bird + leaves + stencil + colorburst

here's a card that almost got away! i blame the fact that when stephanie was here we had soooooo much fun playing with paper, ink and various other art supplies that things like taking photos and blogging just sort of fell by the wayside.

bird image and text paper taken from two different falling-apart old books; aspen mini template: the crafter's workshop; earth tone colorburst powders: ken oliver; burnt orange cardstock: core'dinations; glossy black cardstock: ranger; outliner pen: faber castell pitt in xs; sketchbook paper: canson; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

this 6x6" aspen tree stencil was already one of my all faves, even before i discovered how beautifully it worked with ken oliver's colorburst powders, but YOWZA i love it even more now! this particular version actually uses the template more like a stamp; you know how when you use a stencil with wet media, in addition to getting color on the paper you're stenciling, there's usually quite a bit that gathers on top of the template itself? well, thanks to a post of dina wakley's that i read a few years ago, i started "blotting" the extra color up with a piece of scrap paper or cardstock; and sometimes i even wind up loving the "blot" page more than the thing i was actively working on, lol! this was one of those times. since i already had a gorgeous forest, i just needed a sweet little dude from a vintage bird book and some sort of frame, for which i employed leaves diecut from an old book with pages that were just a teeeeeeeeeny bit glossy. loads of machine stitching ensued et voila!

the daring cardmakers' september elemental challenge is "fall in love with autumn" for which they'd like us to select at least three facets this luscious inspiration board; i've chosen the colors, the leaves, and the combination of white + trees that we can see in the lovely pic of the fence.

meanwhile, the ladies at our crafty corner are kicking off their very first challenge by celebrating autumn leaves, so i thought i'd pop in and join them!

i can't resist one more pic: this was on IG already, but not blogged; remember how i said photos kind of took a bit of a backseat to all the fun stephanie and i were having? the proof of that is that here's the ONLY pic we thought to take of the two of us together, i'm kinda kicking myself about that, but still i do love this pic of our twenty ink-stained, multicolored fingers!!! ♥

i've been incredibly lucky throughout my life to have found friends i can laugh with, cry with, eat with, talk with, work with, play with, and especially make art with; the fact that eight or so years ago i managed to find one particular friend called stephanie with whom i could immediately do ALL of those things, despite the fact that we live 1000 miles apart, just totally blows my mind... in the best possible way!!! ♥♥♥

jingling our stash??!

this week my two favorite blogs... ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and shopping our stash, obviously... are teaming up to give you one assignment with two link-ups and a chance at two lovely prizes. sound good? i thought it might, lol. i bet you can almost predict what we're going to ask for, can't you, darlings? especially if you remember a similar team-up we did last year? yepper, the jingle belles part is to make a christmas card (well duh, lauren!) and the SOS part is to use something from your stash that is at least a year old; oh yeah, and you need to tell us what that item is, so we can marvel at how cleverly you've used it! in my case it was reallllllly easy because, as you know, i have TONS of old stuff and i love to use it up, so apart from my glossy white cardstock cardbase, every single thing on this card is at least 3 or 4 years old... minimum... and some of it's nearly old enough to vote!!! :)

furthermore, since miss stephanie and i had the very great pleasure of spending crafty time together last week at my house, the two of us decided to add a little *extra* level of challenge to our own cards by using the exact same stamp. which DEFINITELY qualifies as senior stash, being as how it's from D.O.T.S. --a stamp co that's been gone for at least a decade; and the stamp wasn't new then! i confess that this part of the gig was nearly my undoing because stephanie is almost always more organized than i am, and is absolutely always a faster worker than i am, and she got in first with a gorgeous card that just happens to use two of the ideas i'd been counting on: handmade colorburst papers and lots of bling! so i had to get creative... or rather... more creative!

one of the first things you notice about this stamp is the fact that it has a bunch of horizontal layers within the tree. what would happen if i stamped the tree on several different scraps of green paper and pieced them all back together at the end? as a matter of fact, the results were super-cute, but when my tree didn't quiiiiiiiiite fill up the green panel, i thought i was sunk. and then it hit me: if i was adhering separate layers to each other anyway, why did i have to stop at just four? so i didn't! problem solved.

i've used the layout of sweet sunday sketch #285 to guide the placement of my stash-based schtuffs. i was fairly faithful, apart from the fact that i played with the proportions of the elements!

there are two places to check out more SOS + JB design team cards this week; namely shopping our stash and ♥JINGLE BELLES♥. so off you go for lots of extra inspiration! 

upon reflection...

