Archive for October, 2011
Halloween Cards - The Crafter's Workshop Stencil-Chickenwire
My friend Lisa has an online store called The ArtistCellar. She carries the cool stuff that you can’t find just anywhere. AND I love to shop with the small personal stores. Lisa just added new stencils from The Crafter’s Workshop this fall and I waited eagerly for them to arrive. Well of course they came while I was away at Art Camp for Women and then I had to unpack and store things we use at camp and then I had to get in some g-kid time and finally – FINALLY – I got a few minutes to play with the new toys. Whew.
I am not sure what I will do with these little cards, but I think I will add a Halloween motif i.e. a pumpkin or a Day of the Dead Skull and go from there.
The sweet little chicken wire stencil is just delicious. If used with paint it must be kept wet while in use and be washed out immediately after use.
I cleaned up and put everything away, but the itch to try the others just would not stop. So I got out a small journal I’ve been working in, and used up the left over paint from another project.
Small Journal, TCW stencils - chevrons on left, puncinella and chicken wire on right
The Artist Cellar always double packs my liquid orders as I live at high altitude, and they always get here before I think they will – this is why I try to use a small personal company to do business with. They remember me and think of what I will need before I do. Check them out!
Art Camp for Women is over for 2011 and we are well into setting up 2012 – but I’m going on vacation.
I’m going to do what I recommend all my coaching clients do and actually I recommend everyone do. I am going where I am not the organizer, the boss, the wife, the mom, the g-mom, the partner, the teacher or the chief bottle-washer-and-dogsbody. I am going to a Journaling Retreat that I have drooled over for 3 years! YIPPEE! Journalfest here I come!
Everyone at Journalfest can bring small trades to trade with others in their dorms etc. Since I have been working so hard on Art Camp, my trades are going to be very small indeed, but they will include chocolate so I hope to be forgiven.
Zentangles and more zentangles
I started making ATC Zentangles last January and made one or more a day until the weather improved. That is a lot of ATCs. I am in no ATC groups so what am I going to do with all those little zentangles?
The thing is, I love each and every one of these little cards and feel a little silly that I am so attached to what amounts to an evenings worth of doodling.
What better use than to share them with others that love to journal as much as I do, others who are setting aside a looonngg weekend to share time and learning with other journalers….I can’t think of a better way to make connections and to find homes for my babes!
Sample Front and back for trades - the punch really was hard to do...
Sample Front and back for trades - but the plain edges don't work either
Back of ATCs with stencil borders - test drove my new stencils from TCW
PS – I had leftover pink-gold paint and a half hour so I tested out my newest stencils that I got from Artist Cellar
What fun – the stencils are delicious!
The test drive was fun and relaxing.
I’ll say more about Journalfest when I return.
In September Melanie Testa played Hankie Havoc and I decided to play along. Mostly because I use a lot of nose tissue, especially in late summer and early fall. Dharma Trading Company has huge cotton hankies and this seemed like a simple way to fool around with painting fabric. It took until the middle of the month to find, order and receive my dozen hankies (with a silk hankie thrown in for a bonus). And then with the cloth in my hand I realized I don’t know the first thing about dye art. I did know that hankies must be laundered frequently and I did not want any strange colors left behind on my unsuspecting nose.
My business partner is an art quilter and mostly dyes her own fabric, so with a little questioning we were off into the world of soda ash, thickened dye, thermafax, disperse dyes and, and, whoaaaa… I got as far as swishing my dozen hankies in a bucket of her soda ash solution and hanging them out to dry, but was fairly stopped at that point.
Experiment Hankie #1
Then while packing supplies for our Art Camp for Women, we stumbled across some Pentel Pastel Dye Sticks, We chatted and brainstormed as we worked and I took a box of the dye sticks home to try out. At first I was going to color all of the hankies, but I am learning and decided to experiment on ONE hankie first and see how well the little sticks worked. I used some rubbing plates meant for Sculpey clay and after seeing how beautiful the little leaves came through I found a large rose stencil and tried that.
I told my partner how much fun I had and she said I probably did not need the soda ash for that. The next night I traced around a stencil. The sticks are fat and soft like oil pastels, so I decided to outline the color with permanent ink via Sharpie Ultra Fine pens. This was more fun to doodle with, but the end result after washing was not as nice as the rubbings.
Permanent pen & pastel dye sticks
Tonight I will try out doodling free hand on the hankies that I removed the soda ash from to see how that works.
My hankies will not be as incredible as some of the old embroidered ones you find at the antique stores and don’t dare use for your nose. But my hankies won’t be boring AND they will be unique!
