Ballerina Hairclip Holder

My newest addition to the hair clip crafts.... Isn't it adorable? A ballerina inspired hair clip holder to organize all of those hairclips. I think I will experiment with this one a bit... maybe add fairy wings, make a cheerleader style, bling, damask, loops for headbands, the possibilities are endless!

Cheat Sheets For My Punches/Diecuts

Another one of my attempts to save time.... I saw on another website recently this idea to organize punches. I found the idea here: http://twitterpatedwithpaper.blogspot.com/2011/07/warningchatty-post-ahead.html I have yet to catalog all my stamps as she has, but that will be my next project as I am going to attempt to transform all of my wooden block stamps into clings and same myself half the storage space.

Cataloging the punches like this not only gives you the capability to quickly see what you have, but you can also use the template to see how well the shape can work with a project (for the stamp value, the printed paper design, or even the shape/size that you are working with).

I took cereal boxes and split them open to use a dull recycled material that will hopefully not impede the paper/stamp/subject that I am focusing on. I then punched out the images, grouping them by punch vs. diecut, and then by shape and size.... then labeled them all for quick and easy reference. And to stablize the "cheat sheets," I laminated them for multiple reuse.

In the short time that I have used them, it has saved me time to find the right size to produce the look I wanted in my current projects.

My Most Favorite Collage To Date

Another assignment that I have fallen in love with and wish to create more of one day. The assignment was to create a collage in either warm (red, orange, yellow) or cool (green, blue, purple) colors. I chose (big surprise) to do a tiger in cool colors. The original picture for the inspiration is below from a WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Calendar. This took the better part of 20 hours, but I loved every minute of it. The only distress I had was to complete the assignment on time. I also loved that I used recycled materials to create this...

Tigers and Lions and Leopards, Oh My

My love for tigers and all wild cats (big and small) still remains the highlight of my watercolor adventures today....

The Frog and His Friend

I have always held a special place in my heart for this little happy frog and his friend the ant. This was created in watercolor on cold pressed paper. I just always love the little ant who so trustingly remains near the frog. I placed a close-up of the ant below.

Mixed Media From My College Years

These are different projects I worked on in college... A lot of my work I gave away as gifts, but I did hold onto a few, including homework assignments:


This wolf was a watercolor that took way too long, but was created at a time in my life when I needed a project that was more than it was worth. Instead of using a multiple tipped fan brush, I painstakingly brushed on every hair of this wolf individually.

This fun little red panda was part of my adventure into pastels. I would like to work more with pastels, if only I had the time.

I love this little hamster.... I could have made the hamster a bit more rich in color, but everything else about this painting I love, especially the depth of the berries.... this was done in watercolor.

This watercolor of an ostrich always cracked me up. The ladies in my dorm (in college) at first thought that the gray was either a starfish, or a man bent over holding two red balloons. I just always enjoyed the ostrich's happiness.

The following black and white was a homework assignment, created with black ink. I loved the whimsical Alice in Wonderland "MadHatter" feel of the different pots and vases that I conveyed in this overlapping study of depth.

My best friend in high school was my greatest muse. She loved to pose for the camera, and I loved taking pictures. Later I loved recreating my photography into watercolor or other media. I never got very good at reproducing the human face acurately (as I can animals or even the human body)..... this still remains my favorite human watercolor.

My self protrait in college... don't ask and I won't tell....

An oil painting that I did as an assignment in college.... again no facial features, but I do love this hands on creation.

This was a fun one, and one of my favorites.... It was patterns that I created and printed from PhotoShop and then applied the gradients to a lion cub resting on a tree branch. I also used poster board as a way of displaying depth.

I cried over this graphite drawing of jars. It was my most challenging drawing assigned to me yet. I had the worst time with shading and I threw my heart, blood, sweat and tears into it. After many failed attempts, I finally perfected my vision and presented this.... It was one of the few displayed in the halls of my college. I learned so much about shading with this project that I feel my present work never would have progressed without this challenging (yet productive) assignment. It is a work that I look at and say to myself, "it's just a few jars," yet I don't think I could ever bear to part with it.

Scratch Art

I really enjoyed making these scratch art projects. I love the way that they show every little detail of each animal, something that I often don't get with watercolor. This art is quite the opposite of painting, in every aspect as you are taking away instead of adding.... it is a nice change of pace.

Mini Watercolors

These are some minature watercolor sketches that hold a special place in my heart. Some of them are parts of a bigger painting that I either wasn't entirely happy with or never finished.... and some are sketches that I just had to get on paper

Weekly Chores

Oh those pesky chores.... getting everyone involved has proved to be a challenge for me, so I toyed around with two ideas, a magnetic chart where it would be moved from one side of the board to the other as completed (but then I couldn't check on everyone).... or the following that I made. I picked up three wooden "gift bags" from Michaels and some clothespins. I had the kids paint them the color of their choice and let them pick the wooden design. Then I wrote the chores on painted clothespins:

1) The pins that are the same color as their bag are theirs each week.
2) The green pins are 5 min chores (and they blindly pick two of those per week)
3) The yellow pins are 10+ min chores (they blindly pick two of those per week until they get older, then it will be more)
4) The blue ones are chores that the parents have to do (cleaning the microwave, betta tank, etc)

When they are done with the chore, they just drop the pin into the bag.I am also going to create a framed daily list for morning, after school and evening for us to check off with a dry erase pen, which will help us get into the swing of things as the new school year is about to begin.

Anyway, here is the picture of my chore assignments:

Recycled Cards

The following are cards that I repurposed "trash" to create.... I used the insides of cereal boxes as brown cardstock, scraps leftover from other projects, and the silver pieces are either from yogurt lids or juice pouches that I cleaned and then embossed. The Mickey and Friends was from a yogurt lid that I embossed, and then colored it with a sharpie:

Murals

Murals that I painted:

My own inspired cards

I have been busy creating my own card designs....