If you have a mouse pad around, you can use it as a crafting tool! Here are a couple of ways to get some use out of a mouse pad.
A mouse pad can be helpful in the craft room!
Turning a mouse pad over so that the spongy side is facing up, and you’ve got the perfect surface to use for stamping with acrylic stamps which don’t have a built in cushion.
Place your paper on top of the mouse pad
Place the acrylic stamp on an acrylic block
Add ink to your stamp
Gently but firmly stamp your image, and remove
Voila! A great image!
A mouse pad can also be the perfect tool to use with a piercing tool. Those piercing tools are sharp and can quickly poke and gouge into your work surface. There are sets available which include a mat to use with a piercing tool, but they are usually small. By using a mouse pad, you’ve got a much larger protective piece to work on. So if you’re doing paper piercing as a decorative element, or you are just poking a starter hole for a brad, try out a mouse pad!
Welcome to Make It Monday! Spring is probably my favorite season. I love how everything springs back to life with gorgeous colors to declare that winter is over. Flowers and blossoming trees are such a glorious sight when you’ve seen nothing but bare branches and brown, or blankets of white snow covering everything! One of my favorite sights of the season is the crabapple tree in our back yard, which is the inspiration for this mixed media canvas. Today’s techniques can be used for mixed media, art journaling, or even scrapbooking.
Spring blossom 8″ x 8″ mixed media canvas.
This particular project was created on an 8″x8″ canvas. Heavy body acrylics were used with a plastic card to spread the color. For scrapbooking, you can start with a piece of card stock and use various inks, sprays, or colors that do not add a lot of moisture to the paper.
A canvas, heavy body acrylics, plastic card.
After spreading the color, I added a bit of a bright green.
Another bit of color added to the mix.
More color applied with the plastic card.
Texture lines were added with black paint, by just using the edge of the plastic card.
Texture lines added.
Sewing pattern tissue paper with a twist.
I like to keep sewing pattern tissue to use for various things and decided to use it by twisting it, creating a branch. Once it was twisted, I applied some liquid matte medium on it to help it stick in the twisted state, and to adhere it to the canvas. Other papers you could use for this would be lightweight kraft color paper often used in packing, or a paper lunch bag. Try various widths to create a branch which is a good diameter for your project. A scrapbook page may only need a bit of twine so that you are not added so much bulk to the page.
You may find the next step to be reminiscent of childhood crafting. I really debated using it on a project to share with you, but I just couldn’t help myself. It just seemed to scream that it was the perfect way to achieve my crabapple tree blossoms! I grabbed some colored tissue paper and tore it into pieces about 1″ square. You could easily do the same thing with bits of any paper that is not too heavy. Patterned paper would create interesting variations in the blossoms. The shapes where shaped into little shapes, and a dab of glue was used on the outer tip to apply it to the branch.
Colored tissue paper torn into small little squares.
After all the blossoms were added, a cardboard tube section was snipped and shaped into a leaf shape. The edge was dipped in black paint and used to make leaf outlines.
Blossoms applied and leaf shapes added.
A bit of a darker green was lightly painted into the leaves, and a bit of detailing was done with black.
Leaves painted and detailed.
The bright green was dabbed into the centers of the blossoms with a tiny paintbrush. ‘Spring’ was written with acrylic paint which was watered down to create an inky consistency.
Blossoms completed and the word ‘Spring’ was added.
Here is the completed project. I plan to create one canvas for each season and hang them together.
Spring blossom 8″ x 8″ mixed media canvas.
Okay, now comment on this post and let me know that you remember using some variation of this tissue paper technique while you were growing up!
Make It Monday Blog Circle
You may have landed here from Karen Fitting’s post at Photos Kept Alive where shediscusses joining the Planner Craze, showing us her planner. She’s also sharing her custom page as a free download. Don’t miss out.
Next up following me is Alice over at Scrapbook Wonderland. This week, Alice has a unique and creative approach for scrapbooking a game.
Our Artful Adventure today takes us back to the land of watercolor techniques as we discover a couple of ways to use watercolor pencils. It can be nice to have a few products that are easy to take with you for any number of reasons! You may joining friends for some special arts and crafts time; or you may like to have something handy to take on a trip. No matter what the reason, watercolor pencils are another great product to be able to take along. They don’t take much room and are not messy!
Today we’ll look at using watercolor pencils:
on a wet surface
with a water brush
with a blender pen
Be sure to use waterproof ink for stamping your image. If you’ll be using a water brush, stamp on watercolor paper. You can use the Whisper White cardstock for the blender pen technique; although it is on watercolor paper in the video. NOTE: The Hydrangea stamp is part of a set only available until 3/21/13. Grab it if you like it!
It is so amazing to have you join me on each of these Artful Adventures. I really want to make sure to show you ideas you can get some use from! That’s why today’s discovery is about learning a nifty method for a simple, perfect bows! Some people feel like they are all thumbs when it comes to tying a bow. I have always felt pretty adequate in this area, and loved tying those big bows on the back of my girls dresses when they were young. However, I was never really able to show or articulate how I did it. My dad always said I did something kind of odd in the way that I did it. (Wouldn’t you know an old sailor would know if you were tying the perfect knot or bow!) Anyway, watch as my friend Georgia Giguere shows you the most clever way to just about get a perfect bow EVERY time! You will love this method for your projects! Seriously, you are going to love this!
Today’s Artful Adventures discover what a lovely effect you can achieve with watercolor crayons! Watercolor crayons are water soluble and versatile. They are easy to take with you, as they are pigment in a stick form, sort of like crayons you used as a child, but without the waxiness. There are numerous ways to use this form of product and today, I’ll show you a few ways to get started!
You’ll want to be sure to use a waterproof ink to stamp any outlines that you may want to use as the basis of a project. Stazon is one that I keep on hand for this technique, as well as the Stazon cleaner.
If you are using the technique with the water brush, be sure to use watercolor paper. If you are going to use the blender pen technique, it will work well on your regular Whisper White card stock, as long as you do not try to work it too hard! If you use any of these techniques, be sure and share with us over on the Artful Adventures Facebook Group! We’d love to see what you are up to.
My favorite water soluble crayons are Caran D’Ache Neocolor II.
Make It Monday Blog Circle
Today’s Artful Adventures discover what a lovely effect you can achieve with watercolor crayons! Watercolor crayons are water soluble and versatile. They are easy to take with you, as they are pigment in a stick form, sort of like crayons you used as a child, but without the waxiness. There are numerous ways to use this form of product and today, I’ll show you a few ways to get started!