Archives for March 2011

Some Must Reads For Inspiration

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Cloth Paper Scissors
I am always amazed at the art projects in this magazine.  I know there is a website as  well, which I have not had time to explore as of yet.  The March/April issue pictured above has a mixed media shoe project that I am attempting.  You will see a post on that eventually (paper mache takes forever to dry)!
Somerset Studio Magazine (The art of paper and mixed media, March April 2010)
Somerset Studio Magazine is another wonderful source of mixed media inspiration, with  lots of step by step techniques and artist portfolios.  
I guess this week’s “What’s Your Story” Featuring Things With Wings has triggered a mixed media frenzy in me.   My project list is growing exponentially.  
Redeeming Love
This is what I am currently reading.  I started it on my recent trip to Florida, on a recommendation from a dear friend.  I must say that it is quite possibly the best novel I have ever read.  It depicts redemption, forgiveness, new life, love and hope in a way that has made me feel closer to my creator.  I look forward to reading it every day.  It brings scripture so alive.  I think I am dragging my feet on finishing it because I don’t want to be done.  It is a good thing this author has more for me to dive into, which is the plan for sure.  
Just thought I would share what I am loving these days.  

Yarn + Styrofoam + Kindling = Thrifty DIY Flowers

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This project was way, way simple and frugal.  It took like 15 minutes total.  Seriously.  I have always been a fan of the poppy flower look.  I alluded to this project in this post, the painted vases.  I love how they turned out…
All you need are these styrofoam spheres, a small amount of yarn of your choice and some sticks from your yard (or maybe your neighbor’s yard).
Just wrap the yarn around the spheres, covering all the white of the styrofoam and tuck in the loose end when you are finished…
Then push your sticks into the styrofoam.   I washed my sticks off with soap and water, and broke them to the size I wanted.  That is it.  Lovely poppy yarn flowers.  Just a few supplies that you probably have on hand, and twigs you would use to make smores!  
These would be so cute made with strips of old newspaper, or music sheets, ya think?

"What’s Your Story?" Featuring Artist Jill Brown and Things With Wings

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When I first ran across the “Things with Wings” blog, it was hands down love at first sight.  This mixed media group – composed of a mother and her two daughters – create whimsical, inspiring pieces emphasizing faith and family, that are irresistable – BEAUTIFUL work amongst my very favorite.  Look at this, will you…

Lazy Susan by Connie Berends – for Things With Wings’ new linewith DEMDACO called “This Thing Called Family” 


Artist: Laura McCarragher
Artist: Jill Brown


Artist: Jill Brown

Artist: Jill Brown

Artist: Jill Brown



About Your Work:
We are Things With Wings: a family (me, my sister and our mother) of mixed media artists
Jill Brown – Paper Prayers
Laura McCarragher – Green Girl Designs
Connie Berends – Creative Works

(We bring our complimentary work together for art festivals and call ourselves “Things With Wings”).

Where are you located? 
Iowa City, Iowa

What do you create? 
Our mixed media work uses a combination of paint and patterned paper along with encouraging messages. Themes include faith, family and having fun! We also designed a line of wall art and home decor products for a nation-wide company called DEMDACO called “This Thing Called Family.” thingswithwingsartjournal.blogspot.com/p/our-demdaco-line.html It debuted in January and is selling really well! You can find it in gift and specialty shops nationwide!

When and why did you set up your online shop?
My sister and I both set up our etsy shops about 2 years ago. The three of us have been selling our work much longer – about 10 years together -at art festivals around the midwest, and would often sell items that we featured on our blog, so it was time to set up ‘shop’ online as well!

How do you promote your creations? 
Facebook: facebook.com/thingswithwings, and our blog:thingswithwingsartjournal.blogspot.com we also send out occasional emails and postcards. Word of mouth is actually very powerful as well – we get a lot of personalized custom orders because someone sees something hanging in a friend’s house and wants one for their own family! We also do a lot of festivals and shows, and that’s a natural place to promote yourself! 

What inspires your work? 
Lots of things! We consider our talents to be God-given, so inspiration is really a gift from Him. We get inspired by listening to music, good quotes, fun color combinations and mix matching patterned paper. We also get inspiration from each other, brainstorming and collaborating is a lot of fun!

What is your must have tool for creating?
mod-podge. I buy it online in GALLON jugs because I go through it so fast!

Do you have any tips for others wanting to turn their art into a business?
Turning what I love to do in my spare time into a super successful business is not my motivation for doing this. I have three kids, my sister does as well. We try to maintain a balance as well as we can, and therefore just don’t have the time or desire to turn this into a full time job. We’ve always looked at creating as a passion and a privilege: to do and to share. Everything we create has a purpose: to encourage someone, to celebrate family, or for ourselves – to remind us of who we are and how much God loves us. So our main motivation is to be a blessing to others and to be an encouragement to ourselves. THAT’S what we consider success! All the extras are icing on the cake!

