Thursday 31 January 2013

C... is also for Cielo!

Hello!

I have a second entry for the C letter of the Craft Barn Alpha Challenge. This time I chose the word "Cielo", which means "sky", and here is the page that I made:


What is written in the clouds and you might not be able to read it clearly is "I choose to believe that he is watching you from the sky". I was talking to my nephews about their grandfather, who left us a few months before they were born. At least he had the time to know that both his daughters were pregnant.

Last Sunday Andreas, the "older" nephew (only by two months!) had his first birthday. We had a really great time, all the family together... but I couldn't help thinking of my uncle now and then. And I chose to believe (because I think that this is a choice), that he is indeed watching them from where he is now... and it is easier to picture him being high above us.

So... yet another therapeutic art journal page!

Hope you like it,

Hugs,
Anastasia



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Monday 28 January 2013

C is for... Corazón


Good morning!

We continue with the altered dictionary thank sto The Craft Barn's Alpha Challenge... The new letter is "C"... and the word that I've chose is "Corazón", which, of course, means heart (too many hearts lately!!!)

The page that I made:



I've been inspired by one of my old favourite songs, "Corazón Partío" by Alejandro Sanz. A song that means many, many things to me, so preparing this page while listening to the song again and again (and realising that I still remember the words after so many years) was really therapeutic... I so love this Alpha Challenge!

So first I prepared a small heart on a post-it to cover and protect the definition of "Corazón". I added gesso on my page and the I used an A4 paper to make the large heart. I used the negative as stencil and used my red mist. I let it dry, then used pencil for the hearts' outlines, which I smudged with my figures. Finally I wrote the lyrics of the song all over the page.

And here's the song in case you are curious:



So come over at The Craft Barn blog to see the other participations and play... it is therapeutic!




Hugs,
Anastasia



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Saturday 26 January 2013

ATCAS #5 - Heart

Good morning!

How are we this splendid Saturday morning? Well, it was raining all day in Athens yesterday, but I still find it splendid with its +15 degrees after a week full of snow that reached -15 degrees in Warsaw! I loved it, but still... was happy to come back home ;)

So... today we have a new challenge over at Addicted to CAS. This is what I came up with:



...And as you may have imagined, the code word for this challenge is "Heart":


And a close-up of the heart:


I used a corrugated heart as the base - but I used the back of the heart to be able to stick the hearts and pearls. I painted wood veneer hearts with silver acrylic paint and filled in the gaps with lots and lots of pearls in three sizes.

I hope you like it!

Why don't you come over at Addicted to CAS for some amazing inspiration by the design team and to play along with us? After all, Valentine's day is approaching fast! The CAS PERFECTIONIST of this challenge will get a $10 gift voucher by Annabelle Stamps:



Hugs,
Anastasia


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Sunday 20 January 2013

Get Creative - January's card sketch challenge


Good morning neighbours!

The time has come for another card challenge over at Get Creative. This is the card that I made:



Based on the following sketch:




I made the card for Nikolas, my older godchild... Not only I love him very, very much, but I also love the fact that he is a great student (of those who get upset when they don't hit the best results they can get), without being a nerd. And this is his last year at school, he is reading really hard for his exams to enter the university in June. So I wanted to express to him how much I believe in him.

Instead of the spots I used stars. The stars, frame and the A+ bubble are all wood veneers - I just love them!

The jean background is not fabric, it is a paper from My Mind's Eye The Bright Side paper pad - I just love this collection!

Get Creative has done some AMAZING work interpreting this sketch. Come over at Get Creative for inspiration and play with us until January 30th - the winner will come back with us in March as guest designer!

I hope you like it,

Hugs,
Anastasia


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Saturday 19 January 2013

V is for... Viaje!

Hello - hello!!!

Today I've decided to follow and participate in a new challenge.

Thanks to my friend Eleni, I found out about The Alpha Challenge organised by The Craft Barn. The idea is to do an altered dictionary. Every 2 weeks they will choose a letter of the alphabet. All we have to do is find a word starting from that letter and alter our dictionary!

Now, a few weeks ago I decided to clean up my library and give away the books I don't need anymore via bookcrossing.com. But when I saw my dictionaries from back when I was learning Spanish, I didn't know what to do with them. So as soon as I saw the challenge, I found the answer!

The first letter is V. I looked at the dictionary and chose a word that is key in my life: Viaje, which means travel (my job requires quite a lot of traveling within Europe). And here is what I made (apologies for the bad quality of the photo, it is late at night here now... I will try to take a better photo tomorrow!):




As you can see, I went crazy! For a while now I wanted to get my hands dirty, and I did exactly that! I have a box with memorabilia from my business trips, so I teared pieces of the maps I have collected and used a number of tickets - air tickets, metro tickets, train tickets... I used tons and tons of travel-related stamps which I accumulate for my travel layouts, and for some reason I wanted to use black, black... and black. So black it was. I even used my black soot distress ink, which I rarely do!