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called "mirror, mirror" and we want to see something reflective on your card. i used metallic chipboard letters and this cool silver mylar deco tape. plus a little bling for good measure!

color burst pigment powders by ken oliver; watercolor paper: strathmore; bling: recollections; silver chipboard letters: mambi; white foam thickers: american crafts; reflective silver mylar deco tape of unknown origin (dear tape manufacturers, do you have any idea HOW MANY repeat customers you're losing by not putting your brand name on the inner cardboard roll thingie that holds your tape? seriously, how can we thank you for making something awesome if we don't know who you are??!) ink: stewart superior; pen: faber castell pitt; glossy white cardstock: paper accents; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

the lovely miss stephanie was here for a few days and we did some serious eating (of shake shack burgers, amongst other treats!) some serious shopping (at the very awesome paper anthology!) and some very seriously UN-serious playing around with art supplies at all hours of the day and night. so basically, it was like a slumber party for crafty grown-ups; or you could call it ♥heaven♥!

we're both a bit hooked on ken oliver's color burst-- it's basically powdered watercolor pigment that produces the most vivid colors ever, as my background papers and festive star will attest! for the right-hand side, i used 3 or 4 different shades through a stencil; for the left-hand side i used a couple of shades of blue and green kind of randomly on watercolor paper; the star is made from a scrap of dictionary paper i used to blot a totally different essperiment involving blue and purple, so it's considerably more muted. there doesn't seem to be a *bad* way to go with these, though. 

another great use for a sketchbook is writing down all the ideas you have when there's no time to be crafty. then when there *IS* time you'll remember all the stuff you wanted to try! (for this lettering i used the colorburst powders exactly like regular watercolors and they worked brilliantly in every sense of that word!)

i didn't wind up with many *finished* items apart from the mirror, mirror card, but then i consider these "art camp" experiences to be a time to have fun and just play around with new supplies rather aimlessly. afterall, that's the only way to learn!

just a few of my essperiments from this weekend; as you can see pigment powders, stencils, modelling and embossing pastes, stamps and vintage paper all played a prominent part. (so did sushi, burgers, and the best smoked pork ribs i've ever had in my life, but sadly none of those lasted long enough for me to photograph them, lol!)

something i learned a long time ago is that miss leslie is awesome at making inspiring sketches that i will enjoy, and her CSSC#8 is no exception:

miss leslie is also rather good at making cards... as are the rest of the lovely SOS ladies... won't you stop by and say HOWDY to them today?! ♥♥♥

step-by-step (sorta)

sorry if you're getting tired of mandalas, but i've had a very long ten days at home nursing my recalcitrant back, and there's only so much HGTV a girl can watch. i've done a lot of pinterest surfing lately too (b/c you can do it laying down, lol!) and made my very own mandala pin board. i've seen some incredibly detailed and symmetrical mandalas. i love those, but generally don't have the patience to attempt them. i also always enjoy step-by-step tutorial type thingies on other people's blogs, but again... not really my forte. but at the moment i'm moving slower than usual, and needing to take breaks in between activities, so i thought i'd give both of those ideas a go and see what happened!

the finished piece... just so we can see where we're going.

step 1

even when i'm winging it, i tend to trace a lid or a cup 

or SOMETHING that's perfectly round, just so i have a solid base 

to build on. it you like the idea of symmetry, you can also 

divide it into segments, which will help with spacing.

step 2

i've traced over my circle with pen, so it'd have the 

same "hand-drawn" quality as the rest of the mandala.

of course, if you are aiming for true perfection, you 

could use a compass or template to make your small

circles perfectly round as well.

