2013 :)

I still didn't find enough time to work on my handicraft, I've just got back from a trip abroad (again) and currently I'm trying to push myself into everyday life. I travel too often to go in routine, my entire life is "on suitcases" and I didn't find that kind of place I would call home in 100%. Meanwhile I wish all my readers Happy New Year 2013!! Stay tuned!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween / Samhain / All Hallows Day / Fiesta de muerte / Shattenfest / and anything else what you celebrate at this very day! Have fun and light few candles :))

Golden anniversary

How to express respect for people who live together for 50 years already? I've been asked by my grandmother to make a nicely-looking congratulation card for such occassion. Her friend's friends are 50 years married next month. Considering the knowledge about names of each wedding anniversary that exist in world's tradition I decided to make a print on a sheet of golden paper, because 50-year anniversary is a golden one. I also wanted this card to be in form of a decorative scroll which is nicer than a typical folded A5 format and there's more space on a rolled A4 to write something from the heart, there's also more space for using stylish typography, ornaments and underprints.

One of my favorite patterns... again

I've used this pattern once already to decorate two cobalt-blue wine bottles [see here: Cobalt-blue wine] and I had some of this pattern left for later, so I used it for a garden teapot. This teapot was red and old hence it needed a proper renewal:

Blue art-nouveau box

This is the time for a proper painted tea-box for my own kitchen. The top - like my previous ones - is conpletely painted with acrylics. Sides of this box are made with decoupage technique. I was inspired by one of Alphonse Mucha's litograph and by bouqiniste's self-portrait she painted using ink pastel and color pencil. I sketched it on the box and painted it by myself changing color pallete to blue. I used more vivid acrylics for the head and jewelry-piece...

My husband's exhibition

In past weekend my husband - Jorund (Jurriaan) de Jongh Jorgensen - was presenting his black and white photography during an official city exhibition. It was a multimedia presentation on LCD screen with slideshow, very widely appreciated by visitors. It also opened few new connections to great people interrested in classic artistic black and white photography. Jor also got a great acclaim from the City Hall and a proposal of buying his photos for a new edition of city postcards :)

I've designed his exhibition-poster, which looks like this:

design © Kinga de Jongh / artarsenic.blogspot.com
photography in the background  © J. de Jongh Jorgensen

If you want to explore his portfolio, you can find it currently on 500px.com, here: Jurriaan de Jongh Photography

It's getting warmer...

Spring is in the air... Still, it's cold outside, even if it's already April. My wisteria plant has survived the winter and got few more branches with buds - good news! Two or three years more and it should bloom purple. It's in the first place of my to photograph list. Still, few weeks more for it to get leaves... My beautiful hortensia didn't have such luck unfortunately but - by all means - I'll get a new one!

By now I've got few warm impressions of my surrounding just to keep you positive:

The best and the coldest pink nose of the Universe - my alaskan malamute's sniffing organ. You approach on your own risk - you'll be either licked or nosed to death...

Vintage memories

Another part of my lost-and-found photos I've made few years ago. That time I was living in the Netherlands and Poland and got first ideas about this blog - unfortunately I didn't have time to make it then. Now it's high time for those creations to be presented :) They perfectly show my fondness to vintage and retro photography and their kinds (warm photo filters, cherry light flash, old lenses), therefore they are very sentimental - a stop motion impression :)

A glimpse of summer...

It's snowing outside and melting at the same time. The wind reaches 100 km/h this evening. Not quite a weather I like. My husband has lit the fireplace and we're trying to stay warm. That's why I started to browse photos I've made in our garden and on the meadow in summer. I remember I was about to create some kind of a vintage collection of them. Well, I forgot about them and now I found the folder. Here are just few of them- to remind you summer:

Retro business-card boxes

The last creation of 2011 I wished to publish earlier but I went for vacation to the Netherlands. Now I'm back with mind full of new ideas and I already announce a new kind of jewelry which will be presented very soon! Meanwhile - as I mentioned in my previous post - I start with Hipstamatic photography and decided to use it with my handicraft creations...

For the very first attempt I present the-end-of-the-year retro business-card boxes made using decoupage technique, shabby-chic and crackle. For those I used two famous classic portraits: the blue one is the portrait of Princess Marie Adelaide of France by (probably) Perronneau. The red one is the portrait of Lucretia Panciatichi by Agnolo di Cosimo (Bronzino):

After New Year changes...

Arsenic and old lace goes Hipstamatic a bit!

