Dutchie in Canada

Some ATC's

2009-11-12T09:01:00.003-05:00

It's been a while, but I've been down with the flu for about a week. Still not a 100% but at least the creativity started to flow a bit!

All these are made with the Happy Accident technique, one of my favorites at the moment, Hermine is the one who came up with this idea, and if you click here, you will get to her tutorial!

No idea why they are all over the place, blogger won't work with me!

Thanks for stopping by again and until next time!

Halloween!!

2009-11-02T09:44:00.004-05:00

I know, Halloween is over already, but at Nancy's Darkness Inspiration blog

it just keeps going on till November 12!

Love those challenges and this is what I made!

Thanks for stopping by again!

Vampires!

2009-10-23T18:26:00.002-04:00

Nancy had a new challenge, a week ago already, I just missed it cause of my mom being here, but as it is a 2 week challenge... I am still in time with this one!
Vampires was the challenge... well, they are really "hot" at the moment, movies, tv-shows, at least here we have Vampire Diaries, and I like that show a lot!
So I googled a bit and found this really creepy vampire "girl" cut it out, and glued it on a background done with soft pastels. The letters are from a puzzle in the newspaper, they come in very handy sometimes! Oh, and I made an ATC!

Thanks for stopping by again, and have a great day!

Webster Falls

2009-10-21T18:59:00.004-04:00

It's already been 10 days since my last post, but, I'm enjoying my mom's company very much, and hardly spend any time at the computer, so I forgot to update here!

We've done some nice things already, and yesterday we went to Webster Falls, close to Dundas Ontario. A gorgeous area, specially now with all the fall colors! It's not as huge as Niagara Falls, but........ well, just have a look!

Fall colors
The falls

Mom and me

Acting silly!

Again, mom and me
(click on the pictures for a larger view)

As you can see, we had a great time! It just goes by way to fast! So, every day we make the most of it, stay home and do fun things, or go out and see nice areas. Henk and I both have the week off, actually, I'm off next week too, so we can spend more time together, cause those 3 weeks are gone before we know it!

I'll try to update again, all depends on what we are doing, if we make pictures and if they are worth sharing!!

Just one more day..........

2009-10-10T10:07:00.003-04:00

Yep, just one more day and we are going to the airport to pick up my mom! She's coming to visit us for 3 weeks, life is sooooo good! It will be so great having her here, doing nice things, chatting, just relaxing and enjoying eachothers company!
Two years ago she came for the first time, last year we went to the Netherlands, and now it's her turn again:-)
We just can't wait..... just one more night ....... the girls are all excited and so are we!

So, I guess the coming weeks I won't be posting that much..... so I leave you with this ATC I made this week, with new stamps, from I Brake for Stamps, awesome store!! Actually, these stamps are by Stampinback in the Netherlands, but for me it's easier to order in the States and I Brake.....sells this line too!
Only the Vive la France stamp is from Cherry Pie, and as I love all things from France, I'll probably see if I can find more stamps!
Thanks for stopping by again, hopefully I will find some time to post, maybe with some nice pictures, you never know!

Swapping is so much fun!!!

2009-10-07T09:21:00.002-04:00

A new month, 2 new swaps!
With Anneke the technique swap, this month the technique we used was embos resist!

These two I made for her

And she sent me these........ aren't they just gorgeous?

And with Nel I'm swapping ATC's, this month the D, E and F were up!

I've made these 3 for Nel,

And she has made these 3 gorgeous ATC's for me..... don't you just love the Da Vinci one...... it's so vintagy!!

Black Hats!

2009-10-04T12:14:00.003-04:00

The second challenge at the Darkness Inspiration blog is Black Hats!

For this ATC I've used alcohol ink, Butterscotch and Terra Cotta, and stamped the spider web with Archival ink and I really like how it turned out!
Love the two cute witches with their black hats on!

Thanks for stopping by again and have a great day!

Look what I got!

2009-10-01T15:12:00.001-04:00

Last Tuesday I received something in the mail from England. No clue what it was, and even when I saw who the sender was, I had no idea what she would send me!

When I opened the envelope, I was really surprised and a lot of "oh's" and "ah's" were heard! Paula sent me this wonderful, gorgeous looking ATC book, with some absolutely stunning ATC's in there! Look at all those stamps......my gosh..... I'm going to be so pore...... I want them!!!!!!!!!
Paula, I emailed you already, but girl, this is such a wonderful surprise, I love it, thanks so very much!

Oh, and btw.... I'm still here, but kind of busy, working on swaps and stuff, and I can't show the things here yet until the ladies it's for received them! So be patient!

Script and Happy Accident

2009-09-25T09:52:00.001-04:00

This weeks theme at Theme Thursday is Script/Writing! I knew what to do, make another 4x4 and finally use the script stamp I had laying around for a while, no idea where I got it from anymore though!

The picture is from Lisa's Altered Art, lace, flower and brad are from my stash!

Hermine had made a tutorial called "Happy Accident" guess you know what she ment by that! It was not suppose to work out like that, but..... it looked awesome, so..... happy accident!

The tutorial is not on her blog, but..... what you do is, crumble up some aluminum foil, glue it to your paper/cardstock, take a transparant sheet and an applicator and put some alcoholink colors on your sheet. Then put some blending solution on your applicator and go over it again.

Put some Diamond Glaze (Dimensional Magic by ModPodge gives the same results) on the aluminumfoil, put the transparent sheet on top of it, and....... the waiting begins!

After an hour you will start to see the changing of the colors, and after a whole day of waiting, (I know, that's long, especially if patients is NOT your middle name!) you'll see that the colors have seperated completely and it looks a lot different than when you started!

The colors I've used here were Lettuce, Butterscotch and Cranberry and as you can see, it looks more "orange" now! I love the effect of this, and am definately going to make more of these!!

*Edited* If you would like to see Hermines tutorial, just follow this link, it will direct you to her blog, where you can download and save it.

The picture used is also from Lisa's Altered Art!

Thanks for stopping by again and have a great day!

4x4 Trade

2009-09-21T19:33:00.005-04:00

Starting this month, Anneke and I are doing a 4x4 technique swap. We started with the Bandana technique, Anneke made these 2 gorgeous cards for me,

and I've made these two for her!

Can't wait to get started on the cards for next month, this is really very nice to do!

Wild Wimin'

2009-09-20T11:55:00.001-04:00

At Theme Thursday, the challenge was to make an ATC with swirls in it.. so here is my very simple, swirly ATC...

Just some blue-ish purple scrapbookpaper, stamped some swirls on it, added a picture of Lisa's Altered Art and I was done!!

I actually wanted to show you more, but I feel somewhat "under the weather" so I haven't done anything else yet.... Maybe next time!

Thanks for stopping by again!

Creepy.......

2009-09-15T15:49:00.002-04:00

Nancy has a new blog, Darkness Inspiration, she decided to do this, cause she's kind of into Dark Art and Halloween lately. Twice a month there is a challenge and the first one is Zombies and you had to make something scary with them........

No idea if this is scary enough, but..... I wouldn't like it if I ran into Mona Lisa looking like this at night....... I made, of course, an ATC, googled a zombie Mona, and used some Halloween stamps I had laying around!

Hope you like it Nancy, I had fun making this one!

CrowAbout and ABC swap!

2009-09-10T13:14:00.002-04:00

Week51 of CrowAbout, boy, that's a scary one, but a lot of fun to work with!! The background is made with the help of one of Hermine's tutorials Nature Inspired, if you go to her blog you see a link in the right sidebar.
Loved playing with paint, gesso and pastel crayons!

And I even used some Halloween stamps I bought last week, small acrylic sets for just $ 1.-- each!! The RIP, bats, house and wich are part of those sets!

***

Nel and I are doing an ABC swap, we started this month, and boy, that is so much fun to do! We are using ATC's for the swap, and I've made these for her!

And this morning the mailman delivered the ones Nel made for me! They are just gorgeous, love them all, and I can't wait to get started on the D, E and F!

Thanks for stopping by again, have a great day and until next time!

Cards and Tags!

2009-09-06T08:08:00.002-04:00

Friends of ours celebrate both their birthdays today, so I wanted to make some cards for them! I used to buy cards, but since I have some stamps, I love making them myself again!

This one is for the birthday "girl"..........

And this one is for the birthday "boy"! I had fun making them, now let hope they like them!!

Guess it was in June/July that Hella and I agreed to do a tagswap. Finally this month we sent them out, and it was a lot of fun making them, totally different than a card or ATC! These two here, I made for Hella...............

And these two gorgeous tags Hella made for me! I love them..... she worked with masks and distress ink and has some awesome stamps... Thanks so much for this wonderful swap, I'm gonna hang these somewhere in my craftroom cause I want to enjoy them for a long time!

Turquoise and Red

2009-09-02T10:55:00.002-04:00

Wow, it has been a week since a posted last.... I've been busy with a lot of things, but I can't show them yet, not until the people it's for, have received them! So that will come in a next post!