step 3

when i drew the "spokes" through my circle i made

them all the same length, so that i'd have a guide for

spacing as i worked outwards, too.

step 4

something i learned pretty early on is that it usually

backfires to work ahead too far in anyone direction... so

having gone outwards with the last set of circles, i'm now

filling in the spaces between.

step 5

buddhist mandalas tend to have some squares set within circles

and vice versa. also, i felt like this thing was getting a bit

snowflake-y... time to add a little more structure.

step 6

you'll notice there's no detail added yet: no doodles,

no filled-in bits, no patterns. it's mostly a question of

just how you enjoy working, but since those "extra bits" 

are a great way to hide mistakes, i like to save them til 

the end to see where they're needed most! ;)

step 7

one more circle on the outside rounds it off nicely... both 

literally and metaphorically, lol. now's a good time to add petals 

and start thinking about embellishment. 

(or as i think of it, "the FUN part"!)

step 8

it's nice to have some darker lines and some lighter.

you can choose where to put them based on what you

want to stand out the most... OR... on what set of lines 

you've drawn the most wonkily! the dots add interest and 

cover up any messy intersecting lines. after that, it really

is just a question of what you feel like doing. 

step 9

at this point the hardest part is knowing when it's *done* lol!

but in this case, i was pretty happy with what i had, so i

stopped here... and so will my post.

ciao, darlings! 

♥♥♥

tic-tac... two?

we're in the second week of ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ tic-tac-toe, with another round of cards based on this board:

i went with the middle horizontal row this time, so i had BRADS + DIECUTS + RIBBON to work with. yeah. i can do that!

patterned paper: basic grey; cardstock: core'dinations; glossy white cardstock: paper accents; peace die: impression obsession; snowflake border die: memory box; ribbon and white sheer flowers: michaels... the latter came from the bridal aisle i think; snowflake brad: oriental trading; border punches: recollections; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, sewing machine

so... which bits are which? well, the ribbon is kind of buried, but i think you can see it, it's blue grosgrain with some snowflakes on it and partially hidden by my two diecut pieces, the sparkly "peace" sentiment and the suuuuuuper-skinny snowflake border. finally there's a big honkin' snowflake brad that came from oriental trading, quite some time ago. i think the packet had three brads in each of four colorways, and i've used all but one set of three, which i suppose we have to admit i'm not in love with. but they didn't get put into the big garage sale clear out, so part of me thinks i should rise to the challenge and USE them, lol. maybe next week? ;)

meanwhile miss stephanie has a lovely card to inspire you, as always. why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and bask in its loveliness? 

m is also for matisse

...and my lovely friend tracy is big fan! well, so am i, as a matter of fact. this week tracy was talking about matisse's cutouts, and challenged some of her fellow instagram arty types to do what matisse called "drawing with color"... basically to create a little bit of art using only color and shape. since this happened right when i was thinking about mandalas for this week's sisters with heart in art prompt, and since i was specifically thinking about ways to make a mandala without drawing, it seemed like a really good time to see how detailed of one i could make using ONLY punches and scraps of patterned paper. no outlines, no sewing, no gems... just color and shape. i think i did ok, actually! :)

scraps of patterned paper by: basic grey, hambly, teresa collins, american crafts, k and co, sei, prima, girls paperie and... well, i think that's about it; butterfly punches: martha stewart; circle punches: ek success, marvy, fiskars

ok, so... yeah... i suppose it's very slightly cheating to use patterned paper, but frankly that's what i have the most scraps of, so that's what i did. i'm pretty sure the principle would still apply with solid colors of paper, though. maybe i'll have another go at some point? in the meantime, i hope that maybe i've made you think about what YOU could make with punches or dies or... well, whatever you happen to have at hand! ♥

m is for mandala...

