Who's afraid of white ...

I must admit, I am afraid of a blanc page. Even to the extend of leaving a canvas sitting on its easel in my livingroom for more than a year, before moving it to the attick. Avoidance and denial are my middle names.
It seems I'm not alone in this and, as it turns out, there is a way around this. To do away with the dreaded white...just make a background!

I have been watching a lot of youtube video's lately, about art journalling. techniques and tutorials. One lady in particular, struck a chord with me. Her YouTube channel is JournalArtista as is her blog. I find her approach to art journalling and art very refreshing. If you haven't seen her yet, go and check her out, she is briljant.
What I love most about her is that she works in several journals and several different pages at the same time. This way, you can do away with the white, play and experiment with all kinds of materials, without the threat of this one page staring you in the face. Urging you to make it happen. The trick is to just to go with the flow, let it all happen and when you get stuck, just move on to the next one.

I love this idea of no restrictions, You don't even have to like what you did. Just let it go and (maybe) come back later, when inspiration hits you. I find this very freeing and it works perfectly with my state of mind at the moment. So I have been trying to approach my art journal this way for the past few days and produced some backgrounds, some I like and some not so much. Some I worked a little and some a lot.

Just to be fair I will post them all, in random order. I'm curious to find out where they will all go... it'll be an interesting journey.

Inspirational quote

Over on the Simon says stamp and show there is a challenge to create something with a quote. This can be any kind of quote, from movie quotes, to something a family member always says, a qoute on a stamp, or a quote you find insirational. Since I have been meaning to work more with quotes in my art journal, I felt I would try and work with this.

In searching for a way to deal with a burn out I have taken up art journalling as a tool to get clarity in my mind about the things I do and don't do. Things that are good and things that need changing. As a part of that process perfection and imperfection have lately been on my mind. So I choose a quote about this subject, that spoke to me. As, in real life, I am an IT engineer.

"As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man." Ernst Fisher.

Corrugated ATC

I have never made an ATC before and I thought it would be fun do try my hand at one. I didn't know what makes an ATC. So I looked it up and apparently it's all about the size, 3.5" by 2.5". Now this I should be able to do, as I have made books many times smaller than that.

I also wanted to enter into the Electric papery challenge- march, corrugated cardstock/cardboard, so it would have to incorporate corrugated cardboard of some sort. I had some whitewashed corrugated cardboard, sliced some ATC sized cards from this and started playing around with them. Layering several pieces onto each other. I kept coming back to some sort of door construction, so that's what I made.

Art journal page: playing with circles

Last night I finished another journal page. For this page I wanted to play a bit with circles and templates. As I am still trying to get to grips with wotking with templates. I had a sea sponge template that came with a set of glimmer mist sprays and  I had some templates made by die cutting alphabets and gears. I also used an egg cup (if that is what you call it) and a home made stamp with 2 circles.

The quote is from an Arctic Monkeys song (You probably couldn't see for the lights, but you were staring straight at me) and I somehow felt it to be fitting.

And then there were Tattered florals

I have been wanting to do more with flowers on my projects, because I do love how they look and how they can compliment a piece. I ordered the tattered florals die, as I expected this to make flower making easier.

Yesterday my tattered floral die finally arived and since there was still time for the tattered foral challenge over at Tim Holtz's blog, I thought I might enter into the challenge. While simultaniously getting some experience in making and working with the flowers.

So here's my entry for the challenge

First journal entry

Yesterdag I started working in my brand new art journal. Trying to keep in mind that this journal is for expressing myself and trying out new techniques and material.

In keeping with that, I tried out my new stamp that came yesterday and 2 new stencils. I started playing and trying out what would happen.

Ready for use

Last night I finished my new art journal. I can now finally start using it. Though I must admit, I cheated a bit and started filling in some backgrounds while I was waiting for various components to dry.

So without further ado, here it is...

Building a new art journal

Last night I started to build a new art journal. As a trial I decided I would use some scrap paper I had used as underground for some of my projects. Furthermore I wanted the front and back cover to look like metal plating, so I gathered all my materials en went for it.

Even though it isn't finished yet, I thought I would share what I did so far.

Steampunk cuckoo clock

Recently I discovered all these wonderfull challenge blogs out there and started to participate. Mostly to challenge myself and get inspired by all those wonderfull artists around. Now I do not consider myself to be an artist, but...I do love watching what other people create and I like sharing my creations as well and what better way then by a challenge...

