Coffee and Butterflies

I know you know about my ADDICTION to using butterflies in my art projects -- so seeing these pretty ones is nothing new to many of you. I thought I would share how I made them -- so you can try it and see how easy and fun they are to work with. 

I started this project by stamping a bunch of butterflies from Inkadinkado using StazOn ink onto watercolor paper. I was planning on using a lot of them ;-)

Then I poured some cold COFFEE in a small bowl and painted some onto each butterfly -- to get a vintage photo look -- like a Cavallini look to them. 

And then I used a watercolor crayon to add some color. You can see that I didn't worry much about staying in the lines! 

When the sheet of pretty butterflies was dry I used my finger to brush a light coat of Glossy Accents over the top of each sweet insect ;-) 

When that final step was dry -- I used some detail scissors to fussy cut each one away -- and then assembled this pretty card -- using new Brenda Walton stamps that Inkadinkado released at CHA, they will be available soon. 

I guess I should say that painting with coffee is my latest love! I really love the look it adds to the projects I've used it on -- it adds a wonderful -- vintagey look that distress inks and inking the edges of your paper just can't add. It's almost like the paper REALLY sat in a dark, humid attic for a 100 years! 

I hope you have a wonderfully crafty day, thanks for stopping by! 

Portfolio Page

I finally got around to creating a Portfolio Page here on my blog, thought you might like to see some of the art I've created in the last year or so. This sunflower is my ABSOLUTE favorite! 

Now, head down - and back to work. I've got dishes to wash today, LOL. Thanks for stopping by -- hope you have a lovely day!

Pretty Spring Stamped Card

I wanted to share this pretty card I made with you for a couple reasons. One -- I made it eons ago and I don't think I have shared it yet. Two -- since we're in for another 6 weeks of winter I thought you could use a little cheering up with something bright and springy! 

This is a fun frame card that I created to demonstrate how to watercolor paint on stamped images. It's really easy, in case you haven't tried it before. All you need to remember is to use a permanent or solvent ink when you stamp your image so when you apply the watercolor paint the stamped image doesn't run. 

You can also apply water to printed images if you don't have any stamps or solvent ink. Just remember to use a Spray Fixative if you print Inkjet Images to keep the ink from smudging; you can also run to the copy center and have a photocopy made onto card stock. If you are lucky and have a laser printer -- use that to print your image onto card stock and you're ready to get started! 

The full card, doesn't it make you think of spring? 

Thanks for stopping by, I'm running around trying to catch up from my trip to Los Angeles for the CHA Show. It was an amazing week -- and I'm so glad I went. Have a great week -- and feel free to ask questions about painting with watercolor paints if you have them! 

Happy February!

While I was in Los Angeles last week I made a little detour over to Disney to the Lego Store to pick up a few things for my sweet boy. He is a huge fan of all things Lego. While I was there I saw this FUN Ice Cube Tray, since Valentine's Day is right around the corner thought it would be the perfect thing to surprise him with. 

I can't really keep surprises under wraps well. Today I decided to do a test run to see how the molds would work with chocolate. Since I was only going to make one batch I didn't use a lot of chocolate. 

I started by melting some Wilton Chocolate melts in a Pyrex Cup over water. You would think I would have a double boiler since I make a lot of chocolates, but no. If you have never tried candy making -- it's SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT not to let ANY water contaminate the chocolate. If this happens the chocolate gets a strange texture and you can't really do anything with it. It doesn't change the flavor, but putting it into a mold is darn near impossible.

Make sure all the wafers MELT completely! 

Gently spoon chocolate into each mold. Don't worry if you get some overage - it's going to happen unless you use a pastry bag. That's WAY to much work for me, plus I don't own one. And I was in a hurry. I was supposed to making a sketch for a new class NOT making candy. 

Fill ALL the spaces in the mold. Now - the next step is as important as keeping water away from the chocolate when it melts. Right now there are a TON of little air bubbles in the chocolate -- and pockets where the chocolate didn't get when you spooned it in.

Pick up the mold and gently tap it on the counter 5 or 8 or 12 times. Whatever amount makes you happy. This will remove the bubbles and force the melted chocolate down into the details of the mold. When I say gently -- I mean if you slam it down on the counter too hard the chocolate will splatter and make a mess. But then again, you may want to lick the chocolate off the counter.  

