A bit of spring perhaps?

This is one of the cards for my upcoming class. I think I am tired of feeling like we are in a deep freeze and needed some spring colors to cheer me up. Mission accomplished with this card. I love the bright yellow/orange flower along with the subtle flowers in the background. I even added some wire around the flower for another touch of texture. This is gonna be a fun one to do :)

Lots of products to play with in this card....Dylusions Spray, Claudine Hellmuth Paints, Perfect Pearls Powder and Spray and some Dry Glitter just to name a few. All products available at Shabby Shutters of course! :)
Lets consider it a 'breath of fresh air' with the bright colors!

Art comes in many many forms...

Art comes in many forms and it does not always have to be created on a piece of paper. Below are just a few samples of things that make you take a step back and realize that you or somebody just like you created that. Whether you consider it art or not...it was made using our hands as the tools and it is something to be proud of!

doodling art

the art of scrapbooking

The art of flower arranging

The art of Stained Glass

The art of creating a snowman (simple but still an art in my eyes)

Moi...the hired help for the day of building lobster traps

A few of the creations 

Last but not least...the art of making a lobster trap. Totally not the kind of item you would consider art right?
However, when I watch (and occasionally help...photo to prove it) my husband create these traps from scratch and I see how 'picky' he is about what pieces of wood go where, and how deep the nail is hit and how tight the netting is I realize that he is also an artist in his own way. He has taken a long lost art and has kept it alive. Each trap being a challenge to be better than the last one.

Long live the many forms of art and the people who create it.

Happy craftin'!

Canvas heart art...

Wow...its been a while since I've been here. I didn't really do any crafting over the holidays but in reality the holidays were over weeks ago. Ok, I've been lazy!
Yesterday though....I got inspired over these little pieces of fabric below. I had tons of scraps of Stickyback Canvas and didn't want to throw it out so decided to put together some canvas creation using the Stickback Canvas and all the colors of a heart in all forms...Dylusions, Colorwash, Distress Stains and Paint.  I colored all the little pieces of canvas different colors and then gathered all my 'love' stamps. I stamped all of them with Stazon Ink because I knew I was Modgepodging over the canvas and I didn't want anything to run. After coloring and stamping I started piecing it together to form a heart. I wasn't too concerned if it didn't make an exact shape of a heart as I knew I was going to be Gesso'ing all around the heart to create texture for inking....and inking I done! My fingers were sooooo covered in ink (that makes me happy!). I used a mask to cover the heart and then went crazy spraying the canvas with Dylusions sprays. The texture that I created with the Gesso comes right thru the ink (love!). I made a few flowers and extra hearts made out of different textures and added some bling and Bobs your Uncle! Done! This was so much fun to play with yesterday just hanging out with the fur kids and listening to music. I hope it inspires YOU to get out some inks and just PLAY!

Here are some pics of the canvas along the way....

The scraps of canvas and all the inspiration inks and sprays!

Canvas inked and drying

All stamped with different stamps from various stamp sets

layered on canvas with Modgepodge on heart and Gessoed all around the heart

                               Sprayed and waiting to remove mask (see the beading over the heart?)(the mask is still in place)

The only thing left to do is bling it up! Thus leading you back to the first pic and the completed project!
Happy Friday! 

More Art Journal Pages

Ok...so I might be a little bit addicted to my journal right now. I love curling up at night in my chair and shining a light on my journal with all my buckets of crayons/markers/pastels....whatever I have near at the time! 

This particular 2 page entry is to journal that we did put up a Christmas tree this year. Last year was our first year in the house and it just didn't feel right not having my Mama here to celebrate the season with us. This year I decided that if I was going to put a tree up that I would honor my Mama and make it her tree as Christmas was always her favorite holiday of the year. 

watercolor pencil crayons and my fingers as paint brushes.

drew and colored in some images.

The double page spread.

Just because I love the cup of cocoa.

Our "Marilyn Tree" 

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. Enjoy the magic of the season! 

A peek into my Art Journal

Watercolor Pencil Crayons & water/black archival pen

Black fine tip marker & Pencil Crayons, Markers, 

Markers/ Distress Inks

I am loving my new Dyan Reaveley Art Journal from Shabby Shutters! Finally a place to be able to put all my doodles and drawings. There is no particular rhyme or reason to my journal. I don't always do 'the next page' and sometimes skip ahead 10 or 20 pages. There is a combination of heavy cardstock and manila paper in this journal so it gives you two different surfaces to work on. I tend to use my heavy manila paper for my ink sprays and then I use the regular heavy cardstock for other projects. I do Gesso my regular paper before using it though!
No page ever seems complete as I tend to go back and forth between pages depending on my mood. I try to incorporate the date somewhere on the page so that I can look back and know when it was worked on. Some pages have journaling on them and some have just drawings...for now. I get in moods where I will do all watercolor one night, or all oil pastels one night and I just keeping flipping pages to add a little something to each page. Its like working on 30-40 pieces of art at once. I know this is not every bodys style, but its mine...and its what works for me.
Some pages have more journaling than others and sometimes its just a random "What I am currently doing" page where I will just write all the things I am currently doing, eating, wearing, watching etc. Its a quick and fun page to do.
I have a little space set up in the loft so that when I am on 'wind down' time and watching tv at night I can haul out my journal and do some freestyle drawings and doodles. Things don't always end up the way I wish they would have but in the end its art and nobody would ever know that something wasn't intentional on the page, right?

Large Holiday Tag

Holiday Tag

Tonight we are making THIS huge tag in class at Shabby Shutters. I am super excited about this as I love the colors and the little rosettes! Rosettes are made from Sticky Back Canvas ('cause you know how much I love that stuff!) and the rest is just inking and embossing! It is made on a huge 5'' x 10 1/2'' manila tag. The embossing is popped out from adding Black Soot Distress Ink to it and the entire tag is colored by using the Dyan Reaveley Dylusions Sprays! The top red dots paper is actually a space to hold a gift card if you choose to. Totally up to you! Just a matter of having fun with it!

Mixed Media Canvas

8 1/2'' x 11'' canvas

6" x 6" canvas

I am really into this Mixed Media Canvas Art lately. I love having 'no rules' to play by and use my fingers as my paint brushes. Paints, mediums, sprays, masks, stamps and markers all lay in a 2 foot space in front of me despite the 5' x 3' table I am working on!
For these particular canvases I had been wanting to do something special with the flowers I had made in a class at Shabby Shutters with Michelle. Someday she will get her own blog up and you can start to see all the beautiful creations she makes...but for now, I'll sneak some of her flowers in my art!
For both canvases I started by Gesso'ing my canvas and going crazy with tans and pink paints. Tissue papers and stamped words are scattered through out the canvases in no particular order. Sew Stampers are PERFECT to use on this type of art! Left over rub-ons, stickers are also perfect as well as scrap paper! A Sharpie marker fills in some doodles and a word or two. The vases were cut from scrap paper and glued on and then inked and doodled upon! Alcohol Inks, Stickles, Perfect Pearls sometimes make an appearance and Glossy Accents...always lots of Glossy Accents!
The star of the show though.....my flowers!!! Thanks Michelley!
Don't you think they fit perfectly into my vase?  ;)

Have a happy craftin' day!