Cool Copic Marker Backgrounds

I tend to buy loads of crafting supplies when I travel. After a couple of days away from home I start itching for a crafting project, but far away from home with no chances for crafting, and plenty of opportunities for shopping, I get all sorts of great ideas for what I'm going to make of this new stuff when I get home. Alas, when we get back to all the everyday fuss at home the days never have enough hours. Some ideas I never even get around to try. Sigh...

Anyway, this holiday I decided to get some Copic markers. I've been considering over the past couple of years, so it wasn't really an impulse buy. I came across a great offer and went for the cheaper type, the Ciao markers, as I had been told that the quality is equal to the more expensive Sketch markers, the Ciaos are just a tiny bit smaller and don't have the fancy caps.

I bought three sets of 36 markers, so 108 markers in total. That's a good start! I made sure to get some light blues and most of the blue violet colours, as they are frequently used in some classes I want to take.

I've been a big fan of Sandy Allnock for a couple of years now. She is a brilliant artist and I really like the way she explains different techniques and other art stuff, in a comfortable voice, and her funny remarks often make me giggle! The best thing about her educational videos is that you don't have to be a talented artist to learn how to create the loveliest scenes. Myself I'm more of a paper crafter than fine artist, I enjoy making cards but I can't really draw. Still the explanations in these videos give me the advice I need to get started. The results after the first two classes are not too bad and I feel motivated to keep practicing! There will definitely be some wintry scenes on my Christmas cards this year.

These days Sandy Allnock is offering a discount on her website for art classes: www.art-classes.com.  I grabbed this opportunity and signed up for several Copic classes in one go. I've enjoyed her YouTube videos in the past, so I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. And I wasn't.

If this makes you feel tempted to check out the courses for yourself, here's the link.


Stamps: All stamps used for these two projects are from the Italian company Impronte d'Autore Stamps.


Thanks for stopping by. Have a nice day!
Lillian :)

Birthday Card with MFT Cover Die

This is a birthday card created around the MFT Happy Birthday Block die. It's a cool design which can be used either as a background or the main image. This die is also a sentiment in itself!

I wanted some bold colours, so I stamped a background with balloons and watercolored them. Then I stamped an elephant in grey pigment ink with clear embossing powder and coloured it while I waited for the background to dry.

After sending the balloon panel through the die cutting machine, I glued all the letters onto a white piece of cardstock, using the negative die cut as a guide. Then this piece was adhered to a black panel, as I wanted to add a thin frame around the letters. I chose kraft cardstock for the card base.


In the end the elephant and a small sentiment was glued in place with foam tape.

The way this card was made is pretty straight forward, but it actually took me a few hours to get it done! First the watercolours and then glueing everything neatly in place. I will save the negative die cut and use it later for another card!


Stamps: Balloons in the Sky - Create a Smile Stamps, Fly With Me - Mama Elephant, text stamp from Kreativ Hobby

Dies: Happy Birthday Block - MFT










I have submitted this project to the following challenges:
Scrappelyst: Utfordring for august - Dies
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Make Your Own Background
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Tape It Up
Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday: July - Watercolor
Bastel-Traum: Challenge #67 - Alles erlaubt/ Anything Goes


Have a nice day!
Lillian :)

Memory Book made with (more or less) Minimal Supplies

This blog post is about a memory book I started making during our summer holiday in Namsos. In this post I will show how I made a fairly simple sort of travel journal about our stay here, using limited supplies.

Normally I´m the kind of paper crafter who likes to have a million things available when I craft. At home I have everything neatly organised in boxes which get moved around a lot, as our flat is too small for a craft room.








This year my son and I are spending the summer in exile at my mother's place in a different part of the country. I graduated from university this spring and haven't found a permanent job yet, so I took a part time job doing admin work for a small company in the town where my mother lives. It's nice for both of us to spend time with family. There's a lot to do and interesting places to go around here as well!

I didn't bring a lot of crafting supplies, just a paper trimmer, scoring board, some paper for letter writing and envelopes, washi tape, double sided tape, and markers. After a few days I started itching for a crafting project, so I decided to make a memory book with photos from our summer holiday.

I bought a ruled notebook at a local book shop and printed some photos with a Canon Selphy printer. Most photos were taken with my iPhone. I used PhotoShop to put two photos together onto one postcard sized piece of paper.

I started scrapbooking a couple of years ago, when my son was a baby. We had so many photos, and I thought it would be a good idea to put them into a nice album, like my mother used to do when my siblings and I were growing up. We had a lot of fun over the years going through those albums! My son is now almost 3 years old and has recently started to enjoy the memory books I've made.















The paper I´ve used as a background for these pages is from a gift paper booklet called "Art Nouveau" from Pepin Press, and 6x6" paper pads called "Good Day Sunshine" from Echo Park and "Cue the Confetti" from Reverse Confetti.

Entering the July challenge at Scrappelyst - Alt er lov/Anything goes and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes. 

Have a nice day!
Lillian :)

Fun Summer Tags

Hello! This is my first blog post in a long time. I have been busy finishing my Master's thesis lately, so I have mostly just made some quick Instagram posts of the stuff I've been making in between. Anyway, some of you like to see how my paper projects are made, so here I'll explain how to make colourful tags.

Making tags is a nice way use paper scraps. Here I've used Neenah cardstock, which is great for solid stamps and ink blending. It's not meant for watercolours, but a little touch around the edges works fine.

