“People who feel the need to control others, don’t have control over themselves.”
I tore some paper to cover up areas and stamped with my FANtastic Small, Hex Set Small, and Floral Tile Small sets so that the patterns came together. I used MoonGlo ink pads. Love the very bright and indeed glowing colors of those ink pads.
I used water colors for my figure and chose similar colors to help all the elements come together on the page.
Here are some of the supplies that I used:
“Keep showing up for yourself every day!” – I saw my artist friend Tony Zatzick saying this on Instagram and I really loved it.
I thought it would be fun to combine rubber stamps and foam stamps in one page, both using moonlight duo ink pads. I used the Hex Set Small rubber stamp set.
I also used my Hex Set Large rubber stamps and my Gnarly and Jazzed foam stamps.
I love how the patterns work together and the moonlight duo inks work great with each.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Thank you so much Jean!
Hello from my Creative Squad today! Here we have a post from Maura Hibbitts, sharing an awesome little stamped pouch with us that will inspire you to get organized! She is using my Hex Set Large and Hex Set Small rubber stamps and this month’s theme: Hex Marks the Spot –In the days of pirates and lost treasure, a map would lead you to gold and jewels. Today we treasure all sorts of things – our family, friends, experiences, meaningful objects, accomplishments, etc. Think about what you treasure and how you found your way there.
I love using pouches and bags to organize my art supplies, and have a wide variety of styles to choose from. Bags to hold pens and pencils, bags to hold paint, papers … you name it, and I probably have a bag for that supply.
Some bags are boring and plain, like the mesh bag I started with here. It is so easy to transform a plain pouch into a mini work of art with some paint and stamps and make it your own.
I like to use the gel plate to blend colors. I started with the red and magenta, and stamped the Space Oddity Hex stamp into it, then transferred the paint to the bag and repeated a pattern of three across the bag. Be sure to clean the paint off the stamps after using them. With a large design like these, I just use a baby wipe to clean them.
Next, I blended the yellow and orange on the gel plate with the brayer, and laid the stamp into it. I offset the hex stamp this time onto the previous stamped design. I also repeated a partial pattern at the bottom and top of the bag with the yellow/orange and then the magenta.
I spread the yellow onto the gel plate with a brayer, and used the small beacon positive stamp to fill in the design between the hexes. Final step once the paint dried was to tie on a bit of sari ribbon.
This is an easy project with minimal supplies. The process will work on any surface that will take acrylic paint.
I challenged myself to work outside of my usual color choices, and I like the bright, cheerful feel of the altered bag. It’s ready to be filled with markers, pencils, tools…whatever I might need for a project. One thing is for certain, this bag won’t get lost in a crowd!
Thank you Maura! What a great looking little bag!!! You can find all of my rubber stamps in my online shop. Here are some of the supplies Maura used:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
Nice bright cheery colors Maura. What a cute bag and the ribbon pull is a nice addition.
Happy Tuesday folks! It’s time for a post from my Creative Squad and today we have Jennifer Gallagher sharing a beautiful art journal page representing her family. She is using the stamps from my Hex Set Large rubber stamp set and this month’s theme: Hex Marks the Spot –In the days of pirates and lost treasure, a map would lead you to gold and jewels. Today we treasure all sorts of things – our family, friends, experiences, meaningful objects, accomplishments, etc. Think about what you treasure and how you found your way there.
This month we are talking about our treasures. My treasure is my family. It just so happens this week is my wedding anniversary. I decided to create an art journal page that reflects my love of family and how they are my most valued treasures. I have represented my husband and two sons as flowers using Nat’s Maze Hex stamp. I hope you enjoy this quick and easy tutorial for a fun and vibrant art journal page.
Start by applying a layer of distress stain and spritzing it with water. Move the page around the let the water travel. Dab with a paper towel to create extra interest and texture.
Stamp Nat’s Maze Hex stamp with black archival ink. These shapes will become your flowers so place them as your focal points.
Fill in your flowers negative space with posca pen acrylic markers.
Paint the bottom half of your page with green acrylic paint and a mini blending tool. Once dry, stamp Nat’s Beacon Positive stamp in vivid chartreuse archival ink to add blades of grass.
Using a black gelly roll pen, draw in petals around each flower, stems, and leaves. Add as much doodling as you like. Use a distress marker in peeled paint to color in your leaves.
Write in a sentiment that describes what your treasure is. I chose, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
I hope this tutorial has shown you a creative way to use some of Nat’s Hex Set Large stamps. The Maze Hex stamp screams flower to me! What about you? What fun ways can you get more out of your n*Studio stamps? Be sure to play along and share your creations with us.
Thank you Jennifer – so cool to see the Maze Hex transformed into flowers! Great idea. You can find all of my rubber stamps in my online shop. In addition to green acrylic paint, here are some of the supplies Jennifer used:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
“How unique to this human experience that we all just wish to be the most important thing on earth to someone else.” – Tyler Knott Gregson
I used acrylic paint with my new Hexastencil Planet Earth Mixed Media Chip to create my background.
Then I came back and stamped with my Hex Set Large rubber stamps – they are just the right size to work together.
Mixed Media Chips are made of chipboard – here are some tips for helping you give them a longer “life”.
Brush some gel medium on both sides, let dry, this seals it for a bit so you can play with it a bit longer.
Add some artist masking tape around the edges to make it easier to use as a stencil too- you can remove it later.
You can use it as a stencil and line it up for a continuous pattern – makes for great color blending and layering.
And best of all, this hex chip works with my rubber stamp sets.
