Celebrate Fall Jewel with 28 Lilac Lane!

I am so excited to share a very special limited edition mix from May Flaum's 28 Lilac Lane line with Buttons Galore: Fall Jewel!

Available exclusively from Buttons Galore this week here is a link. You can enter code LL400 when checking out between now and 11:59p eastern time on Friday (26th) and you’ll get $1 off making it just $5.99. What could be cooler? Within USA spend $30 or more at the Buttons Galore online shop and shipping is free! They do have the entire 28 Lilac Lane line – as well as dozens (hundreds?!) of their own button mixes as well.

I have had a lot of fun creating these three projects with the Fall Jewel mix and I'd like to share my inspiration with you. Enjoy!

Isn't the mix gorgeous! I know I am going to have a hard time using that beautiful wood button, because I just want to keep it, like a treasure!

I went a little crazy with the embellishments on my card, likely because I was in a Crazy Dogs mood! It was a lot of fun to dress up this fella with some glitz using the sequins and beads and making his kibble with more beads. Perfect for a birthday, graduation or note of encouragement. 

(watercolors and ink, stamps - Tim Holtz)

Moving on to fall, I started my tag by watercoloring my blueprint leaves with Distress crayons.

And, here is the tag! This reminds me of fall camping or even Thanksgiving. After I made the tag base and colored the lantern and leaves, I figured out my placement and where I would tuck in the 28 Lilac Lane pieces. It was a lot of fun creating the cluster with buttons, sequins and beads, and the little metal leaf from the collection is the perfect touch!

 (stamps - Tim Holtz; Distress inks)

Closeup of the grouping...

For my third project, I made a Halloween card, and added sequins and beads. If you look carefully at the umbrella, you will see the little hanging beads. 

(stamps - Tim Holtz; background created with Color Bursts)

Closeup of the web...I was trying to recreate the dew drops on the webbing with the beads.

So, three different projects using the Limited Edition Fall Jewel set from 28 Lilac Lane, and as you can see, I still haven't used that wonderful wood button, but I will find the perfect project for it one of these days!  I hope you have enjoyed my inspiration for this lovely mix from May Flaum. 

Be sure to head over to her website to see a beautiful card and frame she created with the Fall Jewel mix!

Butterfly Slipstream

Trying out some new things, inspired by my Creative Expedition class with May Flaum this past month. and Finnabair my long time art rock star! Of course, I had to take it into a steampunk direction, and am entering my tag into Sandee and amelie's Steampunk Challenges where "anything goes"! I just love how creative that DT is with loads of steampunk inspiration! Well, spring is in the air over at A Vintage Journey, so I am entering my tag in that challenge also, since I can't wait for spring! And, at Anything But Cute, the challenge #12 is all about Earth Day and planet Earth, so my butterfly is fluttering over that way too! I was inspired by the butterfly, the vibrant green on the bird's head, and the lovely green fields on the mood board.

 Butterfly Slipstream - Reality has limits, imagination is boundless...Dream...

I am fascinated with the idea of butterflies flying thousands of miles each year, following their migration paths using some kind of inner compass. How do they know how to do this and return to the same summer and winter grounds? 

Perhaps they have a tiny clockwork compass to guide them??

I started by adhering all kinds of random buttons on my tag, then had to add in gears and cogs of course, and some of Finnabair's new art stones - fun product! Lots of great texture, and then the real fun begins! Time to get messy!!

Started layering the colors on to the tag,  and began with the distress paints over my gesso, and then added the golds and metals - oh yes! I do love my new Liquid Metal Color Bursts! They are really cool and I need to explore them more.

Is it any wonder my tag is green? It is my favorite color, but also, I really can't wait for spring to come and watch everything turn green and bloom and grow - then the butterflies will return too.

So yes, I am imagining thousands of butterflies getting ready to head north. Tiny clockwork compasses give the heading, and the slipstream is gearing up for the flight of the butterflies, well oiled, the levers are cranking up and soon the butterflies will follow the clockwork path to their destination. I think it's kind of like the Milky Way that we can see on some clear nights - we know it's there, even when it is not visible to us.

I hope the slipstream flows your way and brings the beautiful butterflies this season!

Inspiration Brings Growth

Art Journal time...it keeps snowing and snowing out there today, so I really needed some brightness. I just finished going through a prompt in my class with May Flaum, Finding the Art in My Journal which inspired me to play.

I used black gesso on my page , then layered on some lime green acrylic, keeping it thick enough to lay a stencil in it for texture. With the extra paint on the stencil, I just laid it down on the top section. I could stop here, but...

...over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, it's "Red and Pink", and with Valentines Day approaching, I was thinking hearts. I do not often reach for red and pink, so this was a good challenge for me. I started by turning my page upside down and painting the hearts. Then I dabbed on some pink, outlined the red with pink, and mixed in some more. I decided I didn't like the heart as is, so added the "cap" to the flowers.

 

Next, I painted in the stems, leaves and grasses, then splattered with white, one of my go to techniques when I feel I need a bit more.

Final steps...writing my words in white marker, then outlining them in black to make them more visible. Pulled out my trusty white pen to outline the heart flowers and doodle the dotty flowers.

I am always looking for inspiration, whether on Pinterest, my favorite bloggers, artists I admire, classes or my everyday world. I am inspired by all of these ideas I gather, but what I always need to remember is to practice, to try them out in order to grow. I thank the many artists and crafters out there who inspire all of us!

 

Light and Dark

In my class with May Flaum, Find the Art in Your Journal, she challenged us to think about our "light and dark" sides. I started by painting one page black and one white, then using a Balzer Deaigns stencil, I painted the woman in the opposing color.

Next i journaled about myself, what I see as my positives and negatives. Deciding these thoughts were ones I did not necessarily want public, I painted over them. I carried a bit of the color over to the opposite page. Not sure if I like it, but hey, an art journal is a place to experiment.

 

A bit of detail...and a reminder that I am made up of all these things.

I went for the bright colors, but wonder if somehow I could have stuck with the black and white? Trying something new.

Finding the Art in my Journal

Here is what I thought about and worked on today after my class prompt from May Flaum. Lately, I find myself being inspired by circles. Some leftover acrylic paint on my brush and a stencil, watercolors, pens...

 

 

Boy, do I have a LOT of things I want to do and learn!

It All Started With A Paper Towel

When you begin to open your eyes and look beyond the usual materials you work with, some amazing things can happen. I think it really opens a different window in your brain.

At the crop I was at this weekend, we were working with inks, and mopped up the excess with some paper towels. While we were working, that paper towel dried out into such beautiful colors and designs. My friend Tiffany and I divided it in half to each try something with it...and what follows is my first sheet of paper towel.

I began by adhering the paper towel into my art journal with Liquitex Gel Medium, matte. I'd had a chance to catch up with Creative Jumpstart 2015, which certainly gave me some inspiration. I specifically chose the matte after listening to Nathalie Kahlbach explain how the glossy makes your pages stick. CJS2015 is such an inspirational online class, be sure to check it out here.

I am also taking May Flaum's class Finding the Art in my Journal, be sure to check this out also. My husband and I went out to the Coffee Planet on Sunday to listen to one of his music friends perform. My husband always take his sketch book with him and draws everywhere. A couple of his pens sat on the table, a napkin was there, so I thought, why not try the blind contour drawing exercise May asked us to do. So I drew three. My favorite is the one above that I did of my husband.

So, the napkin drawings and words went down next with the gel medium. Let that dry (somewhat) and took out one of Nathalie's stencils and added the dots with some Liquitex paint, oh yes, and splattered some white. Let it totally dry overnight, then added some circle doodles with a black pen.

Drawing of my hubby, "music" because that's why we went on Sunday.

My hand (even got the ring on the right finger!), and a stack of coffee cups on the counter, because of course I had to have a cup of coffee! "Drawing" because that's what we were both doing as we listened to the music.

Thanks for joining me through this exploration of my art journal, and thanks for the inspiration Nat and May!

Inspiration Abounds: Nathalie Kalbach and Camp Scrap

Summer creativity is the best, especially when I got to attend the Create NJ art retreat, and "go to" a 6 week camp for all things creative! So, recently I found an intersection between the wonderful class I took with Nathalie Kalbach at Create and Camp Scrap with May Flaum. Note: you can still sign up for all four sessions of Camp Scrap for $28 ( a huge bargain - May has tons of videos, ideas, etc. to share) by August 6, after that the price changes.

I first "met" Nathalie online when I starting taking Creative Jumpstart, and it looks like there will be one for 2015 - yay!! Now, at the Create retreat, I got to meet her in person, and that was a wonderful experience!! It's like getting to meet one of your heroes, someone you have admired for a long time. This time, the teaching was personal and we worked in acrylics, which is a medium I have not done much work in before, so did I LEARN A LOT? Oh yes!

I worked in my Dylusions art journal, and it love the bigger size of this one.

Here I am playing with colors and different ways of laying it down, and then some stamping. So how did Camp Scrap intersect? Well, one of the challenges was to work with colors you would not normally choose. I must say for me, pinks and orange are not my go to colors, perhaps from living in a male household (pink). But, the challenge made me go for something different, and I am glad I went beyond my usual boundaries. I'll be going back later to these pages and add to them at some time.

Here is another. We did a critique in class of a page we liked or disliked. I chose this one before I made the change to it. It was just too chaotic. So, I took up the suggestion of using a stencil and white paint to go over it, and I like it much better. I also learned that Dylusions sprays will react with the paint, so once again you see a lot of pink.

At Camp Scrap one of the By Design sessions focused on a square within a square, and that was my inspiration for these pages. Once I toned down the red, white and blue with some bronze, I liked I the page even better.

I had fun using my new Seth Apter and Patti Tolley Parrish stencils, and some petroglyph style stamps I' had for years. Some stencil detail below...

And now to my favorite pages...love this technique Nathalie taught us! I am not a fashion magazine kind of gal, but I have a new use for them now!!

Details...

 

I am loving my wild, wacky women!

Thanks for all the inspiration May and Nathalie!!