It's helpful if you have a supervisor, to keep an eye on those little details. 

Use a spatula to scrape the excess chocolate away. You may need to do some more tapping to smooth out the surface of the chocolate, I know I did. Then all you have to do is let the chocolate set up for a while and those guys will be ready to take out! 

Aren't they adorable. 

Ooops, one guy lost his head when I took him out of the mold. I had to eat him, LOL 

I know my sweet boy loved them and wants me to make them for his buddies for Valentine's Day. Maybe. Maybe not. Thanks for stopping by, remember -- cooking can be creative if you don't have any time for the studio! Have a great weekend! 

What a relief!

I've been growing out my hair for the last 3 or 4 years. I started because my husband commented one day that he wished I would grow my hair out - and so I started. It's been driving me CRAZY for quite some time, and what really is the point of having long hair if you always pull it away from your face. I get paint and gel medium in it pulling it away from my face as I work - their were LONG hairs everywhere -- and it generally made me crazy and feel like an old woman with long grey hair. My original goal was to donate it to locks of love -- but I just couldn't wait for another 2 inches to grow.

Needless to say -- I've been wanting to get my hair cut for a while -- just wasn't sure exactly what I wanted and didn't really have the courage to go for it.

Yesterday -- was THE DAY. I am so happy I feel like me again, what a total relief. The husband was a little like, wow -- it's short -- but I think he'll get used to this -- and not having long grey hair in everything will also be a total relief too! ;-)

In other news, I continue to flutter around the house/studio working on Mixed Media Collage that starts next Wednesday -- I feel like I am so behind and piled up with work it's not funny. Hair yesterday, appointment today, shopping tomorrow --- eeeek! I guess I work better under pressure, LOL!

This is a "reject" well maybe not a "reject" in the real sense of the word --  but collage material for later lessons in Mixed Media Collage at My Creative Classroom. 

While each night I plan to work -- I get caught up with the dang television and a glass of wine and never make it to the studio. TONIGHT I must work. NO exceptions - because I've got a lot of work to do before CHA next week!

Well, speaking of that -- I've got to run. Hope you have a great day - and do something drastic today -- it is definitely invigorating! Thanks for stopping by! 

Last of 2011: Year in Review

One of the things about Art Journaling that I love so much is that you can do as much or as little as you have time for every time you get down to work. In Julie's workshop she does maybe 10 or so minutes a day -- and that's a really great practice to get into. Me, I like to start and finish a page in one day -- which is why I don't journal as much as I want. 

I love how the beginning of this page turned out -- I was doing my best to do a little bit every day but I would start my pages and then get so involved in the creation that I couldn't leave it. I had to try and finish -- or would would spend 5 minutes here and there throughout the day until it was finished....or I would stay up WAY LATE into the night to get it done. ha ha. 

I ended up having to finish this page that day because it wouldn't stop calling me. 

and started on the next page as well. The red on the background turned out so delicious! 

I love using images from old magazines in my journals -- these are from some craft magazines from the 50's. 

The two pages together -- while they are from different "days" I tried to make them work together.

The white journaling is very striking on the black background. I love journaling with a calligraphy (dip pen) and white ink, this is from Daler-Rowney. The inconsistency of the ink and the sound of the tip scratching on the surface of the paper really appeal to me. Plus, this method of journaling has a tendency to be messy -- very fitting for my messy penmanship, lol. 

Well that's it for today -- must get back to the studio and get some work done! Hope you are having a WONDERFUL week, and thanks for taking the time to stop by! 

Mixed Media Collage

I've been flitting around like a butterfly all weekend working on my newest class, Mixed Media Collage that starts next week at My Creative Classroom. Last night, when I should have gone to bed (11pm, urgh)  -- I started this collage. I just wanted to get the base started and dried so I could get down to business this morning and finish. Well, I had to watch HSN first (Home Shopping Network -- you can watch the short clip here. I made ALL the examples for this segment, woohoo so exciting!) -- because a TON of projects I made for K & Company were on there. 

