Painting my Thrift Finds

 

when I go to a thrift store, I try to be open-minded. I don't were bought on separate visits to the store. The dog is a resin figure that kind  of looked like our first dog, Wilson. He was a Silkie Terrier rescue. The shape and face were right, but the colors were way off!

So I took out my trusty acrylics and was able to get a pretty good likeness of Wilson. What do you think?

Okay, on to my bobble head kitten. I bought a pair of unpainted clay cats and recently had a paint date with my niece, Reagan. I wish I got a photo of hers (I think it's cuter than mine).  My kitty is so happy, sitting on the shelf with Wilson. Of course, I'm referring to my painted thrift finds. I am highly allergic to cats and have been known to get an allergy attack just by sitting next to a cat owner for a bit of time!

What's on my craft table for next time? I have some tins with handles (used to hold Lemon Drops). I'm planning on a short road trip in a couple months for my sister's birthday. My other sister (just the three of us girls, no boys) is flying in from Germany, where she lives with her husband. 

I want to decorate the tins as if they were our luggage, adding a little rhyme to the birthday girl to hint at what we've secretly planned for her. 

Right now I am in the throes of cleaning out, organizing and labeling my craft supplies. My "craft room" is the basement. It is filled to overflowing with items and furniture from cleaning out my gram's and my mom's houses (both finally sold last year).

 

Cleaning out the basement is an OVERWHELMING task, but I've broken it down to small daily tasks. I cut them into strips and every day I pull one out and try to accomplish that one task. Sometimes I finish it and continue to clean out and purge. I'm getting there, slowly but surely, without freaking myself out. It is like a storage unit down there!!

Back to Canvases Today

 

When I saw this paint technique n Pinterest, I knew I had to try it. It uses my fave colors, and was something I had the brush and paint for. After painting a green-blue background, I dropped smears of different shades of green and blue (as well as white and yellow) with a palette knife. The came the fun part--using my brush to create swirls, picking up the different colors as I turned my brush. I wish you could see the subtle lines that make up the swirls, but I had to take photos with my phone.

I made such a mess of paint around my canvas that I had to open another canvas and create a second one. I used more white in the second canvas, but I like the swirls better than my first. They make a good pairing, and I already have it hanging in my hallway. I wonder if my daughter will notice the artwork when she comes home from work...

I wonder what kind of art will tempt me net time...

Look at That! I Made a Card!

 

After several months of having "card block" I finally created a happy winter card using a freebie image from Scribbles Designs. It's called Penguin Pals #264 and can be found on the Scribbles Challenge Blog, where the newest challenge is to feature at least one penguin on your project.

I loved the image so much, I printed it several times, flipping it around and even changing the size slightly. Then I had to use multiple colors for my pals, whether they were realistic or not. You'll even find a few of them inside my card, which is a pop-up.

I am so happy that Sandy, the SD designer, and the DT team, inspired me to create a card after all this time!

Impatient for Spring

I used to hate anything to do with flowers in crafting. I'm allergic to real flowers, and I used to say that my allergies included fake flowers, coloring flowers, the whole shebang. But somehow the "flowers" started to grow on me sorry, (couldn't help the pun). Since I'm more comfortable with using images and flowers in my crafts, I've created wreaths, painted  watercolors and painted pots and filled them.

This is one of my newest projects. I received some garden-themed stencils and thought an old clay pot would be perfect to try them out. First, I painted the pot black, a nice glossy black. Then I used a stipple brush and decorated the rim and the front and back with chalk paint. I have to say that the stencils I used were pretty easy to keep in place while dabbing. They are made by Folk Art.

I already had the flowers in my stash downstairs (which I must clean out and minimize).I don't know how good I am at arranging the flowers, but they look nice in the corner of my kitchen, so I'm happy and I don't care if it is the middle of winter...! 

Merging Doodling with Drawing (Zen squared)

 Today I tried my hand at drawing cute Kawaii animal  bodies to match the faces I found on Pinterest offered by FreePick. According to one artist on YouTube, "anyone can draw, they just need to PRACTICE, A LOT"

So I cut out these cute animal heads, and tried to give them cute little bodies. Some were cute, some okay, some awful. They're all here on my post. And to really make my art journal pages count, I pulled out my inner Zen and doodled around them, filling the pages. Then I shaded with a black colored pencil.

I've also printed funny and/or positive quotes from Pinterest, adhered them to my journal pages, and let the words inspire my doodling. I call these pages Zen squared, which in math terms means Zen doubled.

Do you have an art journal yet? It's very addicting. You can start with cutting pics and words out from magazines, creating scenes or collages, and from there the sky is the limit (really, try drawing clouds around your cut-out pics). 

Art Journals are Fun

 

I never had a journal specifically for my art, which is weird, because I am a journal junkie. I have a gratitude journal, self-discovery journal, travel journal (the list goes on, including a journal of lists)...

Now that I started a truly ART journal, I am exploring more techniques and ways to expand my creativity. Like the Zen Doodling I started,  I have been practicing my drawing ability. Above is one of my first pages of pencil drawings (after I erased the pencil lines and went over them with pen). I call it When Flowers Dance.

I was inspired by Elle magazine and my friend, Renita. She delivers my mail and packages and has been my Muse when it comes to art and losing weight. 

Shout out to all postal workers! Since we all seem to have given up writing letters and sending holiday cards, not only has US postage increased, but letter carriers are given larger routes and having to work until the evenings delivering mail, also due to a decrease in employees through layoffs and retirements.

Who Uses Coasters Nowadays?!

 I don't care! I found a set of wood slice coasters at a garage sale last summer. It was 50 cents!! Living by my new motto, "I'll paint anything that doesn't move", I tried to match each shape of wood slice to a fruit or vegetable. After painting my pineapple, pumpkin, avocado, coconut, watermelon, apple and strawberry, I added a Gloss varnish to preserve them from drippy drinks. I also cut felt into the shapes and glued them onto the backs of my produce project.

A while back, I did the same thing to a wooden spoon & fork set. I painted their tops  as pineapples with goofy faces. Yesterday the city came by and cut down a tree on my  neighbor's parkway (the grassy part between the sidewalk and the street). I was itching to get my  hands on some wood slices, and I did! I gave the crew a Dunkin Donuts gift card as a thank you for taking the time to do the cutting. It was enough to get them each a coffee. According to my daughter and sister, I am not allowed to use a chain saw...

Better Late than Never - a Christmas Shadow box

While this shadow box was created before Christmas (and decorated my living room during said holiday), I hadn't taken a photo of it until I started putting the holiday decorations back in their boxes for next year. So I missed all the holiday challenge blogs, but I still wanted to show my crafting peeps my newest Christmas shadow box.

The box itself is ceramic with one big opening, all shaped like a house. My plan had been to create an indoor "night before Christmas" scene, but it just wasn't working out. So I grabbed a couple tree ornaments (Santa and unicorn) after creating an outdoorsy scene with designer paper and snowflake tissue paper. I ripped off gently removed a tiny wreath from another ornament and attached it to Santa's ride (his name is Randolph). Some bottle brush trees and tiny wrapped presents were added after I coated the bottom of my box with Faux Snow. Faux Snow is what I call my homemade crafting snow. made by rubbing two Styrofoam balls together and gathering the flakes from the friction (much cheaper).

I had to do a bit of surgery on Santa to get him to look natural riding a Unicorn. He's still awkwardly placed, but I can always say he's turned sideways to wave at people... 

Back to my shadow box. It is now packed away with the other decorations, and I'm ready to increase my inventory of Halloween shadow boxes, which I sell at craft shows during Labor Day. They're really popular at the RV Park where I call my trailer home sweet home during the summer.

*English Major question here: Why is the word "a" used in front of the word "unicorn" when the word "an" almost always comes before words starting with the letter "U"?

 

I Get By with a Little Help from my Zen (Ringo for President)

 While cleaning out my craft supplies, I discovered a small pile of round inchies I made from the leftover papers of a pre-COVID project. Unwilling to toss them indifferently (call me frugal or call me a hoarder), I decided to incorporate them into my Zen doodling. I had enough to create 3 new pages in my art journal. Some of my circular inchies were made from washi tape.

This one reflects on flowers, and the one below uses the inchies as well as same-sized circles containing doodles I drew. The page was too "white" for my liking so I drew various-sized circles or bubbles to fill up the page. I am not a crafter that likes white space...

I am pleased with my recent archeological digging into my craft hoard supplies. I try to declutter or use what I have (and I have so much) about once a week. This holiday season I almost emptied my bin of metal tins, as well as half my supply of cardboard "book" boxes. My only regret is that I didn't take photos of ALL my projects. I gave them all away as presents to friends and neighbors.

So, how often do you clean out, organize or give away your craft supplies? Inquiring minds want to know...

p.s. (I actually have a 45 of the song Ringo for President. 45s are like "vinyls" but only feature a single song on each side).

 

And Zen There Were None

 For those Agatha Christie fans in blog land, The title of my post is a nod toward you.

I have a fascination for mushrooms (as well as a taste for them). So my first Zen Doodle features a landscape of the fungi. They looked so lonely I needed to add a few rocks, plants and riverbed. Then the top half of my drawing was too "white" so I added a few mountains and then clouds in the sky. The scene is so busy I decided not to color it, and I'm happy with my decision.

My next Doodle is colored with pencils. Which one do you like better?

The Zen is Mightier than the Sword (a misquote)

 

I find the art of Zen Doodling fascinating. When I doodle, my focus is on the ink strokes. My mind is focused on each line drawn. I am truly present in the moment. Since starting in late 2022, I have decreased my blood pressure and fell calmer. 

I have a Doodle today that I decided would look nice colored. I used colored pencils after drawing with a black gel pen. As you can see, I liked it so much I framed it! LOL I now have an art journal almost entirely devoted toward Zen Doodling.

There are hundreds of YouTube videos and Pinterest posts to start you on your way towards lessening the stress in your life. I'm surprised that therapists and doctors don't add Zen Doodling to their list of ways to relax. 

I hope you give it a try. You don't even have to "know how to draw". I'd like to see more art like this on blogs. My next few posts will include Zen Doodling as I am having fun with my "new" discovery...