Creative Squad

Creative Squad: A Tale of Two Colors – Robin Seiz

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post from Robin Seiz who is sharing an art journal page with a focus on nature, using my Church and Funky foam stamps, and inspired by our theme: A Tale of Two Colors – Think about two different colors, one you love using and one you find more of a challenge to work with. Use them together in a project and see what happens.


Hello friends, Our theme this month is “A Tale of Two Colors”. We were asked to pick two colors; one we love working with and one we find more challenging to work with. One of the wonderful things about being on the Creative Squad is that I always set out to follow the theme and often learn something about myself in the process. I began with yellow, (one of my go to colors because of it’s transparency and the sunny emotion it portrays) and realized that while I use yellow quite a bit in my art, I have almost nothing yellow in my everyday life. I don’t buy yellow clothes, don’t have yellow accents in home decor, (except for my studio walls, which I really don’t like and am changing) and rarely use yellow except when creating. Hmmmm…. And conversely, I chose brown as the color I find more challenging to work with. I often find it too bold for the art that I create; I tend more to colors of nature or more vibrant colors in my art; yet, in my everyday life, our home has shades of brown in the furniture wood, the a fairly neutral pallet with shades of brown or tan. So interesting! I may need to find more ways to incorporate yellow into my life! 

I decided to create an art journal page this month. My go-to book to create in is a children’s story book with magnificent illistrations  on each page. I love to use parts of the pictures and incorporate them into my page. I started out with a picture of an owl and a happy accident happened. 

I laid down yellow acrylic paint on my gelli plate. I knew that I would be able to see some of the picture and words beneath because of the transparency of yellow. When I pulled the page up, the paint had not made contact with the owls’ eye. Happy accident! As cool as this is, I actually decided to use a different page for my project. (but wanted to show this to you) I’ll definitely come back to this page later for a different project.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the original page I did end up using, but you will see below the reason I chose it and what I love that peeks through. I knew I wanted to use the Church foam stamp, so having something with the country side in the background was calling to me. I have drawn a white circle around a few things that made me decide on this page so you can see what drew me here. To me, the green layers were the country side. On the left hand side, you can see just the head of a sheep popping over the hill. I love that! And the right white circle shows the hay stack barn in the distance. It’s so fun when I can use these little surprise elements to tell a story. 

Next I used Burnt Sienna acrylic paint on the Church Foam stamp and pressed it down. As I frequently find brown, it was too bold and too prominent on the page. You will see I take care of this later. 

In order to add some interest to the church, I used some gold leaf on the two windows in the upper middle. I love that little pop of sparkly that it added. I also added some extra yellow (in the white spaces of the stamp) with a  yellow Posca Pen. It makes the church look like it’s glowing. I used a small brush and Ranger ink to bring out the color of the sheep and make it a little more prominent.

The church, while the focal image, was still too prominent. I masked the church and added the Funky foam stamp to the background to add some interest and take some of the focus off the church. I also added white gesso around the church to make it stand out a little from the background and the page. I went a little heavy with the gesso (which I have a tendency to do) and wiped it back a little with a baby wipe. I also added back a little yellow. 

For the final step I drew some black lines on the church to give it more dimension and to write my thoughts along the side. This page really is a good representation of who I am; when in nature, I feel  feel closest to myself and the world around me. 

What colors do you like to work with? What ones do you find challenging? Try them together you might have a happy surprise. What makes you feel connected to yourself and the world at large? Let me know in the comments or visit me on facebook or instagram. 


Thank you for sharing your process with us Robin! Love how you toned down some things and emphasized others to create your finished page.

Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop and in addition to an old book, here are some of the supplies Robin used:

Looking for more projects? Follow the Creative Squad on Instagram.

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Times Like This – Art Journal

“In times like this, we need more than thoughts and prayers.” —just my thoughts – don’t be cross with me.

I created my background pattern with different versafine ink pad colors and my Wabi Sabi rubber stamps.

I made a sketch of my Church foam stamp on Grafix Duralar, cut it out and adhered it with double sided tape. For my journaling I used a Sharpie gel pen.

Here are some of the supplies I used:

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Creative Squad: Celebrate the Season – Riikka Kovasin

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post and video from Riikka Kovasin who is sharing some lovely cards with us using my Church, Hydrant, and Grove Street foam stamps and our theme: Celebrate the Season – Many cultures celebrate in December so let’s do some celebrating ourselves with our favorite art supplies and the holidays that make this season so festive.


Peaceful Holidays

Hello there everyone! Can you believe it’s already December? I think I say this at least once every month, but it really seems that time is flying. 2021 seems to have passed in a blink of an eye. It was just weeks ago when it was summer, and I was filming my CJS22 video!

This month we’re “Celebrating the Season”. Winter is my favourite season. I would take minus degrees Celsius over hot temperatures any day as then I can just layer clothing and snuggle with my cup of tea. With sub-zero temperatures I can cope, with blazing hot, not that much! In my mind winters are cold and white. I don’t like the warm winters which are dark and gloomy, with sun barely visible, but the white snow and brisk temperatures are the thing!

I also love Christmas time – the preparations, anticipation and hustle to get everything done and then the lovely peace when the Turku Cathedral chimes twelve times, and the Christmas Peace is declared from the old capital of Finland. I grew up in Turku, so this tradition is important to me, it marks the transition from the preparing to the enjoying. The Christmas Peace has been declared from Turku since the 14th century. The wording of the current document is from 1827, though, when a secretary of the magistrate wrote it from memory after the Great Fire of Turku.

I chose to do a little Christmas scene for my cards to celebrate the inky blue skies of winter and the Christmas time. I chose to use the “Church” foam stamp, probably inspired by Turku Cathedral. To add a little something to the background, I added a halo or a rose window kind of pattern using “Grove Street” foam stamp. And to decorate the church for the winter, I stamped a huge wreath using a part of the “Hydrant” design. If you wish to see how I made the cards, please see the video below!

I use acrylic paints as my “go-to” medium so this time I wanted to use another medium instead. As you could see from the video, I chose inks this time. One reason was the way dye inks react to water – I knew I could use that to my advantage to make a starry sky! Just apply a layer of ink and then lift it up with water splashes. I then emphasized the look more by adding some white paint marker doodles on top. I placed the bigger stars on top of the splashes so that the lighter area makes kind of a halo to the star.

With these cards I’m wishing you all Peaceful Holidays and a warm, heartfelt times with your loved ones whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali, Christmas or any other Holiday! 

I’ll see you next year with another project for Nat’s Creative Squad!

Xoxo Riikka


Thank you Riikka – love how you used the Hydrant stamp to make your wreath! And hearing about your traditions was such a treat.

Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop and here are some of the supplies Riikka used:

Looking for more inspiration from the Creative Squad? Follow them on Instagram here.

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Ode to a City – Art Journal

For this spread I used my new foam stamps and acrylic paints. These were actually all kinds of test stamp sheets for our product photos but I loved the vibrant colors and thought it would be fun to layer them up.

Here is Hydrant looking very cute in pink and of course Lady Liberty in green. I stamped both Powerhouse and Brownstone along with my Powerhouse Rubber Stamp and Brownstone Rubber Stamp.

I was journaling just random thoughts on why I love living in a city.

Here is Church and Row Houses too. I just layered them as I wanted and then added a double sided adhesive to the back and cut where the journal fold is so it would be easy to open and close.

Here are some of the supplies I used:

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Time Traveler – Art Journal

“See… I am a time traveler… I travel 60 mins an hour to the future.”

For this art journal spread, I was playing with my new ArtFoamies on a Gelli Plate.

I rolled out magenta acrylic paint on my Gelli plate, then pushed the foam stamps into it to lift the paint and let it dry. Then I rolled out white paint on top and pulled a print while the paint was still wet – this takes off the dried paint as well. Also bits and pieces that were dried to the plate before I rolled out the magenta color came up too here and there and I love the grungy look that resulted.

Above you can see my Lady Liberty, Brownstone, and part of my Powerhouse foam stamps…

and here is Church peeking through some yummy grunginess.

I pasted these prints into my art journal and then also stamped some of the foam stamps inked up with Versafine ink in there too to add some other elements.

