Gwen's Gift Box Decorating

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Get Someone Else's Creative Juices Flowing!
I was fortunate enough to see my friend Gwen last week.  She is a fellow creative spirit and I know she loves doing collage.  So I figured I would bring along a small gift for her - a little box filled with some of my painted tapes.  I knew she would take them and run with them...and I wasn't disappointed!  Over the weekend she shared with me these amazing boxes she decorated using the tapes!!!!!!  It was an idea I never would have thought of!  She even decorated the little box I had given her the painted tapes in!  What little gift could you give someone to get their creative juices flowing????  Gwen gave me the gift right back!  I know these boxes are going to inspire me in so many ways!  Thanks Gwen!!!! :)

Birthday Chicken!

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Share Your Art With Someone You Love!
Today is Michael's birthday so I decided I needed to make him a special card :)  It's actually not really a "card" - it's more of a very large postcard.  It is 6" x 9 1/2".  I have really been enjoying playing with collage lately (as you have probably noticed!)!  What better way to celebrate a birthday than with a birthday chicken!!!! :)  At least I think it's a chicken...I guess it could be some other type of bird...actually, it can be whatever you think it is :)  I used Mixed Media paper as a base since you can apply both wet and dry media to it.  I incorporated dry wax paper that I had painted and also some that I painted and made into tape.  A touch of stamping, detail painting, white gel pen and a bit of marker were all added.  I hope Michael wakes up this morning with a smile on his face that grows even larger when he sees his chicken! :)  Who needs your art to make them smile today????

You Are Moo-Tiful Art Journal Page

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  If You Bought It, Play With It!
This page began as a decision to finally take out the Derwent Inktense Blocks I had purchased awhile back and give them a try!  So I sprayed the watercolor paper with a bit of water and began scribbling color with the blocks.  The scribbling led to a landscape background and then I just went with it!  Something about the blue sky and the green grass made me think...COW!  Yes, this is how my mind works and I try to just go with it!  Maybe what triggered COW! was a trip I took back in 1990 with my mom.  We were driving on the California coast toward San Francisco and I was so taken by the gorgeous coast, the beautiful green hills and the cows grazing in the grass.  Those cows looked so content.  (This was also the moment in my life when I became a vegetarian (I am now vegan) - those cows looked so happy I decided I didn't need to eat them anymore :)  Anyway, I digress...So, the inktense blocks led to COW! and COW! led to this completed page :)  This page makes me smile - I'm even wondering about taking it, and the bird page I did last week, and maybe doing some framing so that I can enjoy these pages on a wall.  I know I would lose a bit of the page given the holes of the spiral binding...or maybe I should just frame them with the holes and all :)  Either way, what this page taught me is that if you have a supply that you purchased that you haven't yet played with...the time is now! :)