This time I made a wall hanging inspired by Sandee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog: Cuckoo clocks go steampunk. I love steampunk, so when I saw this challenge I knew I wanted to participate. I must admit though, it's been giving me a little headache... because somehow my mind didn't want to stay on the cuckoo clocks and kept wandering off to Ada Lady Lovelace and the analytical engine. So I somehow made the two come together and I hope it still counts as a cuckoo clock. And since I used a touch of green troughout this project, I'm allso entering this wall hanging in the PanPastel UK challenge no11: a touch of green, though you have to look really close to find the green...

Spooky Tag

Well, maybe not so spooky, but the picture I took is...

Altered box

My daughter gave me some old diddle boxes that she no longer liked. We figured we would alter them. So last night I started on one of the boxes. I didn't really know where I wanted to go with the box, but I thought it would come to me as I progressed.

Art journal - insert finished

I finished the last few pages of the mini art journal insert. I tried some cool layering and distressing techniques. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to make progress pics. I'll try and remember that for next time, as I always enjoy watching the process of how one thing (or several things) becomes somthing completely different and unexpected.

Here's a sneek peek at the back cover of the booklet, wich I entered in the Eclectic Paperie Challenge: Fabric, since I incorporated tule fabric in the design.

My art journal...

Another first, a small art journal, not finished obviously, but working on it... you could say a work in progress.

I find it very helpfull in getting my mind organized and getting some of the thoughts that might seem unclear at first, out into the open. It's a great way to try out new techniques and just play and experiment...just what the doctor ordered =).

Here are some quick, slightly messy, pictures of my work in progress.

The front cover...

12 tags of 2013 - march

Stepping right out of my box here and entering my first project specifically made for a challenge. Allthough I like creating with a goal I'm not one to compete much, let alone to set myself up for competition in such a talented community... but then I decided things had to change, I have to change, so no more self imposed restrictions and just let my inner creative spirit run wild... and enter a challenge.

So yeah, I made a tag for the 12 tags of 2013 - march - Tim Holtz challenge. I was a bit intimidated by all the talented entries, but once I got going, it didn't matter anymore.

Here is my interpretation of Tim's Spring Bunny Tag.

A flowery TP mini album

Last week I tried my hand at making a second TP mini album.
This time I was going to use the papers I bought, in stead of all sorts of free images downloaded from the internet or made myself. I have seen all sorts of beautifull TP mini albums and they all include flowers of some sort.

Now I am not a very flowery "girl" and I have never made any paper flowers before, except maybe when I was a little girl, but I was determined to use flowers on this one.

The making of the mini was rather easy, I used the stack the deck method and build the mini. Using the papers was an brise. I kept it rather plain at first, so I could add decorations later. The decorating, however, did give me a little headache and I struggled with it somewhat. Putting things on and taking them off again, making flowers and throwing them away...

In the end I did manage to produce a flowery mini album that pleased my eyes. So yeah, here it is, not entirely finished, still some embellishments and trinkets to attach, but for now I will call it a day.
Hope you like my steampunky, flowery mini album.

Chatelaine with an Aide Memoire...

The reason for all my bookadventures...

I wanted to have Chatelaines for our victorian style costumes to wear at the Elf Fantasy Fair in the Netherlands. When researching the subject, I found them to be way to expensive to just buy a complete chatelaine, let alone 3 sets. So I decided I would make them myself.
This turned out to be a complete journey all by itself. Trough historical sites, jewelry making sites and tutorials, ebay adventures and finally, book making sites.

 Because every respactable chatelaine, seems to have an "Aide Memoire" attached to it.

Altered book, my new iPhone case

Lately my daughter and I have been making books and booklets, among other things. We even started a little DaWanda shop to sell some of the booklets we make. It's called "Morgan Le Fea's Trinkets, after my daughters second name.

Making these booklets is very relaxing and leaves room for all sorts of creativity, as I found cruising the internet. So much creative people out there, it's amazing, and, as I found, many blogs reside here on blogger (or blogspot, whatever it is called). So I thought I would start a blog here as well.

I do have another blog on lifejournal (also called Morgan Le Fea's Trinkets), that is more focussed on making victorian clothes and unmentionables (another one of my interrests). As time goes by, I might transfer all the blogposts and photo's from lifejournal to this place, but for now I will leave it as is, as the corset making community on lifejournal is a very active one and I would like to keep in touch with what happens there.

Anyway enough ramblings on my part, on to the pictures of my new Victorian style Steampunk iPhone case.