Beelieve

Spring Petals in the wind

Back on Mother's Day, a very windy Mother's Day, I declared a day to paint something!  Anything!  I just needed to get paint on a canvas.  That is exactly what I did.  Started throwing random paint on a canvas, adding papers , more colors then leave it alone....then go back and do more.  A progressive canvas.  I just added to it when I felt I needed to then left.  Petals started to develop, flowers, a breeze even.  I remember thinking with how windy it was I hoped all the apple blossoms would not blow off our trees.

Last week, Inspire me Thursday had "petals" as the challenge.  I am late getting this posted but may toss it in anyway.  It was a great topic for spring.  It also helped that Nature is the perfect theme over at Leah's Creative Every Day for the month of May...at least I won't miss that...it is still May isn't it?

Dreams

I could not wait to get started on this larger piece (18x18" on thick gallery wrapped canvas) for Leah's monthly theme of "Dreams" over at Creative Every Day.  I have done various sketches over the years of the biggest dream and wish of Pajama Girl's life.  She wants to fly like a bird.  This is her dream, so much more aspiring than anything I may dream about. This is a constant in her life.  She also wants to go to the moon.  In fact not that long ago she says to me something about rewinding time so she can be the first person on the moon and does not think it is fair this option was not offered to her first. With that in mind I had to include the moon and am also submitting to "Inspire Me Thursday" for the weekly challenge of "Moon"

 

I will take more photos after the shine top coat is on, the colors are not showing the way I would like. The background is a dreamy mix of pale coral, pinks, red and orange under tones then layers of soft washes of soft blues, gesso and periwinkle.  I also used a small amount of pigment powders to give a hidden shimmer and accents in some areas.

 

On the side is the small house our dreamer flies out of and scratched into the top paint layer there is the hint of the words "Dreams are gifts we give ourself"

 

Pajama Girl has offered to help show this painting so you will have a good idea of the size of it...

 

..and the colors.

 

I will take more pictures of it when the top coat is on.  Even though I created this based on her dream, it will go to Esty.  I am in big need of updating my Etsy shop and adding items.  I will let you know as soon as I do!

Make a Gift~Inspire Me Thursday for 12/4/8

I was excited when I saw the topic on IMT this week, I miss doing the challenges.  Then I was a bit bummed because I can't show a gift that has not been given yet.  Well I found one I can show because they are a custom order for a friend for her kids teachers...so the "giftees" have no clue about me or their gift. 

These are custom purse mirrors.  The only request was to stick with a "teach/learn" theme.  I wanted to go with something fun this time around.

 

 

 

and the cute boxes in bad lighting

 

And below are some scans from a few of the ones I made last year

 

(some business card cases as well)

 

If you are as frustrated as I am trying to find a perfect gift in a retail store...well go to IMT now there are some great links to making handmade gifts this year.

The making of "Invite Peace"...

It is open topic week at Inspire Me Thursday so I will take this prompt as my chance to write about how I made "Invite Peace"  as promised.

 

First I covered the canvas with old book pages from a 1917 book called the "Story Book of Knowledge" by L. B. Franklin. It is about a young inquiring child's questions answered by a loving grandfather.  There was a beautiful one about The Star Spangled Banner and how Francis Scott Key came to write it. Thought it fitting for the "Peace,Piece".  I am not a history buff by any means but his inspiration was from living through a battle and having to wait until morning to see if the flag was still there ...here...in...America. 

 

I do not have many pictures of the process, camera battery needed to charge. 

The red toned background was drops of various reds and magenta's and gel medium and scraped together and off with a credit card.  From there I dug into my giant bag of wooden letters I scored a while back and my favorite antique shop.  I found the perfect letters and just started dripping ever color that made me happy on my pallet and started to stamp with them...on test paper at first to test then directly onto the art. 

 

then outlined in charcoal and coated the letters with a thick gloss "string" gel...the consistency of honey but clear.

 

There was a multicolor puddle of paint on my pallet so I took some string and blotted it in and just dropped it on sheet music and a few times on the canvas.  Then the bird and leaves were cut from the sheet music and used the sting to outline with.  Then filled in with a pool of the same honey gel.  It is hard to capture the thickness of the "invite" leaf and bird.  By the way...it's tail is a heart!

"Invite Peace" is finished and will go to my Etsy store soon. 

Update 11/13/08:  "Invite Peace" was sold pretty quick and is currently flying to it's new owner!

Inspire Me Thursday "Yellow"~9/11/8

I have been missing the challenges as of late and really love this weeks theme of "Yellow" over at Inspire Me Thursday.  Last night as I put the Pajama Girl to bed she asks me, "aren't you so happy about your sunflower blooming?"  I smiled, it is such a mixed meaning statement for me.  This sunflower she planted in a cup at her pre-K as a mother's day present for me.  It sat in the cup forever until we could have a special time together to plant it.  Just a weak little thing that had suffered a day or two of no water occasionally.  I really did not expect it to transplant well.  Oh how I was wrong.  My little "mother's day" gift has finally bloomed into a picture perfect sunflower.  A cheery, yellow, one and only sunflower we have.  My little mother's gift has grown into something beautiful and transplanted from pre-k to kindergarten just fine.  I am as happy as a bee collecting the beauty of it all and my life is sweetened with the honey.

"Create against the Clock"~Inspire Me Thursday 8/21/8

Inspire me Thursday was fun this week and allowed me to go for more whimsy.  The theme is "Create against the clock".  In a nutshell you set a timer for 10 minutes and create then you set it for 1 hour and use the same supplies and compare the two.

My first was an ATC ( I just started creating official ATC's and will talk more about those in the future).  So here is my 10 minute ATC.

My inspiration was this great tissue paper I stashed away a long time ago. 

So next I set the timer for an hour and had at it again.  This was fun.  It started with a 12x12inch canvas board and the same size scrapbook paper, yellow with tulips.  The house is made from pages of an old children's learn to draw book with a segment on "Janey" who builds a house in one day.  So painted those, added cuts of the tissue paper here and there, attacked it with all sorts of texture and finished with some outlines of charcoal and marker.  So this is "le petit jardin", done in one hour.  I still need to give it a top coat sealer but was a crazy hour which went by super fast!

Here are the two side by side.  I sort of used the ATC as an idea for the bigger piece.  It was super fun and perfect since today was so beautiful outside I was able to have a sense of accomplishment and then go out on the boat and crash on the beach for the rest of the day!

Inspire Me Thursday "Opposites" 8/14/8

I have been busy with some custom artwork and another larger project I started for the strange reason of needing to do something that would drive me crazy.  What I really needed was a distraction and a fun one at that.  This week the theme on Inspire Me Thursday is "Opposites".   Sounded perfect for a quick interruption in all my craziness.  So I put it in my "Whacked" Altered Journal and actually had something to write about. 

My perfect pear/pair pages are about the extreme opposites of my husband and I. Opposites really do more than attract in our case...opposites are the secret to our marriage.  We are each other's missing link, trust me there are a lot of those.  Together 2 halves perfectly make a whole.  If you were to go to my "About page" and read "my Philosophies"  second to last you would read:

"When you find your soul mate there is no difference of where one begins
and the other one ends."

one more for IMT "Wardrobe"

I have to throw this one in to Inspire Me Thursday last minute.  This is one of my favorite shirts.  (The rest of my wardrobe is pretty pale in comparison to this and yesterdays socks and shoes. ) 

Aren't the cuffs great?

I remember wearing this shirt to Saratoga to meet my cousin.  We were shopping for dresses for me to wear in her wedding.  She had  "us" the bride's maids wear great black cocktail dresses of our choice.   In any case, I needed a piece of jewelry to go with this great shirt and whipped this up about an hour before I left to meet her!

Wardrobe~ Inspire Me Thursday 8/7/8

Well it has been so crazy lately I almost forgot about more of my favorite subject,"wardrobe" going on over at IMT this week.  I love clothes, I love shoes and I love accessories, mostly I love shoes.  Can I tell you...I was awarded "Best Dressed" my senior year of high school.  Cool huh?....sounds like bragging doesn't it???   Tell me something would you?  How does someone who wears a UNIFORM to school end up with "Best Dressed"??  No...let me answer that...IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN BECAUSE OF MY SHOES.  Did I mention I love shoes?

So my inspiration piece for pages of  my Whacked Journal are of my FAVORITE shoes and socks.  First the shoes...

...then the pages!

Positive I will not be able to stop at just this though...am thinking about something like my digital enhancement below.

Inspire Me Thursday "The Beach" 7/24/08

This weeks theme on IMT is the Beach.  This will not bee as entertaining as my first attempt of this post...the one that did not save anything.  Ugh!

In any case below are the rocks and shells from Hammonasset Beach on the CT coast we visited a few short weeks ago.  Lauren brought home a bag of shells and beach pebbles, she could not pick them up fast enough.  My grandma was like this, I am like this so she can not stop herself.  It is in her genes.

Looks like a lot less then we hauled home that day.  Maybe because we just made up some fun souvenir necklaces with the nice round ones.  Here is mine, and let me tell you-wrapping a stone in wire is not as easy as it looks.  Might I suggest, learn from my mistake...practice with cheap wire first!

I also had a chance to do a few 2 minute sketches that day and am surprised the book came out at all.  This is Lauren going fishing with her net...

...and here is the crab shell I was glad had no one living in it!

All the above are all authentic beach art made at or from the beach.  We really do think art all the time, why not...it is all around us...say Lauren?