As promised...

...I love to show you what I bought in Sweden, at the 'loppis'. Loppis is big in Sweden!
Loppis is Swedish for second hand and can probably be compared with the American garage sale, I think. In Sweden lots of people sell second hand goods in an old shed at their house or outside in partytents. One of the loppis we visited looked like this:

I didn't think of making some more pictures of our visits to these Loppis. Each time we visited one I was so excited I jumped out of the car and started looking for 'treasures'.

I found some pictures on the internet of how Loppis looks like in Sweden.

A mix of goods:

A big Loppis, all goods sorted: 

Or Loppis that makes me want to leave a.s.a.p.... 

With a simple wooden sign with just the word 'Loppis' painted on it, you are directed to their 'shop'.

I'm glad I speak a little bit of Swedish, because a lot of the Loppis-shops were run by older people, who don't speak English (or pretend they don't...) But I think that is also a charming part of buying at a Loppis.

This is a picture of my new treasures:

 The two white bowls have the words 'Jordgubbar' and 'Grädde' on it, which means strawberries and cream. Very simple but I had to have them...
One real treasure is this old psalmbook. It is very small, only 7 by 9 cm and has a cute little metal lock. It has been made in 1884!

There is a handwritten message on the first page, from 1888:

So special to have over a 100 years of history in the palm of my hand!

I bought another (bigger) old psalmbook. This one is from 1851: 

I love the lettertype on the pages: 

I haven't decided yet if I just keep the book or use the pages for my backgrounds of my journalpages...

The third book I bought is this one. It has been made in 1887: 

It also has pages in it with a beautiful lettertype. 

This one will definitely be altered with lots of gesso and paint! I plan to make an art journal of it, with all my dreams and thoughts written down in it. Isn't it great to have an art journal of more than 100 years old? (lol)

To be continued!

TFL!

Sandra

New artwork...

As I told you in my previous blogpost I did 'some artjournaling' during my holiday in Sweden.
I have found some time to show you, now I took a day off from redecorating my living room. (lol)
Every day I tried to make a simple collaged page in a small journal, dedicated to my holiday. I collaged tickets, brochures, found objects, pieces of packaging, etc. On the back of the page I did some journaling about that specific day. No difficult techniques, nothing special, just something to remember my holiday.
Here are a few pages:

For my Dutch readers: yes, indeed, you will find lots of pieces of the latest issue of Flow!

I also used Swedish words, found 'everywhere':

Pieces of the packaging from some of our favorite Swedish food...:

I used a piece of the brochure from the moose-park we visited as a background and glued the ticket on top.

The blue and white striped piece on the bottom of the page is from a typical Swedish ribbon. These ribbons are tied in the trees to mark the territory of the moose hunters. I took off a small piece...

Before I went to Sweden I planned to make more pages with my alter ego 'Ikke'...I only did one....:

Somehow my inspiration for her was gone....

But I did make some other pages. I didn't bring my A4-journal with me, so I used a tourist brochure, made of heavy paper. I collaged pieces of the Dutch magazine Flow, pieces from Swedish magazines and some tape to cover the pictures and some text in the brochure. I didn't bring my gesso so I used a thin layer of white acrylic paint on top. I colored the next layer with the few Neocolors II I had with me. A layer of stamps, a collaged image and more black and white paint on top.

The text comes from the Dutch magazine too.
Another one, with a cute Dutch poem I loved. I stamped the text with tiny alfabet stamps:

This one is a bit out of my comfort zone. I cut out the image, which was a black and white sketch and colored it with acrylic paint. This time, I wrote down some personal thoughts...Yes, real art journaling! (Instead of quotes, poems or songlyrics, which I use most of the times.)

This page inspired me to use more personal thoughts in my art journaling. I always thought that I wasn't able to write something but when I started writing the words came very easily. I have never been a writer. Most of the time my thoughts are hidden in the quotes I use. Time to change that!

I promised you to show you the old books I bought in Sweden. Because this has become a blogpost with a lot of pictures, I'll show my treasures later! I hope you don't mind...

TFL!

Sandra

I'm back...