Extras:

What good books have you read or movies have you seen lately? 
I’m terrible about remembering titles! I love a good mystery/suspenseful book, but find that movie genre too intense. For movies I love a good comedy or romance. 

Where was your last vacation? 
What’s that? 

What is your favorite pastime outside of creating? 
Reading and blogging

Who is your favorite designer/artist? 

my sister and mother

Bird Faux Oil Painting Frugal Wall Art DIY With Tutorial

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Birds1
I am obsessed with Mod Podge Brushstrokes these days.  My walls are slowly but surely filling up with what appear to be oil paints on canvas, but are actually art prints on MDF, painted over with the Mod Podge.  These are 12’x34′ and cost me about $10 each total.  I love how they turned out and especially the blue against the wheat colored walls!  You may have seen my earlier post featuring this technique using some Valentine’s Day prints I made in photoshop.  This is a great way to have awesome art for cheap.  You can use old photos, posters, thrifty store finds or any image to create a canvas painting.
I made these prints in photoshop, giving them a painterly effect since I knew I was going to use them in this project.
At Lowes, I picked up a discounted 1x12x72′ board and had them cut my 2 pieces of backing board from it.  The total cost was $8.47.  I even have a little piece of board left over, which I am sure will be used for something!
I sprayed both the board and the back of the print with Super 77, lined up the print with the board and pressed them together, using my hand to flatten the print down and make sure there were no air bubbles.  This stuff is crazy sticky, so make sure you are lined up before laying the print on the board.  No redo is going to happen without ripping the print.
Next, I flipped it over and cut off any excess print with an exact knife.
I lightly sanded the edges to blend and make the print flush with the board.
This is what it looked like after sanding.  Now I put on the Mod Podge Brushstroke.
After this was dry, I primered and painted the edges of the board white to give the canvas look to it.  I attache a wire for hanging on the back, as detailed in my previous post, here.  SImple and lovely!

Thrifty Thursday Blog Hop Week 15

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Week 15 of Thrifty Thursdays and spring is yet another week closer.  I love Easter, and all that it signifies, not to mention the fun spring projects popping up everywhere.
Look around and join the fun. The idea is to link to your frugal post, whether it be a DIY, recipe, tip, coupon… if you like it, link it. If you don’t have a thrifty post to link to, feel welcome to join the hop anyway, and link to your main blog.

Other stuff:
* Please follow Saved By Love Creations, your host!
*Grab my “Thrifty Thursday” button above and throw it on your lovely site. Let’s grow this!
*I will choose 2 participants to feature the following Thursday and to receive a free week of advertising on SBLC (under “love worthy sponosors’ in sidebar).   Please drop by and say hello to the feature bloggers. Even follow them!  REMEMBER that to be chosen as a featured site, you must follow SBLC via GFC, and be an email subscriber (sign up in sidebar under “Subscribe”).
*Follow the blogs that are must reads, and please return the gesture by following those who follow you. Leave a comment when you follow so that the blogger will know you are a new follower.
*Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. I love hearing from you.
*These are not rules, just suggestions!
*Have fun 🙂

Weekly Featured Blogs:


Lauren at Little Guess Family has done a wonderful job revamping an old chair, shown here.  Go check out her other projects for some home decor inspiration!  Thanks Lauren.


Go visit Handy Man, Crafty woman for tons of home decor ideas, recipes, renovations and more!  Thanks Laurie and Rob.

Win a Free Saved By Love Creations Scrabble Tile Pendant!

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TerriAnn over at Cookies and Clogs is hosting a review/giveaway of Saved By Love Creation scrabble tile pendants.  Winner’s choice, and custom name pendants or blog logo pendants are available.  Here are a few examples…

Go on over (click here) and enter to win.  Good luck!

Painted From the Inside Out; Thrift Store Vases

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I am so inspired by all you thrifty DIYers out there.  Here is my most recent creative venture set into motion by my new blogland friend,  Vanessa at Nifty Thrifty Things.  You may have seen her featured on last week’s Thrifty Thursday.  She recently posted a painted vase project (here) that I just had to incorporate into my decor.   To keep my illusion alive that winter is gone and spring is here, I chose a shades of pink.  I love how they turned out, and they go great with my kitchen color palate.

Here are the vases I bought Saturday at Goodwill; Originally $0.99, but only $0.50 each.  I love 50% off day, which Goodwill is now having on the first Saturday of each month.  YAY!!!

