Hi there and happy new week! Boy it was a fun but busy weekend! I kept a couple of workshops in a lovely store in Ikaalinen, Nannan Paperi ja Helmi, and got home around 9 pm on Sunday! Thank you to all who attended!
One of the workshops was a minialbum and this scissor version was actually my second sample besides the actual class sample! The inner pages are done using Tim Holtz tags and the covers are coated in fabric. I used A.B.Studio's "Sewing Bazaar" to decorate the cover together with oldies but goodies scissor stickers. I just love old scissors and when I saw these at a craft store (it was actually the same I was throwing workshops this weekend!) I bought a couple to be used. I have been hoarding them for a while as they are so pretty, but now it was time for them to get used!
Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a great start to the week!
ENG Hi there and happy new week! Today I'm sharing two new workshop dates, this time in Turku, Finland. As the workshops are in Finland and probably held in Finnish, I'm again switching to my mother tongue for the post. Should you be in Turku during May, please feel free to enroll! I can keep the workshop in two languages if that's the case!
FI Heippa hei! Jokin aika sitten bloggasin kolme kokonaan uutta kurssia. Tänään kaksi kursseista saa uudet päivät ja paikan, sillä toukokuussa ollaan Turun suunnalla Klemmarikellarissa.
Molemmat kurssit ovat samana, äitienpäivää edeltävänä lauantaina, 13.5. Aamupäivällä tehdään kanvasta ja iltapäivän puolella miniä. Ilmoittautuminen kursseille alkaa saman tein ja ilmoittautua voi sähköpostilla osoitteeseen rkovasin@gmail.com. Mukaan kursseille mahtuu kahdeksan osallistujaa ja paikat jaetaan ilmoittautumisjärjestyksessä. Ilmoittautuminen on sitova ja lähellä kurssiajankohtaa perutusta paikasta, mikäli siihen ei saa sijaista, peritään maksu. Jotta kurssit toteutuvat tulee molemmilla kursseilla olla viisi osallistujaa - tai yhteensä 10 osallistujaa jaettuna eri kursseille.
Aamusella tuona lauantaina aloitellaan kurssilla "Tempus Fugit". Tämä kanvas on saanut innoituksensa ajan liidosta ja taustaan tehdäänkin itse ruostepasta. Kurssin aikana tutuiksi tulevat gesso ja gel medium. Kurssi on jaettu kahteen osaan ja välissä on noin tunnin tauko kuivumisajan takia.
Kurssin hinta on 38 € sisältäen materiaalit, tiivistetyt kirjalliset ohjeet ja ohjauksen. Osa materiaaleista on kurssikitissä, osa jaettavana kurssin aikana.
Iltapäivän puolella puolestaan on kurssi "Imagine a little", joka kehoittaa kuvittelemaan. Kurssilla tehdään minialbumi tagisivuin. Albumi valmistuu kurssin aikana, mutta epäilen, että ainakin osa sisäsivujen koristeluista jää kotiin. Tähän albumiin käytetään kangasta, akryylimaaleja, leimailua sekä vesiliukoista liitua.
Kurssin hinta on 38 € sisältäen materiaalit, tiivistetyt kirjalliset ohjeet ja ohjauksen. Osa materiaaleista on kurssikitissä, osa jaettavana kurssin aikana. Kurssikitti saattaa erota mallityöstä vähän, esim. kankaan ja tekstitarrojen osalta.
Kiitos kun vierailit blogissani tänään! Mukavaa tiistaita!
ENG Moikka! Like I said yesterday, during this week I'm blogging some sample projects for new workshops. I'm keeping these in Finland in April so the posts will be mainly in Finnish. But should you be in Finland at the time and want to participate - I've had bi-lingual workshops before so I could do it again! The registration opens this Sunday, February 12th.
The second project is a little minialbm with tags inside. During the workshop we'll make the album and start to decorate the inner pages, but probably at least part of the decorations need to be finished at home. There's fabrics, acrylics and stamping in this make.
Thank you for stopping by today! Have a great Wednesday!
FI Moikka taas! Tällä viikolla bloggaan kolme uutta kurssia. Mainoksissa olevat päivämäärät ja ajat koskevat Nannan Paperi- ja Helmi -putiikissa pidettäviä kursseja huhtikussa. Ilmoittautuminen kursseille alkaa tulevana sunnuntaina, 12. helmikuuta klo 10. Ilmoittautua voi sähköpostilla osoitteeseen rkovasin@gmail.com. Mukaan kursseille mahtuu kymmenen osallistujaa ja paikat jaetaan ilmoittautumisjärjestyksessä. Mahdollisuus muutamaan lisäpaikkaan on olemassa, mikäli kurssit ovat todella suosittuja. Ilmoittautuminen on sitova ja lähellä kurssiajankohtaa perutusta paikasta, mikäli siihen ei saa sijaista, peritään maksu. Jotta kurssit toteutuvat tulee jokaisella kolmella kurssilla olla kuusi osallistujaa - tai yhteensä 18 osallistujaa jaettuna eri kursseille.
