Sometimes things do not go as planned....

.....and sometimes, that's a good thing!

When I started this painting I had no idea what I was doing. I just did the background and was very happy with how that turned out. I used several layers of different shades of pink, lots of gesso in between, and I just really liked how it looked. But then I had to decide what to actually do with it...

I noticed a colour different on the side, and that inspired me to do a figure peeking from one side, so you'd only see half of her face. So I decided to do a sad angel, with dark eyes and dark hair. A moody kind of painting, for a change.

But no, the painting decided it did not want to be moody. It wanted purple eyes, and lots of butterflies that I had to cut out of a book I picked up at the car boot the other week.....

So all of a sudden there she was, Butterfly Girl! Not planned, but I'm very happy the way she just 'happened'.

To see more pictures of her and read more about her, please go to my Etsy shop.

Crayons, crayons, crayons!

The other day I went to Poundland where, you guessed it, everything is a pound. Only a pound!

I love love love Poundland!

My sweet Love got a Buffy the Vampire Slayer book set that's normally priced at £30 for one quid! And we got ourselves some yummy 'misfit' chocolates, that did not come out right and were rejected by Cadbury's etc. Doesn't taste any different! And you get a whole bag for One Pound!

My best buy though was a set of crayons. Not just four or six, no... EIGHTY! Eighty lovely lovely crayons in all kinds of colours, including, it says on the pack 'neon'. Woohooo!

And you know what the best thing is about crayons? The smell! I forgot how great they smell! All I could do on the way home was sniff them.... I bet people on the bus thought I was a bit.. umm... 'special'. Hahahahaha. But I don't care! I have lovely lovely crayons and I can't wait to use them in my mixed media work!

But in the meantime, have a peek at Wyanne's videos on YouTube. She is the Crayon Queen! Such an inspiration.

Sisters in London (oh, and my Love too)

As you probably know, I'm Dutch, but living in the UK. So, I don't get to see my family all that often. Last time was early February when me and my Love went back for carnaval, which was brilliant!

My youngest sister is an English teacher, and she was in London with her students this week. She had a very very busy schedule, but had Thursday afternoon off to do some shopping. And because we're not all that far from London, me and my Love decided to try and see her there. We allllmost missed her due to mobile phones not working right.. But we found her in the end!

We went to Camden Market, which is absolutely wonderful. So many different colours, designs, and most of all: smells of lovely, lovely food! We had to try some of the Chinese that we kept seeing, it was yummmyyy!

We then went to Oxford Street, and for a drink in a lovely little pub, and then it was time to say goodbye. Her students were at their meeting point, and she was off to have dinner with them and then do a Jack the Ripper walk.

It was great to see her though!

(Oh, I'm the one on the left, in case you didn't know.)

Timeless on YouTube!

No, I haven't put a video of me painting on YouTube yet (I am interested in doing it, but not sure how to get started. If anyone has a tutorial or something, please let me know in the comments here or in an Etsy convo), but The Eclectic Diva was kind enough to put together a video of lots of Etsy shops.

So..... When you're watching This Video On YouTube be sure to watch it all the way through. At about 4.50 you'll see my shop, along with other great Etsy shops. The list is at the end, so keep your eyes peeled for that one too.

Thanks so much Eclectic Diva for putting this together!

Sneak preview

I have to say, making ACEOs is getting addictive. But it's an addiction I'm not ready to shake just yet, if ever!

I thought I'd give you a little sneak preview of three cards that will be listed soon in my Etsy shop. (Realllyyy soon if you send me a convo to tell me you'd like to buy one of them!)

Hope you like them as much as I do.

Featured

This morning, I woke up to a lovely email saying I've been featured on Mindless Pursuits!

What a great way to start the day, or the week, even.

If you'd like to be featured on Mindless Pursuits too, just follow this link and fill out the form. We can all use a little free press every now and again, right?

It's raining cats and dogs!

When I was in school back in Holland learning English, of course I learned about all these weird proverbs and sayings. Us Dutch didn't come off to great, with Dutch courage and a Dutch uncle.

But 'it's raining cats and dogs' always seems the weirdest of them all. If it was raining cats and dogs, would you ever think of going out? I know I wouldn't, I'd be too afraid of being hit in the head by falling golden retrievers, or stepping on wet kittens.

If you want to see more pictures of this ACEO, come and have a look in my shop, Timeless

Lost

Every now and again I hear people talking about Lost.

Unfortunately I can't watch it at the moment, because SkyeOne decided that Virgin would not be allowed to show it anymore... But, thankfully, after the full series has been aired, it pops up on the Virgin reply thingy, and you can watch it back to back. So recently, I watched the last series. Good stuff!

One of the things that make Lost different than other series, besides the polar bears, the Others, and the very annoying non-talking but let's play some lovely music- scenes, is the opening title. It's just that. The title. No theme tune or anything. Just the word Lost.

If Lost had proper opening titles, this would be it! Brilliant!!

The girl and the giraffe

When my sister (another sister, not the one who kept saying she was a fairy...) was only little, we went to the zoo. She fell in love with the giraffes there. They were in a Savanna, and it was made so they were on eye level with the visitors. My sister was brave enough to feed one of them a tiny leaf... The look on her face when she saw the huge tongue!!

This little girl gets up early in the morning, before anyone else is awake, to go and feed her pet giraffe -- one leaf at a time.

This ACEO was done in water colour paint and water colour pencil on a card stock background.

It will be send protected by a plastic sleeve (see picture 4) and in a sturdy envelope.

ACEOs, which stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals, are little works of art. They are all 3.5" x 2.5" (or 8.9 cm x 6.4 cm), the same size as regular trading cards. Their size is all they have in common. You can find ACEOs in any medium, from water colours to fabric, from oil paint to metal work and anything else you can think of.

ACEOs are highly collectible, and make cute gifts or nice bookmarks. They can be kept in trading card albums, but will look best framed on their own or in a group.

You can collect ACEOs by artist, medium, theme, colour scheme, style, anything you like. And before you know it, you'll have a whole bunch, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg.