Beautiful Sweden

It´s my 19th year in this country called Sweden. This country has it all, the rain, the sun and the nature. It´s really amazing year round and November is not exemption. Even though I some times get sick of the rain or fear I´m going to freeze to an ice-cube, I love living here.

And right now it looks something like this...

My mom and I goes on this walks in our village with our cameras, she really is a geek ;)

If your inspiration isn´t flowing, this walks are perfect to get it going.

Love Julia

DIY Jewelry frame

It´s just two days to my first Christmas fair, behind the table. I´m so excited and a bit nerves. There is so much to do. So today I´m showing you how i´m going to show my earrings.
The frame I found cheaply at a second hand store. Painted white (x2) and then a coat with pearl.
Materials:
-Frame
-chicken wire
-wire scissors
-fabric + regular scissors
-staple gun






Start with staple down the chicken wire












Then stable down the fabric. Stretch it out and put down like you do a tire. When it´s put down, fold the leftover over and staple them down.










And it´s finished! And yes i did this in my dads workshop :).

So to sum up.
Super easy and fun. The black fabric will make your jewelry pop

Love Julia

Yellow!

By now you probably know that yellow is not my favorite color. You may also know that I like to challenge myself. And I have so, today´s card is all blue and YELLOW.

So here is all the info:
Papers: DCWV- Mademoiselle stack
Stamp: Magnolia- Charming Edwin
Embossingpowders: Magnolia- Black
                               Stampendous- Shabby white
Washitape: Panduro- lace
Roses: Pyhobby (white) - colored with own mixed glimmer mist
Paper-bag: Julia K ;)
Pebbles:  Julia
Pearls: Pyhobby- white

By now, after making cards and art journal pages, I realize that I don´t mind yellow any more.
Love Julia K

Sun Light -art journalpage

 Some times it´s the simplest things that makes the biggest impact. Just a black pen is all you need.

 The background is regular clear glue mixed with liquid pearl and distress ink- mustered seed. I used a roller to smear it out. When it´s almost dry, sprayed with water.

 By spraying water on you get that watercolor effect.

Some thinks it´s scary to draw with black pens but if you build up with allot of lines on one can tell if you made one line wrong. 

The thing about a art journal- smash book is to try out new things, I used to avoid yellow but now I tackle it head on.
Love Julia

Winter frost

A new week and a new card. This card is inspired by the winter and the fact that we have had our first snow. The colors where easy to pic, white and blue. So to make it a bit more challenging I took a stamp that I uselessly use for spring.

 In her hand is a bird but there I put a mini rose with some blue in it.

 I found this cute pearl and put them on either side of the lace.

Papers are from Prima, Magnolia & Basic Grey. 

Flowers are white from Pyhobby that I just colored with my own "glimmer mist" mix

The Pearls and swirls are also from Pyhobby

The Image is colored with distress ink and then sprinkled with shabby white embossing powder.

This card is in the challenges over at:

Tildastown

Marvelous magnolia challenge

Making a Scene.

One of the best things is truly to feel full of inspiration. "Making a Scene" is a mixed media piece with a jumping jack Ballerina. For once I will just let you look at the pics without my telling you everything ;)

Love Julia

Shabby chic card with sparkle

Remember yesterdays post? Well I used her for today's card.
The papers are from Prima "Engraver" collection.

 On the image I have shabby white embossing powder. The flowers are glimmermisted and stickled. The brown paper flowers I´ve made myself. I´ve seen so many use them but coulden´t find them so I made then.

 The little paperbag I made too and then there are white paint all over the card.

I really like this card and I hope you do to.
This card is in the challenge over at: Tildastown

Love Julia

Add that extra sparkle

Take out your glue-pen and glitter and follow me! Together we can change the world... Well maybe not but we will have fun!
 So see here, cute...

 And now with glitter, so much cuter!

So to you how live in fear of using glitter, afraid it will end up everywhere: Don´t live in fear and what if you find glitter everywhere? It adds sparkle to that grey everyday-life.

