My scrappin' life

Slush Puppy Fun

Hi everyone!

I hope your all enjoying a nice 4-day weekend! I am! Especially the lovely weather which is much better than expected.

Today i want to share with you a layout I created for the Scrapbook Adhesives^TM by 3L blog.

I used my E-Z Runner Permanent to adhere pieces of book paper on the cardstock, Then I put stripes of Washi tape around the book paper and let some Wild Plum glimmer mist run down the page. Then I used the E-Z Runner to put the the paper circles and the picture on top. It is so easy applying the adhesive around the round edges! I also used this for the paper embellishments.

For the heavier embelishments I used Crafty Power Tape, one of my all time favorites. This adhesive is so strong and so easy to use. I even used it to adhere the heart jewel.

For the flowers and the word awesome I used 3D Foam Squares – White, Regular Size. They are great to add some depth to your page. I also used them for the buttons and the metal number that has a gap on the backside that needed to be filled in order to be able to apply it to the page. The foam squares filled the gap and stuck the number to the page at the same time.

Finally I used DODZ™ for the the flies in the middle of the page. I made these by hand with wire and beads a long time ago and just found them again while I was looking for something else. Happy findings! :)

Products used in this layout:

 

And here is a little something I created yesterday. Check back later to see what I used them for :)

Wishing you all a lovely, sunny and creative weekend!

Challenging myself...

I'm working on a big, new and exciting project right now that I can't tell you anything about yet. I have awesome products to work with and I can do with them whatever I want. Fun, fun, fun!!

But I have to admit... I'm struggling. I'm stuck! It's not that I don't have ideas, they just don't come out the way I want. I can't seem to find the right mood, the right starting point. I messed up a lot of beautiful products, been working on it a couple of days and really don't have anything done yet.

This afternoon I found myself sitting at my desk, staring at the mess without a clue what to do, i felt as if all my creativity was gone...

It was time to do something to get out of this situation, the deadline is approaching fast and I'm getting a bit nervous...

So I decided to do something not related to the project. To challenge myself to jump start my creativity (where did I hear that before :)) and challenge myself!

I told myself to create a layout within 1,5 hour (including the time for getting the materials together) and use at least 3 different paint/ink mediums. Now you might think 1,5 hour is enough but for me it really is a challenge. I hardly ever finish a layout in only 1,5 hour. It's hard for me to just go with the flow and see what happens. I think to much. About the products I want to use, the colors, the embellishments, what to put where, which pictures to use, how many, what size and so on...

So since i didn't want to waste any time digging out supplies I decided to use whatever was on my table. Now if you look at the picture below you get an idea of how my table looks and that there was plenty of stuff I could use, LOL!

The little empty space in the front is where I sat creating my layout :) I just grabbed a box with old letter stickers, some inks, acrylic paint, embossing powders, glimmer mist, masking tape and stencils and started working on a white piece of cardstock.

I used stencils, filling the shapes with versamark and embossing powders. Sprayed on top and added acrylic paint and distress inks using other stencils and punchenella. I messed up the bottom of my page, so i cut it smaller and added it to a black piece of cardstock using masking tape around the edges, love how that turned out!

Then I added the photo on top, made the title out of some very old left over letter stickers and found some embellishments lying around that fitted.

And there it was... a completed layout within 1,5 hour! And it felt good! :)

 

 

There's some really old 7Gypsies book binding tape on here :) So fun that it is finaly being used!

 

 

Love this shadow picture of Nat and me in Vienna, we had such a good time there!

Now what did challenging myself bring me? Well, I found out that there is still some creativity left in me, LOL! Did it help me with my project? I don't know, I haven't gone back working on it yet. But I'm sure about one thing. I will stop thinking, just go with the flow and it will be ok! Oh and another thing... I definitely will be using masks and masking tape in it! :)

So what do you do to jump start your creativity. I would love it if you leave a message telling me!

And talking about jump start... If you for some reason didn't sign up for Nat Kalbach's Creative Jump Start 2012 in January and missed out on all the awesome videos, come back tomorrow and I'll share my video with you. Maybe I can help you jump start your creativity a little :)

 

Ready for ScrapMe Vienna!

Yes, I'm ready! Suitcases packed, boarding pass printed, everything ready,,,

Tomorrow morning Erik and Marlijn will bring me to Amsterdam airport (it's spring vacation), my plane will leave at 11.45h :)

Looking forward to a fun weekend teaching with my sweet friend Nat!

