Blog: Stampendous

Be Brave Art Journal Page and Stampendous Giveaway

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Today is the last day of the Nathalie Kalbach & Friends Stampendous Summer Hop – so much fun :)

What better way to celebrate summer than with some summer colors, I thought and created this Art Journal spread with all kinds of bold summer colors and different sets of the stamps I designed for Stampendous.

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I layered some acrylic paint onto my art journal pages and set it aside for later. A list of all supplies can be found at the end of this post.

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For the Bird, Elephant and Urban Scribble image I wanted to create my own patterned paper and I love to use deli paper for this because it is cheap and thin enough that you can use it to wrap up small presents, and can be used easily as collage material in your mixed media art work. I used the same colors over and over again, first adding big patches of colors to the deli paper, then stamping with acrylic paint and all kinds different Rubber and Foam Stamps. Later I layered some of the stencils which are included in my stamp sets on top to tie some areas together. Last but not least I used the Urban Scribble rubber Stamp and black archival ink and stamped randomly here and there.

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I traced the Foam Stamps onto the back of my new patterned paper and cut out an elephant, bird and the urban skyline. I glued all the cutouts down onto my earlier painted art journal spread using Matte Medium and a cosmetic sponge. Then I added a couple more marks and colors to the page and outlined the shapes in a sketchy manner. Added some Journaling- and voila :) It was a lot of fun to just play with all the different stamps. I cannot wait to make more patterned paper to use this way for wrapping paper – a good way to use up some of your left over paints and stamp off your inked stamps. Here are the details of the elements on the finished page

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I hope you enjoyed this fun and colorful post :)

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Do not forget that you can win all three of my Stamp Sets by commenting today on the blogs with projects of my stamp sets in this list from the whole week. Check out all those amazing projects my friends posted – I am blown away:

Stampendous Blog Post Monday

Pam Bray Monday

my blog – Creative Squad – Cheiron Brandon on Tuesday

Katy Leitch on Tuesday

Stampendous Blog on Tuesday

Stampendous Blog Post Wednesday

Gwen Lafleur Wednesday

my Creative Ice Breaker Wednesday

Louise Healy Wednesday

Stampendous Blog Post Thursday

Rae Missigman Thursday

Marsha Valk Thursday

Katy Leitch on Thursday

Allison Heikkila on Thursday

Mark Gould on Thursday

Stampendous Blog Post Friday

Tina Walker Friday

Pam Bray Friday

Lea Fritts Friday

Katy Leitch on Friday

Tenia Nelson on Friday

my blog- you are here :)


 

Have a wondeful day and good luck!!! Stampendous and I will post about the winner on our blogs next week!

Here are all supplies including the stamps I used (some are affiliate links).

SuppliesCJS


Comments (35)

  • Linsey

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    Oh goodness! Your art journal pages are SO gorgeous and completely inspiring!!! Thank you so much for sharing your awesome creativity and talent and for coming together to bring your fans this super cool mixed media hop!! I’m thoroughly enjoying seeing your marvelous designs come to life!!!

    Reply

  • D.Ann C

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    Oh, I have a serious crush on your user of neon colors!!! I have also developed a serious crush on your stamp/stencil sets this week. Can’t wait till my budget let’s me indulge in getting some!!! -FL

    Reply

  • Leadonna Fritts

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    I absolutely love your style of creating, Nat. Like me, you love color and it shows beautifully in your work. Your art journal pages just speak to my heart. Thank you for sharing!

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  • Janet Staples

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    I LOVE this! So bright while being subtle and bold! Brilliant. I’m glad I ran across this…can’t wait to see the other artists’ interpretations! Thank you so much for all of your inspiration Nat!

    Reply

  • nicole n

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    Love all of the bright colors and the elephant!

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  • Jackie Schachter

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    When I reached this page I just said to myself “wow’. Love the
    brilliant colors of the backgrounds and stamps. You and your
    designers are so talented. Have enjoyed this week’s blog
    hop – it was fun. TFS.
    Jackie, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Reply

  • Sarah P.

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    The journaling pages are so colorful and make a statement. I love them, they catch your eye for sure.

    Reply

  • jacqvz

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    So inspiring! Love the hold colors!

    Reply

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Creative Ice Breaker – Morning Art Journal Play Video #2

In the mornings I play in my art journal to get myself into the creative groove and break the ice – so to speak- and get ready to paint. I recorded and fast forwarded my morning ritual – and hope you enjoy it. Take it as what it is – a morning art journal play- not a tutorial ?

Creative Ice Breaker June 2016 from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

Here are the supplies I have used in my Creative Ice Breaker video above – some links are affiliate links.

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I hope you enjoyed the video ? Have a wonderful and creative day

Comments (30)

  • Teresa Godines

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    Love all of your great colors. TFS

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  • Deborah S

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    Wow what a great way to start your day kind of like stretching before your morning run. I really enjoyed your video it was very inspiring. I can’t seem to find my way into mix media. My style is to controlled and stay in the lines. I guess I just need to be brave and jump in. What do I have to lose right. OBTW you ARE the best, best colorer lol tfs!

    Reply

  • Christine Dring

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    Gorgeous journal page! Love your sentiment – very empowering!

    Reply

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Elephants Never Forget – Gwen Lafleur

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Happy Tuesday! It’s time for my Creative Squad to share a project with you with this month’s new theme: “Elephants Never Forget”. Throughout the month of May, the team will use my new Elephant Foam Stamp, Rubber Stamp and Stencil Set to interpret the theme. I asked them to draw from a childhood memory, and to use the elephant as a symbol of something that fascinated them as a child, inspired awe, or just got their little brain all wrapped up with wonder. And if you want to hear a little bit about my childhood, you can read about my personal connection to elephants here (just scroll down to “WHY an elephant…”) :)

Today we have a super vibrant art journal page from Gwen Lafleur. As a travel enthusiast, her interpretation of the theme is definitely close to my heart.
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Gwen May Headshot

With this month’s theme of working from a childhood memory that fascinated me, the Elephant Stamp & Stencil set couldn’t have been more perfect! In my art journal spread, the elephant represents this memory and the object of my childhood inspiration perfectly. The memory that jumped out at me was one of me laying on the floor of our living room on my stomach poring over a book. Not just any book, but “Lands and Peoples of the World.” I was obsessed with it, and this particular scenario played out many times. Looking back, the book probably wasn’t all that great – the cover was brown with a photo of a tribe of some kind, and most of the pages were black and white. I’m guessing it was printed in the 70s. But it enthralled me completely. I can’t remember precisely what it was that I loved about it, but I think just the idea of all of those places and cultures that were so different from what I knew, really captured my imagination. As an adult, I’ve been blessed to take that fascination and act on it, traveling all over the world and seeing many of those places and cultures first hand. I’ve since looked for it at my parents’ house on many trips home, and have finally accepted the fact that the book is gone, but the memory remains. As for that childhood fascination with exotic locales? Some things never change!

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For my art journal pages, I decided I wanted to go really bright to represent all of the intense colors and patterns of many of the places I dreamed about visiting and have since gone to. I painted some stripes of paints in different shades of blue, yellow / orange, and green acrylic paint – all different brands, I just randomly grabbed what I had.

Never Forget - Art Journal Spread Step 1 - Gwen Lafleur

Then I used all three of the stamps in the set to stamp out elephants on to deli paper. I used paint with the foam stamps and black Archival Ink with the rubber cling stamp. I used the stencil from the kit on top of the plain stamped elephant to add some pattern with gold paint. Then I pulled out Nathalie’s Elephant Parade stencil that matches this set and stenciled the larger open elephant with Golden Gold Iridescent heavy body paint, and I stenciled the patterned version with black acrylic paint onto a red background. I cut out each elephant and adhered them onto the background with Golden Matte Medium.

Never Forget - Art Journal Spread Step 2 - Gwen Lafleur

Next, I started adding details. I used a black PermaPaque marker to outline each elephant. I also added some embellished circles to connect and ground the images. I colored in the different sections with various paint markers and started adding dots. I knew I wanted to use maps on the page to reinforce the theme, and I wanted to put them in the middle of each of the circles. Since I needed to be able to see through and trace the area to cut out, I decided to do a quick packing tape transfer. I just put two strips of clear packing tape over a section of a map. Then I soaked it in warm water until the paper on the back started to pill when I rubbed it. I gently rubbed off all the paper leaving just the image on the tape. This made it pretty transparent, so I traced the shape of the circles onto the tape with a Stabilo All pencil and cut them out, then adhered with more matte medium.

Never Forget - Art Journal Spread Step 3 - Gwen Lafleur

For the third phase, I added white dots around everything to create unity on the page, and went through and added a bit more detail here and there. To add depth to the piece, I used oil pastels to put in a bit of shading. I really like using these on top of acrylic paints; you just have to be careful not to put them where you want to add more layers or acrylic or do any writing – the paint won’t stick to it and the pens won’t write on it, so this needs to be one of the top layers.