Here are some of the supplies I used in this post:
Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post from Marsha Valk and she takes us on a journey into the mind of an artist – to show us how a theme can prompt a thoughtful art journal page. She is using my Hex Large set, Fan-fare, and Hex Small rubber stamps and this month’s theme: Hex Marks the Spot –In the days of pirates and lost treasure, a map would lead you to gold and jewels. Today we treasure all sorts of things – our family, friends, experiences, meaningful objects, accomplishments, etc. Think about what you treasure and how you found your way there.
This month’s prompt made me intensely sad. Somehow to me, to treasure something is like trying to prevent sand from slipping through your fingers.
Change is constant. People disappear from your life, things break, or an event can make you see things in a completely different light. Even you change.
I truly realized this during my scrapbooking years: as soon as I scrapped about something precious, things changed, broke, got lost, went away or something happened that just changed everything. I’m not even kidding. I’m not saying I jinxed things by scrapbooking about them, but documenting everything did make me painfully aware of all of the changes and losses.
I’m not sure why the prompt made me steer down memory lane via the sad route. Maybe it’s because our neighbours are moving house, perhaps it’s because last week two huge trees that have dominated my view for twenty years were cut down or maybe it’s PMS… Things you treasure disappear all the time, and there is nothing you can do about that.
Good thing I know the perfect remedy for sad moods. It’s called ‘art journaling’. ;-)
For the background, I applied StazOn to my gel printing plate. Then I used Nat’s Hex Set Large stamp set to make marks in the ink. I pulled a print directly into my journal and used the leftover ink on the plate and a few stamped hexes to fill any of the remaining white spots.
Next, I browsed through my folder of scraps leftover from previous projects using Nat’s products and I pasted some of them to my page with Matte Medium.
Then I randomly applied magenta and white paint with a brush.
I stamped on top with the Diamond Hex Positive and white paint, and I also added a couple of diamond shapes from the Fan-fare set in gold paint, because what’s a treasure without gold!
I remembered that I had also had a cutout of a gold heart in my collage stash, so I pasted that to a painted scrap of paper that I cut to the shape of the heart.
I tucked some sewing thread under the heart before adhering it.
Then I wrote part of the lyrics to ‘Gold Dust’ by Tori Amos on the page, added black splatter and pulled the page spread together by stamping a couple of small Diamond Hex Positives in black ink.
Thank you Marsha! What a beautiful page and love that you used your art journaling to help work through all that. You can find all of my rubber stamps in my online shop. In addition to the gold heart collage element and the sewing thread, here are some of the other supplies Marsha used:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
What’s your superpower? I’m a woman…
I used my Hexastencil Mixed Media Chip to create the hex pattern and then filled in with the Diamond Hex rubber stamp from the Hex Set Large and the Fairview rubber stamp from the FANtastic Small set.
I had a photo of my Aunt Margot from a party (I had so many from the party and was sorting through them recently – such cool images) and just thought it was a perfect fit for the quote and the hex space. Then I trimmed up one of the Hexastencil chips, and applied it with gel medium.
I’m glad I found a way to incorporate the dear photo, in a meaningful way to keep.
Here are some of the supplies that I used:
Aunt Margot…how nice to see her again on a page.
I must say that I have always enjoyed your stories about her and the warm memories that it makes me feel for/with you.
Hope you’re enjoying this summer weather Nat!
Welcome to a post from my Creative Squad! This week we have an upcycling project from Tania Ahmed using my Hex Set Large rubber stamps. She dresses up a storage container, drawing inspiration from this month’s new theme: Hex Marks the Spot –In the days of pirates and lost treasure, a map would lead you to gold and jewels. Today we treasure all sorts of things – our family, friends, experiences, meaningful objects, accomplishments, etc. Think about what you treasure and how you found your way there.
My project for the day is a quick and easy project that I made to house my mini Distress Archival Inks which I love but keep losing! I stashed them in a cigar box that I had rescued from being thrown away which I have upcycled many times over the years. I decided it was time to revamp it to keep my inks in!
I scraped off as much of the paint and paste that I could off the box first and covered the whole thing with black gesso to give it a matt black finish.
On a piece of cards stock I stamped my Hex pattern with Distress Archival Inks, inspired by the Instagram hashtag #ihavethisthingwithtiles and added some shading with Walnut Stain Distress Oxide.
I then added some additional details with my Gold Molotow Acrylic Marker and some sketchy lines with a fine sharpie marker. I glued the cardstock panel to my dried cigar case and added my Mini ink pads to the box!
This was a quick project to put together and it gives me great joy knowing that my inks have somewhere to “live” :)
Thank you so much for stopping by and have a great day!
Thank you Tania – love your box of treasure :) You can find all of my rubber stamps in my online shop. Here are some of the other supplies Tania used:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
I wanted to share a little Flip Through video of my newly finished Pattern Sample Book. I started Nat’s April Patterns back at the start of April with my new rubber stamps and decided to bind them together in one book. It was relaxing and super fun to create the patterns and now I have an awesome resource for inspiration. Enjoy the flip through!
Pattern Sample Book Flip Through from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.
Here are some of the patterns from the video:
Using my Floral Tile Large, Floral Tile Small, and Fan-fare rubber stamp sets.
Using my Hex Set Large and Hex Set Small.
Here I used my Fan-tastic Large set, the Solid Fan, and a stamp from the Fan-fare set.
This one uses the Fan-tastic Small set, the Solid Fan Small, and the Small Circle Jumble set.
And this one uses my Large Circle Jumble set, the Solid Fan in the large size, Small Circle Jumble set, Fan-tastic Small, and Fan-fare.
I hope you enjoyed this and are inspired to try some patterns of your own. All my new Rubber Stamps can be found in my Online Shop. Here are the supplies I used for these patterns:
Gorgeous work!
I love everything about this. Awesome quote. Need to post that on my studio wall! Your page layout is amazing. Love the layers. Really speaks to me.
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