Gorgeous collage received by Jesse of Lace Age Girl

Hello dear friends,

Today I'd like to share with you a gorgeous gift I received, which I mentioned earlier in the last Simply Neutrals post (which you can find HERE, it's still open for new entries). This gorgeous collage is created by dear Jesse of Lace Age Girl. Jesse was so sweet to also send me a beautiful rose patterned piece of fabric, gorgeous lace, sheer fabric, and strips of vintage sewing measurement tape. Dearest Jesse, thank you so much, you're a sweetheart!

You can find Jesse on her beautiful blog Lace Age Girl.

Wishing you a beautiful day!

Big hugs xx

Wen

Simply Neutrals 49 - bird illustrations and mixed media journal

Hello dear friends, a very warm welcome to Simply Neutrals for October 2018!

Thank you so much for your beautiful and heart warming link ups last month, I really feel this is a beautiful group of kind souls, encouraging each other and sharing our stories. Although I'm very busy with my illustration journey, I would not want to miss you sweeties! So I'm dedicated to keep this Simply Neutrals going for as long as possible.

The monthly Simply Neutrals gathering is a good motivator for me to keep on working on my Forest mixed media journal, which is mostly neutrals with green here and there.

For one of the projects for the illustration year course that I'm doing (and I will probably do another year in 2019!) I had to draw birds. If you know me, you know that I LOVE birds! So I don't mind drawing them, at all.

And one of them ended up in my mixed media journal :)

Above you see my journal surrounded by some of the other birds I drew.

In the (near) future I'd also love to embroider birds (and more flowers) in my journals, because besides drawing and painting and photography, embroidery is one of the things I'm passionate about. And besides illustration projects I'd love to go on with my exploring journey in textile and mixed media arts.

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FEATURE OF LAST MONTH

Last month we welcomed Alison of alisonbomber.blogspot.com to our gathering. A very warm welcome to you, Alison! I was enchanted by the gorgeous nature themed tags she created. There is so much texture and layering going on on these small canvases. I love that she added dried flowers too.

Simply Neutrals 48 - working in my mixed media journal

Hello sweet friends!

Summer holidays are over, the kids are back to school, so I am back in Blogland! I hope you don't mind that I kept quiet during the summer holidays?

At the moment I'm really busy with an illustration/art course by the wonderful art agent Lilla Rogers, called Make Art That Sells. And besides the course my main focus at the moment is drawing a whole lot of all kinds of objects and living creatures, including human beings :) To practice practice practice.

I hadn't been working in the little mixed media books that I created (and which you can see some of HERE, HERE and HERE) and thought it was about time and wanted to draw a little tree in my forest book. I also added some lace that was gifted to me by SuziQ and Odetta, and a a clover four that I found and pressed. Not sure if these pages are finished yet. The whole book is a work in progress to which I keep adding bits and pieces here and there.

I'm wondering about the health of our trees lately, because we had such a dry summer here. It's been said that some of the trees really suffer and most likely some will not make it through autumn and winter...

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FEATURE OF LAST MONTH

Thank you for joining in the fun again last month!

For the feature I chose this month a most gorgeous card created by dear Karen of Roosterhead Designs.

I chose this gorgeous work by Karen because I so much loved the romantic beauty of it - the layering, the aging, the textures, the beautiful image.

As you can see in the work of both Karen and me, I really don't mind some hints of colour here and there in the work you share with Simply Neutrals. As long as the overall feel of it is in neutral tones. If you know what I mean :)

Simply Neutrals #47

Hello dear friends, welcome to Simply Neutrals #47!

We just came back from the Austrian mountains, where we stayed for a couple of weeks. And today I just had to share with you one of the amazing glaciers we visited.

Simply Neutrals #46

Hello sweet friends,

Gosh, it's time again for another Simply Neutrals. Time flies... So...

Hello hello and a warm welcome to Simply Neutrals for July 2018!

Today I'm sharing some photos I took in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland.