Anyway, now that I'm done tooting that horn, I thought I would share this little example I made to use for advertising my collage class. 

If you are interested in collage, stenciling, painting, sewing and lots of OTHER fun techniques -- and want to mix them together to create beautiful Mixed Media pieces of art -- this is the course for you! It is starting next week, January 25 -- so go on over to My Creative Classroom and register today! You won't want to miss this fun course.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a GREAT day. 

Brrrr, it's VERY cold!

Winter has definitely arrived, especially in Maine! We have a history of having some weird weather, and last week was no exception. It snowed, got warm, torrentially rained when the temps were 28 and the roads covered with snow, and then climbed into the 40's -- all in 2 days-- and now the temperature has fallen to a brisk -1 degrees. Yes, it's finally winter in Maine because our very LONG driveway is now covered in a thick layer of ice. If it sounds like I'm complaining, well -- maybe a little whining but I'll get over it, hehe.

Since it's cold and no one, especially me wants to go outside I've been working on my new iPad bag, wanna see?I don't have a pattern, am pretty much just winging it but sometimes I work best this way!

Here's the front of the bag, no handles yet, I need to make some more fabric or take it to a place with an industrial sewing machine. 

Here's the back, the bottom portion has different pockets, for my phone, a pen and whatever else. 

And the side, that little light spot at the top is where i stitched the tab for the handle and it tore off when I checked to see how strong the connection was, making me decide to take it to someone with a heavy duty machine. 

My iPad and a notebook tucked safely inside, l love the way it looks so far.

The pocket lining, I'm going to line the inside of the bag with this too. 

And the flower with the sequins stitched to it, pretty! I'm kind of at a stand still until I figure out how to sew the strap things on the side. But I am definitely loving it so far.

I've also been working on my new Mixed Media Collage class that starts next week at My Creative Classroom, I have been enjoying the creative process on this one immensely and thing it's going to be a very enjoyable class! I parked myself in the living room 3 nights in a row making samples for Lesson 1 that starts on January 25th and I'm over-the-top excited with them!

I hope it's warm where you are, and have a lovely day -- take the time to do something artsy or crafty today -- it's fuel for the soul -- thanks for stopping by! 

On the Work Table

I think I may have mentioned once or twice that I'm a procrastinator, or maybe I haven't, yet, haha. What usually happens when I have a long TO-DO list -- the most creative ideas get a hold of me and I can't let the go. Like this project. I had seen a tapestry purse at the shoe store but it didn't work for what I wanted -- an iPad case large enough for my iPad that is in a lovely Oberon Design tooled leather case so when I go somewhere I can sling the custom case over my shoulder, that makes me happy!

I saw this bag weeks ago and couldn't stop the percolation in my head, i just kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it.

Until yesterday that is, when i had a huge list of things to do for today. Haha. So I got started off the painted bag instead of my assignments. First i ripped the canvas to size and sketched the design, referring to the photo I took for inspiration. 

The I started painting with orange and pink. 

And added some brown to the background. 

While the thick paint was still wet I took a pencil and sketched in the petals of the flower and the stamens in the center. 

And used a pencil eraser to add some color to the stamens.

Whe that was dry I got out the stencils and some paint and went to town. I also added a pretty fabric center to the flower. 

I could hardly wait for it to dry, and when I checked it at bed-time -- and discovered it was dry, stars sewing right away, yes that was at midnight, haha. I couldn't leave it unstitched over night. 

In the morning I added some inka gold over my damask stencil, yes -- it came out perfect. 

This is kinda what it looks now -- kind of because when the inka gold was dry I added some more spray pAint with stencils and then more inka gold on top of that. 

Needless to say, I'm dragging today as it was VERY late by the time I got to bed. I still need to make a thin strip to make a side panel and create a piece to make a pocket on the back, but so far I am loving the beginning of my new iPad sling!

For today, take those creative ideas that get a hold of your brain and put them into action, you'll be glad you did! Have a great day, and thank you so much for stopping by!

2011 Year in Review: Aha!

I wish I had taken more pictures of this page in progress. The way it came together was total perfection! I had done an image transfer a few days before using the same trees -- and wanted to try something different with them -- and what better place then in my journal!

