Indoor scenes

Because of work work work (and loving it!) I have - again - had very little time to create anything, let alone post what I've done. What a shame..

Here's a novelty, however, thanks to Stamping Buddy Sandra's Amazing Rubberstamp Collection I was able to create my first serious indoor scene. I don't have any of the credits to give, sorry!


The scene takes place at the Dietomaniacs in June 2010
-Here they come, the biodynamic vegetables of the day!
-Oh great, I'll make us a soup right a way!

I know, I need to work on my horizons & co. but oh boy was this one fun to make :D

Mekka coups-de-coeur

At Mekka, I always see stuff I've never seen before. Like this year Stampbord. Don't get me wrong, I'd seen some in mags and I'd seen the lovely results, but I'd never touched it or seen anyone working on it. It was love at first sight! Here's my first go at it, an inchie:


This year I also bought some stamps that are not exactly my usual style. What can I say! I just had a coup-de-coeur! A sceptic Stampingbuddy might say I'll never be able to do anything with them, but see, Sandra, I've already started! The bird on the inchie was a new style to me, too, I very very much like it.



After Mekka, back at the hotel, we of course immediately spread all our new treasures on the bed, attacked our grab bags, did the exchanges we wanted and busily started mounting all our new stamps on EZ-mount so that we could start stamping the minute we land back at home. The mounting went on in the train, and although I was the only one ready before we arriver at Gare du Nord, my Stampingbuddies were not far behind.When in Mekka, don't waste a second!

Even between Stampingbuddies, however, tastes differ, and among the stamps the others had bought, we each saw some impossible ones. "What were you thinking?! What do you want to do with that ugly thing?!" So we gave each other a challenge: we will each make a 12" scrap page, which must include:
-at least 1 photo made during the trip
-the two stamps the other Buddies found impossible
-two stamps the others found great

I have some scrapping to do!

Stamp credits: Bird - De Stempelwinkel; Writer, Flower woman - American Art Stamps; Around the Flowerwoman - Florilèges

Mailart to Belgium

This little piece of mailart (created on a piece of he huge cardboard box which lives behind the bookshelf in my stamping room) is on its way to Belgium. It should arrive any day now :) The address was written in white around the fairy image.



I'm a bit bummed because my post office lady, who understood all about mail art and nice stamps, went away on her vacation in May and I haven't seen her since. Instead, I'm stuck with someone who will only give you boring Marinne head stamps (the "official" ones), and in case you're not sending to France, you're entitled to a printed-out blue sticker, huge and impersonal. I mean, there's one cent missing from the price, and instead of digging out the stamps and giving you a small yellow Marianne, this man will print for you a blue sticker. He will also glue for you a long line of Air-mail tape on your envelope, of course all over your stamped decoration. Once he almost refused to sell me anything, saying only "there's no point in sending this, it will never arrive". Needless to say, the mailart arrived at its destination the next day.

I'm desperately seeking a replacement, and I may have found something at the Cité Universitaire. It's an hour away, but I go there occasionally so it's OK. Mail art must be respected.

Long time no post

This weekend, at the Mekka stamping convention in Germany (see links) , I was told by my dear traveling & stamping friends I should update my blog. Soon. Like, as soon as I get back home from Mekka.So here I am.

I am terribly sorry, I had not realized it had been so long since my last update. I have not stamped very much in the past months, I simply have not been in the mood for it. The little stuff I did this summer was mailart, and just guess if I ever thought about taking a picture before sending the things off!!!

Here are, however, a few pieces of mailart from late spring / early summer.

The first one is for my parents who had just moved into a new home by a lakeshore.



The second one is a double: it's a response to a challenge at my Friday night art class: make a piece of mailart including
-red
-straight lines
-a reaction to two words drawn in a hat full of suggestions. I drew "metallic" and "chaos"
The problem was this: to me "chaos" does not always have to carry the connotation of panic, boodshed and fear, as it seemed to mean to the other members of the group. To me, chaos simply means an unorganised and unruly state of things. I bent under general pression put upon me by the group and created a violent piece (the teddy bears getting killed by a UFO), a piece very unlike me. I admit, I learned something while making this one. It was very difficult. I don't like making this kind of stuff, especially since it was not a result of something I had to say. I had the feeling words were put into my mouth, and that always upsets me. The text says: "Connotations - but not my connotations"


But I also made "my" version of the challenge: chaos in the sense where you simply do NOT mix Mickey and Donald in the same story, it's a rule and if you break it it's a chaos - small scale but a chaos nevertheless. Child I mean, who decided that chaos = destruction?



I love making mailart.

Meet Frida

Frida landed in my stamp collection on Friday. This fiesty young lady was born in Las Vegas, and somehow I get the feeling Paris is not her favorite place on Earth...


Frida complains about the food (too lean), the messy state of the stamping room, the choice of background music, the size of the other rubber stamps (especially the male ones), even the weather: too mild, she says, apparently "real weather" is either burning hot or freezing, springs and falls are just plain boring.


One of the first of Frida's complaints was the lack of friends to play with. So I dug out Alice, who is the perfect size and age to play with Frida, and I expected the two to get along well. But no. As a welcome gift, Alice brought Frida... a pig. Unfortunately Frida's reaction was not what Alice had hoped for.


Time will show, whether these two will become friends.. or not.


Stamp credits: Frida, grinnning sun - Viva Las Vegas Stamps ; Tree - Stempelmine ; Alice - Stampfrancisco ; Flowers - Hero Arts

Workshops and techniques

Oh my, has it been almost a month? So sorry for no updates!

I've been busy with my birthday (a Somerset Studio subscription was among the presents, hooray), and then with Serious Workshops these past two weekends!

Last weekend I took part in a scrap rally, as Sami calls it. It was two days of scrapping without pause, I went with my two stamping buddies, the two Sandas, and we had an excellent time. We did an altered box using photos as part of tehe decoration, and a mini album on a wintery theme. Unfortunately the box is a present so it must be blogged later, and the mini album isn't finished, but you'll see pictures shortly!

Yesterday we three stampeteers took part in an amazing adventure at a convention dedicated to stamping techniques and discovery in the world of what's new in the field (well, new in this part of the world...). We did workshops with the likes of Suze Weinberg, Tim Holtz and Manuela Jamet... oh boy! Yes, photos will be shared, but like the box from last week, some of the things I made are presents and I feel they should arrive at their destinations before being published here.

Instead, two scrap pages. One with me and the Sandras (the photo taken the day we got together for the first time, in the background our usual Friday playfield), and one the page I made last night at the convention with a given choice of papers and embellishments. Eglantine is my clownname. I'll say for the clown page, this would definitely not have been my choice of colors and papers, had a scrapped at home alone! but it was a challenge, and the results are OK, I find.

Done with "building"

My row houses are ready, the swap is done, and all the envelopes are going out on Monday. I made a card to go with the swap:


And the rest of the houses are here:






This was a particularly fun swap. I organized it, and so got to see all 10 houses of the other participants. I really feel I know them a bit better now, after all the theme for the swap was "me"! Some participants described their houses, and some told things about themselves, their wishes and dreams and their way of life.

ATC swapping at its best. :)

Stamp credits: Painter - Enchanted ink, houses - Heindesign , tree - Stempelmine, Alphabet for "home sweet home" - Art By Moonlight (Stampfrancisco), All stamps on the orange house - Inkadinkado, Text behind the lute player - Stampington.
Other credits: All white texts on black background on the rowhouses - Lisa Vollrath

Tule sellaisena kuin olet = Come as you are