This summer we will be spending some time in the mountains again, so it might take some time for me to be able to visit your blogs. But the SNT party will go on, so please join!

And dear Jo had a great idea: from now on the link up will last the whole month in stead of for one or two weeks only. So you will have the whole month of July to join the party of July. And if you feel like joining multiple times, please feel free to do so!

Back to my photos: top left of this second photo collage is a dairy farmer who is cleaning the huge pot in which he makes Alpine cheese the traditional way. Next to him is the oven.

The cheese gets its unique taste from the alpine herbs that the cows eat during the summer months, when they spend their time on the higher grounds in the mountains. I always love hearing the sound of the bells they carry. It's so typical for the Alpines. Can't wait to be going there again this summer! 

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FEATURE OF LAST MONTH

I don't think it will come as a surprise that the feature this week is a gorgeous fabric art journal created by dear Suzy of suziqusthreadworks. My goodness, just stunning! And what I really love is that it is a journal that has so many elements that are so close to Suzy's heart: the theme of friendship, the warm neutral tones, the pre-Raphaelite paintings, fabrics and papers that Suzy (eco-)dyed and printed by hand herself, gorgeously rich fabrics and laces, embroidery and a vintage bohemian style. What's not to love?

Please check her blog post HERE to see more of this gorgeous journal!

Simply Neutrals #45

Hello dears!

Welcome to the Simply Neutrals monthly linky party for the month of June. From now on it will look all a bit different because I changed from paid subscription to the free one of the InLinkz linky tool. So instead of little thumbnails showing up in the link up, there will now be only text links. I hope you don't mind? (And I hope it's working properly. Please let me know if it isn't!)

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Simply Neutrals #44

Hello dear friends,

Thank you so much for your wonderful and supportive messages last week! I'm happy to get such a positive feedback on the change I suggested.

So, from now on Simply Neutrals will be held once a month, the first Tuesday of each month, starting with this week.

(Let's see how this will work out in the summer months though, when we have our summer holidays here on the northern hemisphere.)

Simply Neutrals #43

the Sea Gull highschool :)

Hello dear friends, welcome to Simply Neutrals!

Last week we celebrated the 8th birthday of the City Crafter Challenge blog, run and hosted by Kirsty. Every week for 8 years already she is hosting the linky party there. I'm so much in awe! Because to be honest, I find it quite challenging to do this every week, and I only just started!

I know how much these neutral-love parties mean to you and me, the weekly gathering is so wonderful, inspiring, and it makes me so happy to have these cozy gatherings with you where we share and chat with each other. And you my dears have left me similar comments. But at the moment it is a bit too much for me to be hosting this so often. I hate to disappoint you, but my question to you is: Would you mind if we try to make this a monthly gathering instead? Like, every first Tuesday of the month? And see how it goes from there? Would that be okay with you? Please share your honest opinion and wishes.

FEATURE OF LAST WEEK

Dear Karen of RoosterHeadDesigns had shared this beautiful album before, but I'm glad she shared it again! I love how she honours her family by creating this gorgeous album of their wedding photos. I think it's such a wonderful idea! And oh my, how beautifully she's done it too...

Simply Neutrals #42 and happy birthday City Crafter!

Hello dears, welcome to Simply Neutrals!

Today I have two posts in one here on AppleApricot due to another party that's going on today at City Crafter challenge blog (CCCB). It's City Crafter's birthday!

Yay, happy birthday CCCB!!!

In the past I was a design team member for CCCB. Because City Crafter has its 8th birthday this month of April, Kirsty asked the past team members to make a card that the present design team will then CASE (or kind of remake in their own styles).

This week is my turn. And this is my card.

Thank you Kirsty, so good to join the CCCB-team again for this week!

I used wallpaper samples, pieces of an antique French postcard that I scanned, a wildflower book page, a piece of vellum that I had printed a flower print on, two paper flowers, one little rhinestone, a text stamp, three butterflies from the internet, some machine-stitching, and a bit of distress ink.

