Path of Positivity New Challenge Card

 

I am all about spreading positivity in the world. Right now, a very close friend needs support with things going on in her life. I'm sending her love with this card, which is designed using the Path of Positivity challenge blog's Mood Board.

I had the perfect papers and "accessories" for this card, but it looked very dull. So for a little color, I added lilac cardstock and was happy. The sentiment is from Scribbles Designs. After framing it, I added the bow. Still so plain! So I rummaged thru my lace leftovers and adhesive bling and found things to complement the card design. I like it and I hope my friend will feel the love.

Don 't forget to enter the Path of Positivity challenge this month. It's always Anything Goes, but it's nice when crafters get inspiration from their offerings. Hope to see you there!

Challenges I am Entering:

Atlantic Hearts Sketch - 

Make My Monday - Spring Colors

My Muse

My journal page today features my magic ribbon. I drew it from top to bottom with a black ink gel pen, then filled in the "pockets" with doodles. I used Copics to color the page, then I started adding sequins, adhesive pearls and gems and a patch I found at the bottom of one of my craft drawers. I added coordinating colors of Stickles to bring out my ribbon. And I finished off my page with a Washi tape border.

I call it my magic ribbon because after I drew its lines, I was inspired to "go all out" with my page. Usually I use ink, marker and magazine cuttings and that's it. But I look at my finished page and it makes me so happy. I wanted to share it with you today... 

I am glad I finally got out of my slump. I've been sick for the past 2 weeks, and my healthy eating and cardio workouts have suffered. evidently, so has my confidence and my inspiration. As I get over my bronchitis and sinus infection, I feel creativity returning. Thank goodness!!

Challenges I am Entering:

Outlawz Twisted Thursday - Anything Goes w/Twist (I bought the patch years ago from Hobby Lobby, my Copics are several years old, the sequins came from my mom's house where she kept ALL her old Girl Scout craft supplies, and I haven't bought ne washi tape in eons)

We Love 2 Create - Anything Mixed Media Goes

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - I is for Ink

Beautiful Blossoms - Anything w/flowers Goes

 

Finding Zen in Butterflies and Blossoms

 

I am halfway into my new art journal and really liking what mu Muse has inspired me to draw. I tried my hand at a couple mandalas. I learned that I need to be very precise with my circles and layers. I drew the above freehand, so you will see plenty of imperfections, but I'm still practicing the art of Zen doodling.

Anyway, I discovered a new challenge blog called Birds, Butterflies & Blooms. I'm so happy that my doodling fits into their challenge this month! And I'm trying out the Outlawz challenges after a long time away.

Birds, Butterflies & Blooms - Anything Goes w/butterflies, birds & blooms

the Outlawz Paper a la Mode - AG/with Paper; March theme is Music Makes the World Go 'Round

Beautiful Blossoms - AG/with Flowers, Floral as focus

My Zen is Back!

 Feeling a little under the weather today. Sinus headache and scratchy throat. Hoping it's allergies. Meanwhile, I doodled a page in my art journal. It pretty much shows my mood. At first I just used colored markers and drew leaves, but I decided to outline them in black. Once I inked in the words, I added a few words, I reached into my craft bag of tricks (leftovers) and pulled out a few faux leaves and glued them onto my page. 

And that's all I'm feeling today. Hope to get my crafting mojo back before the end of the week. I'm working on another Halloween decor item, this time kid-friendly. Hope to show it off soon! 

Happy crafting!!

Challenges I am Entering - 

Creative Artiste - Anything Mixed Media Goes

Art Journal Journey - Anything Journal page Goes (ink, Copics, sequins, Halloween decor)

Only 240 Days until Halloween

 Today I started working on my Halloween Decor for a Fall Craft Fair. I mean, it's not too early - there are only 240 days until the Big Night. I found myself in Michaels last week and my store still had Christmas items on clearance! Everything was 90% off, and when I found these Christmas calendars, I grabbed all they had - which was only three, but it's a start. And they were only $2 each! Here's what they looked like before I waved my magic wand over them:

I know, they're very cute...for Christmas, but my mind is channeling Halloween, so the first thing I did after removing the plastic packaging was to paint the whole thing black.

Two hours later, I placed my first Halloween decor of 2023 on my bookcase. I can't wait for my daughter to see it. Originally there was a small wooden Christmas tree on a peg and attached by string. The idea was to place the tree in the holes on top of each layer to count down the days before Christmas.

I ran into a problem with the calendar part because there are only 24 days counting down to Christmas, but a 30-day countdown for Halloween! I tried to drill more holes to keep it as a calendar, but the wood started to crack. So now it's just a fun decoration to put up in October.