But before I leave I HAVE to do a post. Two days ago my hubby tells me it's about time I blog, the last post is from february 13. Are you kidding? LOL!

But he is right, so let me share some Tattered Angels projects today that I created for the TA booth at CHA.

The first one is a layout created with Canvas Corp products.

The clock face was first stamped with a screen and Island Spring glaze and then sprayed with Sprout Chalkboard.

The flower was sprayed with Pop Rocks and Cupid glimmer mist and then covered with a layer of Pixie Dust glam. For the paper and tag I used Pop Rocks, Cupid and Turqoise. The doilies behind the clock face were first lightly covered with Pixie Dust glam and then sprayed with Pop Rocks.

The canvas (12×12) was made with Plain Jane products. In case you don’t know, Plain Jane is a range of 3 new paint products that have been revealed at CHA, These are plain products which means as much as similar to the already existing products only without the glimmer. Tattered Angels has now Simply Sheer which can be compared with Glimmer Mist, Stained Glass which can be compared with Glam and Baseboard which can becompared with Chalkboard.

Used on this project are Stained Glass Yellow and Red, Baseboard Red Rocks and Simply Sheer Pink, Light Blue, Teal and Shade. For the stems and the leaves i used Sprout Chalkboard.

I first applied tags to the canvas and covered everything with Gesso, then I used a screen and the Yellow Stained Glass to stamp on the tags. After the stained glass had dried I sprayed the canvas with the Simply Sheer and the Baseboard.

I sprayed Canvas Corp Tissue paper with Simply Sheer, stamped on it and then cut out circles in different sizes to create the flowers. The metal buttons in the center of the flowers are colored with Stained Glass.

I used book paper sprayed with Sprout Chalkboard for the stems and the leaves. I added some extra color to them by rubbing them with a Olive green distress ink pad.

Finally I added rubons and cut out stamped letters to finish the canvas.

That's it for now! Wishing you all a wonderful and creative weekend ahead!

Just a quick post...

to say I'm still alive! :)

CHA was amazing! I had a wonderful time! I arrived on friday afternoon at LAX where Christine from Treasured Memories picked me up. 

The workshops in her store the next day went great. Maybe a little to much presure to get it all done but everybody seemed excited and happy about what they had learned and created!

Thank you Christine, for all the good care and the fun and the stories about your Dutch roots. I had a great time, hope to come back one day!

On saturday evening Christine and her girls gave me a ride to my hotel in Anaheim and dropped me of with my bestie Nat Kalbach who was my room mate for the rest of the week. Loved spending the week with you girlie!!

I don't know about other people but for me the show was great!!

I attended some very interesting and inspiring workshops, found some great new products to play and work with, made some good new contacts, taught make-and-takes at the Prima booth and at Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L had dinnesr and drinks with a bunch of fun friends, did not make enough pictures and met a lot of people I only new from the message boards and FB. So nice to finally get to know them in real. Had breakfast at Starbucks every morning and way to little sleep, but i made up for that when I got home.

So, to make a long story short... it was awesome and I really, really hope I can go again next year!

Now, I can't show any of the projects I created for CHA since they first have to be up on the manufacturers blogs, but I have a layout that was posted on the Crafty Power blog (Scrapbook Adhesives) just before I left.

Imaginisces Hippity Hop paper line is fun, colorfull, fresh and happy! And they are teaming up with Scrapbook Adhesives this month!

It was a joy creating a layout with this spring themed paper and all the lovely extras! The doilies where sprayed with Tattered Angels glimmer mist Key Lime Pie and Trunk Bay/Dragonfly.

I used MyStik repositionable dots dispenser to apply the white cardstock to the background paper. It’s always a little tricky to get such a big sheet in the middle of another sheet and using the repositionable MyStik allowes me to take it of and try again if I mess up

Since I was going to sew around the edges I didn’t need to use permanent adhesive too. I you don’t want to use you simply lift up the edges if the paper is in the right place and add adhesive using the MyStik permanent strips dispenser.

This last one I used for everything else, except for the birdcage, the little bunny, the nest and the title. For those I used Crafty Foam Tape.

