I am kinda lucky that I work the place I do. Hobby Lobby really is the perfect place for me. I work in the frame shop which gives me the ability to be creative all day long. I also get to see some amazing artwork come through the shop. Once in a while I will snap a pic of some of the detail in artwork or get the artists name. I get so many ideas about trying new techniques. More hours may have to be added to the day to let me try all of my ideas! Here are just a few of the awesome works that have graced  my table.

This last one is from a tapestry we were framing. I was looking at the detail and saw this tiny heart in the design. I immediately thought that my wedding ring would be a perfect size to go around it. And the interior of the band reflected the heart in a very abstract way. Unintentional awesomeness is the best!

This is a list of upcoming events and shows I will be attending with my handcrafted jewelry.

October 30 Mackinaw valley Winery 12-5

November 5 Germantown Hills 38th annual Fall Craft Show

November 6 Lewistown High School Holiday Showcase 11-3

November 11, 12- Mt Zion Christmas Craft Show, Mt Zion IL

December 3 Pekin Moose Lodge TAPS Benefit 9-3

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Blank Slate Wooden Pieces

Hobby Lobby just got some amazing new products in the jewelry department. Blank Slate is a line of unfinished wooden pieces, canvas, lockets, and other embellishable items.  I saw these when one of the lies I work with brought them to show me. She thought they would be right up my alley. She was right, I LOVED these! I want one of every single kind of wooden pieces that we carry.  I figured I would start with the start with the butterfly. I finally opened the package today after having it a few days.

I decided to give them a light coat of white paint, just as a primer.   I then added a bit of teal paint for some color.  Next was some stamping. I got a Tim Holtz rubber stamp for Christmas that I had yet to use, I know, what is wrong with me? Not using a supply for three months? Inconceivable!

Back to the stamp. It’s an unmounted stamp, and I don’t have a stamp block, so I had to improvise.  I inked the stamp and laid it face up on my desk and then put the wooden butterfly on top and pressed down. It worked pretty good!  I painted and inked the other side as well, so if the butterfly flipped over the back side wold not be blank.  I then added some dangly charms, a crystal and some beads.

I am in love with the way this turned out.  I cannot wait to get more Blank Slate wood items to embellish.  Stay tuned to see which one I play with next!

Today I finished setting up my new booth at the Kountry Nook, Kountry Nook in Pekin, IL | 212 N Capitol St, Pekin, IL | Superpages.com.

I left the Crafty Corner and went to a craft mall that had regular hours, and better hours.  Hopefully this will be a great new start, and the opportunity to get my shop name out more.

I started setting up my booth yesterday before work.  I took the rest of my items in today and finished it up.  Most of the displays that  used at the old shop didn’t really work for the new booth.  So I had to redo all of my displays and figure out the most efficient use of the space.

I have some new items in the new booth including new full size dream catchers and new mixed media art jewelry necklaces. I stll have my photography as well as my dream catcher pendants.

Some of the seasonal items I have are cute little pumpkin blocks, jack o lantern pins, and fall and Halloween wreaths. OOOOHHHHHH and the new beaded spiders I have been making!

I need to get some more tree of life pendants in the shop I realized as I was setting up that I didn’t have very many.  I must have taken them all to the Quarter Auctions, and to the Moon Dancer Boutique! Must restock!

A little background on the Kountry Nook…the Nook is owned by Mary H.  and has been open for 13 years now.  So they are well established.  They host many customer appreciation events throughout the year and have a Christmas Extravaganza coming up.There are over 5o vendors currently in the shop, with a waiting list to get a booth! Talk about demand!

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So I thought that I had posted about this, but apparently I did not.  A few months ago, I entered an art contest at the Chatham Sweet Corn Festival. The library there was hosting an Altered Book Contest.  There were no rules, only to make your submission from a book, and to not use a library book.  I made a submission of a dreamcatcher.  I was only going to do a dreamcatcher by itself, then I thought it needed something else.  So I attached it to a board also.

All of the feathers are made from book pages, as are the larger beads near the feathers.  The hoop is covered in paper and the background as well.  The background was then painted and distressed.  I then wrote the Legend of the Dreamcatcher on the background and distressed it again.  I inked the all parts of the project with rubber stamp ink and highlighted it all with oil pastels. The feathers were made by attaching two pieces of book pages together with glue, Tacky Glue by the way, with a thin wire in between.  I added musical note washi tape and some stamping for depth.  I then cut small slits in the paper to make them look more like feathers.