Vases from Goodwill before painted

I used acrylic craft paint because I will not be putting water in my vases.  They are for a purpose that will be displayed in a future post (involving yarn… be excited).  If you plan to put live flowers with water, you will want to use Oil based paint, like Vanessa did in the above linked tutorial.
I squeezed a small amount of Plaid FolkArt Acrylic Paint 2 Ounces Napthol Crimson Artist Pigment FA-435; 6 Items/Order mixed with cream colored latex paint leftover from when we painted the trim in our house.  I wasn’t concerned with each vase being exactly the same shade, so I didn’t measure the amounts of pigment and cream paint  I mixed together.

The perfect frugal, quick way to add a splash of spring to any room!!

Knitted Hearts Door Knob Hanger

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knitted hearts door hanger
I got this project from the book Gifted: Lovely Little Things to Knit and Crochet, by Mags Kandis.

Here is a photo of the knit hearts before felting.  I love how felting (see above pics) makes the individual stitches disappear.  It helps hide errors for those of us (me) who are beginning knitters.  I felted my hearts in the washing machine.

There is a cute pattern for crochet felted coasters in the book that I am excited to try as well.  I prefer the way knit stitches look over crochet stitches, but when felting, it doesn’t really matter to me since the individual stitches aren’t really visible.  Since I am much faster at crochet than knit, next time I will use this pattern by Sucrette.  I just found her blog, and am loving it!  She shares some adorable patterns.
The yarn I used for this project was Stitch Nation Full O’ Sheep Yarn-Little Lamb, Stitch Nation Full O’ Sheep Yarn-Thyme, Stitch Nation Alpaca Love Yarn-Ruby, Stitch Nation Alpaca Love Yarn-Peacock Feather.
I  used nylon crochet thread to string the beads and hearts together.  Great quick project for adding some colorful love to a room.  What a cute nursery mobile or fireplace mantel garland these would make!  Enjoy…

Thrifty Thursday Blog Hop Week 14

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Week 14 of Thrifty Thursdays, and March is here.  I am so excited for all of the fun spring thrifty ideas out there.   Look around and join the fun. The idea is to link to your frugal post, whether it be a DIY, recipe, tip, coupon… if you like it, link it. If you don’t have a thrifty post to link to, feel welcome to join the hop anyway, and link to your main blog.

Other stuff:
* Please follow Saved By Love Creations, your host!
*Grab my “Thrifty Thursday” button above and throw it on your lovely site. Let’s grow this!
*I will choose 2 participants to feature the following Thursday and to receive a free week of advertising on SBLC (under “love worthy sponosors’ in sidebar).   Please drop by and say hello to the feature bloggers. Even follow them!  REMEMBER that to be chosen as a featured site, you must follow SBLC via GFC, and be an email subscriber (sign up in sidebar under “Subscribe”).
*Follow the blogs that are must reads, and please return the gesture by following thosee who follow you. Leave a comment when you follow so that the blogger will know you are a new follower.
*Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. I love hearing from you.
*These are not rules, just suggestions!
*Have fun 🙂

Weekly Featured Blogs:


Vanessa at Nifty Thrifty Things has got it going on!  I am loving her style, and approach to cozy-fying her home on a budget.  Go read about her, and the interesting creative genetic lineage that fuels her artistic side.  Hello, Vanessa in Germany!  Keep the beautiful projects coming.  You rock.

Maura at Happy Deal Happy Day has (as her name implies) some amazing freebies, coupons, giveaways,  and frugal tips.  I could spend all day there.  If you get a chance, and need some encouragement, check out her section, “On a Personal Note…”.  She gets down to it in a way that uplifts and ignites hope.  LOVE this blog.  Thanks Maura!

Fabric Flower Tutorial Round-Up

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I am pretending it is spring, now.  In March, we will gain 1 hour and 18 minutes of daylight.  Yay!!!  On vacation, I took several pictures of all the flower accessories displayed in various boutiques.  My DIY hack brain was going crazy with ideas.  Here are some pics I took, followed by a list of great tutorials on crafting the flowers you could use to make your own accessories.

FabFlower2

Aren’t these so fun?!  I love the idea of displaying a gorgeous flower on a thin headband, and the monograms at the center in the bottom pic are adorable.  Lets pretend winter is over, and flower things up a bit.

Now for the tutorials:

*I couldn’t do this without thinking of the recent lotus flower tutorial guest post by Hani.  Perfect for accessorizing!
*Tip Junkie has a wonderful gathering of fabric flower tutorials, here.
*Another round up of fabric flower tutorials, plus on of their own at Little Birdie Secrets, here.
*Made has a host of beautiful tutorials in this round up post.

That ought to keep us busy while we wait for the weather to catch up!  If you have a favorite fabric flower tutorial, let me know and I will add it to the list!

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