52 Card Pickup - Session 5

It's been quite some time since I have done any altered playing cards for my 52 cards pickup project. If you don't know that "52 Card Pickup" means, learn more about it here.

This time my group of four cards look a bit less "lighthearted" and "fun"...which mainly is caused by the fact that I have been struggling with constant nervousness and sometimes also panic attacks from out of the blue for the last months. And although I still try not to let it take me down too much, I have reached a point where I can feel the exhaustion quite a lot. (The source for this still isn't found yet, but my doctors and I are getting closer it seems...).

You will find that the quotes I used on these four cards indicate some of the struggle I am in at the moment. But then I think: in that hectic life most of us have they should be helpful to others too sometimes.

#17

#18

#19

#20

Materials used:  Paper Artsy Eclectica Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics "Chutney", "Chartreuse", "Seaweed" and "Tikka" alongside some scraps from the Prima "Cartographer" paper stash. Washi tape, some Bo Bunny, Kaisercraft and Prima stamps for texture and Distress markers "black soot" and "broken china" to shade in the word tiles and hearts.

Hugs,

Claudia x

Art Journal Cover

Well, finally I made it and dived into art journalling! It took me quite a while to find the appropriate approach for me without feeling that this is not "me" but "art journalling as it is done". I admire so many art journal artists, who do a lot of colourful painting and drawing and doodleing... but "my style" is different and it took some time to unravel it from all my impressions found in blogland.

But now that I feel confident with what I do, I dared buy an art journal to work in!!! And today I created the cover to turn this wonderful empty piece of card art into my piece of art. (And by doing so I understood my pupils' fear of plain, white paper for the first time *lol).

Yes, you are right - it's the awesome art journal from finnabair's collection! And it is such a well thought-out design - with all its pockets, the manila and card pages, the envelopes and bags! Just brilliant!

I went for a rather reduced colour scheme and covered the cover with a thick layer of white Gesso for a start. I also coated some metal embellishments with white Gesso for later use.

I used a scrap from a journal page that I had overdone and therefore cut to scraps for use with a different project. Sometimes these cut out pieces look so much better than the whole page you cut it from!

I glued it to the cover after some heavy spritzing and playing with some Mr. Huey's and Chalk mists and also some diluted acrylic colours.

The wire stamp is from BoBunny (love it!). It is from the "Distressed Textures" clear stamps set and also available at SimonSaysStamp over here.

Why do I tell you this? Because by doing so I can enter their actual Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge where "Stamp-tember" is celebrated with a group blog-hop!

The "inspire" quote was applied through one of my new awesome Red Lead stencils!

I just love their stencils as they are perfect for art journalling!

I also rubbed some DecoArt Metallic Lustre "Gold rush" onto some areas of the gessoed cover, creating kind of stripes with my finger.


The washi tape is from a sale at a home decorations store.

I also applied some white and gold decorating paste through a stencil for more texture.

To add some more texture I stamped a border onto the cover's edge, using the lovely leaf stamp from 3rd Eye!

I also enter this cover to Artful Times' challenge "Scrap Art" as the center piece of my creation is a scrap from a journal page that I messed up and cut to pieces.

Did I mention that I love to use scraps from messed up paintings or pages? ;)

Thank you for staying with me this far and I hope you enjoyed your visit!

Hugs and happy crafting/journalling/... !

die amelie x

"buttons"

Today I want to share a project with you, that is only one part of a present for Xmas: an altered tin box. Its' content will be shown in an extra post, when it is finished ;)

I made this box from a "Fossil" wrist watch tin box, I once got, which originally looks like this:

First I scrubbed off the printed surface with some sanding paper. Then I treated the box with alcohol inks "rust", "juniper" and "sunset" (my favorite mixture). I also added some embossing with Ranger's "Antiquities" embossing powders "verdigris" and "rust" in some areas.

In the meantime I gave a lace ribbon a bath in diluted "vintage photo" Distress ink, then gave it also some sprays of Adirondack Color Wash "Stream" and rinsed it under water to lighten the stains I had created this way (as the color washes are rather intense).

I also aged one of the Tim Holtz idea-ology book plates with some "rust" and created a panel from a scrap from one of my Prima paper stashes or maybe BoBunny's "et cetera" stash - I am not sure any more, which I stamped the word "buttons" on (the deeper meaning of this will be revealed in the other post that's to come some of these days).

 I covered the panel with "crackle accents" and let that dry.

To give the new surface of the tin box more depth, I also stamped some scratches with Archival ink "sepia" onto it using the Impression Obsession Cover A Card stamp. I sprinkled some Maya Myst "Espresso" onto it too, to add some stains.

Then I glued the ribbon, the book plate and a Prima Flower together with one of the Tim Holtz idea-ology "custom fasteners" onto the box, using Pattex glue, which especially works with non porous surfaces like metal.

Hope, you like the result!

Thank you for stopping by and having a look around!

Hugs,
die amelie xx

"Whodunit?"

A tag, inspired by the new Steampunk Junkies challenge blog ( which will be entered with this project of course):

I am also entering in at Loves Rubberstamps Challenge with it, where they ask for selfmade backgrounds.

This background, made out of one of my glossy cardstock party plates, which I love to use as small palettes for acrylic colour painting or glueing, actually was an "accident" that happened while I was playing around with stencils and gold acrylic colour, which I afterwards treated with AAI.

The rather suspicious person on the right (SHE did it!!!) is a picture from my fabulous beloved "Steampunk Sourcebook", stamped images (Tim Holtz stamps) were embossed with aged copper embossing enamel and black "Sternenstaub", paper scrap (inked on the torn edges with Distress ink "pumice stone") comes from BoBunny's et cetera Collection.

Some close-ups as usual: