Sunday Postcard Art - Quirky

I happened across the Sunday Postcard Art blog from Kristin at Twinkle Twinkle and thought I would give it a whirl.  The idea is that you produce a piece of art that is 6x4 inch postcard size, post on your blog and link to the Sunday Postcard Art blog.

This week is Quirky, courtesy of Kristin.

Now I have a book of postcards on the Art Nouveau era and was thinking of perhaps using one of these as my base.  When I looked at one, a piece of furniture, it immediately reminded me of a house.

I covered cereal box card, cut to size, with an old map and then drew and painted on top.

This is the inspiration for the above.

Check out other quirky piece of art at Sunday Postcard Art blog.

Summer of Color - Watermelon Ice

The six weeks of Summer of Color have gone by so quickly, so a huge thank you to Kristin for all her time and enthusiasm in making this second season so great, and of course everyone who has joined in. It has been a great six weeks.

This last week is Watermelon Ice.  Again keeping my theme of acrylic painting on recycled cereal box card.

As well as acrylic ink and sharpie on watercolour paper.

Check out Twinkle Twinkle's blog for other fabulous interpretations.

Summer of Color - Wild n reckless sherbert

I can't believe that this is the fifth week for Summer of Color.  This week it's Wild 'n reckless sherbert.

Keeping my theme, a cupcake on recylced cereal box card.

The other is acrylic irridescent inks and sharpie pen.

Again thank you Kristin for hosting this party. There are lots of other fabulous pieces on Kristin's blog, why not take a look.

Summer of Color - Strawberry Lemonade Punch

The fourth week of Summer of Color has arrived with strawberry lemonade punch.

Again keeping my cupcake theme on recycled cereal card..

..and another Sharpie pen with acrylic ink on watercolour paper.

This is such a popular challenge and there are lots and lots of lovely interpretations.  Check them out on Kristin's blog at Twinkle Twinkle.

Summer of Color - Baseball Nuts

Now I have never heard of baseball nuts as an icecream, but this was week 3's Summer of Colour challenge.

Again I have kept to a cupcake painted on recycled cereal card.

Plus pearlescent acrylic ink on watercolour paper and then drawn over.

Check out Twinkle Twinkle's blog for all the other lovely submissions and thank you Kristin for hosting this fabulours summer event.

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.

Handmade art booklet and journal

I came across my stash of unused card blanks from the days when I taught and published card making ideas and in the back of my mind was that I should sell them off to acquire some extra space.

Having this phobia about not gettting rid of anything, as I know I will always need it when it is gone, I pulled a few out and tested them to see how they took medium e.g. makers pens, watercolour etc and they seemed to hold up pretty good. So I folded some new blanks and glued them together, back to back as pages of a book.

I now have a neat little art book that I can carry anywhere, as the double glued pages make them quite sturdy, and I can add more pages as I wish.  This little book also fans out and stands up to make a dispay.

I have decided that this one will be for any whimsical birds that land on the pages. Here are two of the birds that have come to roost.

Another project that I have been working on for a while, is making a completely recycled journal/art book, as inspired by the lovely Jennibellie's blog. I know I have mentioned her before, but she is so generous with her time and instructions so her blog is well worth going to have a visit.  She is also doing a video on how to recycle those Christmas cards into a journal.

The cover of my art journal is a herbal tea packet covered in a paper bag. The pages are all made from cereal packaging and because I draw more than I paint I kept the pages neutral by covering them all in enevelope paper. The cutting, folding and covering of the pages took a long time. I then sewed the pages into the spine.  I have purposely kept it all neutral as I don't know yet what I have going to put in it, as I usually like to have a theme going.

Am linking this with Artists in Blogland show and tell week.

Have a fabulous weekend folks, I'm off to glue more cards together!

Teeny tiny tablet box journal

After being inspired by Jennibellie's blog on the making of her cereal box journal, I thought I would give it a go but on a much smaller scale to start with.  So after searching for what I had, I found a very small tablet box which measured 2x5inches.  As this was rather long I cut it in half, so my teeny tiny journal is 2.5x2inches. Below is the finished journal.

I covered the card in gesso and then painted it with the base colour.  Then I drew and painted the bird and the flower.  I still have not made my mind up what to go on the spine, any ideas?  I then added ribbon and covered the inside with blue tissue paper.

As it was so small I decided rather than have individual pages I would do an accordian style. I very roughly folded a length of watercolor paper and then drew and painted on them in acrylics. These are the pages.

I then glued the back page into the cover.

This is the end result, which I am really chuffed about.

I am now hooked and collecting all my empty packages, so shall go bigger.

By the way there is still time to enter for my three giveaways, all details can be found here.  Happy weekend everyone.

Recycled Dogs

After my recycled cats, I did say that I could feel some recycled dogs coming up. These are again on recycled toilet roll holders and recycled papers.

I am linking these to Artists in Blogland Show and Tell Week 10.  I can't believe that it has been 10 weeks since Marcia started this fabulous blog. Check it out!

Recycled Cats

I have been recycling again this week. Toilet roll holders, cardboard packaging, old book pages and the insides of envelopes.  There is something really liberating about painting on recycled material, perhaps it's because it does not cost anything other than time, and you lose nothing if it doesn't work out and you want to throw it away.  I also find that these are really quick to do once the card is ready.

After my recycled owls I have come up with my recycled cats.

I think that I can feel some recycled dogs coming up!  This link is for the Show and Tell week on Artists in Blogland, check out what everyone has been doing.

Good weekend to everyone!

Recycled Owls

These are the owls I promised to upload.  They are all painted on the cardboard centre that is left when the toilet roll runs out.  The lovely Monica Zuniga from Hands and Heart did a free lesson on how to recycle these and use them as a basis for art. 

Once flattened I covered with pages from an old dictionary and then painted on thinned acrylic paint. Drew the outline of the owl and then painted it. Once dry I reoutlined and did all the line work.

It's strange, but there was absolutely no pressure with these, as for some reason painting on each toilet roll holder was quite liberating, and these characters just appeared.