Now, a year later, everyone is healthy and happy again and it’s time for me to move on and dive deeper into my own art again. It was a pleasure to create these tutorials for you. You can find today’s tutorial HERE

And yes, I made the tote bag for “Creative Team Thursday,” using Jessica Sporn Design stencils. Wanna see how I did it? I wrote a tutorial! Come on over to Jessica’s blog and read all about it in my blogpost overthere.

I’m hopping along with Karen Gaunt, Kristin Van Valkenburgh and Jessica Sporn to share our SUMMER creations using Jessica Sporn Designs products.

The theme for this bloghop is “Welcome Summer” and that’s right up my alley ’cause we had lovely warm weather the last couple of weeks in The Netherlands. Summer was on my mind all the time and so I decorated my balcony to make it ready to sit and relax. I bought some furniture (yep, furniture… the balcony has a roof – the housing association calls it a “loggia” but to my opinion that’s too much of an exaggeration,) decorated the space with plants and even crocheted a granny square to cover the boring lawn chair.

And then I sat down to create a last ‘finishing touch’… can you see what the arrow is pointing at?
It’s a jam jar that holds a little candle, but of course I decorated the jar first using a Jessica Sporn Designs stencil… it’s a fun and easy project and it lights up your day (and evenings) – let me show you how I did it.

Take a glass jar (mine holded pees) and clean it.

I used this Krishna Deity stencil to decorate my jar. (Krishna is the god of compassion, tenderness and love in Hinduism.)

Tape the stencil around the jar. Make sure the part of the image that you want to use is right on the glass (in my case, the face of Krishna.)

Trace the stencil with a permanent marker.

I wanted to outline the picture with relief paint, but adding the stuff while the stencil is on the jar would probably destroy my stencil. That’s why I used a permanent marker first.

Once the image was outlined with a marker, I took off the stencil and traced the lines again with golden relief paint.

To color the image, it’s best to use special glass paint but I didn’t had any. I went to the store to buy some but I found the paint way too expensive… so what now?

Then I remembered I once used alcohol ink on a plastic sheet, and how lovely it looked. So I went home and searched for the alcohol ink. I had only three colors in my stash and they looked a bit boring to me, but I tested it on glass anyway to see how they would hold up…

Hooray, hooray, it worked lovely!!! The ink doesn’t come off easy… (it does when you scratch it but not if you grab the jar) and the colors worked excellent for this image, so I went with it.

Here’s the result.**

Flowers (from the same Krishna Deity Stencil) on the back side.

So now this little jar stands outside on the shelf, lighting my Summer evenings.

And what a lovely image it is to shine light through!

I hope your Summer nights (and days) will be filled with light, compassion, tenderness and love!

** If you want the image to stay on permanent, I recomment you use special glass paint.

And now for the GIVEAWAY

One lucky commenter will win this Woman Will Heal the World stencil from Stencil Girls Products, designed by Jessica Sporn. It’s brand new, just in store, and don’t you love it? I can think of many ways to use it!

All comments at all the blog hop participants posts count – so make sure to visit everyone and leave some kind words.

Marit Barentsen (you’re here)
Karen Gault
Kristin Van Valkenburgh
Jessica Sporn

The comments for this giveway closes Monday morning June 12th at 6 PM EST (for the Dutchies that’s Monday midnight) Jessica announces the winner on her blog on June 13th.

Oh, and I would love it if you leave me a comment there… I’m a sucker for compliments 🙂  Click this LINK to get there… see you!

It’s an easy peasy little project and wouldn’t it be nice to fold a small box and put your chocolate Easter eggs in? Come on over to Jessica’s blog then (and don’t forget to leave me a comment there, I would love that!)

To view the completed booklet and find out about this project – and how to create it – please hop over to the TUTORIAL on Jessica’s blog. Enjoy!

I show you only this small detail photo of the art journal spread I made here on my blog ’cause I want you all to hop over to Jessica Sporn’s blog to view my finished spread and – even better – watch the VERY SPECIAL VIDEO TUTORIAL that goes with it!

The video was made by my beloved, Marius, and I think he deserves a big round of applause for making this very special video of my creating process. Hop on over and be amazed!

If it happens too often I might have to stop posting photos of my desk and adding my link to the WOYWW link list. After all, it’s not fair to have all those deskers visiting me and not pay a visit back… But I give it another try this week and hope to do better, let’s see how much time the upcoming days will leave me.

Remember this little guy? He was in my bloghop-post last week and he came with a question… “What band/lyrics does the used phrase “it’s just a silly phase I’m going through” comes from?

The phrase I used was from the song “I’m Not In Love” by 10cc, so the ‘number’ I wanted to see in the comments was ’10’. There were a lot of good answers (Annemarie commented “372” and that was a right answer too… I understood her clever thinking – she refered to the last Top 2000 list and yes, 10cc was there on 372 🙂 ) The random generator picked this comment as a winner:

Congratulations Kate! As soon as I get your mailing address (I send you an email) this guy will be on his way to you!

On to my desk… not much happening there. Just an almost-empty Chronicles spread that I put Mandala stickers on that my friend Lena gave to me.
It’s a test, to see how they work… so I will color them and finish the page some day soon.

WOYWW #402

I came across collage/mixed media cardboard pieces that I made last year. They have been on my deks for ages because I didn’t know if I should work on it some more or call them finished.
At one point, somewhere in December, the pieces moved to the side closet and I totally forgot about it. I came across these again and call them finished. Time to show them

Falling

Smiling

Isn’t it nice to end this blogpost SMILING?
I hope this week brings you lot of smiles!

Today I’m hopping along with Denise Alloca, Sherry Canino, Karen Gaunt, Kristin Van Valkenburgh and Jessica Sporn to share our LOVE creations using Jessica Sporn Designs stamps & stencils and DecoArts products.

LOVE: of course that had to be the theme for today’s bloghop because it is almost Valentines Day. I understand in the USA it is common to give/send Valentines cards to all of your friends, but here in The Netherlands the focus lays on your partner and/or the one you have a (secret) crush on.

As you may know, when I refer to my partner I always use the word “beloved” so it’s obvious I love him very much, but we both are not the cliché roses-candles-fireplace romantic types (we are ‘romantic’ in our own weird way…) Creating a Valentines card was out of the question then… so what to do with “Love”??

I thought a bit more about the theme and reflected on ‘falling in love’ – and how I hated it to fall in love when I was young… well, ‘hate’ is too harsh a word, but I did not like the feeling either. I didn’t like how “some guy” could take over my logical working brain and be on my mind all the time, I despised how I acted silly and were not able to control my thoughts. There were happy and energetic moments too, I agree, but the overall feeling was “can we skip this part, just be together and go back to normal please.” I’m so glad my beloved and I love each other deeply without all that butterflies and pink bubbles….

And so I decided to create a face of a person who just fell in love and add the sentence “It’s just a silly phase I’m going through.” Yep, that’s a phrase from a song. Not the best song if you ask me, but it totally fits the feeling I want to express on the page.

Before I take you to my creating process let me tell you that you can find the giveaway at the end of this post… read on and you’ll get there 😉

First: preparations… I create different elements that I will combine on the page to collage a character/portrait. I start with creating a design that I want to use for the guy’s sweater.
I use DecoArt Fluid Acrylics Primary Yellow, that I smear on a blank piece of paper.

I like the design of the Dots and Dashes stencil

By mixing DecoArt Fluid Acrylics Primary Magenta with Titanium White I get a nice, pink color…

… resulting in this design.

I want a little texture on the background so I use Jessica’s Hebrew Calligraphy Hamsa Stencil and smear gesso through it (small, white photo.) When it’s dry, I spray some DecoArt Shimmer Mister Turquoise on the page and use a baby whipe to tone the colors down.

I want to add at least one heart to the page… to use as an eye. I search high and low in boxes and closets and I finally come up with this little chipboard heart BUT… it has two holes in it! (I remember a few years ago it was a trend to use all kinds of buttons and ‘button-like’ embellishments on your scrapbooking layouts… this piece must be a left over from that time.) However, it is the only heart shape I have so I go with it.

I paint the chipboard (Titanium White) and when it’s dry, I paint the heart again with DecoArt Antiquing Cream English Red Oxide. Do you know that stuff? You can give things an antique textured surface with it and create a distressed, aged effect.

There’s a tutorial video on how to use Antiquing cream (by Andy Skinner) here but in short: paint a background. When it’s dry, paint again with Antiquing Cream. Use a damp cloth to wipe off as little or as much ‘cream’ as you like. Seal it with a varnish.

My heart ends up looking like this.

Now it’s time to combine my elements… I cut a sweater from the earlier designed paper. I cut a head-shape from old left-over painted paper and position the ‘eye.’

Now it’s going fast…

• I don’t like how the heart looks on the face, so I paint it a bit more reddish. I also cover the holes with a ‘pupil’.
• I cut out a round shape to make for the other eye.
• A left over piece of monoprint goes as a nose.
• I paint the mouth with DecoArt fluid acrylics Cadmium Red Hue and
• for the hair I use a tiny little stamp from Jessica’s stamp series Build a Villa – Window Cube
• Finally, I add DecoArt Crackle Paste (mixed with a little yellow and red acrylics) on the cheeks and under the eye. The paste needs to dry on air (“do not try to force dry any of the crackle products with a heat tool, fan or blow dryer”) so I let this page dry overnight.

Next morning: I go back to my page and color the hair green to go with the nose.
I also outline the image with Fluid Acrylics Carbon Black for a bit more contrast.

Almost finished… all I have to do is handletter the phase I want to use on the page with a black marker and color the letters, using a small brush, with Fluid Acrylics Titanium White.

Now that was rather a long blogpost, I hope you liked to see and read about my creating process.

And now for the GIVEAWAY

One lucky commenter will win this Seven Hearts Stencil designed by Jessica Sporn. All comments on all the blog hop participants count – so make sure to visit everyone and leave some kind words. The list and links of the blog hop team members is at the end of this post.

And one commenter will win this little piece of art created by yours truly!

(11 x 21 cm – 4.3 x 8.3 inch)

It is a small sized mixed media face that is a bit similar to the one that I created in my art journal. Wanna win this “original Marit”?  Let me know the NUMBER of the artist/band name that sings the song the phrase on my art piece comes from. (Does this sounds cryptic to you? Then you probably have no idea who the artist is… )

So, go on then. Leave me a comment if you like to be in the draw for both giveaways and visit the other members and comment there to enlarge your chance to win the Seven Hearts stencil.

Marit Barentsen (you’re here)
Denise Alloca
Sherry Canino
Karen Gault
Kristin Van Valkenburgh
Jessica Sporn

The comments for these giveways closes Monday morning the 13th at 9 AM EST (for the Dutchies that’s 3 PM on Monday.) Jessica announces the winner on her blog on Valentines day, February 14th and I will post the name of the winner of my mixed media art piece on Wednesday, February 15th.

{The Top 2000 musical and creative blog party: YOU are invited! Click the ‘Top 2000 blog party’ button in the top menu on my blog to read all about it.)

In three days, the Top 2000 list for 2016 will be online (on Monday the 19th) and we can start creating to the music. I could not wait that long so I made a fun ‘Countdown’ layout for Jessica Sporn Designs – Creative Team Thursday. Come on over to Jesscia’s blog and see me in action!  Here’s a sneak peek…

Now hop on over to Jessica’s to see my video.
Have a fun and cheerful weekend!