After painting each of the three layers black, I transformed the houses you saw in the first photo into headstones. Of course, I had to put punny phrases on them.  Going with the graveyard theme, I added skeleton parts, leaves, pumpkins, etc., on top of the head stones. The second layer bore the pumpkins, more leaves, s juicy spider and a light post I had bought after last year's Halloween. I found Halloween Cat stickers and created a (sort of) 3D effect for it. More leaves and pumpkins finished that middle layer.

The top layer was so slanted I decided to add some bats to the front, and a few Halloween miniatures. I finished it off with some spider webbing. It looks great in person. I want to do the next holiday-themed flip for children, not too scary, more fun.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. I have 2 Halloween shadow boxes and a wreath leftover from last year to add to my craft fair inventory. Tell me what you think (please)!

Challenges I am Entering:

The Fairy and the Unicorn - Anything mythical/fantasy Goes

Creative Artiste - Anything Mixed Media Goes

Two Old Bats Halloween - Anything Halloween Goes

Sheep Thrills can be had while Crafting

 

My Muse continues to inspire me in both card making and doodling. Today I have a card that features a Scribbles Designs freebie. It's called #F185  Woolley Wink. Even though I spent 8 years (and had my son) in southern Missouri, I am definitely a city girl. I didn't know the difference between a lamb and a sheep. Do you? The answer is at the end of my post.

Meanwhile, I doodled the image I chose instead of coloring it with my Copic markers. That's a switch for me. Usually I doodle around images. I had a lot of fun doodling Woolley. The Scribbles Design store has some wonderful Zen design images for sale. My favorite is actually listed in the Cats category. It's called #A87 Peek-a-Boo - check it out HERE.

Back to my card. I printed out the digital image, fussy-cut it and doodled all her lovely curls. I tried several different backgrounds, but found my favorite from a page in a decor magazine. I found two pages of small rugs in a color scheme I liked. After playing with their placement, I decided to make a color block background, highlighting the edges with black ink. 

I used cardstock letters to spell out my take on the word Unique, and gave it a tiny bit of bling with a few leftover strips of adhesive-backed pearls. I even dotted the "I" in ewe-nique with a pearl. I finished my card off with a thin strip of gold washi tape around the edges, and I now have a card for my cousin. Hmm, now that I look at it, I think I'll re-place the word "ewe" as it looks too crowded to the rest of the letters...

Don't forget to check out the challenge at Scribbles Designs Challenge blog. And for those of you still reading my post, a Lamb is a young sheep, while older sheep are just plain Sheep. (Of course, a female sheep is a Ewe...)

Garden Party

 

I had fun creating this whimsical garden of flowers and mushrooms. Maybe it's because I started with that swervy base line. I drew the garden above the line and used colored pencils to give my scene some highlights. I found the perfect sentiment, "Your words can plant gardens OR burn down whole Forests". I am a lover of words, metaphors, similes, antonyms, homonyms, phrases and onomatopoeia. Words have so much power, and I strive (and sometimes succeed) to think before I speak.

My "troll" is from Ike's Art, one of a set of Gnomes available at her store. I chose the plain gnome so that I could color in clothes. After I did that, he looked more like a Troll than a gnome. So of course I added the HAIR! LOL I had some leftover tie-dye fur from a previous project and used it for his "up-do".

Then the page below that swervy line looked awful, so empty and white. So I had to stick in a bit of doodling, which I think improves the overall look.

 

I Will Always Walk on the Path of Positivity

I have always tried to walk the path of positivity, but it's been a long time since I created something for the Path of Positivity Challenge Blog. After my husband passed, I needed time to grieve and settle in to being mother, houseowner, handy woman, landscaper, snow blower, gardener, carpenter and painter--by myself.

Then Covid hit, and all our lives took a detour along that path. Once I had time to myself, I stretched out into all kinds of crafting and art styles. I created memes, upcycled thrift store finds (my favorite), painted canvas, wood, metal, doors, light switch plates, outlet covers, and walls.

I crocheted, sewed, carved, wired jewelry, along with a number of new techniques and media. And I'm still reaching outward and challenging myself to create positivity with my artistic endeavors. I can't say all my "experiments" were successes, but I learned and practiced.

One of my favorite ways to create has been journaling. Whether I am Zen doodling, collaging or writing, I have filled several journals, some of them over-sized, some small travel books. So when I finally revisited the Path of Positivity's challenge blog, I was inspired by the "twist" to this month's challenge.

 I've taken this month's "Fashion" twist in a different direction. I created a journal page of my dream room. I pulled photos from 3 different magazines (Elle, HGTV & Good Housekeeping) and collaged them to hopefully look like a real room. I love the colors I found; teals and aquas are my go-to paints. I like wooden floors but know the value of a good carpet or two. I just wish I had a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in reality, but in this "fashionable" room, the windows were needed to bring light to the space. What do you think?