Toisena esittelyssä "Imagine a little", joka kehoittaa kuvittelemaan. Kurssilla tehdään minialbumi tagisivuin. Albumi valmistuu kurssin aikana, mutta epäilen, että ainakin osa sisäsivujen koristeluista jää kotiin. Tähän albumiin käytetään kangasta, akryylimaaleja, leimailua sekä vesiliukoista liitua.
Kurssin hinta on 40 € sisältäen materiaalit, tiivistetyt kirjalliset ohjeet ja ohjauksen. Osa materiaaleista on kurssikitissä, osa jaettavana kurssin aikana. Kurssikitti saattaa erota mallityöstä vähän, esim. kankaan ja tekstitarrojen osalta.
Kiitos kun vierailit blogissani tänään! Mukavaa keskiviikkoa!
Hi there! Summer vibes in the air? Here's something I made for the most recent issue of Ihana magazine (link). It's a Finnish craft magazine. I made some recycled envelope albums for summer trips.
The idea behind these is that when you're traveling, you gather bits and pieces of different ephemera like receipts, tickets and such. Having a place to tuck them immediately makes documenting the trip easier. And if you add some journaling cards and instant photos in the mix... well, you have a ready vacation minialbum when you get back home!
The theme of the issue was recycling and most of the supplies in the albums are recycled. I bought the tape for the spines, to strengthen the cardboard, but otherwise the bits are from my stash. The covers are from cereal and cookie packaging, the buttons from old clothes, elastic from a piece of jewelry and pom poms are made out of left-over yarn. The envelopes inside are new, I have to admit, as I wanted to keep the color scheme, but I could have used just recycled envelopes and paint or color them!
If you'd like to see more and study the step by step, well, then you need to get yourself an Ihana magazine (link)!
Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a nice day!
Happy Friday! It's day three of the washi tape Trio! So far I've made backgrounds using the tapes, in the extent of creating patterned papers using the tapes, and I've bound the booklet. In the meantime I've also added mixed media touches to the covers and inner pages but the piece is still missing embellishments. And that's today's topic! Embellishing!
Back in 2013 (gosh, that's a long time ago!) I did a very popular blog post about washi tape feathers (link). The idea came to me one night and next day I shoot the tutorial and made the post. Feathers seemed to be popular theme then in scrapbooking papers and embellishments so they were in the air, so to say. I also used the feathers in a in-person workshop I used to teach about washi tapes. Several, but not all, of the elements from that workshop were included to this video series. But I knew that the feathers needed to be one of the elements to include!
I'm starting with feathers of different kind, though. The shape was inspired by the dimensional feathers I knew I was including to the piece, but the technique is different. This is again where the properties of a good washi tape comes handy. I'm using baking paper just to make it extra easy to lift my "sticker" of the paper, but if you're working with good washi, you can even use regular printing paper. The key in making the stickers is to over lap the strips you're laying down so you get the rewarding feeling of peeling the sticker off the backing paper in one go. As you can see from the photos underneath or a little bit later in the video, I didn't throw the cut-outs away either, but used those to decorate the inner pages.
Besides the two different feathers using washi tape, I'm also adding some more mediums to the page. Even though I love the limited soft color palette I have going, it lacks a touch of contrast. So, I take some stamps and add black stamping to the pages. This gives them a little contrast, a little edge, against all the softness and fluffiness there already is. I also make a sticker of another kind using the same stamp set. I stamped the "fragile" label on top of kraft paper and backed it with double sided adhesive, but I could have used a solid color washi tape, too. Archival Ink, which I'm using to stamp, works on top of absorbing and non-absorbing surfaces, but needs a heat set on top of the non-absorbing. With the exception of one, all the washi tapes I've worked with have a sleek coating that makes them non-absorbing. So while you can use Archival Ink, the drying time is a bit longer and you probably need the heat-setting. But if you want something that will dry quicker, try using Staz-On to stamp on washi tape.
As you can see from the video, and photos, I included the dimensional feathers behind the vintage photo I used to decorate the cover. She's a Tim Holtz paper doll, one of my favorite embellishments at the moment. The feathers were meant to give her a bit of background, but now looking at those, they almost look like she would have a costume one and those were her tail feathers!
I hope you have liked this first Trio I've created for you! I enjoyed doing this little booklet! It was also handy to use some of my many, many washi tapes in a bigger make as the little details I usually add don't use the rolls that much.
Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
PS. You might want to check my Instagram during the weekend. Just saying. Hint hint!
Materials: Teippitarha, Paper Garden, Prima Marketing, Paper Artsy, Kuusade, Stencil Girl, Tim Holtz, Posca, Sizzix, Ranger
Moikka! It's the second day of this month's Trio - the first Trio after Seth Apter Creative Team. I enjoyed doing the Trios so much that I decided to keep doing them, at least for a while. In this first Trio since Seth posts I'm concentrating on washi tapes.
In the first episode yesterday I made some backgrounds using washi tapes. First I created three different patterned papers using solely washi tapes and then decorated the covers using just some pieces of tape. This is the way I usually tend to use the washi tapes. Although, sometimes the tapes have such a juicy pattern that creating a whole sheet using just them has crossed my mind more than once.