The colored text strips are made in Word. Open a text box on your page, choose a background color. Set your font color to white and type your text. Print it on photo paper (that will give you the brightest colors and a nice shine) and cut in strips.

If you don’t have the skills or the tools to print a picture in black and white with just one part in color (just like me ) don’t worry. I colored the eggs with Letraset Aquamarkers. 

That's it for today! Hope to be back soon!

For now I wish you all a lovely weekend, hope you create something nice while I'm preparing kits for Pour l'Amour du Scrap next week in Lille, France! Maybe I'll see you there! :)

Workshops and a layout for Tattered Angels

Back home from my weekend at Scrap4fun where I have been teaching my workshop "The whole Shebang" 2 days. I really had a great time and I hope my students did too. It was quite an intens workshops with lots of techniques and we had to work fast, no time to sit back and relax :) But I think in the end most was done or could be finished at home.

 

Vera and her team where fantastic, the hotel was wonderful and I sure would love to go back there and teach again. For now Vera and agreed on the weekend of september 15th and this time I will teach a couple of 3/3,5 hour workshops. More information about that as soon as we know more!!

Are you sorry you missed this, then I have good news for you! I will be teaching this workshop in my own studio on March 24, see my previous post for more information or e-mail me at scrappen@birgitkoopsen.nl 

And now on to the next. I will be leaving for CHA in only 11 days, eeekkkk!! And there is a LOT that has to be done before I can leave! Today I spent most of the time preparing kits for my workshops at Treasured Memories in Oak Park, near LA, where I will teach these 2 workshops on January 28th:

There are a few spaces left so if you would like to join in the fun go to the Treasured Memories website and sign up! I would love to meet you there!!

I will leave you today with a layout I made for the Tattered Angels blog.

I created the background paper with embossing powder, distress ink and glimmer mist.

First I stamped and embossed the circles with white embossing powder, which created a resist. Then I sprayed the background with Glimmer Mist Sun Sisters. Mel’s Diner and Harvest Orange. The Silk flowers are sprayed with Cadillac Pink and the roses with Marmalade.

For the diamonds I used a mask and distress ink that I applied with blending foam. I finished the backgound stamping with black Stazon. The crystals where colored in the right color with Letraset Aquamarkers. Flowers, crystals, fabric leaves are Prima Marketing Inc. The border was created using Prima packaging material.

That's it for now!

Hope to be back soon!

 

Workshop update and a WOW layout!

Just a quick update. I’m in my hotel in Capelle aan de IJssel. It’s Friday the 13th.

My day went pretty well so far, hope yours is too! I will be teaching at Scrap4fun tomorrow and Sunday.

Just had a lovely dinner and the Scrap4fun DT is coming over here to meet up and have a drink together in about an hour. That will be fun!

About my workshop “The whole Shebang” that I will be teaching here… I had several people asking me if I would be teaching this workshop in my own studio in Winsum too, and yes I will!

 

A 15x15cm mini-album filled with techniques. We will be using gesso, acrylic paints, spray paints, distress inks, alcohol inks, aquamarkers, masks, stamps, embossing powders etc. on a variety of surfaces like wood, cardstock, metal foil, canvas, felt and transparencies, or in short, you will get the whole shebang! The workshop is scheduled for Saturday, march 24. Time: 10.00-17.00 Price: € 57.50 (lunch, drinks and snacks included)

If you are interested drop me an e-mail at scrappen@birgitkoopsen.nl

So this week I posted on the WOW! Embossing powder blog for the first time. Very exciting!!

 

I love to create with little strips and blocks of paper in different colors and with different patterns. I'm always left with a lot of scraps, big scraps, because sometimes I only use a one inch strip of a whole sheet of paper. Recognize that?

So why not create your own patterned paper and bring 1 single sheet of cardstock to great value?

For this layout I cut half a sheet of white cardstock into strips of different sizes. I stamped the strips with a variety of stamps and embossed them with different colors.

The tickets and leaves where also stamped on white cardstock and embossed.

The little butterflies are actually part of a flower stamp (Gratitude) of which I only used the top part. I applied them to the layout with staples so I could bend the wings.

Behind the picture you find a cake cup that was embossed with the same color which gives it a nice structure. I also did that with the flower.

The chipboard letters where first embossed with puff powder and then covered with fine clear embossing powder.

