Mini - Daily art journal

There seems to me to be a trend in the paper crafting world to do calendar journaling art. I first noticed it when my friend Lydia started her calendar. I really liked the idea of doing art everyday and I liked the idea of the small canvas of 2"x21/2" that the calendar rectangles provided. I almost went out and bought a calendar to do the journaling. but then I decided not to. Partly because I didn't want to spend the $ on a calendar and partly because I  have to do things my own way. I knew I had lots of white cardstock scraps. So I cut several into 2"x2 1/2"  rectangles. I punched holes at the top. Then I went and bought some key rings. Total cost for my journal $2. 

I think my way of doing the journaling has several advantages. 

#1. I don't have to mask off adjoining rectangles. I can get messy without worrying about yesterday's or tomorrow's rectangles.

#2. If I mess up I can always just start again. (A little harder when you have the calendar)

#3. If you miss a day of journaling on a calendar, the  BLANK rectangle is readily noticed. Unless you looked at each one on my journal, it would be a lot harder to notice a missing day.

#4. I have limited craft space, so if I had a calendar it would take up a lot more space than my little journal which can fit in my pocket.

I would love for you scroll through this post and look at what I've done so far. When I bought the key rings, I have extras. Leave a comment on this post and I'll pick 2 people to send key rings too so you can make a little art journal too.

January 30 (more rain drop practice)

January 31 ( went bowling with my kids for my youngest son's birthday)

February 1 (little canvas- used only top part of lighthouse - wink of stella on light rays)

February 2( watercoloring outside the lines)

February 3(mixing watercoloring. wink of stella on wings and tail.)

February 4

February 5

Feburary 6(using a small image from a set that I rarely used because it was so small - perfect for small canvas. Hard to watercolor though. I had to use a really small brush)

February 7 (old lady bug stamp-not a lot of difference between image and back so I ended up getting some ink on the back and as a result on my page. I decided to go with it by masking my bug and stamping newsprint stamp, itty bitty background stamp and alphabet stamps.

February 8 ( more old stamps)

February 9 (I used one of my oldest SU stamps 1996. I found this stamp on a gravel road.)

 

February 10( I used another old stamp of mine. The little tulips, I masked several times to add depth)

February 11

February 12(WT518- Music - I love to play the guitar, piano and ukelele but I also love to listen to music. so I decided to draw treble cleff and music notes and make a little record album. Remember those...???)

  

February 13 (MIX107 sentiment mashup- I mashed up "L" from one alphabet set with "ove" from another set)

MPC Sketch challenge

Today is a sketch challenge over on Mountain Plains Crafters. We would love to have you play along with us. There is a prize for one lucky player who joins our sketch challenge. Our sponsor is Fancy Pants Designs. The theme we used was Nautical.

What I liked best and what gave me the biggest struggle on my card was my little life preserver. I made several that ended up in the trash. I took cardstock. I cut a circle and punched another circle inside to make a ring. I did this with 4 pieces of cardstock I then wrapped ribbon around the rings. I glued red ribbons and then twine around the edges, leaving big loops of twine.

Mixed media water drop

The Mix challenge on Splitcoaststampers.com  today is to make water droplets. MIX105  I tried doing it they way Lydia described but not having a gel pen really hurt. My stippling looked terrible. So I had to figure out a different way to make my water. This link was really helpful: Draw a drop of water. 
After watching a couple of the videos I tried again with just a plain ball point pen, a pencil and white acrylic paint. I drew horseshoe sort of shapes with the pen. Leaving the tops open. Then I shaded with my pencil. Not any special pencil, just a plain #2 pencil. I shaded the left hand corners of the horse shoes. I also shaded at the top so the drop was "closed". The I shaded on the outside of the drop at the bottom right hand side of the horseshoe. If I had had a white gel pen I would have used that for my highlights but I didn't so I used white acrylic paint. I wanted it really thin and I don't have a brush small enough, so I dipped the end of a paper clip into white paint to "draw" my paint on my drops. I put a tiny little dot in the left hand corner of each drop and a line along the inside of the right hand bottom side of the drops.

 

If drawing your own raindrops intimidates you, there are some really cool stamps of water droplets by Ryn.

Designs by Ryn

I chose to use this scripture because the water drops made me think of tears.

One more thing... I found that the drops looked the best on colored paper, because the highlights stood out more and I didn't have to shade quite so much to get them to look real.

MFP Stamp shop January Blog Hop day 2

Welcome to the Marks Finest Papers Stamp Shop
 January Blog Hop. 

 We're doing something different to start out the new year. We're looking back at all the wonderful sets released in 2014. For the next 4 days the Design Team will show you their "Favorite" sets of 2014. Please visit each blog and leave a comment. One person will be chosen to receive their choice of one of the "Favorite" Stamp Sets we have featured.

Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win a "Favorite" Set of your choice! Just comment on the following blogs (don't forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!) The winner will be announced on 

Jan. 31, 2015 on the MFP Stamp Shop blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!) 
The deadline for 

commenting is 10 PM EST on Friday Jan. 30, 2014

Let's get started!!

Here's the Design Team:

 Jane C

Pat 

Marilynn
Nancy
Bonnie 

Sue W

  Pam M

An'Jenic

Marks Finest Papers, a Heinrich Co.

Come on back tomorrow for more FAVORITES!! 