It was quite liberating to not think too much about what to do next. Whatever I would think, I did. And I think it shows. But I so liked the process, quite cathartic ;)

If you have dictionaries that will remain unused (one of the many victims of internet, right?), it's your chance to make a good use of them!




Hope you like it,

Hugs,
Anastasia


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Thursday 17 January 2013

Christmas presents...

Yeap! That's right! A bit late the post, but it's true, today I want to share with you the Christmas presents that I managed to make this year.

I wanted to post about the amazing crop Scrapbookers in Greece and Katerina organised last Saturday, but I thought that we are on the second half of January and I would never manage to publish this post. So here it goes... but first I would like to apologise for the poor quality of the photos - I took the photo in a hurry and with really but lighting!

I start with the tags that I made (or a sample of them)

I stamped kraft paper with brown ink, cut in the corner my favourite Christmas tree and added the patterned paper below. White gel pen all around and the names on the banners:





Two cards for my cousins, where I had their presents. I learned the technique for the card pocket in last year's Holiday Card Boot Camp of Online Card Classes:





And the wall calendar I make every year for my mother. This was the third time that I made it for her. This year's theme is gratitude. Thanks to the fact that many Greek scrappers bought Cameo lately, I started using my Silhouette SD much more frequently! So the quotes were cut with my Silhouette and then I added a few very simple embellishments on the lower right corner. Clean and simple... but quite a lot of work! (Especially if you have to do it in one day!!!)









Last but not least, my favourite presents: my first shadow boxes I made for the two "nannies" of my nephews, their grandmother and their (our) aunt. The photos are from their baptism. I used one of them in a relatively recent layout that won the Sketchbook 365 challenge - yoohoo!!!!, but I had to crop it here - mainly because I didn't have any photo of my other nephew with both of his parents, so I focused on the boys and their mothers. At the beginning I didn't want to make them exactly the same... but finally I had to finish the second one the very day I had to give the gifts at New Year's lunch, so I had to copy them, no time to think of a different layout or embellishments!




So, that's all for now... I hope they liked their presents (at least it looked like the did!)

I hope next year we will be all here, strong and healthy, to repeat this.

Hugs,
Anastasia




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Saturday 12 January 2013

ATCAS #4 - Embossing


Good morning and good weekend!

As these lines are being posted, a fantabulous days will be starting... The first Scrapbookers in Greece will have started in Athens!!!! Woohoo!!! I'll tell you everything about that in another post, after they day has finished :o)

So, back to the main reason of this post... Today is the day for the first ATCAS challenge for 2013!

The card I made for this challenge:


Based on the code word: embossing:


For this card, I did two different embossing techniques. The first one is the sentiment - a simple heat embossing with black ink and clear embossing powder to make it pop out a bit.

The second one is the white flowers with the green background - dry embossing for the faux letterpress technique.

The heart is wood veneer which I painted red with Promarkers and the used Glossy Accent. I actually added it after I had finished the card, because the card seemed too plain and needed something more. I think the heart does the trick, would you agree?

I hope you like it!

So why don't you come over at Addicted to CAS to get inspiration by the design team and play along with us?

We have an awesome sponsor again for this challenge. Please let me introduce you to 


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Uniko Studio is a small company based in the North East of the UK. Uniko Studio specialises in surface pattern design & clear stamps for the hobby market. Uniko Studio will feature high quality photopolymer stamps designed & manufactured here in the UK, and if things go well we will branch out into other crafting supplies.



Since starting & graduating from Cleveland College of Art & Design, with a first class honours (BA) degree in Textiles & Surface Pattern Design I knew that my new path in life would be a creative one. Since a young girl I have been creative & I have enjoyed the hobby of making cards for as long as I can remember! During the final stages of my degree I focused my projects on designing clear stamps for the hobby market with a clear focus of starting the company once I graduated.

So here I am.. Uniko Studio! I hope you will join me on this adventure & enjoy the NEW stamp designs from Uniko Studio.




Beverley has been kind enough to offer a fabulous prize - 



This gorgeous digital collection is up for grabs AS WELL as your choice of 3 x digital paper collections!!!

To be in the running to win this wonderful prize, please do not forget to check our challenge rules HERE.



We'll be waiting for you!

Hugs,
Anastasia

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Monday 7 January 2013

Scrap and Grab - January sketch challenge


Hello again!

Either I don't post for days, or I have a new post everyday!

So, today I wanted to share with you a layout... well, I will start with my cousin's reaction as soon as she saw the layout: "pink??? And glitter??? You? What's up, are you ok???" lol!!!