Only a few days left and it has been a month without any blogpost from me....Time to change this right now!
Of course there has been some reasons for my absence here: the end of the school year, my summerholiday in Sweden and right now I'm busy redecorating my house. Not much art journaling done lately....
First, let me bore you with some pictures of my holiday, which I spent with my family in the beautiful surroundings of the Värmland region in the middle of Sweden.

Our holidayhome...

Great views, more shades of blue and green than you can imagine:

 

 

  

Great sunset on the way back...on the ferry from Denmark to Germany: 

 

 Meeting my 'friends': 

Sweden is really ahead on Holland when it comes to recycling.

Look at this...at the gasstation..you can recycle all the bottles, papers, car parts etc. 'living' in your car while your filling your tank.

My husband made a few pictures with his mobile phone with a special app. Great effect!

Enough for now...more later! I bought some great old books in Sweden. Of course, I did some art journaling too, although not much.Will show you soon!

TFL!

Sandra

Dylusional art journal: completed!

I finished my Dylusional art journal! I called it that way because all the backgrounds in this journal were created with the Dylusions ink sprays..and some gesso, stamps and The Crafters Workshop stencils. The images are..as you might know by now..collages of magazine cutouts.
Here are the pages I recently finished:

Of course I made a new video in which I show you the completed journal.

Please note that the choice of music is just for fun...While I was editing the video on YouTube I couldn't decide which music to go with the images. When I was trying this piece of music it made me smile, because the music combined perfectly with the images. Still, it gave me a presumptuous feeling: combining my small pieces of art with a big masterpiece of Mozart...I hope you understand that that wasn't my intention...

Here is the video:

If you would like to see detailed pictures of each page, please click here.

TFL!

Sandra

It's 'Me'...

I have completely fallen in love with 'Me', in Dutch 'Ikke'...my alter ego. (Is that the right word in English??!)
Three new pages:

All background are colored with my Twinkling H2O's....I love them!!

The journaling is done with a Faber Castell Pitt Pen and Sakura glaze pens.

The road of the second page is plastic tape with a road-design.

The images are magazine cutouts combined with my own designs.

TFL!

Sandra

So much inspiration!

Last Saturday I went to a meeting of the Dutch forum for Art Journaling and Mixed Media. It was so great to see all my online friends in real life, to see the complete picture instead of a small avatar and to hear their voices, to admire their art and talk about art all day. I didn't suffer from an inspiration block at the time I went there...I even got more and more inspiration...sort of an inspiration overload! Which makes me want to play with in my art journal every single minute of each day...!
A couple of us gave a small demonstration. Yes, I did too....my first demo...only five minutes, but I was so nervous that my hands were shaking, which made it hard to cut in my magazine cutouts and to shuffle with the pieces. It was a good thing that I did this with my online friends: they supported me and didn't judge me!

I was very inspired by Marieke's demonstration. She showed us how she draws and paints the cute faces she uses in her art journal. Allthough I work different (no copic markers...) I felt like creating some WOW-girls, like I learned in Tamara LaPorte's workshop World of Whimsy.
My first face ended up on this page:

The background is inspired by Joanne Fink's 'Dangles'. I colored the dangles with my glaze pens. Her dress is a magazine cutout. Her face is painted with Neocolors, watercolor pencils, acrylic paint, glaze pens and markers.

A second face ended up on this page:

The background is doodled and colored with glaze pens and Twinkling H2O's. Her dress is a cutout from a lamp I found in a magazine.

The text is also cut out from a magazine.

TFL!

Sandra

Two more Dylusional pages...

I've been a bad blogger lately...The last few weeks before the summerholiday starts are always busy, which means: less time for creating artwork!
Despite all this, I always try to create a little bit of time for myself, every day. So I did create something but it is not enough to show you. I created some backgrounds, some collages, did some journaling. Hopefully all these bits will come together soon, so I can show you the next pages for The Sketchbook Project.
I did finish this page in my Dylusional journal this weekend:

And while I was going through my journal I realized I didn't show you this page:

Only a few more pages to go and my Dylusional journal is done!

TFL!

Sandra