My scrappin' life

Artfusion 2013, an amazing and inspirational experience!

Last Friday my sweet friend Nat Kalbach and I finally met in Utrecht for our Artfusion 2013 Mixed Media Event. We had been planning, organizing and looking forward too it for months and now we were there!

After I picked up Nat from the railway station we went to the location to unpack my car that was loaded as if I was going on a 3 weeks vacation with my whole family :)

The location was artsy and fitted the artfusion feel we had in mind for the event but I have to say it was quite a challenge to create a seat and a place to work on for everyone but we managed, LOL!

After a very short night and totally excited we returned there Saturday morning to do the last preparation and get ready for the guest to arrive. What a fun, mixed group of people came in around 9 am! We had girls from all parts of the Netherlands, Finland, the UK, Sweden and some girls living in the Netherlands but originally coming from Israël and Spain. 33 ladies in total! They all blended together, shared their passion for mixed media art and inspired each other and us! It was so much fun to see all the different approaches to the projects Nat and I taught. There was so much humor and laughing and dirty hands. It was lovely meeting up again with people I met on previous events and workshop and also get to know new people that I only met online before!

Minna, I hope it is ok I took some pictures from your blog :)

Thanks to all our great sponsors we had a small goodie bag for everyone at entrance and also a give away for each and every attendee during lunch, which made the event even more fun!

Besides that we had a lovely kit to give to the winner of the name badge contest on both days and a great price to give away during the crop evening.

After the workshops were finished we went to dinner with some of the girls that stayed the whole weekend and then went back to the location to crop. Around 10 pm everybody was so tired that we decided to go back to our hotels and get some sleep. I went to bed with the happy feeling of having another great day ahead!

On Sunday we had a bit smaller but just as fun group with some new people. Again it all blended together and everybody was having a good time! There were more give aways for everyone and there was a really relaxed atmosphere. 

Around 5 pm we closed the door, hugged and kissed and said goodbye and we all went home. I felt tired but satisfied and happy. I had an amazing weekend!

I want to thank Nat for doing this with me. You are a wonderful friend, teacher and artist, Nat and it was lovely doing this together and spending the weekend with you! Hopefully we will see each other again soon! I also want to thank all the lovely ladies who attended our weekend and thereby made it possible! Thank you for your enthousiasme, the laughs, the help with making coffee, lunch and cleaning up and all the sweet messages we received afterwards!! It was great to meet you all and I hope we all will see each other again one day!

And finally a huge thank you to all our lovely sponsors who helped making this weekend a succes! WOW! Embossing Powders, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L^TM, Craft Stamper Magazine, Scrap 365, Histoires de Pages, Cocoa Daisy, SODAlicious, Sizzix, Stencil Girl Products, Prima, Revlie Schuit and PanPastel!!

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Artfusion 2013 Recap or...Going Dutch is fun!

Memory Game - Going a few years back in time!

How nice is it to find something special back of which you forgot you had it?!

While cleaning out Marlijn's room today we came accross this memory game I created almost 5 years ago as a guest designer for Prima, long before I was actually on their design team.

How cool is that!? The pictures are from our 2008 summer vacation. Gosh, look at how cute my kids were back then! :) And look at that cover! How different would that look if I created it now! :)

When I made this I didn't have a Big Shot yet with a die like the Sizzix Bigz Squares to cut the tiles. I had to cut them all by hand, 62 pieces! x 3 because I also had to cut the back paper and the pictures! I also hadn't heard from Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L^TM back then so I had no Adhesive Sheets. Man, those would have made my life so much easier, LOL, so happy to have them now!

Anyway, I'm thrilled to have found this again and we are definitelly going to play this weekend!

Have a great one!

Behind the Scenes - Jillibean Soup

Yes! it's Friday, almost weekend and here we are again with another Behind the Scenes!

Today I want to introduce to you another one of my favorite manufacturers.