I decided to use Hipstamatic software for my I-Phone to improve retro feeling of my blog. Not all will be Hipstamatic since the beginning of 2012 but I'll be using this kind of media very often I think. I'm still in progress of knowing it better and surely my creations with Hipstamatic camera software won't be perfect but I hope I'll learn it and use it properly. Started with it during my winter vacation and can't stop ;)

Anyway - take care and all the best in 2012!

Autumn Art Nouveau painted box

For the turn of seasons I've painted the reproduction of another art nouveau litograph. Of course it's Alphonse Mucha again, and a very famous picture. This time I took a pinewood box and covered it with a rosewood stain. It doesn't only look nice, it also smells like forest! Incredible specimen! I'm in love with it and it's also good to be used as a background for acrylic paint in shabby chic technique because it gives the aging effect. Probably I'll use it for making a nice white box with aged edges next time. Anyway my art nouveau reproduction is acrylic as always and looks like this:

Victorian purples

Another gift for my friend who wanted me to combine her own purple tissue (with swirly pattern) with some of victorian ladies motives. I had a proper decoupage paper full of nice reproductions of victorian fashion drawings. I chose three of them and cut them out. I like this connection of colors: purple + white + gold - that's why I based my design on it.

Chocolate-lover box

To express my gratitude to my friend, I've made something to remember for her. We're chocolate-freaks, my choice is dark chocolate with a huge ammount of cocoa and minimal ammount of sugar, usually filled with orange-peel or liqueur. Her choice is milk chocolate and white chocolate, pralines and bonbons - those with which my teeth suffer extremely ;) Anyway - to pay tribute to our taste - I've made a special chocolate box:

Vintage capsules

There was the time I didn't have access to wooden easter-eggs for decoupage because they were very rare in internet shops and became quickly out of stock. Now they can be found almost everywhere where handicraft supplies are being sold. But if you don't have your material to work with - you simply create it out of other things and do what you can. It was also the time when my father was very sick so we were visiting him in hospital often. From that days I've gotten many of those disposable shoe-pads you use in the hospital to walk around without dirtying anything. They all were made of wrapping film and put into colorful capsules you could have obtained from vending machines. I counted 23 of those capsules stored in my place and decided to do something of them. I still had some tissue scraps and other remnants, so I've created my own ball-shaped eggs ;)

Pastel roses

A quick view of decoupage'd pastel project I've made as an addition to romantic bedroom however it's been already taken away from me ;) Fortunately I still have some more of those tissues and I can produce more boxes...

Glamour black and white

I didn't post for some time due to lack of time, however I'm coming back with new ideas. As the very first project I've made a glamour black and white set for which I used one of popular motives - lace-looking tissue print. It's available in many colors but high black and white contrast seems to be the best:

I chose the middle one to create something eclectic and elegant and that something appeared to be: two big and two small jewelry boxes, perfect for glamour or victorian monochrome sets:

Art nouveau Ivy - reproduction on wood

Inspired by work of Alphonse Mucha from 1901, I've sketched and then painted it on a wooden box. It was previously another cigar box made of cherry wood, about 21 x 15 cm. I've painted the Ivy on the lid, and I covered sides of the box with acrylic paint texture using small sponge...

Of course there's an original engraving visible under layers of my paint - it was so deeply engraved that abrading it or filling it with more paint didn't cover it completely (I also didn't have silicon mastic in my stock yet). Anyway luckly it's not so visible in reality :)

Morpho butterflies & clematis lanterns

In another blue creation I've decided not to use decoupage. Painted art over an item is much more beautiful. I've collected some photos of blue morpho butterflies and blue clematis flowers to see how did they look like in detail, where to add light and shadow and what kind of color palette should I choose. Then I took two tall jars used previously for olives, took labels off and cleaned them with alcohol to degrease them. I chose white acrylic paint used for painting furniture and covered those jars with a thick layer of it, painting them few times each half an hour. The paint covered the surface equally without smudges visible.

Then I sketched butterfies, flowers and leaves with a pencil and painted them with acrylics.

This is the effect:

Two additional Arsenic bookmarks

As I wrote before I promised to make more Arsenic-related creations. I've enjoyed designing bookmarks a lot, so I decided to make another two of them to add to the set. Here they are:

I used photo references from old, damaged photos and postcards from ca. 1900-1930, authors and models are unfortunately probably dead by now. I've scanned old photos, retouched them and re-painted them using my Wacom Intuos 3 graphic tablet - the best tool with a pen to get ;) One of models of that old photos was of course a fabulous Maude Fealy (1883-1971), who firstly appeared in a silent film in 1911. It was so nice to retouch that old and damaged photo and then to paint it from a sketch to restore her beauty...