Oh yes, I think it's the first girly layout that I make! And here it is:



And of course my inspiration is the beautiful sketch that Chrysa asks us to use for the January sketch challenge over at Scrap and Grab:



As I tend to do so, I followed the sketch quite closely...

For some (strange) reason, I wanted to make a girly layout and I had a number of Dear Lizzy embellies that I like so much, but haven't had the opportunity to use before. You see, there are not many opportunities to use them on my nephews' layouts, right? ;o)

I was looking at the photos that I got printed and as soon as I saw this picture, I knew that was the one. It's been a while that I wanted to prepare a layout with this picture and when I saw the pink sweater my cousin is wearing I thought "that's it, a layout focusing on the mother for a change". In that photo, Andreas is just two months old and Emilia is sooo tired since she couldn't have a good sleep for the last... well, two months! They fell asleep as you see them in the photo on the couch and luckily, the father was there to take the photo.

And some close-ups:

With the pink colour I like very, very much silver, so I used the silver glitter alphas that I had. I played a bit with the title - nap and snap, both priceless!


The cluster of embellies, with purple details to bring in the layout the baby's white and purple shirt. The pin saying "Story of today" was added after I had finished the layout. I received the package from October Afternoon and as I was looking at the goodies, I saw the pin... well, I couldn't not use it, right?


For the journaling I used again my sewing machine to "draw" the lines, as I have done in another layout of mine... after all, I did say that I was going to use it again ;o) And when I saw the photo below, I realised that I had made a mistake (well, it's in Greek, no reason to explain this in English!)... oh well...


So that's all for today... I hope you like it!

We are waiting for your participation over at Scrap and Grab until January 31st... The lucky winner will get a gift from Chrysalida stores!

Hugs,
Anastasia Pin It

Sunday 6 January 2013

Scrap and Grab - Guest Designer January


Hello again!

Today I am excited to announce that Chrysa honoured me by asking me to be the January Guest Designer for Scrap and Grab!!!

If you haven't seen this challenge blog, I do recommend it. The layout sketches are really very inspiring and every month there are more challenges that are really interesting and somewhat different than the usual ones!

So for January Chrysa asked me to pick up a challenge myself. I had an idea that seemed a bit different and I think would be suitable for the specific blog: to copy a card that we liked very much - with the requirement of saying from where we have copied it and to give the link with the post of the card.

The card I made is by no means as good as the one that I copied. I just wanted to mention that to highlight the fact that the point of the challenge is not to make a better copy, but to show how the card has inspired us... and how different the final result can be!

My card:


And the amazing card that inspired me is from my very favourite Rania from MaRa's Creations, you can see it here, and it's the following card:



The interesting thing is that when I started making the card I thought it would be quite similar with some small differences in details... but at the end I got a totally different card, and I think that this is the beauty of this challenge!

I do recommend visiting the Rania's and Marina's blog, their creations are really very beautiful and a great inspiration of our creations!

So, what do you think? Will you play with us? We will be waiting at Scrap and Grab to see how you have been inspired by someone else's card! The challenge is open until January 31st and the winner will get a bag of goodies from Chrysalida store!

Hugs,
Anastasia
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Saturday 5 January 2013

Get Creative - January 5th card challenge


Hello!!!

It's time for the first card challenge for 2013 over at Get Creative! And of course, there's no better way to welcome the new year... than a Happy New Year card, which is the theme for this challenge! ;)

The card that I made:



I decided to finally use stuff from the Studio Calico kit... The "2013" is in the inside of the card and I made a window on the front part to let it show:


I hope you like it!

We are waiting for you at Get Creative where you can get inspiration from the so different and beautiful cards by the design team and to play along with us. The winner of the challenge will win a gift from our sponsor and this month is our very favourite Enjoy Scrapping!


Hugs,
Anastasia Pin It

Thursday 3 January 2013

Scrapbookers in Greece - January


Hello and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

My blog has been inactive these last few days, but during the holidays I didn't go much online.

So today I would like to start with my wishes for 2013. I would like to wish you all to have a very healthy year, physically and psychologically, have a very good year, enjoy many-many happy experiences and have the strength to face the difficult ones!

So today we have the first challenge of the year at Scrapbookers in Greece. There is no sketch this month, so you are free to create anything you want based on our theme, which is, of course, new starts!

This time I made a layout:


Oh yes, I have this poor gym equipment at my house and it's only useful as storage tool! At least I don't feel guilty about paying for it, it is my cousin's, but since her baby was born and she prepared his room, she simply has no space for it at her house ;) I hope I will get to use it regularly this year - the key word being "hope", so when I was looking for embellishments for the layout, as soon as I saw this sticker I laughed out loud and knew that I had to use it for sure...


I hope you like it!

So come over at Scrapbookers in Greece for inspiration by the AMAZING design team... and to play with us! We want to know what's the new start you have in your mind!

Hugs,
Anastasia Pin It