Please meet:

I've been a guest designer for Jillibean once, used their products in magazine work and will be using their papers, letters and stickers in my brand new workshop "Snap! Gotcha" that I will be teaching at Scrap4fun June 7-8 and at Creative Moments with Scrap-Perra in Stockholm - Sweden, August 31 - September 1.

I love their fresh papers, especially the basic designs that go with just anything. I also love their Alphabeans, the corrugated Alphas, the buttons, the Soup Labels... well, what's not to love??

So let me introduce you to Jill Yegerlehner, the owner of Jillibean Soup as well as the Creative Director of Jillibean Soup!

Hello There!

This is Jill Yegerlehner of Jillibean Soup.  I’m the owner of Jillibean Soup as well as the Creative Director.  We have offices in Marysville, Ohio.  We just moved here last December and now have a small retail store that houses some Jillibean Soup but also vintage finds.  Besides scrapbooking goodies, vintage/upcycled finds are my other passion.  I love old stuff – I can only imagine the stories behind them! 

I started the company in 2007 (conceptually) and introduced our first products into the marketplace in fall of 2008.  We attended our first CHA in January of 2009 and the rest is history.  Even though I do not have a graphic design degree, I’m very involved in all things creative.  All of our new releases start with an idea and then evolve into the papers that we put before you.  I’m lucky to have graphic designers that take my vision, colors, sketches and make them come to life on a page. 

We get lots of questions about the name “Jillibean Soup” and where it came from.  We actually started with another name – Jill’s Attic and about 3 months into it, found some items online that were trademarked “Jill’s Attic” so it was back to the drawing board!   I sat down one Saturday and made a list of about 20 names.  I picked out 5 or 6 of them and sent them to my friends to see which one they liked.  The ALL came back with Jillibean Soup.  Fortunately for me, the name has allowed us to do lots of fun marketing with our products.  All of our paper collections are all soup names and all the papers within them are ingredients in the soup.  We’ve name products Sprouts, Alphabeans, Cool Beans, Pea Pods, Bean Blossoms and so on.  The naming is actually the last thing I do – google is wonderful for that!

Jillibean Soup offers papercrafting goodies including patterned papers, 6x6 pads, stickers, stamps, buttons, twine and lots of other goods to go with each collection.  My latest favorite is our Pea Pods or die cuts that coordinate with each line.  When I get the first samples, I’m just giddy.  I love all the little bits and pieces.  Other favorites have been our Corrugated Alphas, Epoxy Buttons, Kraft Tags and stamps.  Some of my favorite collections include: Minestrone (one of our very first collections), Blossom Soup, Atomic Soup (after my Biology background), Sweet & Sour, Grandma’s Lima Bean and now Chilled Cucumber.  I’m also excited about a new release we will be showing next month… Happy Camper Stew.  Critters, campers, arrows, flamingos..  its just adorable!  We also have some GREAT products coming out this Summer too. 

You can find us on the web at:

www.jillibean-soup.com

From there, you can access our blog, Facebook Fan page, Pinterest page and each of our Design Team member’s blogs.  

Here you will find a fun blog post about how Jillibean's CHA booth comes together and in this blog post you can see all about the paper printing process. Very interesting! 

Projects made with Jillibean Soup products:

And of course we are not leaving you without the chance of winning a great giveaway! Jillibean is giving away a Soup Staples II Collection Pack to one lucky reader. Basic papers in the best colors! These go with everything so take a chance and maybe you are the lucky receiver! 

So what to do? Check out the Jillibean Soup blog and have a look at all the wonderful projects made by the awesome Jillibean DT. Then come back here and let us know what inspires you most and why.

You can leave a comment until Thursday, May 23, Midnight (GMT +1) and I will let Random.org pick a winner. The winner will be announced in next weeks BTS.