First I die cut the tags and stamped the ocean. I've used the layering stamp from Hero Arts' June 2018 Monthly Hero Kit, but you can use any other ocean stamp, or a stencil.

Then I stamped the animals in black Versafine pigment ink. I chose bold contrast colours for the sky, and blended them onto the tag with a sponge.

The edges got a coat of Finetec gold watercolour paint, to give them a more elegant look.

I stamped the sentiment on black cardstock scraps in Versamark ink and embossed with white powder from Hero Arts. The pieces were adhered to the tags with foam tape.  

In the end I fixed the stamped images with a white gel pen and a black fineliner, as I didn't mask them off before adding the colours.

I tied some jute string to the tags for a more summery look.


Stamps: Ocean, palm tree, mermaid, sail boat, dolphin, foot prints and sentiments - Hero Arts (My Monthly Hero Kit June 2018), Animals - Cats on Appletrees

Die: Dress Up Tag - Simon Says Stamp

That's all! Easy-peasy. The final touch takes a little bit of time, but otherwise this is a painless way to make cards.

Thanks for stopping by!
Lillian :)

Guest Design for Basteltraum #63: Frohe Ostern!

I was lucky enough to win the Gold Award in Basteltraum's challenge #60, yay! They asked me to do a guest design post for challenge #63: Spring/ Easter.

I'm hooked on the fabulous stamps from Cats on Appletrees these days. Each animal has so much expression and personality! I wanted to make a fun Easter card with soft watercolours.

First I stamped the scrabble letters in dark green pigment ink and embossed with clear powder before I masked them off and stamped the flowers in moss green pigment ink. The flowers are not embossed, as that wouldn't work with the animals I was planning to stamp over them.

The animals were stamped in black pigment ink and embossed with clear powder to make them stand out. The watercolour paper is fancy Arches lb140, which is great quality. It's not cheap, but it's easier to paint on this kind of paper and the result looks much better. In the end I fixed them with a black marker and a white gel pen where the flowers got in the way.

I chose Kuretake Gansai Tambi for the watercolouring part. I didn't want to use too many different colours, as that could overwhelm the main characters. I added some extra grass in between the flowers. The ground is supposed to look like dirty snow, just the way it looks here in early spring when the first flowers start popping up.

Hope you like the card and feel inspired to make lots of Easter cards!
Thank you so much to Ute and Basteltraum for inviting me.

Stamps: animal stamps - Cats on Appletrees, Game Tile Letters - Simon Says Stamp, Crocus Flowers - Lesia Zgharda Stamps

Happy Easter!
Lillian :)

Transparent envelope

I send a lot of snail mail. There's something special about writing long letters and sending them off in fancy envelopes to make the recipient happy! I try to come up with new ideas for how to do this in a fun way.

This time I made a transparent envelope from tracing paper. I cut it to the size I wanted and used my Martha Stewart scoring board, which has envelope directions on the backside. 

This was a bit of an experiment. Tracing paper is quite smooth, so I used pigment ink for stamping and let it dry for 24 hours. Still it wasn't completely dry. Next time I'll use embossing powder to avoid any risk of smudging, even though the heat might warp the paper a bit. 

I used strong double sided crafting tape to keep the flaps together.

The letter itself is written on good quality letter writing paper. I folded the letter and tied a green piece of ribbon around it. This gives it a more exclusive look as it shows through the envelope. Quite cool! For decoration I used a couple of fun snail mail stamps, but I tried to keep it simple, not to take too much focus away from the letter itself. And of course some wash tape for an elegant finish. 

Stamps: Inline Letters - Mama Elephant, snail mail stamps - Catslife Press 

Have a nice day!

Lillian :)

Cats on Appletrees: Christmas Cards with Gift Tags

I'm afraid I've neglected my blog lately, the days just don't have enough hours!
Even though I don't have much time to craft these days, I was able to cram some Christmas card making into my busy schedule in the middle of December.
Getting handmade Christmas cards in the mail is so nice!

In November I travelled to Germany and came across some lovely stamps by a company called Cats on Appletrees. They make old fashioned rubber stamps fixed to wooden blocks. The motives are solid images, mostly animals with funny expressions on their little faces. I went a bit out of control and purchased a whole load of them.

The stamps themselves are excellent quality. They stamp well and leave clean, crisp images on the paper. I have also cleaned my stamps a few times now with soap and warm water and they still look new.












For Christmas I needed several cards at the same time, so I tried keep it fairly easy, but not too simple. I spent some time coming up with a design I liked which can be used as a template and "mass produced". These cards did not require any time consuming colouring, just some colour blending with Distress Ink. The most complicated part of the process was the masking and embossing. Anyway, they are the type of cards one can make several of in one go.

The ornaments on the trees are liquid Nuvo Drops.
I used a background stamp from Simon Says Stamp to make the newspaper print. I stamped with grey Versafine pigment ink and embossed with clear powder. I love this stamp! It can be used for lots of different styles.
The coloured edge around it is die cut with a stitched rectangle die. The card base is Neenah Desert Storm cardstock.

Stamps: Animals - Cats on Appletrees, Retro Holiday Labels - Mama Elephant, Good Reading Background - Simon Says Stamp

Dies: Stitched Dress Up Tag - Simon Says Stamp, Stitched Rectangles - Simon Says Stamp


This project has been submitted to the following challenges:
Hjertebodens utfordring for desember og januar: Tradisjonelle julefarger

Have a nice day!
Lillian :)