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Art of Layers – Blog Hop

My friend Ronda Palazzari has written a book and I have to say I am totally excited about this.

Not only do I love Ronda’s personality, I am also a huge fan of her work and I just know that her book is going to rock! I so can’t wait to hold it in my little paws.

So welcome to the Art of Layers Blog Hop!

Here is the description of the book:

“Basic scrapbooking has you place photos and embellishments on cardstock or patterned paper – easy and…well, basic. The next step for most scrapbookers is layering. But trying to get that rich, interesting layered look can be very intimidating. Where do you even start? “Art of Layers” teaches scrapbookers and beginning mixed media artists just how easy it is to get to that layered look in any papercrafting project. Author Ronda Palazzari teaches readers 50+ techniques that will serve as tools to pull out whenever a layered look is desired. The chapters allow the reader to build their skills, from paper techniques they won’t be afraid to try adding fabric, embellishments, and stamping to finally giving spray inks, paints and gesso a try.”

I have a sneak peek at a chapter for you.  This piece is from the Messy chapter – so fitting that Ronda would send me that- LOL- don’t you think? I love messy and I can’t wait to see more.

If you want to have the chance to get an autographed copy of Ronda’s book (only one book per household!) – simply leave a comment on this post till Sunday Night 8 pm EDT (7 Central, 6 Mountain, 5 Pacific, midnight European Central time) and hop on over to the next person in line for this blog hop and that is Kelly Purkey for another chance to win :)

Have fun and good luck :)

Nat

Nat

Comments (170)

  • Belinda

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    Wow – this looks fabulous and just packed full of the inspiration I have been waiting for!!! Thanks for the opportunity!

    Reply

  • Leanne in CA

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    Thanks for the chance to win this really great book!

    Reply

  • deb pereira

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    I love Ronda…she is so talented. Thanks for the chance to win a copy of her book.

    Reply

  • Theresa Grdina

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    OOOOOOOHHHHHH…I would LOVE to get my hands on this book!!! (can you hear me whining???) I think it looks fabulous!

    Reply

  • Carol P

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    Would love to have a copy of this book in my collection of resources. Thanks for the opportunity to win!

    Reply

  • Sue

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    A Messy chapter! Love it! Hope to win.

    Reply

  • Patty Del Rosa

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    A book with a chapter on “messy” is my kind of book! Thanks for the chance :)

    Reply

  • Trish

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    Thanks so much for participating in this blog hop and for the chance to win.
    Trish

    Reply

  • SusanS

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    This book looks like fun and full of ideas. Thank you for an opportunity to win a copy.

    Reply

  • Victoria in OHio

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    Thanks for the chance to win!

    Reply

  • yaseennz

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    Thanks for the chance to win. Looks like a fun book to explore.

    Reply

  • christy comstock

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    The Messy Chapter is for me!!

    Reply

  • Amanda Worley

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    This book looks awesome and I cannot wait to get my hands on one and get messy! Hopefully one direct from artist hands! Thanks for a chance to win!

    Reply

  • Mollie P

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    What beautiful work, I’d love to own the book!

    Reply

  • Holly Preslar

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    Oh, I so hope to win….this book looks so amazing!!!!!! Thank you!

    Reply

  • NancyW

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    OMG! I would love this book! The more pages I see, the more convinced I am that I NEED it!!! p.s I think that’s a great idea to keep your facebook page private with your personal friends! Here here!!!

    Reply

  • Theresa Magladry

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    …IWANTITIWANTITIWANTITIWANTITIWANTIT…

    Reply

  • Rebecca W

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    I haven’t done much on the messy side but would love some inspiration to do so.

    Reply

  • Rebecca W

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    Love the page- and would love to win a copy of the book.

    Reply

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ScrapArtZine Spring 2012

Die neue ScrapArtZine ist da :) Ganz frisch und frühlingshaft und mit Schnippelbogen kommt sie daher :)

The spring issue of the German Scrapbooking Print Magazine ScrapArtZine is out.

 

Euch einen tollen Tag :)

Wishing you a gorgeous day :)

Nat

 P.S.: thank you for the wonderful comments regarding yesterday’s post!
Nat

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All of Sudden… or How to create a page about grief?

OK- this is a sad topic- but no worries- I keep it still light ;)

I was a while ago asked to create a page about grieving. It wasn’t the easiest part – I have to admit. I mean, Scrapbooking, ArtJournaling- all pretty personal, right and it is all making you vulnerable already…and then to put it out there about grief. mmmpfff…..I have to admit that I was for the first time hesitant to do something I was asked for. But then I thought, I should just give it a go and see – I can still decide to hold it back, right?

