Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Spring dreamings...

I had such a good time seeing everyone on Saturday - there were a few people who weren't able to make it out for various reasons...they were missed and you know who you are! I had fabulous helpers that day - my M-i-L Maureen, S-i-L Mar and niece Hayley (aka ribbon specialist extraordinaire) handled the morning rush with ease allowing me to relax and enjoy what small snippets of time I had with people. I could not have done it without them!

To answer your question... Yes I still have "stuff" left and I think what I will be doing is making up "grab bags/boxes" and selling them on a first come first served basis. Stay tuned...if you are interested, email me at injennuity.designs@gmail.com.

On to the fun and crafty part of the blog - did I do anything? Yup. Got crafty with my girl Emma and after being challenged by Mr Tim to make some flowers, we decided to give it a try this past Sunday morning. What I love about having an 8 foot table to craft on at home is that we can craft together without being on top of each other. We each have our own chairs and space...granted I get more space but then I'm messier.

RIiiiiight.

Anyways, I had to snap a few pics of Emma having fun with the process of painting and smearing. Not surprisingly, her colour palette starts and ends with her favourite colour teal.





Mind ended up a bit muddy in places - too many colours and adding yellow in I think with the purple caused it. Oh well...Art isn't suppose to be perfect...



I'm not going to go into the how-to's on this technique when Tim does it so well on his blog. Suffice to say I did not use his new paints as I haven't gotten any yet. I do have enough other paint to sink another Titanic so why not use it up experimenting?

Exactly what I thought...


Emma didn't use the tattered flower die. She wanted to cut out hearts but I didn't have one (?!?) so she settled for another one instead...any guesses from the picture?


I have more miscellaneous brads than I know what to do with so was happy to pair some up with the flowers. I think the ones I used were from an old line of Basic Grey's "Marrakesh" that melded alot of blues, green's and oranges.

 I am not sure if I am going to try and mount all these flowers on a tag or what yet. They may go on a canvas, I am just not sure. But I enjoyed making it and I will be submitting my...sorry...*our* creativity on Tim's blog before the week is out. I had hoped to make his Feb Tag as well....well the month isn't over yet. I may yet surprise myself in a fit of creativity. Turns out I don't have hardly any of what he used to make his tag but then again...it's not really a requirement. I have more than enough to simply be inspired and try my own spin on it.

But for now I am going to bid you a good night, and happy crafting!

Jenn

PS If you guessed "Fanciful Flight" as what Emma chose as a die, you were right! Pat yourself on the back for being so good at squinting and get cracking on your own spring-inspiration!






Tuesday, February 19, 2013

...the last remnants of my old life.

Time is doing that weird thing again where I stop for a moment and look back and have a fleeting sense of vertigo - where did the last 6 weeks vanish to? Wasn't it just New Years???

Then time stretched like warm taffee and my follow up thought was "No...that was years ago wasn't it? That person who lived that life of an LSS owner?"

Then a painful snap back to reality that neither is true. I conclude that change is just a part of life and that person who was, and the person who is....well they are just the same person who are on the journey of many hats.

So creative time this past week - ZIP. ZERO. ZILCH. I spent most of my free time organizing my stash (ohgoodlordpleasemakethepilesend) in my crafting area, and the other part organizing my store into one last push to liquidate what is left.

If you weren't aware, I am having a liquidation sale this Sat Feb 23rd from 10am - 6pm at The Scrapbox location. Cash only and creazy deals to be had on new and used product and fixtures! Here are some pictures!

















So lots of stuff that simply must go. Come early to get the good deals. Talk to Jenn to play "Lets make a deal" and score some awesome stuff for a fraction of the price. Tell anyone and everyone who you might think would like to be there - 5510 Canotek Rd Unit #13 from 10 am to 6pm on Sat Feb 23rd!

On a slightly different note - I received an email from a friend this past weekend asking my how to get started with Art Journaling. Good question! I will be doing a lot of it myself in the next forseeable future and will be happy to share what I do here, and how I do it etc. I think the most important thing to remember is that with Art Journaling - kinda anything goes. It can be abstract, or it can tell a story, it can have journaling, or just one word or no words at all. Start with doing things you KNOW and add a little of what you don't. If you have a product that you have never used,  but looked cool at the time, google it and see what other people are doing with it and then try it yourself. Trying it out on paper is always better than keeping it in its packaging. It's ok to experiment - you may find the most incredible discoveries happen quite by accident.

Oooooh I just had a phrase pop into my head .... "Art By Accident".....LOVE IT!

I hope you get to do some. I will be making sure I have creative time this weekend somehow...even if it's finger painting with my daughter.

huzzah!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

I had a Valentine's crises...really...

This blog was delayed due to a small Valentine's crises here at chez langlois. Managed to get them all made, they just need to be written in by my wee Emma and perhaps a stamp if we have time. That's just the problem...not a lot of extra time. I will post some pictures of the finished Valentines, perhaps tomorrow....or the next day...the next days sounds good...