Supplies used:

WOW! Embossing Powders: Suzy West Whirly Pop, Tea Garden Green, California Sunshine, Bay Area Blue, Presidio Purple, Skyline Grey Puff and Clear Gloss Super Fine.

WOW! stamps: Brocade and Gratitude

Patterend paper and chipboard letters: Basic Grey, Flower: Prima Marketing inc., letterstickers: Lily Bee design, Other: Kraft cardstock, cake cup, black pen, Adhesives: Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L.

Thanks for stopping by today. Hope you got inspired to get you some of these wonderful powders and stamps and create some art work!

Have a wonderful and creative weekend!!

Birgit

 

2012 Tattered Angels Design Team Announcement!

I am very thrilled and excited to annouce that I was invited to join the Tattered Angels Design Team for another year!!

And OMGosh, look at the other names on this list! What an amazing team! If you don't know all of these ladies go visit their blogs and be amazed and inspired by their talent!

Golden Ambassadors:

Nathalie Kalbach –Germany (Design Team Coordinator)

Vicki Chrisman –USA

Designers:

Alissa Fast – USA

Anna Björklund –Sweden

Anna Dabrowska –Poland

Birgit Koopsen –The Netherlands

Evgenia Petzer –South Africa

Holly Simoni –USA

Jana Korečič –Slovenia

Kaori Fujimoto –Japan

Karine Cazenave-Tapie –France

Lene Neby – Norway

Louise Nelson –Australia

Martha Richardson –USA

Zoe Nemburt - Canada

And here is a layout I created for the Scrapbook Adhesives^tm by 3L Crafty Power Blog, that also includes a lot of Glimmer Mist:

The background paper is actually the backing of a package of Prima canvas letters. Al the color on here, on the paper, the labels, the doily and the photo corner flower, even on the wooden flowers comes from Tattered Angels products.

I used the MyStik permanent dispenser to apply the picture, the paper parts and the wooden flowers. For the buttons in the middle of the wooden flowers I used small 3D foam squares.

For the butterflies I used the MyStik permanent dispenser also, adding just one tiny little strip of adhesive in the middle of the butterfly allowing me to bend the wings for more depth.

I used stamps, Glimmer Glaze and Glimmer Mist to create the paper where the butterflies were punched from.

The green flower shape on the doily on top of the page is made from spray painted Photocorners -Classic Style white.

That's it for now, thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful creative day!

 

Layout for Mood Papercrafter blog

Yesterday I was guest designer on the Mood Papercrafter blog. I was asked to provide a layout with a the "Color me gorgeous"-kit that was send to me. This kit contained hardly anything with color and it was up to me what to do with it. Thank you Odetta and Jolanda for this fun challenge!

And this is what I created using Glimmer Mist, Chalkboard and Letraset Aqumarkers:

 

 

 

Hope this inspires you to color something happy too!

Baby page for Prima Educator blog

Today I want to share with you a sweet baby page that was featured on the Prima Educator blog last week.

 

To make the background I cut out the frame of the Sparkling Spring Coll. paper Amie and layed it on top of the dotted paper Pink Apron from the same collection.

 

The beautiful blue canvas flowers where the starting point to embellish the page together with the SIIC's. Most of the times I cut up the SIIC's to make them fit my layout. I like it when a little peice of crystals returns on another part of the layout rather then have the whole bunch in one space.

 

I wanted to bring back the red of my nieces dress into the layout but didn't have the right color flowers. Therefor I colored them with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, which I also did with the Birdsong Script birds.

 

To make the little tab on the left side I cut a little piece from a Canvas Screenprint and folded it in half.
The date was stamped on there and then I used staples to apply the tab to the page.

 

Materials used: 842659 – Sparkling Spring collection paper | 842628 – Sparkling Spring collection paper | 920876 – Canvas Flower Blue | 546267 – Arcadian White | 548131 – Floret Collection Rosie | 920357 – Canvas screenprints | 547165 – Birdsong collection Script | 544768 – SIIC | 544256 – SIIC

Make sure to check out the  Prima Educator blog for more inspiring tutorials and sneak peeks!

Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day!

Scrapbook Adhesives and Echo Park, a great team!

This month Scrapbook Adhesives is partnering with Echo Park Papers. How fun is that. I got the Summer Days line and it is such a bright, fresh and happy line!

I created this layout for my first blog post this month: