I see myself as a maker, someone how is very creative and how can do allot of different crafts. Seeing myself as an artist is a bit harder. All the painting I did last year did help to clear that image of myself. Today I feel more like an artist and that means I take myself more seriously. One example of that is that I bought a paper pad by Arches.  

A paper pad you say, what is so special about this paper? In the world of watercolor Arches is the top brand and they make amazing paper, but it also cost more. So I have only every bought the cheaper brands, thinking I wasn't good enough. That I couldn't handle this paper. that it would be wasted. That the cost of it was to high for what i painted. So when I finally, after allot of hesitating, decided to buy it something shifted. Not only did my work look better (imagine that, it looks better on better paper...) but I also felt better that I'm one step closer to be the artist that i want to be. 

 If you read between the lines here, you know that in this case being brave is not about buying good quality watercolor paper. It's about the fact that I took myself more seriously, decided that I was worthy that cost of an Arches paper pad.

This year I'm trying to be more brave. painting more, shearing more and doing more. I don't want to sit in my pretty (and rather chilly) studio and not daring to try new things. I don't want to come up with new ideas and thinking; "I'm not good enough to paint that". I want to at least try. To be brave.

Love Julia

When I paint my "really" pieces I tend to get bord waiting for the paint to dry. So I got a pad and in that one I only paint for fun, testing colors and patterns. Now I have started to bring them into my scrapbooking and I love it! Here is one I made this week from a watercolor I just doodled:

"Listen to me" when I tell myself that I'm good enough. We should all do a page like this once in a while. Now I keep telling myself that my illustration work is good and I need to trust that. Also I had fixed my hair (it's a big deal!) I only used my new pretty papers and stuff here. I love how it looks!

Love Julia

I really like making pages about our little day trips! Just think that a few month ago I avoided even to think of them! I have found that I keep these pages a bit simpler and cleaner, using less colors and allot less embellishments. Not that odd really when I usually scrapbook one photo here I use two or three.

On this page I wanted to try capture the feel of this old water mill that has turned into a café. I like this black & white paper from Maggie Holmes and the feel of tea and cakes that it gives. Also you know I love my leafs and I just this they are the perfect thing to add (to pretty much anything). I keeped the color to black & white with green and silver accents to work with the photo.

Love Julia

This past Saturday my sister and I took a trip to the zoo. We have an amazing zoo in our town that we go to at least once. I took with me my new watercolor set that i made HERE and i did some quick sketches. We had a really great time and got the see some really cute babies!

I did some quick sketches and it was so fun, they didn't turned out "amazing" but it was so fun to just do it right next to them!

If you ever found yourself in Borås, check out the zoo. They have beautiful animals and if you check the feeding times your get to see so many of them.

Love Julia

I love my watercolors and I have quite a few... But I would really want to bring them with me and paint "on-the-go".  So I found this super cute pen tin that I used way back and thought it would be perfect! Paints on the top "shelf" and water-brushes and pens under.

I used my old tube pains and just a blob of each. I know I will use more earth tones and green so I placed those in the ends and the reds and ultra marin in the middle. 

I'm so happy with how it turned out, just perfect!! This will work beautifully with any pen tin but i like that I can have my water-brushes and pen all together (minimizing the risk of forgetting something)

Love Julia

I had so much fun making this page from Midsommar. Starting with watercoloring a flower reef and then adding photos, pretty papers and journaling. I took inspiration from the photos and actually started the page on the same day as I took these selfies. I wanted a page that really said; Midsommar!

The Felicity Jane -note to self kit is really growing on me and the more I use it the more I like it. the colors and patterns fitted perfectly as did the stamp set. 

Love Julia 

I love my traveler's notebook from Webster's Pages ans I use it all day, every day. Now, the TN is only as good as the books inside it and i like to make my own. They are so fun and easy to make!

The cover I showed how to make here . The inside pages (10 A4 sheets) are just copy paper of a 160g. I got that at the office store and it's so good! I started using this book in July (it's my July book) and I have stamped and done allot of water-coloring. 

This paper takes it so well for not being "proper"! 

So fold the papers and cover in the middle. Measure out the holes and saw together. Use a roller when cutting the pages and go slow!! Very slow, this will give you a nice edge. 

Now the cover is part Heidi Shine and part watercolor. The shine is beautiful but I found that it robed of in the TN. I just put a thin coat of matt medium on top.

Love Julia

Take out your watercolors and play!

Watercolor designed paper is everywhere and it's so pretty! Why not try to make your own. You choose the color and what to paint, the result, your very own design paper!

I had used Heidi Shine on some and the watercolors I used are the White Nights by S:t Petersburg. These are really good value and I highly recommend them. How ever you can use any type of watercolors, the important thing here is to have fun! 

Love Julia

Every spring we go to a place where the ground is white, covered by vitsippor. We take the annual family photos and wonder over the beauty of the white flowers.

I took a photo of my sister and her boyfriend and painted a background, like the ground that they where sitting on. I stitched a title, added leaves for texture and gold for sparkle.  

Products used:

Woodgrain "nickel" cardstock

Watercolor "White Night"

Maggie Holmes Die set

Gold Glitter tape

Heidi Shine "Gold"

Vellum

Doily

Love Julia 

I'm using my stamps more and more sens I got the Alt E New "Vintage Roses" set. I love playing with these stamps, both on layout and on cards. A few days ago I made some cards using this stamp set and some clear embossing, I love how it turned out!

After stamping 3 flowers with 2 layers in pink dye inks and took the first stamp of each and stamped over in "versa mark" and I stamped in the same ink with the leaf stamp. Sprinkle clear embossing powder and heat set. The embossing protected the stamped flowers and the white leafs when I painted over with watercolors.

Gold Heidi Shine, washi and some stitching, those are my favorits! 

The alpha stamp is called "Brentano" from Papier Projekt and they are the best! 

So the other day I was putting away my Project Life stuff after finishing week 10's page and I saw the cards on top of the corekit-tray. Next to the tray was a photo that hadn't made it to the page and the colors was just perfect for each other!

I love it when this kind of stuff happens, getting inspired by the things on your desk and making a layout that you just love. Here it was the colors of the cards that inspired me, the light blue, grey and soft coral and they went so well with my photo. 

 I took the PL cards, layered them behind my photo and them slabbed watercolor in the background. I really like how soft the layout id without being overly feminin. well apart from the lace-flower...

I wanted a soft, messy background and watercolor is perfect for that. 

 Adding the gold glitter tape and white dots adds texture without jumping out in your face. The tiny wordsticker are cream with blue lines and gold text, perfect! The journaling I added with a "stabilo 88/13". This is one of very few pages where I haven't added heavy black elements and it really accents the soft colors of the photo.

 Here you can really see the bad print of the photo, but I had just ordered some photos, this among them, so I will change it. I normally don't mind if my photos are printed at home or ordered but when this print is so bad and I really like the layout, it's worth changing it. 

All in all, I like the page (just going to change the photo) and I'm so happy that I stopped what I was doing and made this cute page of me and my brother.

Love Julia