A week captured...

Yes, I'm still here! Just haven't found the time to write a blogpost...
So here is my week captured in one big post!
My hubby had some days off last week which means that all the structure and regularity in our normal daily life is gone for a while...lol. We spent time together of course and we painted the house...half! Father and son worked together on painting part of the house. (Sorry, no pictures...) Halfway they must have disturbed some nasty wasps living under our roof, because both got stung in a short time. Now we have to wait till the wasp's nest has been removed by some professional before they can finish their painting job. To be continued!
Unfortunately the weather was pretty lousy this week, lots of rain, so our plan to go to Toverland (a themepark with rollercoasters and lots of other fun stuff for kids..) had to change. We spent our day in Sportiom (a big tropical themed swimming pool) instead and afterwards I got a chance to visit the artsupply store De Kwast too.
My son started his weekly newspaper route this Thursday...exactly on the day that it just didn't stop raining! When I was a 13 year old girl I also had a paperroute like that so I had told him earlier that he had to learn it from a pro...me! So I spent about two hours in the rain, together with my son, to bring the weekly newspaper here in our neighbourhood....It was a trip down memory lane, I can tell you! Including the feeling of being soaked from head to toes...
Of course, I made sure to make some time to create in my art journal, although it mostly were short periods of time with lots of interruptions.
Here is a page which I created in my 20x14cm watercolor journal:

I was inspired by this image in my big A4 sized art journal:

I traced the part with the entrance on a piece of white tissuepaper and Mod Podged it in my watercolor journal. The little boy is a stamp from Stampotique.

I colored the page with my Neocolors II. I wasn't happy with the result because of the layer of Mod Podge underneath but I really wanted to finish my page...

So much inspiration was bubbling inside my head that I wanted to go on to a new page...This was the reason:

I have been waiting for my order with Derwent Inktense pencils to arrive for weeks and finally they arrived on Friday! And while we were in Den Bosch on Wednesday I bought a carving set to make my own stamps. I was so anxious to try these new goodies!!!

Thanks to Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's tutorial on how to carve this stamp, I made my own:

And I used it on this page:

I made the background for this page while I was with Marlies. We met at the forum of Scrappers Anonymous and we decided to go to the Mixed Media Circus in Hamburg together. Of course, we wanted to meet in real life too before November, so that happened last Friday. Of course, when art journalers come together to create...most of the time it is more chatting and laughing than creating...which happened to us too!

I finished the page at home...

By the way, the heart and the green border on the right is made of the remains of a kitchen towel, which we used to wipe our hands and all the paint and inks on our pages. The text on the bottom and the pink dots on the left are printed transparent tapes from Prima.

And finally I could finish my page with the Stampotique mermaids, completely inspired by this page from Kate Crane, thanks to the arrival of my new Inktense pencils.

I made the background with Adirondack Colorwash, a few weeks ago. (Even before I saw the DVD's of Kate!!) I sprayed the top of my pages with blue ink and lots of water and let it drip down.

Then I turned my journal 180 degrees and did the same with the green ink.  After this layer dried I sprayed blue ink over a stencil with circles (TCW of course!). I sprayed some yellow ink on top and added some golden, black and white accents with acrylic paint. The seaweed is stamped with two colors of green chalk ink (Colorbox) and a Heidi Swapp foamstamp.

I enlarged the mermaids and printed these on watercolor paper. I colored the girls with my new Inktense pencils...and what a great pencils these are! It was worth waiting for!!!

I cut the girls out and glued them on my pages. I grounded the images by shading with my charcoal pencil.

And the quote? It says:

Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

If you are a fan of Harry Potter you must have recognized this line! It is a line from the last book and movie. I went to see part two of The Deathly Hallows together with my son yesterday...in the IMAX 3D in Amsterdam! I wish all the Harry Potter movies had been made in 3D...Really, I felt like I was there, standing next to Harry and Voldemort! I forgot about the rest of the world for two and a half hours...which was also obvious when we left the cinema: I ate some nacho's with guacamole dipsauce during the movie...and my sweater sort of looked like one of my backgrounds in my art journal...

I was a little bit sad that this last movie is the end of an episode of more than 10 years in my life. I have loved Harry Potter's adventures from day one. I have read the complete series of his books in Dutch, English and Swedish, all at least twice...(except for the Swedish ones...I finished the first three books...the other parts are waiting for the moment when I have 48 hours in one day!) I have bought all the DVD's as soon as they were released. Yes, I'm a fan! And that is the reason why I wanted to use a quote from the movie on my mermaids page.

And now it is Sunday...'Our normal daily life' starts again tomorrow, although the kids are still free from school of course. Tomorrow I really need to do all those neglected household chores...so I think I will enjoy the rest of my day by doing nothing!

TFL!

Sandra