Never Forget - Art Journal Spread Step 4 - Gwen Lafleur

Finally, I used some old rubons to add a title to the page, then just went around randomly adding writing around the elephants and journaling about this memory.

Never Forget - Art Journal Spread Close-up 1 - Gwen Lafleur

I hope you enjoyed today’s project! I’m really looking forward to hearing about the rest of the team’s memories, and hopefully some of you will play along as well!

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Oohhh this is so much fun!  I love all the ways Gwen incorporated the Elephant stamp in her page and her use of pattern definitely suggests exotic far-off places. I hope she finds that book again!

Besides the supplies listed below, Gwen also used acrylic paint, markers, maps, clear tape, and old rubons:

SuppliesCJS

And maybe you will even play along -we would love to see how you interpret the theme. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share what you did at the end of the month!

See you next Tuesday for the another project from the Creative Squad, with the theme Elephants Never Forget.

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Nathalie Kalbach & Friends Blog Hop – Win all three Stamp Sets!

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Woot Woot- so stoked that the Stampendous Design Team and my wonderful Creative Squad is doing a blog hop together this week. It always is my favorite thing to see how others use my stamp and stencil designs – makes me so happy. Loads of yummie projects – check it out!!!

Here are the links for today:

Louise Healy 

Janelle Stollfus

Marsha Valk

Gwen Lafleur

Michelle Rydell

Cheiron Brandon

Lea Fritts

Pam Hornschu

Stampendous Blog

I thought I would play along with my awesome team’s theme this month “My City Speaks To Me” and I used the Urban Scribble Stamp Set as well

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My city – Jersey City – is such a city of juxtapositions. Grungy – Spotless, Old – Modern, Artsy – Financial, Jersey – NYC, Loud – Calm ….and so much more. I love it – it is such an inspiring place to live.

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I stamped with the solid side of the Urban Scribble Foam Stamp and yellow acrylic paint into my art journal and then used the Rubber Stamp with black ink to stamp over it. The Solid Foam Stamp and the Rubber Stamp pattern fit perfectly together. I painted the background and for the grungy side on the left I used the rubber stamp on purpose rudimentary and in a non perfect manner to enhance the juxtaposition of the two sides.

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Watch this video if you want to know how to apply acrylic paint to the foam stamps:

Rule of Three – #1 “Three Ways to “Ink” up Foam Stamps from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

Check out all the wonderful posts, comment on any of those posts and win a price and join us :)

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Stampendous is offering three prize packages that consist of ALL THREE of the foam/cling/stencil sets. THEY’ll ship them to anyone who wins (yes, internationally, too) just comment on this post here or any of the posts the teams or Stampendous or here to be eligible to win. Good luck!!!!
Thank you so much for visiting- I hope you like my new Bird, Elephant and Urban Scribbles Foam, Cling Rubber and Stencil Sets ! Have a beautiful and creative weekend!

Comments (32)

  • Keitha

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    Love all three sets Nathalie; it will be hard to decide which one to get first. Great blog hop!

    Reply

  • Agata

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    Such a beautiful layout you have created! Love your products!

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  • Tracy Moloney

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    EXCITING pages, your city is ALIVE – LOVE IT!!!
    THANK YOU for sharing your video too, these sound like such an ADVENTURE to CREATE with :)
    Tracy from Australia

    Reply

  • robynseaniger

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    I love these new stamps Nathalie and I thoroughly enjoyed using them at your recent Mixed Media Circus Workshop at Darkroom Door. I know I need these for my art journaling :)

    Reply

  • Sandra L.

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    Love your project and love the stamp set. I live in New Jersey and you summed up your area perfectly. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

  • Gayle Kush

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    Love your tutrials and all the things you so graciously share with all of us on your blog. Including your friends in the form of this blog hop! Thank you for the tips on inking your stamps. I work in fabric but almost everything you do I can use in my fiber arts adventures. I love your stamps and use them all the time in my work. Thanks again!

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What’s Right or … In My Art Journal Today

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“Stand for what is right even if it means standing alone!”

For this art journal spread I used my new DecoArt Media Acrylic Paints which the wonderful people of DecoArt sent me to try out. They are fluid and most of the colors in this range are transparent or translucent which makes for some nice and interesting layering effects as you can see where I played with a hand cut diamond stencil in the background.

 

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I used my new Fashion Dame Stamp Set

Fashion Dame Stamp Set

and layered the three included stamps – the dame, her skirt and her jacket on top of each other – stamping with archival ink and then painted it in with  DecoArt Media Acrylic Paint and some Derwent ArtBars.

