Recycled houses

Whimsical houses painted on recycled cereal box card covered in old maps. Acrylics, marker pen and collage.

Which one would you llike to live in?

Recycled holders: step-by-step instructions

This week I have been in sorting mode and can't seem to stop making recycled holders to house some of my stash.

For those interested, this is how I made them from empty cappuccino boxes.  Firstly I sealed the empty box by gluing both ends shut.

When that was dry I drew a line down the middle of one narrow side and then measured up 1.25 inches from each end and then drew from each corner to the 1.25 inch mark.  With a sharp knife I cut through the cardboard following the lines to give the following.

I then folded these pieces and glued them inside the box and held them down with clips until dry.

Next is the fun part of covering the whole box with some of my stash of papers, these were the ones that you get free with some magazines.  These boxes could, of course be painted instead and embellished in any way you wished.  As I want to keep them side-by-side, I have left them plain.

These boxes hold 6x6 papers really well. I am now off to make some larger holders from cereal boxes to hold 8x8 papers.

I hope you found this little tutorial useful.

Sketchbook doodle flowers

All this gorgeous sunny weather made me want to doodle some flowers in my sketch book.

Not a lot of drawing has gone on but I did make a sleeve to house my first four handmade art books.  The sleeve is made using a recycled coffee sachet box and just covered with some paper I had.

I just love little notebooks and I have made myself a promise not to buy them anymore (that probably won't last) but to make my own for jotting down those ideas and making lists in.  These are some I have made ready.

Lastly but not least, I want to thank all my lovely new followers and a lovely sun-filled weekend to everyone.

Creative Tuesdays - Underwater

Practising with my copic markers again for this weeks Creative Tuesdays  challenge of Underwater. Actually the challenge was Underground or Underwater.

Meet the siren of the deep!  My lightest blue marker ran out whilst I was doing the background, so it is not as I was hoping, but I think the uneven colour adds to the moving water!

Swim over to Mr T's blog to see more underground or underwater things, or better still why not join in.

A great weekend to all my lovely followers and readers of my blog.

Handmade art book of whimsical houses

My art book for April is whimsical houses.  The aim is to do one of these art books a month on a different topic, each with 10 drawings.  So far I have done birds, cats and inspirational ladies.  These houses were all done with COPIC markers.

Hope you like them.

Creative Tuesdays - Everyday happiness

The  challenge  this week for Creative Tuesdays was thought  up by Christine.

I thought a lot about this one and what everyday happiness meant to me.  There are so many things, but it came down to my morning Redbush tea in my bone china mug. Well tea at any time really.  Depending on what time of day it is and what I am drinking I have specific bone china or porcelain mugs and cups.

Because of my varying chinaware, of which some is quite delicate, I wanted to catch this in my challenge and I thought the only way is watercolours.  Now I don't use watercolours normally and am rubbish with them, but persevered. Not too happy with the result, so thought again.  Next came to mind was a collage (not so delicate!). Both these medium are not natual to me, so bear with me on this challenge. 

Seeing as this group is about challenge and trying something new, I have shown both of my efforts, the collage is first.  Mr T, feel free to use whichever one fits best within your great montages.

I enjoyed the theme of tea, so may well persue this further.

See other peoples everyday happiness over on Mr T's blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Healthy

This weeks Creative Tuesdays challenge is Healthy.  For a change, I decided to use my COPIC markers instead of acrylic paints. I find markers challenging as I am so at home with acrylics. 

I tend to do all my drawing from my imagination so the very healthy lady below is not anatomically correct and also the rabbit turned out larger than life! I think she is chasing the rabbit to grab the carrots.

Keeping in the spirit of this group, I have uploaded my initially sketch, where as you can see the girl changed a bit.

Pop over to Mr T's blog to see other healthy options.