...and coincidentally "inspired by mandalas" is the prompt this week* for the sisters with heart in art instagram challenge. so today i'm going to show you some mandalas i've made over the years and we'll talk a little bit about the form, answering such questions as, "do you have to follow a lot of rules?" (no!) and "are they hard to make?" (NO!) and "can i make a mandala if i don't like drawing or doodling?" (yes!!) ok, so here's what i'd call a pretty basic hand-drawn mandala:

nuthin' but black pen on white paper... which is all ya really need
(a bit wonky, as well, which doesn't bother me)

as far as i know there are no rules for the making of secular/decorative** mandalas... which are the ones i'm talking about. although, for that matter, even if there were rules, i'd be totally in favor of you breaking them!  :)

on the other hand, I LOVE COLOR!!!
(ps: using a gridded paper helps with symmetry, if you like that sorta thing)

probably the most common decorative mandala structure you see around is more or less a series of embellished concentric circles... sometimes they look like flowers or snowflakes, or even a bit like the spirograph art i loved in childhood. often they are filled with zentangle-esque doodley embellishment. they can be mathematically precise or really loose; they can be colorful or not. if you do a google image search or pinterest search for mandala, you'll get a nice sampling of ideas. i've also made my own mandala pinboard, just because... ok, there's no real reason... except that i've been having a bit of a back issue over the last week, and may have become slightly more addicted to pinterest, lol.

this is my very first stamped mandala, from icad, 2012
(remember what i said about not drawing?)

tammy of daisy yellow art*** has done loads of unique, AMAZING and inspiring mandalas over the years, and it's thru her (during my first year of icad) that i got into them. she has doodled, collaged, even stamped tiny images or letters in circles!

another non-drawn version... punches this time!
(and arguably waaaaaay too much stitching but it's easy to get carried away, kwim?)

which brings me to the issue of drawing, which i realize not everyone enjoys. sooooooo... can you stamp or stencil a mandala? yes! can you make one out of stickers or punches or paper flowers? YES! for that matter, you don't have to actually make a mandala as such. we've deliberately called this prompt "inspired by mandalas" to make it as fun and easy and loose as possible, so please go ahead and make this into something fun for yourself! seriously, having now looked at a few mandalas, go and do literally ANYTHING you'd like, darlings!

a square mandala? ok, maybe it doesn't quiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite work, but i still kinda love this one!

having said all of the above, i want to tell you a secret: for me, mandalas turned out to be the thing that made me enjoy drawing for the first time since i was about seven. i feel like they're a great intermediate step between doodling and drawing. i suppose it's because there are enough standard shapes (circles, petals, scallops) to get you started, but you can also branch out any way you'd like. you don't have to worry about making them look "real" or dimensional, etc; and as you can see by my own "body of work", lol, a little wonkiness doesn't seem to do them too much harm! so if you find yourself with a little extra time, grab a pen and some scrap paper and maybe have a little go... you don't have to show anyone...

my attempt at a triangular mandala came out more like "picasso's pizza" but it was FUN, so i defend it staunchly!!! :)

on the other hand, for anyone who'd like to assay the "typical" mandala, i'll be posting tips, tricks and new examples over the course of the next week or so. i'm also happy to answer questions here, via email, or on instagram! the biggest hint i'd give from the get-go is to always work from the center out, and possibly start yourself off by tracing around a cup or bottle top so you have a nice solid/symmetrical circle to build on. after that, just do... whatever happens!!! :) :) :)

the peacock mandala got its own entire blog post, last fall
(and is still quite a favorite of mine!)

need more mandala examples? (she asked, expecting the answer, "omg NO!!!!!!" lol) here's a clip art one i used on a card; here's one drawn with black and white pens on a bright background; here's one that i used a set of nestabilities flower dies to create mandala layers out of pretty papers; here's one that illustrates my "off page" stratagem to avoid symmetry. 

*guess whose turn it was to pick the theme??! ;)

**there's a whole separate category of buddhist mandalas, which don't have rules as such, but tend to follow a certain structure and contain recognizable iconography; they're kind of the buddhist equivalent of stained glass windows in a church. here's a wikipedia article that gives a sort of overview of those, with some nice illustrations. 

***if you type "mandala" into the search feature on the daisy yellow art blog you will find TONS of inspiration for beautiful mandalas that can be accomplished at any skill level!