Love Julia 

November

It´s all ready mid November, where does the time goes?! I think that this is a tricky time now, is it fall, is is winter? Here in Sweden there is snow in the north but here in the south its still fall. So with this Swedish weather in mind here is today's card:
On this card I have use two old magnolia stamps as embellishments. The leaf and mushrooms, the leaf is stamped on some bronzed paper and the mushrooms are stamped on watercolor paper and then painted.   The background is basic grey and burlap.

 The flowers are in fall colors and the big rose is embossed with a gold powder. The small brown pearls is all over the card, on the flowers, the image and on the leaf.

 This girl is colored with distress ink and the snow is chunky embossing powder. This image really is Swedish November in a nutshell.

I hope you like it
Love Julia

Peaceful Tilda

I just love this stamp, she is truly adorable.  So I made this card with a midwinter feel.

The background paper is from Magnolia as are all the paper flowers.

 I wanted lace at the bottom of the card be it´s hard to get it nice so I made a border to put over. It´s just a thin pecie of paper that I embossed with "shabby white" from Stampendous.

 Tilda is stamped in vintage photo and colored with "tea day" & "vintage photo" and "spun sugar" for the flowers.

I hope you like it

This card is in the challenges: 

lovely-haenglar-only

4craftychicks

Love Julia

Embossing with micas

No secret that I love this micas and today I though I´d show how I use them on my cards and layouts. They are perfect for the vintage touch.

So when using micas you heat it from underneath and using the embossing-powders as a fixative. Here I start with UTEE that I have mixed with some purple glitter.

Then I take some gilded mica, break them up to small pieces.  

 Now to the aged silver powder.

 Heat it from underneath, if you heat it from the top everything will blow a way, trust me...

 Here I´vie taken some more vintage powder and micas.

 Here is a last tip, I´ve made this cheat note with my embossing powders.

Love Julia

Opposites attract

Seen the movie "rise of the guardians", I have a few times... I really like Sandy and Pitch just because they are so different but on some level they could be the same person.
So feeling the inspiration I turned to my trusted smash/ art journal to see what would happen when this two meet.
Here you can see the colors I used and then gold and pearl as accents on Sandy and Pitch.

 Sandy got golden eyes and gold in his hair.

 Pitch got pearl in his hair and the front of his face.

 I´m really like how i turned out and I´m almost ashamed to say how little time I spent sketching... But that´s the thing with the art journal.

Love Julia

Challenge yourself.

I love my stamps and some I have had for years but I usually color them in the same way. So I challenged myself to color them in a new way.
So I took it all with my down stairs. Some times it helps to move, just to focus on what you are working on and not the card laying next to you.

 I don´t have any copics or pro markers but I have seven distress inks. I have them in this box where I normally would have brads and such. But in this one the inks and under I have put pieces of paper with the inks on. That Way I see what color it is and how light- dark it can be. The colors, if you can´t read my hand; tumbled glass, worn lipstick, peeled paint, tea dye, vintage photo, spun sugar & mustard seed.

 So I stamped them and colored them in a way I never have done before. I´m so happy with the result, so colorful.

I see and take part in allot of challenges but some times it´s fun to just challenge yourself.  The best part is the reward is right a way. I hope you feel inspeared.
Love Julia

Birthday card with winter feel

I think I´m card crazy, I don´t mind just thought you should know.
I made this with Maja design paper from the Blomstertid collection.  Tilda is colored with distress inks in "tea dye", "vintage photo" & "spun sugar". Have I mention that I love stampendous embossing-powders and micas? On this I have used "shabby blue" and "aged gold", the micas are in "tea stained". The resin butterfly is embossed with the same "aged gold". The flowers I got a Magnolia and just sprayed them and took some gold paint on the petals.

I really like this one, it has this winter feel but is in one way christamsy.
Love Julia

Winter card

I got this stamp from my mom yesterday, just like that. Well I had shown it to her but never did i think I would get i from her. Any how I love it so much I did card right a head and here is how it turned out.

 Papers from magnolia and prima. Flowers from magnolia and embossing & micas from stampendous.

I love that you can use this stamp for Christmas, Lucia and just to light up the winter darkness. This one is colored with Reeves water soluble wax pastels. I hope you like it as much as I do

This card is in the challenge over at: a creative romance

Love Julia