Little Canvas

Once again time has gotten away from me. It's been a busy month and included some fun vacation time to Napa and San Francisco.  The trips have inspired me so look for cool posts in the future.  But until then, several weeks ago, I created a canvas that makes me happy every time that I look at it.  It is a small , very simple canvas that I created when I was playing with my new fresco paints manufactured by Paper Artsy.  I managed to get these from The Stamproom  which is the one of only 2 US distributors of this paint  line.  It is a unique line in that it contains both translucent and opaque paints and there are great color choices.

I started with a blank 4 X 4 canvas.  I used my fingers and spread some various paints on the canvas .  I let a few of the colors  dry before the next layer and then also spread some on top of some wet plant and sprayed it with water so that it would spread.  After it dried, I also stamped it with a JOFY stamp, also from Paper Artsy,  I then used  Wendi Vecchi embossing paste and a dot stencil from  Dylusions  to add  texture.  I painted the embossed with distress paint and sprayed it with Dylusions spray.  My steps were to splatter some yellow paint to brighten things up and then added a few  black outlines to  and scratchy lines.  Below is the result.  Hope this little canvas brightens up your day.

Supplies Used

Paper Artsy Fresco Paints:

Baltic Blue            Sherbet

Tango                    London Bus

Zesty Zing            Beach Hut

Dylusions Stencil Small Bubbles

Paper Artsy Jofy Mini 33

Dylusions Ink Spray Bubblegum Pink

Tim Holtz Distress Paint - Picket Fence.

Honey Gift

Hello all, meant to post last week, but was blessed with a short visit from my totally awesome son, Zach, who lives in Florida.  We spent a couple of days catching up, exploring and talking about everything under the sun.  He and I found out that we have a lot of the same tastes when it comes to art and to making something new out of something old.  I think for his next visit we will plan a day in my art space to create together.

Last week was also birthday week for my honey.  He is so supportive of everything that I do, that I wanted to do something special.  He was headed off for a golf trip with the boys, but I had a couple of ideas up my sleeve.  The first thing was a work bench he had his eyes on at Costco.  Of course I had to get that,  It will help him build the shelves I need in my art space.  Then I decided to make him a box that I filled with golf tees and chocolate.  Here are some pictures of the finished product.  I don't have any pictures along the way because I was trying to be sneaky so he wouldn't know what I was doing.

This was made from an old cigar box that I got on Ebay.  I did that because I am lazy.  I need to go down to the local cigar shop and see if they will give me their extras, but it is just way easier to find them on Ebay and have them show up on my doorstep a few days later.

 My first step was to create the inset on the top.  I created this from inspiration I had on a lesson from Jeanette House in my Soul Food art class space. I created a layout with 140 lb cold pressed water color paper, some sprays and some watered down acrylic paint. I then cut slits approx 1/2 in from each side and about 3/4 inches apart.  I had some copper sheeting in my stash from about 15 years ago.  I cut that into approx 1/2 strips and also cut some strips if  map paper from Tim Holtz Collage mini collection.  I then wove a strip of copper sheeting and then a strip of the map paper every other strip keeping them closed together.  It gets a little difficult for the last couple of strips.  It is not important that the strips are the same width, but they need to be kept tight. I folded them under and then secured them with  washi tape.  

My next step was cover the box.  I used some paper from the Heirloom stack from DCWV.  I like this paper because it is thinner and so it it easier to wrap the box with this.  I attached this with matte medium and let it dry.  I decided to finish the edges with copper foil tape for stained glass.  This also helped to tie in the top of the box.  I added some Luminaire paint in charcoal and green using some stencils as a guide. 

I attached the woven piece to the top of the box using hot glue and glossy accents.  I clipped it with some clothes pins and let it sit for a couple of hours.  Then I added some stamping with some Stazon ink and some more paint on top of the box.  I decorated the top with manly things.  Gears, a compass, and a spark plug.I left the inside unfinished because I wanted him to be able to see it was originally a cigar box.   I finished it off with hugs & kisses on the back.

So next time you need a gift for your honey, your son, or perhaps a graduate, think about a manly box.

Stepping Back

This is just a quick post about stepping back.  I think all of us are hypercritical about what we create.  I know I am.  It doesn't seem to matter that our friends wait for our cards, the jewelry we make, ask us to create something for their house.  That voice inside of us says....it just isn't good enough.  That voice for me shouts just about every time I finish something.  But I have found that if I just wait a bit, walk away, sometimes for a couple of days when I come back I find something that I like in what I have done.  And if not, there is always gesso.

The picture below is one such project.  I was playing with some Art Anthology paint and Silks Acylic Glaze and a tag.  I painted and stenciled and added some embellishments and absolutely hated it.  But being the thrifty Midwesterner that I am I couldn't just throw it away.  Well company was coming and the decoration in my downstairs powder room was looking a bit bare.  I had a frame in my gift closet and some extra paper in my stash.  The tag I had disliked so much just days before seemed perfect for the frame.  It now sits proudly in my powder room and reminds me not to be so hard on myself.  