And here is last weeks winner. The complete Bright Blossoms Collection including two stamp sets, Montage sheet, Photochips, Filmstrips and Wordstrips from  Darkroom Door goes too:

"I love all of darkroom door stamps - i have a few and especially love the background stamps - they are fantastic and so versatile!!!
I would love to have a chance to win some of darkroom door products. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Good luck to everyone!!!"

Posted by: Debbie Macdonald | May 12, 2013 at 06:48 AM

Congratulations Debbie! Please send me your address at info@birgitkoopsen.nl! 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Behind the Scenes - Darkroom Door

Yes, I know... I've been a bad, bad, bad blogger. But sometimes other things are more important than blogging I guess :) I'll try to better from now on!

Today I have a new Behind the Scenes for you.

Which reminds me that the winners of the last BTS have not been announced yet!So here they are:

Congratulations Miriam Prantner and Ann Jobes. You are the lucky girls who won a set of gorgeous Art Journey stamps! Please e-mail me your address so I can send them out to you! info@birgitkoopsen.nl 

And now I'm happy to announce Darkroom Door!

I've met one of the owners, Rachel Greig, a couple of times at CHA and while teaching together in France and she is not only an amazing photographer and a very talented  (stamp) designer but also a really sweet and funny person. Read on and learn a little bit more about her and her amazing company!

HI! My name is Rachel Greig, I’m one of the owners of Darkroom Door, a rubber stamp company based in Australia. My main role within the company is to design the products. As I am a professional photographer, my main inspiration for the artwork comes from my own photographs. I use these to create complete collections of rubber stamps and paper products that can be used by stamp artists and paper crafters in their own artwork. My other main role is teaching workshops at stores and events throughout the world. This helps inspire artists and gives them ideas on how our rubber stamps and products can be used within their own art. Teaching and designing are my favourite parts of my job, however as any business owner would know, we tend to juggle many balls – so it’s common for me to be doing the marketing, customer service, packing orders, book keeping and the creative direction of the company! There’s never a dull moment around here, that’s for sure! 

I live near the beach with my husband and business partner Stewart, our two children Ethan (12 years) and Zoe (9 years), along with our pet guinea pigs and birds.

Darkroom Door was founded in 2007. However my journey into the craft world began back in the 90’s when I was at university studying for my Bachelor of Visual Art. Photography was my major subject and after I graduated I began my career as a professional photographer. During this time I began using rubber stamps to create my own handmade cards and it wasn’t long before I started thinking about using my own photos to design my own range of rubber stamps. At first I licensed the designs out for other rubber stamp companies to manufacture. A few years later, my husband and I decided to start our own rubber stamp company called Darkroom Door. The name is inspired by my love of photography and many many years spent in black and white darkrooms!

Our aim was to produce rubber stamps and paper products that could be used in card making, scrapbooking, mixed media and any other paper craft!

Darkroom Door first started in my photography studio where we manufactured the rubber stamps in my darkroom space! We have since outgrown that space and now have a warehouse where we do all of the manufacturing, designing and storage of our products. Our warehouse is on the NSW Central Coast of Australia, only a few kilometres from our home.

Darkroom Door offers rubber stamp sets which are cling mounted and sold in a clear DVD storage case. We also produce several ranges of single stamps such as Background Stamps, Photo Stamps, Collage Stamps, Frame Stamps and Word Block Stamps.

In our paper collections we offer Montage sheets, Photochips, Filmstrips and Wordstrips. These products are a collection of photographs that can be cut out and used in your own artwork.

It’s difficult to choose a personal favourite, but I do have a soft spot for all of the Photo Stamps. I love the simplicity of them and yet the versatility that they offer. You can be a beginner or and advanced stamper and use these stamps to create stunning cards. As these are designed from my own photos, I also remember where each photo was taken, so that is pretty special to me.

My favourite product is always the latest ones we release – mainly because they are fresh and new and I enjoy discovering new ways to use each stamp! I have some ideas in my head on how I’d like to use the stamps when I am designing them. But when the rubber is in my hands and I can start experimenting, all sorts of new ideas happen! That’s what’s exciting for me!