Today it's about binding the booklet. Well, I start by adding mixed media touches to the cover and the inner pages, but the washi tape part is mostly the binding. Here a good quality washi tape is the perfect thing. A tape that has good adhesion, but can be removed with ease. I guess good adhesion is quite obvious, you want the booklet to stay in one piece, but removing without damaging the paper is also handy. If you get a piece crooked, or need to adjust it no matter the reason, the property of lifting the tape and putting it down again is really handy.
As you could see from the video, I used a piece of fabric to make the spine for my booklet. This is just a choice based on personal preference to add more textures, more different surfaces to the piece. I could have used a wide washi tape, too, or could have laid thinner ones overlapping to get a bigger piece. But I felt like a fabric detail would be nice and perhaps a fabric is a bit sturdier on the spine than just delicate washi tape. Although, washi tape feels delicate and thin, but washi paper is quite sturdy anyway.
I'm not sure if I mention it in the video, but the chosen washi tapes determined the whole color palette of the project. As I wanted them to be the highlight, I chose colors to match the palette of the pinks, vintage tea tones and lace-like neutrals.
Thank you for stopping by today! Hope to see you tomorrow when it's decorating day!
Materials: Teippitarha, Paper Garden, Prima Marketing, Paper Artsy, Kuusade, Stencil Girl
Moikka moi! Welcome to the first Trio since Seth Apter Creative Team posts! I enjoyed making the series of three posts so much, that I decided to continue them at least for a while! If you want to see the older Seth Trios, you can find them under this label (link). The Trio posts usually had a topic, or a product, to which I concentrated, like Izink ICE (link). Or I could challenge myself with limited supplies (link) or use one source of inspiration for three pieces, like I did with "Mothers of Kalevala" (link).
The topic of this Trio is washi tapes. I'm using washi tapes in several ways and create a mini booklet during the three posts. I'm first making backgrounds, then add some mixed media touches and bind the book and in the last part I then make embellishments and decorate the book cover.
Before we start, a few words about washi tapes. There's washi tapes and there's washi tapes. You've probably noticed that there's decorative tapes that have a slightly washi style look, but which won't work the way washi tapes do. I've used different brands and what works best for me is the actual washi tapes from manufacturers like MT masking tape and Maste. I also love Finnish brand Paper Garden's tapes. What they have in common is the good adhesion and possibility to remove the tape without damaging the paper. Some brands I have used either won't stick to the surface at all or start to curl after a while and others rip the material when adjusting the alignment. So, before starting your masterpiece, try the tape out. If you're familiar with the way the tape behaves, you have more options in your palette. For example, if you love the pattern but the adhesive isn't strong, you can use glue or gel medium to make it work. Or if you know that removing will be difficult, you can add a layer of gel and dry it before adding the tape on top to protect the paper. Or just take extra care when placing the tape.
Washi is traditional Japanese paper and washi tapes are tapes made using that paper. The white areas in the tapes are usually translucent so you can create great layers by overlapping different designs. The tapes are available in array of patterns, colors and finishes.
As you can see from the video below, I start this project by choosing a selection of tapes. This way the colors and patterns repeat throughout the project and it feels whole. If you want to play with colors more - like making pages with different colors, try using one neutral color in all of the pages or repeat the same pattern. That way there's something to tie all of the elements together. The tape I'm using in this piece are from the companies mentioned earlier - mt Masking Tape, Maste and Paper Garden. The first two are from a Finnish shop Tape Garden (link) with a wide selection of washi tapes and Paper Garden tapes are of course from Paper Garden (link).
Like you saw in the video, I started the mini by creating backgrounds. I'm making some washi tape patterned pieces, where the tapes cover the whole surface and then decorating the cover pieces, too. Especially in collage the adhesion of the tape doesn't play such a big role as you can use gel medium to adhere the tape in place. But I really love when the tape stays where I've put it and doesn't curl.
The first background is the easiest - just lines. It's kind of a basic way, which you can then use to make something more complicated. The rhythm of the lines and the visual impact relies highly on the colors you've chosen and the pattern combinations. The second way to cover the background is more time consuming, but the effect is more interesting, at least to my eye. I'm playing with the same tapes, but the effect is totally different compared to the still, rigid lines. The third one, the chevron pattern, has the most movement. It starts with the simple line design but the key part is to cut the strips in opposite angles. Then, depending what kind of look you are after, you can either match the pattern or not when adhering the strips in place. I've included the pics of the finished backgrounds to the bottom of the post so you can study them more carefully, if you like.
The way I add washi tapes to the cover of the mini is, like I say in the video, probably the way I use washi tapes the most. Kind of just pieces here and there, together with other elements, making a little "basket weave" near the focal point. Or just add a bit of color and pattern to a place. Because the tapes are translucent, even a strong color isn't usually overpowering as it dulls down a little bit and blends to the background.
I hope you've liked what I've created today! Please be back tomorrow for another episode of "Soulful Journey"! Thank you for stopping by today!
Materials: Teippitarha, Paper Garden, Prima Marketing
