Nestje bouwen (building out little nest)

I was hoping to a nice looking To Do list would look a little less frightning and in fact it's working!

New haircut

I went to the hairdresser last weekend and I asked her to cut it short and curly, but still long enough to make a little tail.  Her idea was to cut it shorter in the back than in the front. I liked the idea, because when I see other people with haircuts like that I always thinks it looks nice. But I was always a little scared to do that, I thought it was a little too experimental for me. However, I was in a holiday mood and said yes. And I like the result, although it's a lot shorter than she promised me. It was much longer before the cut, so my husband was very surprised when I came home. Of course he prefers it longer. What is this with guys that they always like long hair?

…and inspire to cut some new ones.

The shades of green and the shape of my Cat’s Eyes ink pads inspired me to cut some new stamps. I know it’s not the most original design, but I think they are great to experiment with different colour combinations.

New inkpads make my old stamps shine…

I bought some new colourful inkpads from Colorbox and the colours are amazing. Beautiful shades of green and turquoise, and bright orange, yellow and red. They really make my stamps shine. I immediately made some cards with my own handmade stamps and I love the result. Only next time I will use cards with a little less texture, because the ink cannot reach every spot. I like textured paper better than normal paper though, I think it adds to that handmade feel. But I need to find a compromise, paper with just that little texture, don’t you think?

I've won!

I've won one of these Fossil bags on The Bright Side Project. I've taken part in many of the giveaways on this site and now I've won, I'm so happy. I posted something about the sweet memories when listening to that old holiday mixed tape of the past, something that we seem to have lost with our Ipods and their never ending playlists. And with that I won this prize.  I haven't heard back from the Bright Side Project yet, so, I don't know which one I'll get or when, but I'm secretly hoping for the turquoise one. Although the other one is great too. Lucky me!

Screenprinting class (3)

In the next class I wanted to try a two-colour print. I didn't have much inspiration for a subject, so I drew my house. This time I really found out how hard screen printing is. I spend four lessons, each three hours, and to b honest, I am not happy with any of the prints. Unfortunately I didn't get much help of the teacher and I lost a lot of time waiting for other students who were using the tables, or the materials. Anyway, it was a good experience, I had fun making my prints and I have some nice prints now.

These are some test prints that turned out better than the real prints. I used some scraps of paper for them, on which the yellow and blue circles where test-printed by some-one else.

These two are the best result from the red and orange series. Unfortunately, in the left one the red paint was a little too fluid which ou can see for example on top of the left window and in the right one there are some strange stripes in the blue paint. Most likely, the paint I used was a little thick, I should have added some water. And I didn't hold the squeegee under the right angle.

Going to Stockholm

I am going to Stockholm in a couple of weeks! I am really looking forward to it. It's the first time I will visit a Scandinavian country. From what I've read about it, it think it will be amazing for art, design and vintage lovers like us.

Have you ever been to Stockholm? Any advise on what we should visit? Thrift shops, cafes or restaurants? What are nice magazines to buy? What are nice Scandinavian brands of clothing? Do you need a public transport card or is everything in walking distance? I'd love to hear from you.

screenprinting class (2)

On my third screenprinting class I tried to print a cushion and a towel, but it was more difficult than I expected. Especially to put the screen on the exact right place turn out to be quite difficult. I wanted to make multiple prints on the same fabric, but after the first print there is paint both on the fabric and on the screen, so it's not possible to try where the screen should be, because paint gets everywhere.

For the towel it put tape on the whole screen except for one line of oranges. I think it turned out quite nice even though the line isn't straight.

BTW, I tried to lighten up the photos in the online photo editor on photoshop.com. I don't understand how these photos get so dark since the room they were made in is a very light room and it was a sunny day. I tried everything using different kinds of exposure and white balance. Anyway, I think it looks good enough to show here, but I wish I was able to take better pictures.

Collage experiment

I try to keep things a little chronological here, but I am hopefully behind with showing you the results of my screenprinting classes and the latest stamps I have made. That has everything to do with my awful skills in photography. I just can't get the photos right so I can't show you anything.

However, yesterday I made a collage and immediately photographed it and it turned out fine. The white wall is a little darker than in real, so I probably should edit it. But the colours look good and  if I wait until I have time to edit this will become one of those post that stays on my computer forever, so I just show it now as it is.

(Have you heard about fashion  magazines that have a 'no photo-editing' logo on their cover because they don't make models look better/skinnier than they are? Perhaps I should use that logo to on my blog ;). Although, now I think about it, the fasion industry has great photographers and while some of them edit to make people look better than real, I have very limited photograph skills and would use editing software to try to make the object in my picture look as good as the real thing. Conclusion: I should buy a good camera and sign up for a photography course. Or just make things that fit in my scanner.

But back to the collage. Sometimes nice package material inspires me. Especially wrappings of drinks and snacks are very appealing to me. Not surprising, as I love to eat! Anyway, when I see a nice label or something in a cafe I take it home with me. In my mind, I always make nice collages with them, but today I made one for real!

I used Ninainvorm's tutorial (sept '09) for 101woonideeen for inspiration. I had never made this kind of collage before and I thought it would look good as the background for the labels I had collected. It was more difficult than I expected but I loved doing it. I started with a A3 sized white sheet of paper, because the labels are quite large. Soon a problem arose, because I don't have a large paper collection. I used every nice paper I have in this colour combination and it took me two days, but now I am quite happy with the result, especially for a first attempt (except for postcard sized collages).

I had some problems with finding the right balance between the colours, textures and patterns. I didn't want to make it a boring piece, but I didn't want to put too much different things on it either. Somehow, it think if you would draw a line from the left corner above to then right corner below, the part above the line is more successful than the part below. What do you think?

Next time I might stamp the collage with some of my hand-carved stamps, to  make it a little more 'mine'...