From the beginning all of the products are designed by myself with some help from Stewart when needed. Stewart is a graphic designer, so he is very handy when it comes to typesetting and creating patterns. Stewart is able to bring all of my crazy ideas like the Word Block stamps and various different Background Stamps to life!

We have recently introduced a new designer - Godelieve Tijskens, a well known stamper from Belgium, who has started designing some stamp sets. It's great to add in some new styles to the mix!

How do you think the scrapbooking/mixed media scene will evolve in the upcoming year.

Right now it’s all about colour! Whether it’s paints, inks or sprays, it’s all about having no rules and enjoying yourself. I love how lots of crafts are mixing together – it’s not just card making or scrapbooking, many people are using different elements to cross over in different crafts. It’s an exciting time!

Is there anything exciting you would like to share with us?

Darkroom Door has just released a new range of Background Stamps, Collage Stamps and Frame Stamps! You can see them all on the website here:
http://shop.darkroomdoor.com/

Where can we find your company?

Website: http://www.darkroomdoor.com/

Blog: blog.darkroomdoor.com  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darkroomdoor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/darkroom_door 

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/darkroomdoor/ 

Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/darkroomdoor/ 

 

Do you have a technique video available that you would like to share?

Embossing Resist with Distress Stains
More videos can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/rachelgreig 

 

And last but not least we have a wonderful give away for you today!

One lucky reader will get the complete Bright Blossoms Collection including two stamp sets, Montage sheet, Photochips, Filmstrips and Wordstrips! 

How awesome is that?! 

How you can win? That's easy! Visit the Darkroom Door website.  Find your favorite Darkroom Door stamp (set), come back here to tell us which it is and why. You can leave a comment until Tuesday, May 16, midnight (GMT+1) and the winner will randomly be picked and announced in the next Behind the Scenes.

Good luck and have a happy weekend!

Artfusion 2013, We Heard You!!

Yes, we did! On our announcement of the Artfusion Event we planned we got a lot of comments about the location. Many of you asked us why we didn’t plan it somewhere in the middle of the Netherlands. It would be easier for you to get there and it would also increase the travel distance/time for a lot of you. Also we heard that April was already so full of events and stuff.

And we agree! So we decided to postpone the event and find a better location. We think we found the perfect place!

Artfusion will now take place June 15-16 in the middle of the lovely city of Utrecht. Being a big railways junction in the Netherlands and only 45 minutes by train from Schiphol airport we think Utrecht is one of the best places we could have chosen.

The facility (Kade Ateliers) is a canal house at the Leidsekade 17, near the center of Utrecht where we have the availability of 2 lovely, light rooms. As we see it, we have all the ingredients for an amazing creative weekend on hand here.

 

Check out the Artfusion blog for al the information about the workshop, schedule and prices!

We would love to meet you there for some Artfusion!

Birgit and Nathalie

Sizzix free downloadable papers!! Easter layout.

Don't you love getting stuff for free? Of course you do! :)

Right now Sizzix has some fun spring papers that you can download for free! You can find them here!

Today I want to share with you a layout I created with 2 of those papers and some lovely Sizzix dies, It is an Easter layout. Here in the Netherlands there is a tradition on Easter Monday. It is a game called "Notenschieten" (nut shooting) where there is a line of walnuts with money next to each walnut. You get a heavy ball and throw it trying to bump away the nut the furhtest away to win the most money. The pictures are taken at my sister and brother in law's farm. This year my little girl who was then only 5 years old won the pot! :) Look how excited she is, hehe!

The papers I used are "flowers" and "stripey". And here are the dies I used:

Baroque Ornament 657735

Leaves 657917

Inside Out Aplahbet 657827

  

I love those leaves! The die set comes with a coordinating stamp set and I used it to create the white embossed outlines on the leaves. The little line of leaves on the bottom of the card is also made with a stamp that comes with this set! I think the Inside out alpahbet is good value too. You can use both the letters as the outlines but what do you think about putting another colour letter inside the outline and vise versa. :)

You want to get in a spring mood or create a nice Easter layout then hop over to the Sizzix website and download these and more fresh coloured spring papers!

Thank you for stoppig by and happy crafting!

Behind the Scenes - Meet Art Journey

Welcome to Behind the Scenes!

This week I am happy to announce a Dutch manufacturer of awesome stamps. Please meet:

We're talking to Louise today. Louise please introduce yourself. 

My name is Louise Kolker and I am the owner of the the Dutch Stamp Company Art Journey.

I am 53 years old, married to Jos and we have a son of 24 years old who studies law. We live in the lovely village Sleen in the north-east of the Netherlands . This is also the location of our stampstore also called Art Journey. Next to my job running our company and our stamp store I also have a day job as management assistant at a HRM department in a hospital.

My hobbies are of course rubberstamping but I also love to read and with my best friend we are keen Geocachers.  Geocaching is treasurehunting with a GPS. Our goal is to find caches all over the world.

Can you tell us something about the company? By who and when was it founded and where is it based. Was it originally the intention to produce for the scrapbooking market or did it evolve in that direction in time?

Art Journey started nearly 10 years ago, this year we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary in the weekend of 28-30^th of June. I started it out as a hobby in my attic at home. Just because the people who I taught workshops also wanted to buy stamps and stamp supplies and those were not available in the Netherlands I decided to import them and that was the the first step. After a few years of importing stamps in to the Netherlands and introducing stamp companies as Paperbag Studio, Paper Artsy etc etc and trying to hold on to exclusive rights so I could make a difference and not have the same in store as the other stores I decided we needed our own exclusive stamps. With the help of two girlfriends (Sija Teijgeler and Hermine Koster) who made the  first designs we introduced our own stamps in 2007. Sija took over the designing and we never looked back.  Since then we have released 62 sheets and several single stamps.

Of course my attic was soon to small for the ever growing business and about 5 years ago I rented a great building with a shop and workshop studio where we weekly arrange workshops.

What kind of products does your company offer,  which are your personal favorites and why.

Art Journey as a brand only sells unmounted rubber stamps, but in our stampstore we sell a wide arrange of stamps and stamp supplies. My personal favorites are of course our beautiful  Art Journey stamps.

If I had to choose I really love our nature stamps, with my very favorite the sheet called Nature Flowers. Saying that I also love the stamp sheet Willy Helene as that is the name of my mother, now 85 years old but showing her as a girl of 12 years old, but that is more sentimental value. Also the sheet Butterfly wishes has a little boy on it. That is our son Ben when he was 2,5 years old. You can imagine that those are very special for me.

How are new products developed. Do you have in-house designers or designers from outside.

Nearly all our stamps are designed by Sija Teijgeler, but as she has moved on to other activities we have a few new freelance designers.
Next to the designers of the stamps, we have a very talented and active designteam who make wonderful artwork with our stamps. These ladies are really great and I can’t thank them enough for there inspiring work. They show there work on their blogs and on our design team blog and our Pinterest account.

How do you think the scrapbooking/mixed media scene will evolve in the upcoming year. What will be hot and new, what will be out.

Rubberstamping is an art of all times. As it has so many possibilities and can be incorporated in all kinds of art such as for instance scrapbooking and mixed media, it will evolve and find more and more artists that will want to use rubberstamps.

Is there any exciting news you want to share with us?

This year we will release at least 6 new sheets and are looking into the possibilities in selling our stamps wholesale in countries outside of Holland.

Where can we find your company?

Art Journey website

Blogs:

http://artjourneydesign-team.blogspot.nl/
http://www.followmeonmyartjourney.blogspot.nl/

Facebook

Pinterest 

Some projects created using Art Journey stamps:

And here is this weeks give away:

Art Journey is giving away not one but 2 beautiful sets of stamps. So 2 lucky people are going to win these 3 sheets:

    

Oh my, who would not love to win these? I sure would!!