I decided to do a layout without picture about my feelings of my loss of my step father.

 

In short, my father died when I was 20 days old. My stepfather, who came later in my Mom’s and my life, was an amazing man- and a loving father, taking care of me as if I was one of his own children. He died when I was 25.

After a while you do not think every second, every hour, every day, every week, every month about the person you lost. But sometimes it hits you still after all those years without warning- and this is what the journaling is about.

My father for example loved to listen to his music sometimes pretty loud – I think I got my love for loud and heavy music actually from him – LOL. He had quite a big LP collection and we would sometimes in the summer sit together in our garden with open windows, listening to some cool music. Not sure if the neighbors thought it was cool, but he was for sure ranking as the “cool” Dad among my friends ;) We would meet at the same concerts…which was as a teenager a bit strange at times- LOL – because dang it – Dads are supposed to stay home and sleep so you can sneak in late ;) So sometimes if I hear certain songs – it just hits me and I think back and I miss him a lot! It is a weird mixture of sadness and happiness. I guess I don’t have to explain the Sadness – but: Happiness is because I was so fortune to have a person like that in my life and spent time with him to have those memories!

Supplies: Prima Shabby Chic Papers, Prima Vine, old Music sheets, Gesso, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and Glam, Pink Paislee Dailee Junque Alphabet, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L

It was actually quite relieving creating this layout and I am glad I did it. Well – they say art and creating is therapy, huh? I think that is a pretty good excuse for spending all that money in art supplies, what do you think? LOL

Have you ever created a layout or project about grief?

Have a wonderful and happy day!

Nat

 

Nat

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Creative Creativa Days…or how I just couldn't think of a better title

I am back from the Creativa, Europe’s biggest Craft and Hobby Show where I worked at the PanPastel Booth. What can I say…I mean….playing five days with one of my favorite paint media ? HEAVEN :)

Just looking every day at those yummy colors first thing made me happy…color – you know how much I love color – LOL.

It was a really interesting – and I mean it in a good way ;) – convention.

First of all we had a section where people could just try to the products and play – and it was just mind-blowing what they sometimes would come up with. Usually at conventions you either have a demo at the booth or/and Make and Takes. I like those too, but the try out area, actually helped people to either loose the fear to use the PanPastels at all, released an amazing push of creativity or let them just be lost in playing.

Another thing I enjoyed was the fact that there wasn’t just Scrapbookers or Mixed Media people drawn to the booth. Not because that would have been to boring, lol – no, no…. My favorite thing to explore was to talk to the people and figure out what they did in a creative way and how they visioned using those PanPastels.

It was sooo much fun and it opened my own horizon a lot too again. Sometimes you are so tight to the paper craft industry that you forget that there is a whole other world out there…There were Quilters and Patchworkers, Decoupage Lovers, Pastel Painters, Plaster Artists, Acrylic Painters, Graphite Painters, People that did Pottery, Wood Artists and so much more! The most exotic to me and funniest was the introduction on using PanPastels for Taxidermy. One later-to-become-a-customer was actually just strolling by accompanying his wife and he happened to be a taxidermist – someone who stuffs out and preserves animals. He saw me demoing, and at this moment I was stippling something. He stopped and the first thing to say was “I am not a crafter, I am not an artist, but I need to get an intro here” – LOL. So ..sure he go the whole introduction and he told me how he was struggling on mimicking the red area of the Pheasant. We were mixing colors like crazy and brainstorming on how to fixate it the best and there was one happy men going out of the booth with the right colors to mix. 

Here is Johannes, who was working with me at the booth all the days- such a fun guy, awesome and gentleman-like colleague and a hard worker – so happy to have spent time with him, I giggled a lot too . Johannes actually told me the first day that he is not really creative – at the end of the show he was explaining with lot’s of enthusiasm all the colors and how they work to the costumers (look at him going!) and he actually painted ! HA – but I didn’t take pictures! Isn’t that the coolest? Someone who thinks he is not creative starts just playing and enjoys the process. Seriously what is up with all of us thinking we are not creative? We all are- we just need to let it go and just do it :) I was once again confirmed!

Another highlight was meeting a lot of people – here is Silvia. Fun to see her again.  I spent a lovely lunch break with Alexia – who I only see once a year and I so enjoyed it :)

Dani from Creavil came by for a bit :) and in the background you see the booth of Karten-Kunst – so love the two running the shop- they are such a sweet and fun couple!

Here are two JumpStarter Anna-Lena and Jaine who currently live in Luxembourg.