The challenge over at the Path of Positivity is Anything positive Goes, but they always offer a "twist" for your inspiration. This is the midway point to the challenge, and prizes are offered from Scribbles Designs for winners each month. I hope to see your positive project there! Meanwhile, keep crafting!

I'm Being Followed by a Moon Shadow...

 

Today's post features a little doodling and some creative paper cutting. It started out as a full-page Zen doodle, but I messed up a large part of the doodle. Should I turn the page and start over? No, I thought I could improve upon my mistakes "happy little accident".

Since I drew the doodle in a perfect circle, the the thought of a moon popped into my head. A moon with flowers?? Yes, have you never heard of the Flower Moon, which blooms at the start of Spring? It's a little bigger than a crescent, and using  powerful telescope, you can see the outlines of flowers where the "hidden" part of the moo lies in the night sky.

I cut out a crescent shape from some designer paper for the part of the moon that shines down on the Earth. It covered up the imperfect doodles that came out of my pen. To keep both sides of the moon  cohesive, I used a yellow colored pencil to fill in between the flowers I drew. Not enough to make a difference, I added a little shading within each flower with same colored pencil.  

I cut out a circle from some shimmery dark blue paper and framed my flower moon. I sprinkled this night sky with stars, using my Posca white paint marker. Look, there's s shooting star. 

Make a wish!

Inspiration Hits Today

 My cousin set me a pic today and suggested that it would be a great piece to Zen doodle.

And this is what the photo inspired me to doodle:

I know, it looks nothing like the original photo, but this is what inspiration does to a person. We don't see things as they are. We see things as we perceive them. It's a very personal process.

So if you're at one of those popular art nights with "the girls", don't knock yourself down because your canvas doesn't look like the instructor's project. It's not supposed. to be a copy, but your interpretation of the example. And that's why we never criticize another person's art unless asked for our opinion. If we don't like it, we can answer back with "it's totally you!" or another generalized comment.

In other words, be kind to all artists...

Fluid Acrylic Painting is Difficult

 I don't care how easy it looks on You Tube, fluid acrylic painting is difficult. After months of practice I finally came up with a decent ratio of paint, flow aid and silicone to create cells, but it's not 100% fool-proof. As you can see from the photo above, not all my paints reacted the way I wanted them to. But I still kind of like this canvas, so I'll keep it.

On the other hand, this painting, made the same day, went ballistic with cell formation, but they are still "off". Does anyone paint with fluid acrylics/? What am I doing wrong? It looks like I spilled Boba all over my canvas. And I made two other canvases that day, but they were so bad I didn't even bother glossing them with varnish...

However, I am an Aries girl, and give up are not words in my personal dictionary. How about you? Do you have a technique, medium or art materials that just come up short with your expectations? 

Quill Power

 

Today's post features a Hedgehog using a Scribbles Designs digital image. After coloring my buddy with a light pink Copic, I pulled out my container of paper flowers and arranged them on my hedgehog's body. Afterward, I realized I wanted to create a background, and to do so, I had to remove all those tiny flowers! 

Once I drew and colored the flowers and grass. I adhered the flowers onto my pet (again) and then adhered her onto my new background. I found a cute hedgehog quote on Pinterest, but then thought to  add the "disclaimer" at the bottom. It reads, "not really. I walked thru the flowers, got scared and came out this way." Those quills are pointy and sticky, aren't they?!

You can find at the Scribbles Design Store HERE. It is actually a FREEBIE at the moment, and is called F#188 Dust Bunny. This artwork is a page in my Art Journal. I really like her, and shall name her Dusty.

Be your Own Version of Beautiful

 

Let me introduce you to my very fashionable friend, Lucy. She is her own woman female, uh, gastropod. She doesn't follow Fashion. She IS fashion. And she insists on standing out in a crowd.

Lucy is a digital image from Scribbles Designs (the image is not called Lucy, that's my pet name for her). After printing and coloring the image with my Copics, I dug through my stash of sequins. It's a good thing Lucy and I are friends, because adhering each tiny sequin to her fabulous ensemble was pain-staking work. I even gave her earrings with a few sequins. Her dress was created from paper doilies, and her necklace is a piece of leftover trim.

I wanted her to stand out as well, so I adhered her using dimensional tape. She is walking sliming (?) her way up the path of positivity, which I created with floral stuff and a couple roses. Speaking of the Path of Positivity, their challenge this month is to create something inspired by Fashion. I hope my canvas inspires you to enter their challenge. In the meantime, have fun crafting!

