Relaxing

No, unfortunately I am not on the beach or in the mountains. But there are many ways to relax, and one of them (at least for me) is to play in Art Journal. You know, when nothing extremely exciting is happening in real life, I can always play with fabric, paper and paint and have fun.

So this time I have some journal pages to show you, which were done fairly quickly and with what ever junk I had on my desk – yarn, pieces of textured paper that I couldn’t throw away, paper that I used to clean my stamps on, etc. These are not my best pages ever, but they were done without too much thinking, in a very relaxing way, and it felt so good.

The letters are for “The sea” – now you know what I’m dreaming about!

“One day I will have a house and a garden”:

These pages are all from my mini art journal, about the size of a postcard.

My favorite page, “Sisters”:

Textured pages:

Everything is better with a little bit of glitter!

And a spread from my “normal size” journal:

I think I have six or seven Art Journals that I’m currently working in, and they are all different size and with different papers inside. All of them are (of course) handmade by moi. Handmade paper, watercolor paper, newspapers, cereal boxes, junk mail, anything you can think of, I’ve made a journal out of it. And I love trying out different techniques in them, seeing what medium goes best with this or that type of paper, making mistakes and not caring about them. It’s just wonderful!

Oh yes, and a huge book is soon going to be altered and turned into yet another Art Journal! Do I need it? Of course not! But I want it, and so I will make it! I buy more glue than nail polish, and more yarn and paint than clothes, but it makes me happy!

Have a great day/night everyone!

 

And Two More…

While I was writing my last blog post these two pretties were almost complete. So now that I finished them I can show you how they look.

First an altered book:

I used fabric, gel medium, modelling paste and acrylic paint to make the cover look like this, and I’m very happy with the result.

I sewed and distressed the pages and added lace and other bits to them:

The other one is a fabric journal, with a heart (of course).

Lots and lots of stitching:

The back:

And the inside:

Have a great day!

 

Scraps and Hearts

I think there is no hope of getting my studio in order. I try and try to clean it and make it look, well, not like a bomb site (lol!), but almost every time I do that, I find so many interesting things and get easily distracted. How can I sort through my laces and doilies and not get inspired? How can I look at those tea dyed fabrics, scraps of silk and cotton, and just put them away? It’s impossible! I think next time when my muse “goes on holiday”, I should start cleaning up and she will be with me right away!

Maybe you remember the scrappy fabric from one of my previous posts:

It doesn’t look like much in that photo, but I made some cute things out of it.

Two cosmetic bags:

And a journal:

It has pink and pale lilac handmade paper inside, with a little bit of lace, just to connect the inside with the cover. Maybe I should name it “Button love”. Here is the back:

I also finally finished this journal. I love the brown velvet:

It also has handmade paper inside, dyed with acrylic paint and tea.

Since I don’t like throwing anything away (that’s why my studio is always a mess), I made some hearts out of scraps of fabric and lace, and they will be used for journal covers or to decorate a purse or something. Sewing these pretties is a wonderful way to be creative without having a pressure of working on a big piece, but also it’s great for using all those bits and pieces that are lying around.

Sewing with small pieces of fabric makes me feel like I am working in my Art Journal. My thoughts and feelings are pieced together, making a solid piece of fabric that has a much deeper meaning than a “plain” piece of fabric would. Working in Art Journal makes me feel free and able to express my feelings without thinking too much about what I do or how I do it. It feels good to just be spontaneous. The same thing happens when I make these scrappy pieces.

Speaking of Art Journal, I have four new pages to show you.

This is my handmade journal with textured handmade paper inside. I love it! But there are only a few blank pages in it left to work on, so I will have to make another one. What a great excuse to make more paper.

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

A Little Break

Ten days out of the big city, concrete and traffic was just the thing I needed. We took our camera and headed to the mountains for a much needed break. No Internet, no cell phones, only a nice weather and a long walks in nature. Bliss!

With an occasional visit to the historic sites and spas.

Having fun with the new camera lenses, photographing gorgeous creatures and flowers:

Jumping into the water

Rolling in the grass:

Beautiful Nature, calming and healing:

It’s all about balance. Going to the mountains helps me feel relaxed and refreshed, and then I can go back to the city, work and other everyday things. But it always feels good to come back home.

 

Lunch Time!

I thought I could share with you two nice recipes. Easy to make, although not very fast, but then again not like a “whole day cooking” kinda recipes.

First there is the “Hunter’s stake” or “Hunter’s schnitzel” – well, as close as I could translate that. You will need beef or pork, cut and beat to make thin pieces. Then dip them in flour.

Fry in oil on moderate to high heat until they are golden brown ( that should be quite fast).

When all the steaks are fried, put them in a pot, adding salt and pepper and lots of chopped garlic and parsley between the layers of meat.

Add about half (or as much as you like) of glass of white wine, put the lid on and let that simmer for ten to fifteen minutes.

Then add water to almost cover the meat, put the lid on and let it simmer on medium to low heat for as much as it takes for the meat to be tender and wonderful. But I guess it should take anywhere from half to one hour. Also, you will see in the next photo how the flour makes a gorgeous sauce.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any more photos because this meal was eaten so fast, I forgot to photograph our plates. But believe me, if you like meat, you will love this. Serve it with mashed potatoes and enjoy.

While the meat was on the stove, I made some dog biscuits, because I want my dog to eat healthy food, not the store bought “filled with chemicals” stuff. Here is something like the recipe, I don’t have the exact measurements:

Two eggs and a big spoon of lard (you could use butter too). Mix that a bit,

Add about two table spoons of ground flax seeds and about a cup of oat flakes.

You could add yogurt ( half of cup) or sour cream, or white cheese, or any cheese, or all that actually, and then add flour until the dough is firm, but not too firm, just until it’s not sticking to your hands. You should have something like this:

You could even add chopped bacon or minced meat, but in that case store the biscuits in the fridge after they are baked or in the freezer if you have a lot of them.

Make any shape you like. I like them like this:

Bake at 200 degrees (Celsius) for about 20 minutes, or until they are light brown in color.

A happy customer:

And because my husband loved Meda’s biscuits, I then had to make a batch for him too. I did the same thing as already described, just added pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds (as my hubby requested), and voila! Another happy face!

The only difference between Meda’s and our biscuits is salt. I don’t put it in Meda’s food, and I even forgot to put it in our biscuits this time, but because I added sour cream and cheese to the mix, the salt wasn’t needed at all.

Have a great day!

 

I Will Be OK

I’m painting and making a mess in my Art Journal like crazy! That means I’m feeling better. At first it seemed like I had no inspiration at all, so I said to my self – I’ll clean my desk. Ha! That almost always does the trick!

First you start with sorting out all the bits and pieces, then you find something interesting, then something you forgot you had, and then it all goes into a very different direction. And in the end, the desk is a mess as usual, but you end up with having so much fun making things! That’s what happened to me a few days ago. I found some small pieces of a cereal box (I have no idea what I wanted to do with them when I cut them who knows when), some packaging material, pieces of paper, old book pages etc, and they were all pretty much the same size. So I thought, I could make a small art journal, just for fun. It’s about 6 x 3,5 inches. I love it.

Well, technically it’s not a journal just yet, it’s a collection of pages that are going to become a journal one day. I’ll show it to you when I finish it, but now I wanted to share some of the pages that are finished. And the best part is that I love each and every single one of them!

And my favorite pages, only because of the colors:

Handmade stencils, stamps, embossing, painting, doodling,gluing, cutting…

Oh it’s so good to just let it all out of my system.

 

Two Awards!

It’s interesting how the Universe works. With some “not very good” things happening lately, I’ve been feeling, well, not very good. Everyone is ok and alive, thankfully. And that is the most important thing. But still, some things made me so sad that I didn’t have the will to do anything artistic. I didn’t know what to blog about. I did practice some sewing and made my self a skirt and a T shirt, but I don’t have the photos yet to show you. And then, I get nominated for two blog awards, so now I have to blog about that, and I feel as if something is making me “move on”,  as if this blog world is making me getting back into writing and creating. And that is wonderful!

First, I was nominated for the “Best Moment Award” by Tatsat. Thank you Tatsat!

Awarding the people who live in the moment,
The noble who write and capture the best in life,
The bold who reminded us what really mattered -
Savoring the experience of quality time.

I am grateful for this award. It obviously came at the right time, to make me feel a bit better, and to make me try to forget bad things and concentrate on sharing my art and my experiences with the world. Thank you Tatsat once again,  your blog is great, wonderfully written, makes me think harder about life than I normally would and that enriches me; it’s a place to learn something new, to think, to share thoughts, and to connect.

The other award came from Kalona who is an amazing artist and a wonderful friend. Thank you Kal!

Kalona shares her passion for fabric, paper and other art forms on her blog. If you need inspiration or you want to learn something new, check out her blog, you will enjoy it!

I would love to be able to write more about this, and to express my feelings a bit better, but for now this is the best I can do. But I am very grateful for these awards and for the “boost” they give me at this moment in my life.

I will use this opportunity to nominate five blogs for both of these awards, so here they are:

CREATIVE METAPHOR – Eliza is an amazing writer who also makes wonders by painting and weaving.

CATCHINMOONBEAMS – Terri is so talented, her drawing makes me jealous. I wish I could draw and paint like that!

ACTON CREATIVE – Christine is a weaver who makes gorgeous fabrics on her loom!

TIN CAN TART – Mary’s art is beautiful and inspiring and always makes me happy.

LIFEOFDEB  – Deb is a great artist who works with different media. She is also a Certified Zentangle Teacher.

Have a wonderful day everyone!