Sam wearing wings :)

Here is Rebecca at the Prima Booth – she had awesome Make and Takes and we had a lot of fun together after the show and went out two times to dinner. We also had a wonderful dinner with the Lisbeth and Betina – too bad my photos didn’t turn out at all. Thank you Lisbeth and Betina for an amazing evening – you rock so much!!!!

All in all the five days were pretty busy, but we had a good time and enjoyed it and I learned a lot more about one of my favorite paint media. It actually didn’t stop me at all to create a brand new PanPastel workshop today, which I will be teaching throughout the next couple months ;) Sneaks are coming soon.

Wishing you an amazing day…and don’t forget keep playing and get the creative juices flowing ;)

huge hugs

Nat

Nat

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Creative Jump Start Video : Street Art

For the creative Jump Start I had done two videos actually – one was more an inspirational talk- which I will show later again – and one was how I actually go out and get Inspiration for free :) And I wanted to show this video again on my regular blog.

Best Inspiration For Free

[wpvideo dQngc41K]

For those of you, who have problems watching the wordpress version – here is another option:

The password is: jumpandplay

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/34257836]

Do you like street art or is it something you dislike?

Nat

Nat

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Pier 39 – Cocoa Daisy March Kit Projects

I had lot’ so fun with the March Pier 39 Kit.

I know I did use the title and lyrics of one of my favorite songs already on a layout in 2010 – but the paper in the kit  was soooo fitting, I had to use it again :)

*If the Stars were mine…”

Journaling:

If the stars were mine
I’d tell you what I’d do
I’d put the stars right in a jar and give them all to you

Lyrics by Melanie Gardot

Here is the song in case you want to listen to it

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLX-DdxfUKU&feature=related]

I used some PanPastel to paint over a Crafter’s Workshop – Balzer Designs Stencils and then used another Crafter’s Workshop Stencil with Stars to trace the stars.

*Helping Hand*

This Layout was actually a lift of a member layout at the Cocoa Daisy Gallery by Hanna Marie.

Love those Arrow Row Stamps !

Have a gorgeous day :)

Nat

Nat

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Take the Second Floor Challenge – Golden Acrylic Paint

If you missed yesterday’s post about What the Second Floor Challenge is – here you go :

  • Julie & I have made a one-year commitment to each other and our “Second Floor” project.
  • Every few weeks we will issue a challenge (just something to spark some creativity – sometimes starting without a prompt can be very intimidating).
  • Your assignment is to take that challenge and make some art.
  • Here’s the most important part: at some point you need to “take it to the second floor.”  What does that mean?  It means trying something vastly out of your comfort zone.  Doing something that might not work.  Experimenting with a crazy idea.  It’s all about pushing yourself.  If it works, awesome.  If it doesn’t work, awesome!
  • If you want to participate publicly, we’ll have a linky list for each challenge. If you don’t want to participate publicly, that’s cool too.  It takes a lot of courage to put yourself – not necessarily at your best – out there.
  • We have a private flickr group set up for those of you who want to share sort of publicly but within the safe confines of a private group.  If you want to join the group, you will need to e-mail to secondfloorchallenge(at)googlemail(dot)com we’ll send you an invitation.
So let’s start :)

For our first challenge we decided to go with the Challenge to

“Use Golden Acrylic Paint”

I usually only use golden Acrylic Paint as accents. I use them through a stencil to tie elements together or to paint a frame or the edges, or just a tiny embellishment. So this challenge let me think of actually painting the whole background of my paper golden in order to do something differently.

I gave it some texture by cooking the acrylic paint and also using rub ons before applying the paint. As I had watered down the golden acrylic paint a bit in order to reveal the Rest-Print on the paper and also the rub ons – the paper got a bit wrapped- and to tell you the truth – I do not like that – I do like the cooking though :)

So it could have been done as it was like this- but then decided to take it to the 2nd Floor.

I used twine and rolled it also in golden acrylic paint. I was a bit afraid that the golden acrylic paint would harden the twine too much in order to be still able to twirl it in the forms I want it. But no problems – after it dried I easily applied it in loops to my layout.

And here is the end result:

For me it looks more finished now and I liked using some of the extra golden paint on my twine. The Layout is a bit more shiny as you see it here.