A new week, a new theme at Wednesday Stamper...... Turquoise and Red..... Well, I love turquoise, and yes, I did have that color ink.. so I just sponged a 4x4, stamped Mona in Red, used some acrylic cornerstamps (Tim Holtz) and my printer for a title. Since I love the bling lately, I thought it would look nice to put a red blingy thingy in the corners,..... et voilá, my card is done!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Some work

2009-08-26T09:52:00.004-04:00

Not much to tell from this side of the world! Still no scrappin' MoJo, but MoJo for other things is really here!
I've made some ATC's lately, wanted to put them in a slide show, but for some reason blogger won't let me...... so, here they are, the normal way:-)

You can find these and more at my Flickr page.

And Wednesday Stamper has a new challenge up, Dogs.... well, that wasn't so hard, a Golden Retriever is my favorite, would love love love to have one, but that will come, I'm sure about that! So, what is better to use if you don't have a dog stamp, than a lovely picture of a Golden puppy! The stamp with sayings about friends fits perfectly, so, tataa.... my 4x4 was done

More CrowAbout!

2009-08-18T09:51:00.005-04:00

Just a quick post to show some things I did over the weekend and yesterday! As it was way to warm outside, with the humidity kicking in like crazy (at least for me it did, don't like it at all!) I spent the days with my feet above the vent, and enjoying the airco blowing on them:-) That sure felt good, although after a while they (my feet) started to feel like icecubes!

(click on the picture for a lager view)

Anyways..... this ATC is made for a 1 on 1 swap at PaperFollies, one of the Yahoogroups I'm a member of. It's send to it's new owner yesterday, hope she likes it!!

(click on the picture for a larger view)

This is sheet #49 of CrowAbout, doesn't make sense at all, but I had fun making it, and that's what's important right? The background is made with soft pastels, what fun working with those, gonna do that more often!

(click on the picture for a lager view)

And this is the cover for all the 5x7 pages I will make with the sheets. I've used several different weeks, but I'm most crazy about the "ladiebirdbutterfly" with legs!

CrowAbout47 and Wednesday Stamper Paisley

2009-08-12T18:51:00.001-04:00

This weeks, or actually 2 weeks, challenge at Wednesday Stamper is Paisley! I do love paisley, but don't have any stamps in that pattern, but.... still had some My Minds Eye patterned paper laying around and used that for my 4x4.

The stamp is from Crafty Individuals and the border from Art Journey if I'm not mistaking! The little corner punch is laying here for years, haven't used it since we live here, but I thought it would go fine with this!

***

This collage sheet from CrowAbout is no.47, so not up-to-date anymore, but I thought it was so funny, that I started to play!

The background is done with the glazing paint technique, which is in Claudine Helmuth's book Collage Discovery Workshop, a book I bought a while ago and I think it's totally awesome! After the paint was dry, I just started cutting the pictures, and placing them everywhere until I found the right compostion... And while I was doing that, a "story" was born........

Dwight commited a huge crime and had to spend years in prison. No fun at all if the prison is located across from the theater where for month after month the play "Little creative Soul Soars" played.. with the weirdest looking songburd playing the leading part and singing "The 101 Best Songs" ever.... Dwight was sick and tired of hearing the same songs night after night.... Too bad Dwight, you shouldn't have been so bad..........

So, that's what I've been doing today.... had fun with it! And I think I know what I'm doing next; I'm coing to make a cover for the CrowAbout works, they are all 5x7 and I have no clue where else I can keep them so they don't damage easily, and a cardboard cover sounds good to me! Maybe that's what I'll show next time!

Thanks for stopping by again!

Crowabout on Sunday!

2009-08-09T18:43:00.002-04:00

What is the best thing to do, if it is so muggy out, that you just can't stand it? Right, stay inside, and play..... and that's exactly what I did today!

(click on the picture for a larger view)

First I finished the inside of the cover for my Taking Flight book. Glued pp and old books pages on cardboard, painted it purple and started playing with Crowabout sheet of week 44 and I love how it turned out!

(click on the picture for a larger view)

After that, I took a 5x7 piece of 90 lb watercolor paper, put gesso on it, and started using the peeling paint technique by Claudine Helmut. As it was my first time, I didn't expect it to turn out like it did, actually kind of what I wanted it to look like! So.... I took week 48 of the Crowabout sheets, and started cutting and pasting... Love the vintage look of these pictures, and I'm very satisfied with the result!

Well.......let's see what's "cooking" tomorrow!!

Take a Ride!

2009-07-31T16:18:00.003-04:00

Through my friend Paula, (who is an awesome card maker and scrapbooker, and vintage lover like me!!) I discovered the blog of the Wednesday Stampers. Every Wednesday they have a challenge going on, and you have to use at least one stamp!