For these trees I opened my image file in Photoshop Elements and made it a reverse -- so instead of black trees on a white sky I had white trees on a black sky. You see where I'm going with this don't you? I also made it large enough to cover both pages of my journal and printed it on regular computer paper.

Instead of an image transfer I glued the image right to my art journal using my trusty and MUCH loved UHU glue stick. 

Random piece of Useless Trivia -- did you know that UHU Glue sticks come from Winthrop Maine, yes my neck of the woods. Nothing comes from Maine. ha ha. I didn't know this until my stash ran out and I found out that JoAnn's doesn't carry UHU anymore and I was trying to find out if they were still in business. 

I did seal the image with some type of spray preservative (can't for the life of me remember what it's called) to keep the ink from my printer from running all over kingdom come and my journal pages before I glued it down. 

When I had painted the rest of the sky black and added the orange sky to the bottom of the page and an orange wash to the trees I had to sit down, ha ha -- just kidding. But it WAS a total aha moment for me. I thought I heard Oprah Winfrey say aha in my head. 

It reinforced to me that EXPERIMENTATION is KEY to discovering new techniques and without that my art will always end up looking the same. It reinforced that I need to continue to document my life -- and my dreams -- and that without doing that I -- Yes -- I will wither up and my creativity will crumble away. It reinforced to me that my tiny thoughts, ideas and experimentations can be so totally worth it -- if I just try them. I just have to try. That's it. Two little words. Just Try. Aha - maybe they should be my words for the year. 

When was the last time you had a creative aha moment? What did you discover - and did you document it? 

I'm leaving you with a lot to think about today. Have a WONDERFUL day -- and make it artful! Thanks for stopping by. 

2011 Year in Review: Making Mistakes

I think the best thing I did all year for myself was take an on-line workshop from the lovely, talented and awesome Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. Her workshop, 30 Days in Your Art Journal was the best on-line class I have ever taken. While I don't work in my journal the way Julie does -- it inspired me to journal a lot more -- and I loved waking up each morning to her video for the day. 

It put me in an artful state of mind all day -- and it was often hard to get to the work at hand (assignments for EK Success or my classes) because all I wanted to do was play in my journal. Coffee+Julie to start my day was awesome. 

Because I wanted to make this a habit that would stick, I went out and got supplies and made a new journal for the class because I couldn't find what I wanted that was ready to work in. 

I was so disappointed when the watercolor paper in my new hand-bound art journal tore at the fold -- on the first day! While it wasn't the best paper in the world -- it shouldn't have ripped and handled the small amount of scrubbing and water I applied to it -- it's SUPPOSED to be made for WATER, anyway. The colors in the washes were so beautiful and I loved the beginnings of it. But, I WOULD not be defeated by the paper, ha ha.  

This is my colorful first page that tore out of my journal before the paper was dry. what a disappointment! I had two pages with pretty color washes like this. I was determined not to waste them! 

I waited for the pages to dry -- and used them to demonstrate to myself that I could salvage something from it, kind of like a phoenix, ha ha. For the left side of my two page spread I tore my mess into small squares and used a ton of gel medium to adhere them to a different journal made from better quality paper.

This is the opposite of balance -- maybe bordering on chaos. The papers all torn --  the journaling a mystery to anyone that will look at the pages which was kind of my goal, in a backwards kind of way. 

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Here you can see all the chaos, I am pretty sure I was in a bad place that day, ha ha! 

Hmmm. not sure the ordered page is much better -- but there definitely is LESS chaos -- which was the goal. In case you were wondering how I made the circles, I poured a puddle of india ink on a clean meat tray and then took different covers off various paint jars and other containers in my studio and dipped them in the paint and then "stamped" them on my page. The largest is my Golden Gel Medium and the smallest is a glue stick. LOVE that look -- though all my containers have dried up india ink on the rims of the covers now. ;-)

The completed spread. Pretty -- no. Completed -- yes. Did I feel better when I was done with it -- YES -- WAY better. So, even though I showed you yesterday that I create art all the time -- it's not all pretty and bad things do happen on the table in my studio. 

Thank you for stopping by -- and have an ARTfully happy day!