watercolor birthday cards

I made some more cards! This time I colored a bigger surface with watercolor and then added some drawings and stamped words.

Like them?

A bientôt,

Jane 

Watercolor scrap cards

Last week I had a lot of fun with some watercolor test stripes. As you saw in the last post, I figured out how to use the watercolor brushes with reservoir. For that I painted some left over paper bands. They are all 3cm wide and 30cm long.

Inspired by a pinterest photo I saw, I cut them to pieces and glued them to colored cardstock, producing post-cards. Then I added some drawings with my beloved black ball-pen.

  

  

Lots of them have floral designs on them, but there are some ornamental cards too.

I think I should have drawn the circles with a model.

 I am a bit furious I messed up the signature :-(

For finding the design I always looked a while at the watercolor scrap until I had an idea about what to add. Some gave me a landscape feeling.

 This one is very small. I cut from dark cardstock the mountains and glued them in front of the sky. It's only about 5cm high.

And this is still only the 3cm stripe. I still think about cutting of the bridge as it is a bit too big in scale.

And of course there is one left for which I don't have any idea, how to modify. Maybe it stays just like this.

It's 13 cards and I love every single one! Can't even say which is my favorite. Will be difficult to part with them ;-) 

A bientôt,
Jane

2019 journal

I will introduce you to my new and (more or less) daily project I started beginning of this year:

In former times ;-) am I old? I used to have a paper appointment calendar in which I also wrote some personal notes to special situations. Normally tiny books. They are very useful to flip through, when you want for example writing a letter to friends or family that you are not talking to frequently and that need an update of several month. Or I used them when making (often years later) photobooks for the kids. 

Then a few years ago I stopped because I had all my appointments in my portable phone that also reminds me of them. But this is not the same. Also much harder to look through later. And personal notes are missing completely. 

Already some years ago, when art-journals started to appear in internet, I admired the idea of a book that contains a bit of your creativity for every day. But I never felt as creative on paper to fill up whole pages with just drawings and paintings. Also if you are following me for a while, you know my drawings are more doodle style.

Anyway I wanted to start a book that contains my appointments (the more important ones, not those like driving kids to sports classes, or other weekly stuff, these are still on my phone) but at the same time leave space for new creative ideas and a little drawing and writing on a regular basis. 

So it's a bit more than a calendar, not really a diary, not completely an art journal and surely no bullet journal!

Want to have a look at the first 5 weeks? I still need to find a balance in what to note and what not. Some pages contains lots of thoughts, in one week there has been nearly nothing happening. But see:

Week 1/2019:

(click to the picture to see it a bit larger)

First week of the year. Still vacation, so no routine appointments. Creative stuff of this week: I tested to make glue-salt-snowflakes and paint them. Also I made a nice "galette des rois" for the 6th January with a great new filling of pears with chocolate and almonds and I noted the recipe.

Week 2/2019:

I didn't liked at all how the page layout turned out (I normally prepare it now every sunday for the following week) I have been thinking about making a new page, but then said that it's kind of normal that you are not always successful with your art and not always really creative and this journal should show the realty, so I kept the page and made the best of it. Also in the end of the week I saw from all the notes that it hasn't been a creative week at all. The most creative thing had been to renew the zipper handles on the old coat of a friend! I also had some origami fails :-(

Week 3/2019:

This week had been all black and white :-) except the sunday. I had been shopping and upcycling an outfit for going into a club friday night (something I didn't do for years and therefor it had been very exciting). On the left page you see a bit of the fabric from my outfit. I bought a dress and had to shorten it.  What I did colorfully on sunday I will show in a previous post.

Week 4/2019:

This weeks page I started only on wednesday after I made tuesday the art with the pulled strings (look here), so you know already what I did in that week.

Week 5/2019:

This week had a real simple layout, as I tested a new stamp set. The business like outfit might be the reason why I didn't feel motivated to note anything except monday where I had a really good session with the crafting kids and friday where a lot of shit happened. Sunday finally I noticed that the page looked really neglected and decided to fill it. I tried out a watercolor brush with water reservoir that my son got from his grandma for birthday but we never tested it. I just tested all colors in different spots and later draw with a black marker over it (I saw ideas like that at pinterest). Crowdy, but so cheering up the hole page. And the watercolors where so much fun! 

On the left side are the penguins I made as examples for the kids crafting class at that monday.

What do you say to my new project? I didn't jet found my style or any routine in it, but its fun. And this book always lying around, reminds me to take a little time to make nice things that are not on the schedule. Filling a page in a week motivates me to try out new techniques, often leading to further projects. Let me know if you want to see more pages in the future ...

A bientôt,
Jane

Dwarf/Lutin-deco-frame in winter

I (and following me, the kids of my crafting class) changed in january the deco-frame to winter style. 

It's a little empty! But this is like winter is: a bit reduced to the basics, not overflowing a bit calmer than all the other times of the year. Don't you think so?

The little snow-man is made from branch slices and actually the same like those I made several years ago in big (actually they had been in my first real blog post!).

Enjoy the winter time!

A bientôt,
Jane