..but for now, I am going to post some pics of the messing around I did in my Art Journal over the weekend. I am still coming to grips with what Art Journaling is for me. Mostly I just smashed around, played with colours and stencils for this first 2 pager. I am using Dyan Reavlely's Art Journal which has 2 different paper in it. The following is done with the Manilla...

Not really sure what I was going for here, other than to play with colour and stencils and a bit of doodling in between. The reason I used the Manilla paper is because I was spraying with lots of glimmer mist and dylusion sprays and it never bled through no matter how much I laid it down. It wrinkled...but didn't bleed. Good to know.

Then I pulled out a set of mixed media that I haven't had a chance to really play with yet.

Mix & Match Art Studio Collection if I recall correctly...


This bit of doodling is done on the white pages of the art journal, with the Big Brush and a bit of the small brush Pitt Pens. I love these pens - the colours are so rich! I am going to keep the white paper sections of the book for playing with mediums that aren't heavy with water, unless I plan on gesso'ing first. The white papers bled profusely as my friend HAM found out to her dismay. But for the Pitt pens, gelatos (no water!) and the pastels...should be fine...which means it's going to be doodle heaven for these sections. I'll try to do some stamping techniques here and see what happens too.

After a bit of this I was ready to go back to being messy. But since I also brought my Washi Tape Collection, I thought I would play with that too and this is what I came up with.


Kinda looks like some messed up game of snakes and ladders. I did do some stamping as well with the Kaiser Craft texture stamps AND mixing up colours of the Big Brush PITT pens but it's hard to see the subtle changes in colour.. I also couldn't leave my stencils alone either. Hmmmm...not sure if I am going to leave it like this or keep going with it later. I guess right now, both are equally possible!

I want to start doing some canvases too, although right now I need to just work on some mixed media technique. I am excited to say that I signed up for Scrapfest tonight (right at 8:00pm) and that I will be doing a layered class with Vicki Boutin which I am looking forward to very much. I am also looking forward to doing Karen Ellis' Make & Take so will be sure to dash to her booth as soon as I am able.

That's it. I'm pooped. I am working tomorrow at the clinic so want to be in top form for that! Have a good night folks and will maybe post again later this week.

Ciao Bellas!

Jenn

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

A little bit is better than naught...

I don't want to miss a week...I have to tell you. I really don't. So not much to show for creativity really, but I did manage to make a few books with my new Cinch 2. What is a Cinch? Voila - I will show you!

For more info on what it does - go HERE!

What I love is that I can use up smaller left over pattern paper to make the covers of books - any kind of books. I plan on making Art Journals, Notebooks (in all sizes) and when E. needs to bind a project for school - super easy and super quick. Looks Awesome!

So what you do is choose a size - only limit is the coils are max 12" long but I suppose if you wanted to go bigger you would just keep adding coils on the end. These notebooks I made were 5" x 6" in size. I had some chipboard I wanted to use up.

Pick Patterned Paper to wrap the covers with. I choose Bo Bunny cause they have lovely double sided paper and I have a ton of it so using it up in ANY WAY is a good thing.

Stephanie Pouliot showed me once how to wrap covers of a chipboard album (long time ago) and with a bit of trial and error, it all came back to me (like riding a bike?). I picked a neutral piece of cardstock for the inside of the cover in case I wanted to write on it. (Uniball White Gel Pen, in case you are wondering, is what I would use on black cardstock)

Then I found some old empty lined notebooks I had been hanging on to - don't ask me why. One of them had brown ledger lines so it fit perfectly with the colour scheme of the pattern paper I chose. So trim the paper down to just under the size of your covers. Maybe take a 1/4" off the dimensions so for this size notebook I made the inner pages 4.75" x 5.75".

Huzzah! We have just upcycled something that was about to get recycled out the door. I used left over strips of the Bo Bunny Patter paper to decorate along the top of select few inner pages. It lends some stability and is pretty. Put them every 4-5 pages.

Now you should have something like this...



Front Cover, Back Cover and inner pages! Checkity, Check check!

Now comes time for the binding - easy! Punch and bind the holes with the Cinch...how does the Cinch work? Since the fine people at WR made up a video to show us how, why not let them show us?



So here is how my finished project looks.

Front Cover

Back Cover

Inside view



I made yet another notebook and turned it into a Work Out Journal that easily fits into my gym bag and is super sturdy to write on with the chipboard covers. It's a great size to detail up to a dozen exercises and reps etc.
 



So there is my creativity for the last week - I spent 3 days in Cambridge visiting family and while there, I was able to visit The Art House Studio and meet the owner Karen Ellis. She does online classes and I was able to snap a pic of her latest class with the Silks paints (of which I bought a dozen or so).

here's a pic of my own good pile from that awesome store
Yes, I bought more ribbon. No, I have no shame. I love ribbon and will always have ":more than I need". Same goes for Washi Tape.

Next week! My middling steps in the organization of the chaos that is my craft room and hopefully something new and creative to show.

Thanks for checking in. =)