Come join us at City Crafter Challenge Blog this week and CASE my card!

Back to Simply Neutrals linky party now...



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FEATURE OF LAST WEEK

This week I chose (again) for photos by dear Jutta which she shared on her blog My Digital Wonderland. Because I sooooo much love flocks of Starlings, their chatter when they gather for the night, and the beautiful patterns they make in the sky!

And I also chose these photos by Jutta because I really wished to share with you an amazing video of a giant flock of Starlings making these patterns. It is one of my all time favourites to watch. All credits go to the girls of Islands and Rivers who created this video!

Simply Neutrals #41

Hello dears, a warm welcome to Simply Neutrals linky party!

Today I'm sharing a little bit more about my personal life. It's nice to get to know a little about each other, don't you think? (Although I will never share much of my private life online.)

Last week I mentioned that I'm decluttering. Again :) I have a deep desire to live a simplified life. I always had. It's a lifelong process of becoming more mindful, living a more sustainable and responsible life, and living with less stuff and less clutter both in my surroundings and in my head. Once in a while I have this urge to simplify drastically. When closets and mind have been cluttering up again, sneaky without me really noticing.

Simply Neutrals #40

Hello dears, welcome to Simply Neutrals! It's so wonderful to see new people joining SNT. A very warm welcome to you :) I hope you enjoy the gathering with us.

I'm busy decluttering at home (actually it's my third big round of decluttering, it's a process of years already), and while doing so I found some shells that I had brought home from a trip to Cornwall. Which brought me back to the Cornish beaches and rockpools. The long hours we spent there, enjoying the scenery, taking photos, watching the shells and rocks, the birds, the waves coming in and going out. Peaceful happiness.

Thousands and thousands of shell-creatures, clinging on to the rocks, waiting for the waves to come in and the water to rise again after low tide. Waves smashing against the rocks.

It's a miracle, how these tiny creatures can hold on to the rocks with such powerful waves crashing on them, again and again, hour after hour, day after day.

I'd love to go back to Cornwall.
I think I really wouldn't mind to live there!

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FEATURE OF LAST WEEK

Like I said, it's wonderful to see new people joining us at Simply Neutrals, and one of them is Jo from Let's Art Journal. I am completely in love with the beautiful collage she made and shared with us last week.

So many beautiful details to see...
Thank you for sharing and linking your gorgeous work, Jo!

Simply Neutrals #39 - Signs of Early Spring

Hello dears, welcome to Simply Neutrals!

For dear Suzy of suziqusthreadworks I created an embroidered fabric heart, inspired by the hints of colour of the Crocuses in the winter garden.

For the background (only the top) I used a stencil I hand-created earlier and which you can see in a post HERE. I then added some fabrics, laces and netting (don't know how else to call it), tea dyed fabric leaves, a piece of handwritten paper on which I put some bee wax, a piece of brown netting that Suzy had gifted to me earlier, and then I embroidered by hand.

I also created a tag for her, with the intention to write on the back, which I then forgot to do before closing and sealing the envelope... oh well.

For the background of the tag I used a piece of a digital scrapbook paper I created earlier and which you can find HERE. I added some netting and laces, inked the edges, and added dried and pressed Hydrangea petals. I had shown these earlier on my blog. They still had such gorgeous colours, even after a year. But when I added acrylic medium to secure them to the tag... poof, gone were the colours...





The original petals above, and the glued ones below.

On top of the petals I added a piece of plastic wrapping, to protect the petals, plus I thought the shiny effect was nice too.

Next project to be finished is the embroidered little birdie journal that you see a part of in the photo below (and that I also shared earlier here on AppleApricot). But you never know how things go with WIPs... High on my to do list however are the promised giveaways and artist interview! I haven't forgotten them ;)

Oh, and I'm also going through my own blog posts (here and the freebies one) to see if there might be copyright material in it that's not owned by me. I already saw there is, so I hided those posts or deleted the copyright image.