The phrase on the bottom is a Tim Holtz Idea-ology tag and it inspired the tag line for my blog.  Embrace imperfection!

Easter Tag

At a class a couple of weekends ago, our very talented instructor Anita Houston showed us some really cool artist trading blocks that she designed and I think she will be teaching soon.  It inspired me to see what I could do with some similar supplies in my art space.  I wanted to make a simple Easter tag so I decided to create some fun colorful  Easter eggs.

I found some printable egg templates on line and printed them card stock.  Then I cut them out and glued some plain aluminum foil to each of the eggs.  I then impatiently waited  for them to dry (forgot to do this on the first one)  inserted them in an embossing folder and ran them through my Big Shot.

  The fun part comes next.  I got out my Adirondack Alcohol inks and started apply them  to the foil  I did this in a couple of different ways, first with the applicator tool and then directly from the bottle. I liked the direct from the bottle method better since it seem to give me more vivid color.  You could also color these with any alcohol based markers you have.  I might do some more using my Copic markers just to see what they look like.  

This is what the backside looks like.
I thought it looked really cool too 

Next I got a large tag and sprayed it with some sprays, that seemed to me to be Easter colors.  If you don't have these sprays use whatever you have. You could also do your background with watercolor and I bet it would be gorgeous with Twinkling H20s.

My black Ranger Archival ink pad and some cool Wendy Vecchi  and Prickly pear stamps added to my back ground.  A little lace for some Easter finery.

Then I arranged my eggs on top with some glue dots.  Shredded some green burlap ribbon for grass and attached it with matte medium.  (just cut burlap ribbon in 1/2 strips and pull the strands apart) A little sentiment attached with a brad and some ribbon completes the look.  

I have put a list of supplies I used below.  But I hope you use this just as inspiration as I did with Anita's project and create something that makes your soul sing.

Supplies:

• Large Tag
• Ranger - Adirondack Inks.
• Sunshine Yellow
• Watermelon
• Indigo
• Botanical
• Purple Twilight
• Lindy's Stamp  Gang Sprays
• Caribbean Blue
• Peony Scarlet Red
• Luscious Lime
• Art Anthology Spray
• Timeless
• Wendy Vecchi Stamp set - Well Worn Art
• Prickly Pear - GG0145 Flower Cluster
• Ranger Archival Ink
•  Jet
• Coffee
• Paper Studio - Green & Brown ribbon 
• Darcie embossing folder
• Lace, ribbon,  & brad from my stash
• Cardstock, glossy accents, aluminum foil, glue dots

About Me

Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Laurie Aurand and I currently live in North Texas. I grew up in Ohio and moved to Florida as a very young newly married lady. I lived in Florida for many years, attended college and raised a really cool and much loved son, Zach. I had a reputation for following the craft of the year through much of my early life. I learned to crochet from my grandmother, took art classes as a child and then went on to glass painting, cake decorating, candle making.... You get the picture. However, then I learned about stamping. I was hooked. I opened a rubber stamp store in Jacksonville Beach, Florida along with a partner who sold beads. I became known as the store that would teach you how to do projects with your stamps that did not include paper and I love figuring out ways to extend what the stamps could do. 

 Life changed and I needed to sell the store and did so to someone who remains one of my best friends.A couple of years ago, I took a position in Texas as an IT professional. Soon after I got engaged and my fiance followed me to Texas. I have a very busy career, but I am trying to find the balance I need with my crafty, artsy side. I find inspiration everywhere and hopefully you might find some here. Live is a journey that is meant to be enjoyed. Figure out what makes your soul sing and let yourself sing loudly.

So many ideas, So little time

Life would be so much more fun, if I could concentrate on my artsy side full time, but alas, I need to pay for my art supplies so I am blessed with a great, but very busy full time career as an IT Business/System Analyst.  The downside is that it leaves me very little time for my art or my blog, however, my ideas abound and I am bound and determined to be able to act on some of them.  

My journey has continued since last I posted.  I took a couple more amazing classes at The Crafty Scrapper in the cute little town of Waxahachie which is about 45 minutes east of Fort Worth.  The class was taught by a wonderful teacher, Anita Houston.  You can connect to her blog The Artful Maven and see all of her amazing ideas.  Next weekend I have a Copic certification class scheduled and am headed back to Waxahachie for The Crafty Scrapper's birthday bash.  Here couple of  pictures from these classes.

In the meantime, I have enrolled in an online photo class.  Hopefully that means my photos will soon improve.  If not I will enlist the help of my honey, to help, but he is so exacting we may never get them posted if I don't figure it out.  I have managed to complete a few projects.  