What did I learn from this challenge:

  1. Golden or I would assume any metallic paints painted on big areas are hard to apply because you can see the direction of how the paint was applied and it makes it look messy and uneven. So next time I would definitely use a different tool and try to only paint in one direction.
  2. I like how the Resist Print and Rub-Ons are peaking through and in generell I like the golden color.
  3. Next time I would not water down the paint too much as to avoid the paper to wrap and adding a messy feeling to it.
  4. Although the twine rolled in golden paint was still workable, I do not like the look of it…it looks dirty – I would not do this again…

I used the following supplies for my Remember This Layout:

Not linked: Tattered Angels Paper, Package Twine

Check out Julie’s blog with her result here

If you want to play along with us show us your project here on InLinkz or on the  Second Floor Flickr Group:



Nat

Nat

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Take it to the Second Floor

As some of you might remember my dear friend Julie Fei Fan Balzer visited me last November for a couple days. We had actually planned her visit around our self organized event Mixed Media Circus  but we also planned that Julie and I were doing a lot of sight seeing and spending time together. We had a lot of brainstorming and ideastorming days :)

One of the things you might have to know is, that I have been in a really really tough time around then and as it turned out, it wasn’t me alone. My business in the art and craft industry started to be very busy, there were a lot of opportunities coming up, some of them as always sounded way better in the beginning as they turned out to be (I can’t tell you the numerous time you get asked to do something too good to be true sounding…and actually most of the time it is too good to be true), some of them were taking lot’s of time with low or no payment, some of them came along with toxic people…and so on. I was exhausted from all the planning, the diplomatic gymnastic exercises and trying to keep up and balancing all the opportunities and a private life too…and it is funny that I write this now…I am in a similiar place right now…BUT….I know now this will be all good in the end ;)

So anyway in this foggy misty weather- and mood like time, Julie came to visit and it was the best time ever. Seriously. We talked constantly about our dreams (!YES- the dreams, don’t forget the dreams and to speak them out!) and the fears to fail, to make the wrong decisions and the disappointments and the flaws and the …and the …and the…

It was so good to have someone to talk to who totally got what I was saying or not saying and what I was feeling. Someone who could relate and had the same things to go through too. Someone who could actually also word the feelings that my mushy head was not able to put in words. Julie’s visit and the awesome event itself were a big highlight and a wonderful eye opening time for me…and I did not only get assured that I have an amazing artsy friend…I gained a real friend for life too! Makes me all teary and happy at the same time….hahahha- so before I start collecting water on my keyboard let’s move ahead ;)

One grey, very rainy November day we sat for hours in a cafe in Berlin near the Hackesche Höfe jotting down various ideas and laughing too. We talked a lot about what we both were missing the most …the reason we actually had both started this adventure: The trying out new things…the eagerness to learn new things …to fail…to not care and still show it….the time to spent doing fun things…out of the box things…sometimes even normal boring things….

We decided to challenge each other forcing us to make time for creative failures and try outs and to actually share this with you…yep…no more hiding the ugly and bad in a trash can…or painting it over without showing it first- LOL

Funny enough…we came up with our name first…yup…no kidding. Before we finally decided on what we would do …we had already decided we would name it Second Floor. And as we came out…we stopped for a moment to put our gloves on…and I kid you not- the sign on the wall said literally translated “up to floor 2″….well… ;)

So anyway- here is the scoop on what you can expect :

  • Julie & I have made a one-year commitment to each other and our “Second Floor” project.
  • Every few weeks we will issue a challenge (just something to spark some creativity – sometimes starting without a prompt can be very intimidating).
  • Your assignment is to take that challenge and make some art.
  • Here’s the most important part: at some point you need to “take it to the second floor.”  What does that mean?  It means trying something vastly out of your comfort zone.  Doing something that might not work.  Experimenting with a crazy idea.  It’s all about pushing yourself.  If it works, awesome.  If it doesn’t work, awesome!
  • If you want to participate publicly, we’ll have a linky list for each challenge .  If you don’t want to participate publicly, that’s cool too.  It takes a lot of courage to put yourself – not necessarily at your best – out there.
  • We have a private flickr group set up for those of you who want to share sort of publicly but within the safe confines of a private group.  If you want to join the group, you will need to e-mail to secondfloorchallenge(at)googlemail(dot)com we’ll send you an invitation.
  • To grab a button for your blog, simply grab the code in the box under the logo:
Second Floor

Maybe this project will inspire you too to take the time to experiment and push yourself a little further. So we hope you will be joining tomorrow and check out what our first challenge will be. It is going to be shiny- that much I can say ;)

Nat

Nat

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Winner of the Cocoa Daisy Blog Hop

The winner of the four Cocoa Daisy Stamps is:

Sue, please email me your postal address, so that I can pass it on to get you wonderful prize on the way :)

Congratulations.

Stay tuned for another blog post today :)

hugs

Nat

 

Nat

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