding acrylic paint. The idea of felted hair came from the last weekend's felting course.

Wool Weekend

I attended a felting course at Röykkälä's organic sheep farm in Central Finland. I had lovely time with four of my colleagues from my day job. In the picture there's my first ever felted work.
In the picture below is the actual project I was working for the weekend. It's a bag, of course, but still a bit unfinished. The needle felting motifs will fill the surface and I am going to add fabric lining and fabric strap to the bag.
There are more pictures about the farm in my finnish sock knitting blog Sukanvarsi. I really enjoyed the weekend!

Patterned Paper Talk

I just received my order from Two Peas in a Bucket. Mostly patterned scrapbooking papers. I try to make my own papers but still, I cannot resist the products of these two companies: Basic Grey and Bo-Bunny Press. In the picture, my new Basic Grey papers are in the upper row and Bo-Bunny's wonderful two sided papers are in the lower row.

As you can see, I find dark colors very useful. They make great backgrounds for photos and I am pretty obsessed using my gelly roll pens to make decoration on them. I also like papers that imitate hand painting, Basic Grey has a lot of these.

To be honest, the best of these kind of papers are made with real paints. And I do love to make my own papers. The only bad thing in them is that I have to use quite thick paper with watercolors and acrylics. Sometimes I just need to use thinner papers to make the page fit the booklet.

Puppy Memories

A page for the deco booklet "Summer".

Here's my younger beagle Cosmo in summer 2005. He is lying on a hammock enjoying the summer and all the extra attention. I added some cuts from another summer photo to the background showing the flowers in the back garden.

Even if there's a summery photo of this post, it's getting darker and darker in Finland. This morning there was ice on the roads. Of all the four seasons I would gladly skip the winter. Luckily, in papercrafts everything is possible. It's very consolating to glue these summer photos while there's freezing outside!