I really want to be careful in this and will do my best to avoid copyright material in the future. After reading some articles on this, I'm convinced we all do well to avoid using copyright material or images, photos and text that we are not sure if it has copyright or not.

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FEATURE OF LAST WEEK

I was completely in love with the beautiful studio photos dear Nancy of Sugar Lump Studios showed us, with the lovely boxes and suitcase, the birdhouse and cage, her gorgeous art work, and so many more beautiful things to look at and be inspired by.

Simply Neutrals #38

Hello sweeties,

Welcome to Simply Neutrals!

First of all, my apologies for my absence on your blogs this last week. I have been under the weather, and this (pre-scheduled) blog post is done last minute. I had been thinking about skipping the party this week, but just could not :)

FEATURES OF LAST WEEK

I made a quick blog visit round just yet and oh my goodness, how am I ever going to be able to choose one feature, with so many gorgeous projects to choose from? I'm sorry, I could not choose one. So here you are, my dears:

But I had to admit that one creature stole the show for me:

So cute!!

Simply Neutrals #37

Hello dears, welcome to Simply Neutrals!

Nature is still providing us here on the northern hemisphere with beautiful winter neutrals. Like these leaves that I found in the woods, in decay, still hanging on by a thread to their branches. Soon they will be replaced by fresh green new spring leaves.

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Feature of last week

The seasons and elements have their influence on man-made stuff as well. Like the beautiful old walls and window dear Mascha of Maschas Buch shared with us.

Mascha often shares beautiful photos of old buildings on her blog.

Dear Mascha, here is your feature blog button if you like:

Simply Neutrals #36

Hello dears, a warm welcome to Simply Neutrals #36!

We went to the Utrechtse Heuvelrug again this weekend, but a different part than last time. We now chose only the woodland part for wandering, collecting, and taking photos.

Inspired by this beautiful land I created a little woodlandish collage. I used wallpaper samplers, music sheet paper, pieces of two antique French postcards that I scanned (one of which you can find as a freebie HERE - the other one I will share another time), a piece of old packaging tape that was torn of a box (the brown paperish thingie), a small piece of a little digital scrapbook paper I created some years ago (the green text on green - which you can find as a freebie HERE), vintage images of an owl and a nest that I found on pinterest, some distress inks, and a bit of machine stitching.

Of course I couldn't help myself and took pieces of the woods back home with me. Little things that spoke to me. I think I'm a Magpie.

On my worktable a collection of things I found in the woods this time:

pine cones
moss
branches
fern (I think it is?)
holly
stones
leaves
pottery...

... Yes, pottery!
Well, pieces of tiles mostly.
On some of the bigger lanes you can find them :)

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Features of last week

This week I was in the mood for sharing the many beautiful photos and pieces of art you all shared in the party last week. So here are two photo collages with descriptions of which photo/creation belongs to who.

Thank you so much dear friends for gathering here and joining the party with your beautiful photos and art work! I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this and the love that is shared.

Simply Neutrals #35

Hello sweet friends and welcome to Simply Neutrals #35 (no less!).

Ain't time flying like crazy? To think it's the 35th SNT already, wow!

Today I share two of the photos I promised last week, of the nature walk we did recently. We went to the heather fields, woods and bogs the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a beautiful area not too far away from where we live. We go there often and I promise to share more photos of it this coming week.

I found many gorgeous textures. Barks and mushrooms in particular. Below is the mushroom photo that I used for the background of my digital scrapbook paper that I shared last week, which you can use as a freebie for your own work if you like (the digital paper, not the photos of this post of course).

I just love love textures. At our walks I'm always on the lookout for beautiful and interesting textures. I even have a special Pinterest board for it. I noticed that I should update the board, but there are already some gorgeous yummy textures to be found!

Let's continue with the party, shall we?

Feature of last week

I was so in love with these sweet little tags dear Nancy of Sugar Lump Studios made! Sweetie, they are so gorgeous and serene!

And I love how Nancy displayed them in front of that gorgeous drawers.