  One of my all time favorite MFP sets is:



JAVA TIME

 These first two cards are ones I made last year with this set.

I made this card this week using the smaller cup from the set.
I also used the coffee rings stamp. I combined the coffee cup image with burlap, puzzle pieces, cheesecloth and a little wooden piece that says "Coffee Time" I stamped the cup and  rings with black stazon ink. I watercolored the cup. I added gold wink of stella to the cup as well as copper metallic sharpie marker. I took three puzzle pieces and on the back side of the piece, one I painted with cream acrylic paint, one I used Inka gold copper metallic rub and the last one I took a black sharpie marker and colored it in. I like the texture that the burlap and cheescloth and sewing add to the card. Thanks for taking a look.

MFP stamp shop January Blog hop

Welcome to the Marks Finest Papers Stamp Shop
 January Blog Hop. 

 We're doing something different to start out the new year. We're looking back at all the wonderful sets released in 2014. For the next 4 days the Design Team will show you their "Favorite" sets of 2014. Please visit each blog and leave a comment. One person will be chosen to receive their choice of one of the "Favorite" Stamp Sets we have featured.

Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win a "Favorite" Set of your choice! Just comment on the following blogs (don't forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!) The winner will be announced on 

Jan. 31, 2015 on the MFP Stamp Shop blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!) 
The deadline for 

commenting is 10 PM EST on Friday Jan. 30, 2014

Let's get started!!

Here's the Design Team:

 Jane C

Pat 

Marilynn
Nancy
Bonnie 

Sue W

  Pam M

An'Jenic

Marks Finest Papers, a Heinrich Co.

Come on back tomorrow for more FAVORITES!! 

The stamp set that was one of my favorites was

POLKA DOT COUNTRY.
The chicken makes for a great get well card. I stamped the chicken with black stazon ink. I watercolored it to match my designer paper. I took some of the matching designer paper to make a little tissue box that pops ups inside the card. I like the font for the sentiment from another MFP set called:


BIRDS AND TREES

Love makes the world go 'ROUND

Today for the mixed media challenge at Splitcoaststampers.com, MIX 103 Repeat,peat,peat. The challenge was to take a shape and repeat it on your card in different ways. I chose the circle for my shape. I made a circle shaped card,. circle shaped gears, circle shaped polka dotted dp from ADORNit called Mint pixie dots, little circle dots from SU itty bitty background stamp and finally the circle sequins.

 

This card represents a lot of love from stampin' friends.

The supplies I used on this card were gifts from stamping friends.

Pam- copper inka gold

Jennifer- sentiment stamp, and sequins

Debra - brown envelop that I punched little hearts out of

Paula- Chipboard letters

Angela- die for cutting gears

Terri - for the connection she made with ADORNit for the dp.

 

Can't you just feel the love?

I can.

I really liked how the letters turned out. I inked them with a teal colored ink and then rubbed the copper inka gold on the top. I also stamped with the inka gold.I put some on a lid and added some water and it was easy then to stamp with it.

Happy Static Electricity Day. A SHOCKING MIXED MEDIA CHALLENGE

Today I get the honor of being the mixed media hostess on Splitcoaststampers.com.  MIX102

National Static Electricity day is celebrated January 9^th.  I thought it would be fun to see what creative ways we could use our mixed media to create a representation of static electricity on our projects. I looked at several images of static electricity for my inspiration. 

 IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2 

IMAGE 3

So my mixed media challenge for you today is to use 2 or more different mediums to add random squiggly lines on your project. You can drizzle paint, scribble with markers or colored pencils, splatter ink or paint, Glue twine or string to your project. Let your creativity SPARK, just make some static electricity.

How I made my card for today, was I took embroidery floss. I put the floss over my white cardstock. I then sprayed the cardstock with several blues, silver and gold paints. When it dried, I lifted the floss up and where the floss was, masked the cardstock and left random white lines.

 Embroidery floss on cardstock.

 I sprayed it with silver paint

I then sprayed it with light blue, sky blue and electric blue paint.

Then I sprayed gold paint.

After letting the paint dry enough so it wouldn't smear, I lifted the embroidery floss off of the cardstock. What was left were masked areas of white that made me think of static electricity.

I had my friend Pam help me with an example.

ADORNit Blog Hop

It is my pleasure to join the ADORNit blog hop. 

If you came to my blog from Pam's blog then you are in the right place. 

The products that ADORNit gave me to use are unique and fun the first projects I made were these two coasters. 

I used one of the  BE AWESOME art paintables.

 I used watercolors to paint them. I then mod podged  it to a tile coaster.

I made this second one using one of the  LADYBUGS paintable.

I waterolored it as and mod podged it as well.

ADORNit also has fantastic fabric. 

I used BURNISHED MUSTARD to make some hand warmers.

I used a flower die cut to cut the flowers. I sewed a circle in the middles

I filled them with rice. I zig zaged around the edges to give them a tattered look.

I made this wall calendar using OWN KIND WONDERFUL PAINTABLE  

I also used an ADORNit wood bracket shape.I painted it and added BEIGE DAMASK 

I sprayed the base with gold shimmer spray paint too.  

I used more art printables to make these two desk calendars. 

I am the last one on the hop. So my letter should be the last clue you collect. My letter is"Y".
Hope you have fun hopping along with us.