I used my E-Train rubber stamp with black archival ink for some detail and also my Love Knots rubber stamp with yellow ink from the Embroidery set.

Here are some of the supplies I used:

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City Scenes Votive Candles – DIY Play Date

Last week Kim and I got together for the first time since 2019 for one of our epic Play Dates!!! We had such a nice time gabbing and making art and just enjoying the experience of creating together. Our project? Votive candles using my NEW foam stamp designs! It was an easy peasy project to get us back in the groove and the results are very nice. Here’s how we did it:

The supplies are simple: my new foam stamps (Clockwise from the top they are Powerhouse, Church, Brownstone, Lady Liberty, Hydrant, and Row Houses), Grafix Dura-Lar matte film, black acrylic paint, brayer, double stick tape, LED votives, and scissors or a paper trimmer. We also dressed some up with Posca markers, but more on that in a bit ;)  The whole idea was to have the buildings and such silhouetted so that the light shines through all the details. Read on!

We started out by rolling black acrylic paint out on palette paper with a brayer. We both liked Carbon Black Golden Fluid Acrylic paint for this – a nice opaque black. Then we rolled it on the stamp (in this case, the Church stamp) and stamped it on the Grafix Dura-Lar matte plastic sheet – a matte white plastic that is kinda translucent with light behind it. You could also use a StampBuddy here too to ink up your stamps.

We left some room at the bottom of the film and stamped across the width, leaving room on either side to eventually tape the ends together. In this one I am stamping the Brownstone foam stamp.

Here I am inking up Lady Liberty

… for a nice impression :)

A lineup of Hydrant stamps… cue the dogs!

Keep in mind that when stamping on plastic film the surface is slick and the stamps can slide if you aren’t careful.

The Row Houses on the left turned out fine but I slipped a bit with Powerhouse on the right. We each had a couple misfires so plan on having some extra sheets of plastic just in case.

With some of the mistakes, we created masks to use in building up more complex, layered scenes – a great way to use those.

Kim stamped Row Houses and Brownstone and then used the masks to add Church to the background for a little streetscape.

Looks pretty neat all together like that.

I first stamped Church, then added Powerhouse, and then…

…I added Row Houses to the left…

And then I finished with Lady Liberty!

We created a variety of sheets to move on to the next step:

I broke out my new Dahle trimmer and we cut things down to size. We experimented with trimming some with a margin around the image – room for tape and a little lift off the ground.

We also fussy cut some for a different effect!

Looking pretty good there Lady Liberty! The choice is yours on how you want to trim them.

We also tried coloring some in with acrylic markers.

Here are some details in those stained glass windows.

Using double sided clear tape we got ready for the final assembly.

Coming together and holding tight with permanent tape.

Here are our City Scenes votives ready for illumination – LED lights must be used with these to be safe.

Let’s light them up!!!

For the taller ones you may want to use a taller LED votive or stack the votive on something inside the sheath.

Love this one that I fussy cut!!!

And now after dark…

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and maybe you’re feeling inspired to make some foam stamped votives of your own. Please do!!! And I hope you join us back here for our next Play Date :)

Here are some of the supplies we used:

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Scary Either Way – Art Journal

“It’s scary when things change. It’s scary when things stay the same.”

Isn’t that the truth.

For this spread I just stamped with different versafine stamp pads using my new Foam Stamps like the Church. I also used some of my other stamps like the Solid Triangle Small from Triangle Love and the Fan-fare rubber stamp set.

I filled in some of the details with markers like here in the Brownstone foam stamp.

And here is the Powerhouse foam stamp with some details highlighted.

And here is Row Houses looking lovely in yellow.

Here is a tip – After using ink, clean your stamps with water and a soft brush to make sure ink does not transfer to your next project or other inkpads.

Here are some of the supplies I used:

Comments (1)

  • Sue Clarke

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    You get such a clear and complete image when you stamp.
    I have had some luck using Julie’s suggestion to stamp with a mat underneath, but I still get bothered by incomplete images.
    Maybe it’s the “perfect” side of my brain. I continue to strive to let go. Nice new set of stamps Nat!

    Reply

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