Well, as you probably know by now, I'm getting kind of addicted to "collecting" stamps, so the use of one isn't that hard anymore, ha, ha.

(if you want to see it larger, click on the picture!)

This weeks theme is "Take a Ride" and eventhough I have a bicycle stamp, the vintage lover in me took over and I used this lovely Tim Holtz stamp of the "umbrella man" and the "clock" from the set "Lifes Possibilities". If you've got some imagination (kind of like I used here), and look at the title, I figured the man could travel through time using his umbrella... And I liked the idea, so I used it!

For the first time I've worked on a 4x4 and gosh, that's just great! The Harlequin stamp is by Crafty Individuals, inks used are Stazon Midnight Blue, Distress Shabby Shutters and Vintage Photo, and to brighten things up a bit, I used my Hotfix to put some bling on the Harlequin's!

Lots of ATC's made!

2009-07-28T18:43:00.002-04:00

I've been doing some crafting the last few weeks, played with old stamp, and with new ones, and this is the result!

I love how they all turned out! Stamps are by Crafty Individuals and Art Journey, and the lovely butterfly was a gift of a dear friend!

And Sunday I made this connected 3 which I think is great to do! These stamps are also by Crafty Individuals, there are 4 of them, and you will definately see more of these!

Well, so far that's it, I hope I can show more crafty stuff soon!

Guest designer!!!

2009-07-24T17:14:00.003-04:00

Oh my gosh, I'm a guest designer at the Mojo Holder blog this week! I feel so honoured that they picked one of my favorite layouts!

This is the one they picked, and I still love it eventhough it's made months ago!

If you want to see the girls takes on my layout, just hop on over to their blog!

Some snapshots!

2009-07-18T16:56:00.003-04:00

It's been a while, but I finally have time to post something here! Yesterday we took our guest(s) back to the airport and they arrived savely in Holland again! We had a great time with them, and it's really quiet here now.... 3 weeks with 5 people is different, and now it's just the 4 of us again... Well, I guess it will take a couple of days to get used to it again!

Last week Tuesday we took a drive to Port Dover after supper, walked along the beach and at the pier where Marloes took some nice pictures, against the sunlight, and I think they turned out great!

I just love this one of Henk and I, Mark took it and the fact that the sun's shining right through the "opening" between us, gives it a special effect!

Isn't it gorgeous? (and I mean the sunlight LOL)

This one of the girls is good too, Anouk didn't like the fact that the wind was blowing her hair "all over the place" but it just gives it something extra!

At home in the backyard Marloes set the timer of her camera and we had to be really fast, but hey............. say for yourself, don't we look good?

So now it's back to our "normal" life again, and counting the days till it's October and my mom will come again for a visit of 3 weeks. So looking forward to that!

I haven't done anything "crafty" since my last post, but I hope I will find some time for that this week, got 3 days off so I probably will! And I'm waiting for an order, which hopefully will come this week, so I can start playing again! Until then, you have to do it with these snapshots!!

Crowabout week43

2009-07-08T16:32:00.000-04:00

Wow, this is great, I got 2 days off, my nephew went with his parents for a trip, and I locked myself in my room and started playing today, boy, did that feel GREAT!

A couple of weeks ago I bought this great book by Kelly Rae Roberts, Taking Flight, full of inspiration, techniques and more fun stuff. I haven't read in it much, but wanted to make the cover of my Taking Flight journal, and for that I've used sheets by CrowAbout, gosh, those are great and so much fun to play with!

This is what I've made, used some scrappapers, most by Basic Grey, added pieces of old textbooks and music sheets, painted over them and started glueing my collage together. This weeks sheet is used, but also pieces of sheets from weeks before! Love the fact that you can combine everything and it just fits together!

Honestly, I can't wait to start with my 1st page, but I have to read more in the book first, and starting this coming Friday we have 3 instead of 1 people staying here, look forward to that, but that means I'll have less time playing around with paint, ink and other fun stuff!! But hey, at least I did something creative, which hasn't happened for a while!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

Little blog break

2009-07-06T11:46:00.003-04:00

Just a short post to let you all now I'm still here, but not much at the computer!

At this moment our nephew from Holland is staying here for 3 weeks, so I'm pretty busy with other things than crafting... actually, I haven't done a thing in 1.5 week..... Doesn't matter, that will come again!

Also I haven't visited your blogs in a while, I hope I will find some time soon.... but if I can't make it, please forgive me, I will make it up after they've left!

In the meanwhile, enjoy the weather, I've heard it's very nice and warm in Holland, don't know about the rest of the world, but.... have fun in the sun where ever you are and I hope to be back and crafting in about 2 weeks!