Last month, I complete a necklace for my friend Kathryn along with a gift box.  Below are pictures of the completed project along with a supplies list.  I am making some more so will try to post some pictures along the way.

This necklace is  made with Pebeo Fantasy Moon paint and Ice Resin.  The gift box was made from stuff in my stash, some paper, a paper mache box and assorted paints, some gears from the Tim Holtz line and paper flowers.  

As you can see I don't really have the whole alignment on this blog thing quite worked out but I will get better. General supplies are listed below but these  pictures are just to get you thinking about how you can use up your extra supplies and tailor this to your own style.  I think some of these had been in my box for a few years.



 Supplies:

• Paper Mache box  - this one is about 3 inches oval
• Scrap book papers or old new print - thinner works better.  
• Mod Podge or Matte medium
• Some paint, I used Art anthology paint and I think some  Acyclic silks, but whatever you have will work. 
• Whatever you have your stash you want to use up to decorate the top.

Necklace Supplies

• Spellbinders Media Mixage bezels
• Pebeo Fantasy Moon Paints
• Ice Resin
• Chains & various drops, probably from the Industrial Chic line

I will try to get some step by step pictures next week.  I am also playing with some new paint that  I got from my favorite mixed media store The Stamproom.  Kina's store is one of only 2 in the US that carries the Paper Artsy line of Fresco paints from the US.  Check it out. She has tons of other cool stuff too.  Until next time, keep doing what feeds your artsy soul.

Creative Paralysis

Sometimes we embark on a path and we are able to follow along without detours and side trips.  For my journey into creativity, I have not been able to do that.  I started this blog with every intention of doing some good creative projects that I could share.  My expectations were that I would be able to put some discipline into my creative process since of course I would need to write about it every week.  Since it has been 6 weeks since I posted anything, I guess it's quite clear that didn't quite work out.


During the last few weeks, I learned all about winter again.  I thought since Texas appeared in my Southern Living magazine, that it was in the south.  I equate south with warm.  Well I was wrong, it has been really cold here. Have I mentioned lately how much I miss Florida?  Perhaps it has been the Texas cold that paralyzed my creativity.  OK it sounds plausible, but it wasn't that.  It was that little demon that I think sometimes affects all of us when we try to exercise our creative guns.  Yep, confidence, or perhaps better said the lack thereof of such a thing.

I signed up for an online art class the beginning of the year.  It is a really cool class called Soul Food with amazing teachers and lessons.  I have watched the lessons, but the first couple of were so far out of my comfort zone, that I didn't even attempt to try the lesson.  Of course I know that for my growth as an artist, that I should work on these, but  I just haven't been able to get over my fear, which is really funny since the first lesson was just about that.

Well as I often do, I strayed from the path and did my usual ADD thing.  You know, found someplace else to place my focus.  Learning to play marimbas, trying to see how many meals I could get out of a single roast chicken, 4 but we were pretty tired of chicken by then.  A rubber stamp convention came to town mid January and I took a Zentangle class from an amazing teacher;  Janice K Freiheit, CZT.  Here are a few of my first attempts,

Zentangle uses the premise that anything is possible 1 stoke at a time.  This has been an absolutely wonderful path for me to wander down.  I have figured out, that I can actually drawn.  They are very simple drawings, but I am practicing and learning and I will get there.  Not ready to post anything, but perhaps someday soon.  I seem to have a lot of doodled scratch paper at my cube, the result of some boring conference calls.  Oops.....

Then.....the cold caught up with me, I hunkered under the afghan drinking hot chocolate and watching you tube videos.  Always nice to see what other people are doing.  I found another class at The Crafty Scrapper using alcohol inks. I have tons of these and was thrilled to find a new way to use them.  It was taught by The Artful Maven, Anita Houston.  This was the best thing I could have done for myself, Anita is an amazing teacher and spending a few hours with her and my classmates has inspired me like never before.  Here is a picture of  the project we made in class.

Since class last week, I have been inspired and had a very productive time in my art space.  I have finished a couple of journal pages, a piece with art parts that I am going to upload for a contest using stencils and have started on a canvas.  Perhaps the road is starting to even out a bit. But you know me, a bumpy road just seems to be more fun.

We put off redoing my art space until the end of next month.  We have some company coming in a few weeks and want to make sure we don't have the house torn up when they get here and I am sure it will be a work in progress for a while.  I have committed to Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings in my space. Since my cat believes I get up at 4 am (I do during the week) even on Saturdays, that should give me some nice create time.  Figured out if I didn't set aside time, life gets in the way.  Oh and of course that work thing I have to do to eat seems to take up a large part of my life.  Oh well, I guess I will buy a couple of Powerball tickets and dream.   Art supplies..... Studio set up like I dream of.......  Time.......

Till next time, the path is crooked, but that's what makes it fun.