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I also used the stencil in the stamp set and mixed white DecoArt Crackle Paste with some Primary Yellow Acrylic Paint and scraped it with a palette knife over through the stencil. I might have squealed a little bit …after a short drying time these tiny little perfect cracks started to appear and oh boy…I think this Crackle Paste and I just became buddies!

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It was fun playing with new paints and a new medium! Not knowing a art medium a hundred percent frees you up to experiment and give new things a shot, it made for a great journey for this spread :)

What was the last new art medium you tried out?

 

SuppliesCJS



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Put a Stamp on it or… Check it out

Today is all about stamps :) Stamps on Video and about Stamps in a podcast:

Christine Urias from ScrapTime visited me at the Stampendous booth at CHA – Check out her video of me

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Thank you Christine for coming by and doing such an awesome job every year to cover what is new at CHA – always fun to see you and Mark!

And now…if you are tired of seeing me …how about  listening to my kraut-accent on this Adventures in Arting Podcast hosted by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. Julie, Rachel Greig and I talk about how we each started designing stamps, both the why and the how of how we each design stamps, the experience of seeing work that people make with our stamps, the appeal of stamping in general, and we give some stamping tips too!

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Thank you Julie for having me and to Julie and Rachel for this fun and interesting discussion about stamps.

I hope you enjoyed the visual and auditory stamp information !

Which kind of stamps would you love to see?

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Many Beautiful Reasons or … In My Art Journal Today

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“There are many beautiful reasons to be happy!”

Like ….playing in your art journal :) I had a good time creating a funky grungy background and layering it up with some marker marks.

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I re-explored the Stampendous Dauber Applicator which comes empty and can be filled with whatever liquid you want. They have a little foam dauber on top. I filled the bottle with part black soft body paint and some white acrylic ink to get a grey and also a more fluid paint and used the dauber to apply paint onto the Urban Scribble Foam Stamp. I love how quick this works and especially with generic colors it is an easy way to keep on hand for working with foam stamps. When done with the dauber, simply wipe off access paint from the felt and close up to prevent the felt to dry up with acrylic paint. So far this worked well :)

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I stamped with the Urban Scribble rubber stamp and archival ink on top.

What made you happy today?

Here is a list of the supplies, I used for the art journal spread above.

SuppliesCJS



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More hours or …. In My Art Journal Today

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“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see!” John Burroghs

Apparently I didn’t find the day too short to repeat myself but was at the same time not concentrated enough to write everything grammatically right in my art journal spread -LOL – can you spy it? Oh man, embarrassing but …oh well… here you go … the real deal;)

I played with different greens and yellow and orange acrylic paint and stamped the city shape using the pattern art of my Urban Scribble foam stamp with purple as a nice contrast to the orange. I applied the paint with a brayer to the foam stamp- goes quick and easy.

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As you can see in the WIP (Work In Progress) Picture above I added a little border to my stencil in the set with duct tape as to prevent over spraying when using the stencil with spray paint. Here I just added paint to the surface, then placed the stencil on top and rubbed areas of paint off with a baby wipe – at other spots I stenciled through the stencil.

Urban Scribble Stamp Set

For the Journaling I used a bamboo sketching pen and black acrylic ink- I love to write with the pen …so much, that I like to double my words ;)

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What would you do if you had more hours in the day?

Here is a list of the supplies, I used for the art journal spread above.

SuppliesCJS



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Urban Scribble Card AND The Shop is Open!

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Isn’t this Card by Janelle Stollfus using my new Urban Scribble Stamp Set –  just super cool! I love the gorgeous vibrant colors. Janelle used watercolors, and pencils and acrylic markers to create the background and color in the rubber stamp image included in the set! Thank you so much Janelle for sharing !

And – I have news – as so many people asked, where to get my stamps and other products – well hopefully your local craft and art store carries them…but if you do not have one close by or if they do not carry them…I just opened my own web store for you too and you can get my new stamp sets and some other items there :)

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If you live in the United States, you can order directly and immediately from this site. If you order several items the shipping rate is calculated automatically per item. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to set it up differently in the store. But if I can ship your total order for a cheaper price than the automatically calculated price (which is most of the time the case with several items), I will refund you the difference.

If you require international shipping, please email me in advance of your order at orders@nathaliesstudio to discuss shipping options as international shipping can be variable and expensive. I can look into the best option as soon as I know what you would like to order and give you a quote.

I hope you visit my new n*Store and if you use any of my stamps or stencils- please share with me – I love to see what you create with them!

Have a beautiful day!!!!

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