My glue of choice is a product called Collage Pauge.  I heard about it on a video from Cloth Paper Scissor magazine.  Collage Pauge really is a great adhesive, I like it better than Modge Podge.  It keeps the paper flatter without curling.

I just submitted this project to Cloth Paper Scissors magazine, so we will see what happens! Could take up to 16 weeks to find out if they want it. I am not getting my hopes up though, well that’s a lie, they of course will publish it!

By the way, thanks to my lovely sister, Jen for picking up my project for me.  I will get it from her on Sunday hen I go to do a photo shoot of her and her husband and puppies! Might get the kid to do his Fall pics at the same time.  I hear there is a cool covered bridge there that we are going to shoot at.

I think I have a problem, more than the usual. I have so many ideas swimming around in my bag of cats I call a brain! I find it nearly impossible to dedicate myself to one specific type of art or craft.  I get bored and distracted easily. Maybe that is why I am always doing a million things or project at once.  Jack of all trades, master of none!

I have loved taking pictures since I was little, and being a photographer was one of my first career choices, other than fighter pilot, dancer, and the usual kid dreams.  Not that a career you decide on when you are 12 is what you are going to end up with.  I never moved to New York or Chicago to become an artist either.  Now that I have a nice camera, I have been taking lots of pictures.  I think I have even sold one!

When my parents bought their house when I was in 5th grade, the previous owner had a train platform in an L shaped room in the basement.  Underneath it was a great space for storage, and of course a play place for us kids!  A few years later I asked my parents if I could tear down the back half of the platform and make the area into an art studio.  They said go for it.  That was one thing I am eternally grateful for, they never really told me no when it came to my art.  I glued things to the wall, it was fine. I painted the walls a strange shade of peach and painted clouds over it,  they never said no, or at least shook their heads in disbelief when I wasn’t looking.  they never told me that any of my weird creation looked funny, or that they did not like them.  I know I was a very strong willed child, and that the may times I fought with my parents was probably my fault, but letting me run wild with my creativity was the best thing they could have ever done for me!

ADD kicked in again! Where was I? Oh yeah, crafting!  I stared making simple beaded necklaces in high school, and even sold a few to some classmates.  After high school. my then boyfriend, Trever, bought a dreamcatcher earring set to make for me.  He lacked the dexterity to weave the web so I took the project over.  I was hooked!  I fell in love with the creation of something to beautiful out of a piece of sting and a it of metal. So that is where my love of jewelry making came from.

I have always been a painter, abstract mostly. I haven’t painted much recently, but I have gotten into Mixed Media.  I love combining paper, paint and whatever else I can think of to combine.  Mixed Media is really the perfect thing for me.  There is no right or wrong, just whatever feels right.  I can combine all forms of art into the perfect combo of crazy artsiness!

When taking pictures, I have always been draw to pattern and shadow. Even something as simple as a brick wall is amazing to me.  The perfect lines, all even.  So this shot of the wall with the metal gate in front with the shadows on the wall was perfect.  I am fascinated by how images change in different lighting. Lines and textures have always been something I have been drawn to.  So when I can find am image of shadow, line and texture, I am in heaven!

Maybe this will explain why I am so all over the place when it comes to my art.  I am gonna enter this contest, have a booth here, show my work there, do a quarter auction, SQUIRREL!  Wait, I am OK, of can keep on task…maybe for a few minutes anyway!

I have been wanting to do a blog post about stamping with bubble wrap for awhile.  But as usual time is running away with me! No longer, here it is, a simple guide to stamping with paint and bubble wrap.

Bubble wrap makes a great and quick stamp. It gives a cute rustic look, and adds amazing texture to your art journal page.  I work at a place that has a TON of bubble wrap tossed out on a weekly basis, so it is really easy for me to get.  It can also be purchased, or if you are near a Hobby Lobby on their stock day, I am sure they would give you some if you ask nicely!

Today I was also using three different sized tubes to make circles with also. I also kept this strange cardboard thing from a package we got last year.  I have collected a few tubes here and there from work and home that would have otherwise found their way into the landfill.  What a great way to re purpose things instead of throwing them out.  I have used paper towel and toilet paper tubes, but they are quite a bit thinner and can easily disintegrate.  The tubes I used today are thicker and can be used over and over.

