Just Cardboard

But, oh, so lovely.

Isn't this awesome?  I just flat out stole this idea from Michelle Ward's blog (here).  Of course, I already have some of her stencils, so the minute I saw what she did, I had to try it.  Just regular cardboard, trace the stencil onto the cardboard, and use a craft knife to cut out the design.  Pull off the top layer of cardboard to leave the corrugated layer beneath. 

Not sure what I will do with this piece yet, but I'm sure it will have some friends soon!

Trashy Art

I don't know why I have trouble throwing things away sometimes, things that I think I might use in art.  For instance, I can never look at coffee grounds or tea bags without wanting to dye some paper.

Last week, it was tea bags.  I had made a pitcher of iced tea and had a bunch of tea bags headed to the trash.  Somehow, though, my feet took me over to a piece of art paper.  I spritzed the paper with water and plopped the tea bags on top of it.  I went about my day and checked back later.  I moved the bags to another part of the paper and spritzed with water again.  I did this a couple more times, moving the bags and checking to see what was happening on the paper.  I tried to reposition the bags differently each time--flat side down, bottom down, and also open side down, lightly opening the sides so they sat with a hole in the middle where the bag folded upon itself.

The paper was more "dyed" where I sprayed with water then put the bags on the wet paper.  I think I like it better where I put the bags on dry paper and spritzed around them.  I got more interesting shapes.  Speaking of shapes, this is what I saw when I looked at the final product:

In reality, this will most likely end up as a topical map of some kind...

FYI, when doing experiments, don't ever pick up some damp rose petals off the grass after a wedding, put them in a plastic bag in your purse, and forget about them for a week.  That is a whole different kind of experiment when you discover a bag of moldy rose petals in the bottom of your purse!  I make be able to make penicillin or something, but definitely not art. (No picture of the moldly rose petals.  You're welcome.)

Weekend Fun

This post is not about art at all, but I wanted to share anyway.  Maybe these pictures will put you in a peaceful mood to draw flowers or something!

I was at my niece's wedding over the weekend - beautiful peaceful lakeside ceremony on property owned by the groom's family for generations in Tennessee.  It was a country wedding with a slight flair.  You take a chance having an outdoor wedding in the south in June, but the day could not have been more perfect.

I don't like to post anyone's picture without their permission, but this was too cute.  When the bride and groom had their first dance, their flower girl and ring bearer (her daughter and his son) joined them.  It was just too adorable for words! (Yes, by then the ring bearer had already taken off his jacket and his shoes)

Have a good week, everyone.  Back to the working grind.

Don't Blink

Did you ever go to bed one night and it was May, then you woke up and all of a sudden it was June?  That recently happened to me!  Time flies when you are having fun.

So many things in progress right now.  I've played with my stamped and painted deli papers and have a collaged book cover and book I'm working on.  Hope to share  more of that later.

And I have not had nearly enough play time with my new stencils from Michelle Ward - I can't even tell you how much I love these stencils!!

Yes, I am obsessed.  Or possessed.  One of those...

 

Two Words

Zappos.  Outlet.

If you have ever ordered anything from Zappos and returned it, chances are it may have ended up in central Kentucky at the outlet store.  I have never been there until today.  I drove north and friend Gaye drove south, and we met in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, to check it out.  It's not that hard to find, since it's on this street:

Yes, the street is actually called Zappos.Com Boulevard.  I liked the swirly pattern in the front windows.

It is also called the 6pm Outlet, which confused me.  Right inside the front door, there is a huge chair throne where I presume you sit and have your picture taken when you leave.  It says "I received the royal treatment at the 6pm Outlet". 

It's an outlet store - lots of one of a kinds.  No checking to see if they "have it in my size".  What you see is what you get. Everything is at least half price.  I got some new sneakers.  Gaye got some new sandals.  I didn't take any pictures of those.  But now I know where they are and what they have.  And I signed up for their emails about specials in the future.  Great mini-road trip to enjoy some fun and some good company!  We had mini-show and tell too, but I don't have pictures of any of that either.  For sure, I came home wanting to make an altered book like Gaye's!

A Sucker for Sprays

I know I talk a lot about sprays and stencils.  I was fairly certain I now have plenty of each and even if I ran across new stencils and new sprays, I could happily walk away and use what I already have.  Then one day at Michael's (the only craft store in my area), I saw some new sprays.  Apparently there is a whole line of Heidi Swapp scrapbooking materials I didn't know about.

The colors were luscious, but I didn't buy any.  However, I did think about the sprays from time to time.  I finally took my 40% off coupon to Michael's one day, just to buy one bottle to try out.  Somewhere along the way, I had also learned the sprays have more of a metallic sheen to them.  I don't normally go for the glittery shiny look.

Long story short, when I got to Michael's, they had added a bunch of stencils too, and I ended up getting a big 12 x 12 design, plus one bottle of what I thought was gold spray (turns out it is Mustard, but looks like gold sprayed on black).

 I sprayed a very light mist back and forth a couple of times onto black cardstock.  It's important to remember when spraying that less is more.  I took another piece of black cardstock and blotted the wet stencil to get the reverse image.

These are not great pictures, but you get the idea.  It's a very nice gold-ish color.  I would not be surprised if another coupon leads me to try another color in the future....

License to Create

I'm an artist.
I have a license to create.
I can prove it.

I was checking some old web links I had bookmarked and came across this one I forgot about.  Some of the features are free and some are not. The one to create a name badge is free.  Just upload a picture, pick one of the designs, and fill in the blanks.  I couldn't figure out how to make them any color other than blue.  And I don't have that many pictures of myself.  But I had fun anyway. The hardest part was thinking up words to use!  When you are happy with it, save it to your computer and make more.

Have fun with this.  Great projects for the kids.  And a fun thing for the Memorial Day holiday weekend.  Give your guests an ID badge with a license to grill or something!
Here's the link to Big Huge Labs (when you get to the site, scroll down for the Badge Maker).

Ancient Map

I keep looking at the maps in the Timothy Ely book, and something kept nagging at my brain from ancient times (you know, 1999).  I pulled out one of my journals from back then, and saw it was as I remembered - I did try to draw a map in my journal, which represented my life at the time.  I think I might have even had Ely's book in front of me back then for inspiration.

I was not pleased with my drawing back then, but it doesn't look too bad to me right now.  Hard to believe so much time has passed. 

Like anything else, practice makes perfect.  So if I want to get better at it, I guess I should practice more!

Stamp, Paint, Scribble

That's what I did instead of the multiple things on my list that I was supposed to be doing.

Stamp

 Paint

Scribble

 And ended up with this. 

I had to get it out of my system.  I blame Pam Sussman, who noted on her blog she was off to take a workship with Timoth Ely. It prompted me to get out my copy of his book Flight into Egypt (below). 

His writing on the pages is something he made up, and it prompted me to do the same. 

I wish I had the whole week off from work, because if I did, I'd make my own book.  My muse is giving me all kinds of ideas to continue through with this. For now, I can't wait to see what Pam did in the workshop! Hey, Pam, not that I'm putting you on the spot or anything! Check out her blog here.

 

 

Project No. 6,532

In my continuing quest to see how many projects I can start, I have been playing with painting deli paper to be used for collage.  These are all painted with acrylic paint and then stamped with acrylic paint.  I'm loving it.  But it occurred to me that I should take a couple of pictures before I tore them all up.

One of the stamps I used (see the second picture) was one I got on a sale table a few years ago.  Best couple of dollars I have ever spent!

Hope you are having fun with your own projects!

Eagle Eyes

You probably already know this, but the best time to find something is when you are not looking for it. 

In the past, I have passed along the hint that this is a good time of year (spring, with summer on the horizon) to look for cheap plastic goods to use as stencils.  Remember these paper plate holders I got a few years ago:

 

I have not even been looking for more, but when I was at the grocery store this week, my eyes were naturally drawn to a section with said cheap plastic stuff for summer fun. There I found these paper plate holders. Just too good to pass up - especially at 2 for a dollar (at Kroger).

I haven't had time to play properly, but could not resist giving a quick spray when I got them home just to see!

I see some spray fun in my future!

Happy May

Happy May - Spray and Play!

I've been playing with backgrounds again.  These are done with Dylusions sprays.  I put a big piece of freezer paper (shiny side up) on the work table, sprayed two or three colors, then pressed white bristol board into the spray.  Some of the bristol board had gesso on it, some was plain.  The one thing I kept forgetting was to spray water onto the freezer paper before spraying the inks.  Makes for a much nicer blend of color when you remember to do that! 

Freezer paper with spray:

Bristol board blotted onto the spray (forgot to spray water first):

 See how much prettier these are - water was sprayed first:

 I cut some of the bristol board to ATC size.  I stamped birds onto the brighter colors, to be cut out later.  Since the sprays are water soluble, I used a brush to paint water onto the cards to blend and soften the colors:

ATCs are ready to stamp and embellish.  I'm really not loving the birds at all.  They will have to fly away somewhere else, and I will think up a plan B.

Do the right thing

It took every bit of restraint I could muster to give this greeting card to the person I bought it for.

 I spent a lot of time making it all pretty, but it was not until the final moment, when I was putting the card into the envelope, that I discovered the envelope had a brown security pattern inside.  When did they start putting security patterns in greeting cards?  And brown?  Don't have any that color.

I should have let the recipient know I wanted the envelope back later..  I may need to go back to Target and rummage through the other envelopes there - who knows what I missed.

Journal Laboratory

I am always finding out new things about myself.  Most of the time they are blatantly obvious, but I never think it out loud.  Then the realization of it hits me and makes perfect sense.  Like art journaling.  I think I love the experimental playing part more than the actual journaling part.  I have sort of known that over the past few years, but suddenly Really realized it as a fact set in stone.

I'm working on a new journal spread, with experiments on side by side pages.  Gesso as a base on one side, but not on the other.

Same techniques on both pages, starting with a stencil and texture medium spread through the stencil.

Watercolor crayons on both pages.

Playing around with water on both pages to see how well the crayon blends and mixes.

The real reason I started this experiment happened after I was reading Dina Wakley's new book, Art Journal Freedom.  One page had a simple comment, but it has become my new favorite quote.

She was talking about gesso, and said "Gesso is like underwear for acrylic paint.  You can get by without it, but something isn't right."

That cracked me up.  But it totally took me by surprise too.  I sometimes put down a base before working, sometimes not.  I have a feeling, all future pages will have a beginning base of some kind.  I just can't get that quote out of my head.
:o)

Snake Carving

Yep, you read that right.  I've been carving a snake.  Not a real snake (giant shiver).  I still don't care for snakes.  Even when I draw cute eyelashes on its eye, it is still a creepy snake to me. 

Even though it has words carved into it and is not a real snake, just seeing that snaky shape lying on my work table creeps me out.  I need to finish up my Year of the Snake envelope exchange envelopes and move on to something more appealing to me.  Yessssss.