Thankful-Nov 15

Thankful for paint, and glitter, and gesso, and buttons, and gel medium. Hope everyone had a great weekend...I sure did!

My Weekend

I got off work early on Friday because I worked my butt off earlier in the week. First I helped Bryan finish cleaning his room. He really did a pretty good job. Most of what he had left just needed to be swept into a trash bag. Then we went and bought paint to FINALLY turn his pink room (over a year, I think, he's put up with it...) into a very manly shade of blue. This is me. Obviously. At the point that I took this photo I was close to completely off my rocker because of this:

Elizabeth was home for less than 5 minutes-she popped in-"Can I put my handprint on the wall?" Put her hand in the puddle of paint and proceeded to slap it on the wall...several times.

Elizabeth was here.

Bryan's door.

Trim finally painted and 3 coats later-Saturday night.

What I found Sunday morning.

Bryan stayed up late moving furniture back into his room. So sweet. He loves the room and I think it turned out great! And boy did I sleep well!

Thursday-Playing in the Studio

Last night I decided to work on some paintings. My inspiration comes from Traci Bautista and her "Springtime" print on Etsy-her blog can be found here. I totally have to learn by copying first. Once the techniques are embedded in my brain, then I can draw on them to create my own stuff. Until then...I do a lot of pointing to other people's work :) Anyway-I am still loving her Creativity Unleashed class! I haven't been doing a lot of "finished" paintings lately, just a lot of backgrounds that I have been scrapbooking on, or creating journal pages for. So I had a GREAT time creating these pieces. The above piece is a 9x12 painting done on watercolor paper. The other inspiration for the painting is some new paint that I just ordered from Heidi city. It can be found here. The colors I bought are icee, betty, and cotton candy (under accessories)-of course I had to order a couple of other things as well. What I liked about the piece was the colors and the flowers. What I didn't like was that the background was a little bland.

That's where this piece comes in. I didn't like the flowers so much on this piece, but I LOVE the background and the stems. Tonight I am working on an 8x8 canvas piece that will hopefully take what I like from the above 2 paintings and merge them so that I can take the piece to work and brighten up the "Pod" as they are known at work (6 cubes=1 pod). Keep in mind that I don't often spend a lot of time in the pod. I also work in the lab a lot and do some running to different buildings as well.

This is the front cover of a journal that I created using a combination of techniques learned in Traci Bautista's class as well as a couple of techniques from her book which can be found here.

This is the back of the journal. I am totally loving the painted pages inside the journal too. In fact, my post from yesterday was written on one of the pages of the journal and scanned on my scanner. Gotta go-boy is it warm in here! Hubby just put the AC in the attic window. Back to creating soon. Happy Thursday!

Mini-Book

Here is a look at pages that I created for a mini-book. I started it as a way to experiment with watercolors on cotton duck canvas fabric. The photos were printed on the "wallets" setting on my computer, and the pages are 6x6. The paints I used were just plain old Crayola watercolors with water. I love the effect! I plan to sew the pages together soon, but I wanted to scan them individually first. Happy Tuesday!

In the Studio...

I realized that it's been quite a while since I posted any of my project stuff, so here is some of what I have been working on in the studio! Above is an 8.5x11 layout that I started by painting on a sheet of watercolor paper in a color combo that I was playing around with. It sort of sat around and I would add things to it as I walked by it sitting on the table. Finally, i decided it was time to just FINISH IT and put the definition sticker on it and called it DONE.

The 2 photos above were inspired by a class that I am taking online called Creativity Unleashed that is taught by Traci Bautista. I love her style and I have learned a ton of new techniques and ways of creating and "unleashing" my creativity since taking her class. There are 2 weeks remaining and I am not ready to be done with the class yet! There are several different types of acrylic paint, gesso, and spray inks, as well as marker for the drawing. I love these colors together! The paintings are done on a cotton duck fabric that I bought at JoAnn's.

This is a 12x12 canvas (cotton duck) page inspired by donna downey's kits. The kits are here. I just cut down the canvas to match the 12x12 scrapbook page size and painted it in one of my favorite blue acrylics. Then I painted the bird which is also one of donna downey's designs for Prima-I think the words are from a supply list she had on her website as well. I love this photo of Sarah and I from Elizabeth's confirmation night! I threw on some pink flowers and sewed a piece of ribbon on (both from Prima) and Voila!!

I did the stitching with my ancient sewing machine...

Here is a close up of the words. They are applied with gel medium and then I added some Ranger ink. (Sarah-your directions for the gel medium transfers are coming. I sent the email and then realized that I forgot to send you directions. I have them typed up, just need to send them off.)Aaaaahhhhh......good times.

While I was taking photos of my projects in the studio, Tigger decided to hang out on the ledge at the top of the landing. She looked so cute that I had to add her. Happy Weekend!!!

Random Stuff

So a few weeks ago I posted about my body-less painting here. I did finally give her some color and a bit of a shape, although she looks like she should work out at the gym to get some muscle on those arms. I still haven't finished the painting-still need to do something with the other side. But there is no rush to finish it. I'm sure something will come to me eventually! Happy Sunday!