To start, I got out a disposable foam plate to put paint on.  I like the plates because they are really cheap and make for easy clean up.  I used a dark red paint and some blue to add contrast.  Spread a thin layer of paint evenly on the plate, not too much or it can get clumpy.   Press the bubble wrap lightly on the paint and then press it on your paper.  Lift off and repeat as desired.  Its as simple as that!  This is the easiest technique for adding some texture.

The technique is the same for the tubes and any other fun object that might make a good image. I tried a jar lid, but that didn’t work out very well.  The cardboard packaging I had made a great lined image, and the backside had foam on it, so there was some more texture. The lines would be perfect to use on a scrapbook page for jouraling, or just a added background element.

The circles can get a bit messy depending on how liquid you paint is. My paint was pretty runny so it made all of these great little spots and slashes all over the page. Thats my kind of look though, the messier the better!The picture directly on the left shows different circle sizes and the bubble wrap printing  on the same journal page.  I have used the messy drippy circles as a background on a scrapbook page and it looks great! And even better is that no one else will ever have the same page because it was custom made by you!

Sorry it’s been so long between posts.  I seem to need more time to do all the things that I want to do.  If someone could invent a way for me not to need sleep that would be great, but I like sleep, so I need to prioritize!  So today I decided to show you around my studio.  When we bought our house, about seven years ago, I finally got my own room!!!!!  This is actually my second studio in the house.  My first studio was in a loft space at the top of the stairs on the second floor.  Gavin had his bedroom in my current studio.  The ceiling was low with slanted sides, perfect size for a little boy.  So we painted the walls to resemble a castle, and for years he loved it.  Along came time and with it, teenager.  Gavin recently grew too tall for this room.  So he and I switched rooms.  What a chaotic feat that was, I never realized how much crafty stuff I had.

I used that time to weed out some of my supplies to donate or give to friends and coworkers.  We got Gavin’s room all organized first, the on to my studio.  I could have cleaned it up and made it all pretty and organized before I took these pictures, but that wouldn’t be reality now would it?  I am sure you would rather see the studio as it really is, organized chaos!

I have a primary work table on the right side, and a secondary catch all table on the left.  I have shelves of books and projects, journals and artwork, both mine and what I have collected.  There is not much vertical wall space, so I had to be selective about what I could hang up.  I chose to display some of my favorite pieces of my own, and a few favorites I have purchased.  Including my autographed picture of Micheal Trucco from Battlestar Galactica, uh oh, letting my geek show!

It is a constant battle to keep my studio organized, as I am a piler.  I tend to just pile stuff in places around the room, then have to go back and spend the day organizing.  This usually reminds me of what I have anyway, because I usually forget.  I am usually in a constant state of reorganizing my studio to find out what works the best for me.  And then reorganizing some more.  I try to get as much work done as I can, but that generally means sacrificing house work to do it!

Summer time at Hobby Lobby brings the start to the Christmas season for us.  We start setting all of the Christmas picks, wreaths, ribbon, and of course crafts.  My sister Jen saw this really cute craft that was the word Noel on four separate wooden blocks.  This came completely unfinished so it could be customized to specific colors.  I mentioned that I could make this for her birthday in October.  Jen loved that idea.  So I looked at the project on and off for the next few months and finally bought it in September.  After I bought it, I proceeded to immediately lose it in my studio.  Well the days and weeks passed an I forgot all about it.  Finally the holidays were over and things slowed down both at work and at home.  I got the chance to clean and organize my studio, and I came across the project….still in its packaging.  So I decided there was no time like the present to get started.  I ripped open that package and dug right in.

I started by figuring out what letter was to go on each block.  The O was obvious, but the others were a little more interchangeable.  I then dug through my scrap box to find the perfect papers.  Jen decorates with a lot of red at Christmas, so that was the obvious color.  Then the background, a rustic stripe.  Next was the glue.  I used Modge Podge to adhere the paper to the wood and let it all dry. After drying, i trimmed all the excess paper.  I did a really bad job of the trimming, the edges were all ragged and torn.  Luckily, I could take some sand paper to the egdes and fix all the mistakes! Then I took a red ink pad and rubbed it on the sides of the letters and the blocks. Then glued the letter to the block.  I the added Paper Tape by Tim Holtz to the sides of the block and followed up by edging it with a metal taped designed for stained glass.

The only thing that was left was to stamp the back of the block with my custom stamp.  My wonderful husband got this stamp for me last Christmas. I stamp almost everything the comes out of my studio.

Well Jen, I hope you like the way the blocks turned out.  And remember, every great artist works on their own schedule, but better late than never!