How you can win? That's easy! Visit the Art Journey website . (The website can be read in Dutch, German and English). Find your favorite Art Journey stamp set and come back here to tell us which it is and why. You can leave a comment until Tuesday, March 14, midnight (GMT+1) and the winner will randomly be picked and announced in next weeks Behind the Scenes.

And now it't time to annouce the winner of the previous Behind the Scenes:

Congratulations Sigrit! Please e-mail me your address and you'll receive your prize soon! :)

Thank you all for stopping by!

Enjoy your Friday and have a wonderful weekend!

Kroma Crackle! And a PanPastel Workshop!

One of the new (for me) products I brought home from CHA is Kroma Crackle. I was blown away by the amazing and colorful samples they had ad the booth and just wanted to try myself.

This was one of my first attempts. I sprayed the gel with glimmer mist and then dried it with my heat gun. Yes, you know, I'm a little impatient. I like the result but it turned out very different then what I was looking for. I wanted those crisp crackles, with sharp edges, lying on top of the paper. So, time to get patient... 

 

I applied the gel to cardstock and let it dry overnight like I was recommended. And yes, it cracked, but parts of the cracks fel of the paper :( What  did I do wrong?

When I e-mailed Kroma Crackle (because I didn't read the instructions on the website) I got looong e-mails in return. They even called me all the way from Canada, just to try and help me as much as they could! What a wonderful, helpful and kind team! I learned that after drying you need to seal the crackles with f.i. gel medium or acrylic paint. And that worked :)

Wow, don't you just LOVE the texture?

So it took some patience, practice and some help from the Kroma Crakle team but finally I ended up with this little 6x6 canvas. And I love it!

You can find more about Kroma Crackle on their website or on their Facebook page. Make sure to pay them a visit and be amazed!

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On Saturday, May 25th I will be teaching with PanPastel at Creabest in Ommen.

There are only 6 more places available so don't wait to long if you're intersted! :)

Thank you for stopping by!

Intohimona Skräppäys, Passionate about Scrapbooking Event in Helsinki, April 2013

I'm thrilled to be one of 6 teachers at the 5th Intohimona Skäppäys (Passionate about Scrapbooking) Event in Helsinki, April  19-21, 2013.

I will be teaching 3 classes. Six other classes will be taught by these amazing teachers: From Finland Minna Enqvist (Emmo) and Riikka Kovasin. From Poland: Anna Wach, Jaszmurka and Anna-Maria Wolniak.

These are the workshops I will be teaching:

For time tables and prices please visit the Intohimona Skräppäys blog!

I would love to see you in Helsinki!! :D

I'm Coming to Sweden! Creative Moments Event Stockholm Aug. 31/Sept.1, 2013

I am very happy and excited to announce that I will be teaching at Creative Moments with Scrap-Perra in Stockholm - Sweden, August 31 - September 1 together with these amazing teachers: Nat Kalbach, Janna Werner and Asa Danielsson

I will be teaching 3 classes.

In one we will create a journal that can be used for whatever you like. An art journal, diary, travel log, mini album... We'll create an awesome cover using a double embossing technique and fill the album with (handmade) papers, envelopes, transparencies and tags.

Then there will be a mini album called Snap Shots. It will focus on Instagram and Hipstamatic snap shots but can also be very well used for traditional pictures. In this album you will work with Elizabeth Craft Designs Shimmer Sheets (a fun new product that can be embossed and colored to create a nice metal look) and more!

In the third workshop we will bring scrapbooking and mixed media together! You will learn how to create awesome textured backgrounds using mixed media techniques and incorporated them into your layouts. A fun workshop for everyone, whether your a scrapbooker, an art journaler or love to create off the page mixed media projects!

I hope you'll join me at:

Have a wonderful weekend!