Challenges I am Entering:

Critter Crazy - AG/with a Critter

Arty Divas - Anything Goes

Classic Design - Anything Goes

Crafters' Cafe - Colors of the Rainbow

Your Scrapbook Place - Anything Goes

Let's Mix It Up!

 

I can't keep my art journal closed. I keep thinking of things I want to draw, pages I want to create, doddles I want to meditate on. So of course today I want to show you my newest page. First, I doodled a bookcase and filled it with books I love to read. I have five real bookcases in my house, and they're filled to the brim.

So after I titled the books, I doodled around them. Then I wanted to say what I was feeling about the doodling, that I LOVE words in all their forms, shapes and conjugations. To enhance the subject, I created a couple bookmarks and added them to the page, as well as ripping parts of pages from magazines to add even more words LOL

If you want to know more about me, zoom in to the book titles. You may be surprised...

My New Art Journal

 I broke down and bought a new art journal, as my last one was on its last blank pages. And the new one is HUGE, 9x12! Since there are only a few pages I've used, I thought you might want to take a peek. When I get a new journal, I give it a fresh new look. The cover is simply a piece of designer paper, bordered with washi tape and just one artsy quote, "Creative minds are rarely tidy".

I decided to completely cover the inside cover with Art and Creativity quotes from Pinterest. Some of my favorites are adhered to it, along with washi tape borders. 

I started the first page at the end of January and decided I would date my pages, and occasionally write a short note on the why, what and how I felt at the time of the crime drawing. I used a small tag as my inspiration and colored it with a teal Copic.

Here I drew intersecting squares and then filled them with various designs, trying some I had not drawn before now. 

I'm not that good at creating Mandalas, probably because I don't use rulers, nor do I have a compass. After my two colliding circles were filled in, they looked lonely on the page, so I surrounded them with flowers. 

And next is the reason I wanted to "show off" my new journal (if you've read all the way down to here). The page below was inspired by Pinterest. It uses watercolors and was supposed to make these beautiful spheres of color mixing into each other. Mine didn't play nice. In fact, it was a "fail". But fails are what teach us, make a stronger and remind us that nothing in life is perfect, nor should it go exactly to our own plans. I wanted to show you my failed drawing. I decided to take pen to it and get some Zen doodling in it. It's not my fave page, of course, but not every page can be a favorite!

Keep crafting and have fun. That's why we do it, right?! 

Here There Be Dragons

My cousin and partner in art crimes came over this week and brought a gift. She had rescued 2 dragon figures from the trash (in her home) and we each started painting one. Mine had been painted already by her daughter, so it got a new coat of white Gesso before beginning.

My fave colors are in the teal/aqua line, so I used both as a base and to add dimension.  The wings got a base coat of green, then swiped with the blues. I used a sponge to lightly over the wings and scales with gold paint. His claws, beak, horns and the ridge on his back are pure gold (paint).

After spraying it with Glimmer Mist (hopefully more dimension), I finished her off with a coat of gloss varnish. She stands about 6 inches and her name is Gwynlyn of Pern (for all you dragon-lovers of the books by Anne McCaffrey. Personally, I like her Crystal Singer trilogy best of all.

Time to look in my stash for more items to paint. I'm in a painting mood this week! Keep crafting!

It Didn't Move So I Painted It

 

The title of my post is my mantra, "if it doesn't move, I can paint it" That's why my switch plates and outlet covers are all painted, but my dog is still a creamy white (she moves). Since Covid, I've also painted my back door, my deck, coasters, flower pots, and a kajillion other inanimate objects in my house and from my garage.

Today's project features a raw wood-carved animal that I spied on the bottom shelf of a thrift store. Lord knows why I bought it. I have so many items to use, and projects are always stirring around in my head. But I think she winked at me while I stooped down to pick her up. She was half-price, which is always a bonus for me and my wallet.

After adding Gesso and giving her a gleaming white base, I decided to go whimsical with her. I've had a lot of success selling animal figures that I "renew" with paints and my imagination. I gave her (by the way, after much thought I decided she was a llama) a pastel purple base. From there I used a stencil and gave her designs on the front of her neck. 

She's wearing a rug of multi-colors, painted with acrylics and my Posca paint markers. There are   patches to give the illusion of a stuffed animal. The rest of her neck displays a colorful rainbow. Her head is raised high, but she is not snooty. She stands tall as a proud woman female animal. 

She's not heavy enough to be a doorstop, which is what my other painted animal figures became, but she makes an interesting silhouette in my front windows. I like it, so I'll continue to be on the prowl for other large animals to paint.

I'm in the mood to paint so that's it for today. Happy crafting!

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...