I love working with Beads. That said, recently I have become addicted to stitching up seed bead bracelets. I have made so many, that I have decided to put some of my best bracelet bases up on Etsy and TopHatter. Now this is just the base of a bracelet not the finished item. I just really like doing the stitches and hope someone else might want to make it their own with closures and embellishments.
Today I posted the first one on Etsy. Check it out and let me know what you think.
I had some fun this weekend at the beach, playing with my book pages, paints and pencils. I had a vague idea of what I might want to work on, and since I only had a few days, I thought it would be perfect to start some drawing and maybe even color some in with paint.
Good thing I had my stuff, the weather ran quite the gamut over the weekend. First it rained (totally expected, as it is Oregon) then on Saturday the blessed sun came out, this pushed me outside to absorb the warmth and color! (the whole beach lights up with color when the sun comes out) Then on Sunday it snowed! I was greatly amused by the changes in the weather as they were so extreme. It fit me perfectly, as I never do anything in a logical to others order. You would think the weather would go in order of sun, rain, snow, not rain sun snow… oh well, chalk it up to the wonders of the world…
Before I left I had finished a drawing and painted it and applied it to my notebook. I used a page from an old book to draw and paint on and then applied it to my notebook using Golden Matte Medium. 
While I was there I drew and painted one for the other side. This page is also an old book page but you really cannot tell due to the amount of paint used.
I am seemingly obsessed with my little chickens and they seem to come out of the woodwork no matter where I go. Yes, I even draw in restaurants. On napkins, you question? Nope, I carry a tiny wallet type purse, and I have managed to always keep a set of white index cards and a pen in there. Very handy for when the order takes a while and your companion (read husband) runs out of conversation.
C’est la vie
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I was thinking today about my friend Adam. I have known him for a few years now and have always been impressed with his artistic sense. He is a pretty down to earth kind of guy, no pretense and generally a pretty happy dude. I met him at the Art Gallery, he is a really wonderful photographer, that despite being so young, photographs in a very old school way. However, it wasn’t his photography that I was thinking about today, it was his screen printing.
Adam has dabbled in screen printing for a long time.. He has always had T-shirts with messages up by the collar or the pocket or the front or the back… you get the point I am sure. Whenever I asked him; hey where did you get that shirt? His answer was always, I made it! I love that! The making of things when you need them, when there just isn’t anything out there just like how you want it.
I was not surprised when he kicked off his screen printing business, nor was I surprised to see that it reflects the different parts of his personality. Just the name Serigraph Monotone. Meaning of serigraph being an “original silk-screen color print” and monotone meaning “a succession of syllables, words, or sentences in one unvaried key or pitch”. One of his prints is “I produce top notch free hugs” and one of the others is “Hug your local mail carrier” now not all of his shirts are about hugs he has many other sayings as well. The best part is that he prints on each shirt by hand and with care to make it just right. You gotta love that!
You can find him on facebook where he models some of his shirts and shows off some photo’s of equipment. You can reach him directly via email at Serigraphmonotone@gmail.com.
If you have words you want to wear, talk to Adam….
I have a friend that is such a wonderful photographer and artist. He recently posted one of his many photographs and I just had to share.
He doesn’t just take a photo and leave it at that (although sometimes he does). He takes them a step further, he explores the possibilities and turns his photography into art. A great example is this lovely photo of one of our local parks.
The first thing I really like is that it is a panorama which gives it such a great depth of field. Secondly that he did this by using a program to stitch several photo’s together. Then there is the richness of color and line that this photo has.
Dave tells me that he used http://ipiccy.com/ to play with this photo, primarily he used the Hugin program and the HDR in Effect function. He describes this program as easy to use and best of all free.
Enjoy this beautiful photo of Snyder Park in Sherwood Oregon, courtesy of David Bryan Gilmore.
Are you a scrapbooker that has invested in one of the die cutting systems like Sizzix or one of the others? Are you looking to stretch how you use this equipment? Wow, I am starting to sound like a company rep!
Ok, I have a couple of these die cut pieces of equipment and I love them. I found out recently that the quilting world has one as well for cutting fabric. This made me wonder if the one I have for paper would cut fabric. It does. It opened a whole new world for me, it made me think about how I could use fabric instead of paper for projects.
Now here is the disclaimer, that I do this at my own risk to damage to my dies. If you choose to do this and it results in damage to your dies etc, I am not liable. It is your choice to do so.
First iron a sewable fusible on the back of your fabric. Cut the fabric into pieces the size of your die. Run it through your machine. VIOLA! you now have a pre-cut fusible that you can iron onto any other fabric.
I used sewable fusible because I wanted to be able to sew through the applique after it was applied, without gumming up my machine needle.
With some of the letter embroidery sewing machines out there, you could embroider the fabric, apply the fusible, then die cut out any shape you have on hand.
Too much fun!!!
What does this all mean when you’re a creative person? Well, for most it means instead of throwing something away, either find another way to use it or put it in the recycle bin. That is if your community will recycle it. In some areas of the country there are community reuse places that you can take your, still useful items in hopes that someone else will find your trash to be a treasure.
Near where I am we have a place called Scrap (School Community reuse action program) it is not all that near to me, but I will make a special trip to get there. Most of the time though I am a shopper there, but thankfully, there are many that make donations to them. For example they have lots of fabric, upholstery and wallpaper sample books, yarn, tiles, paper, envelopes etc. All of which are very reusable to make useful and decorative items. I have picked up many a large fabric sample to make pillow or handbags. For the longest time they had a barrel full of corks. I could never figure out what I could make from a cork, but others did because they dwindled down to nothing eventually.
Perhaps one of my favorite spots is the book and magazine corner, where you can find books and magazines for pennies. Or the paper corner where you buy office paper for 25 cents an inch. (measured by the height of your stack) Sometimes you can find envelopes with no return address, those are great! But they also have some with a return address which are easily upcycled by sticking your address sticker over theirs. Scrap keeps so much stuff out of landfills each year just by redistributing it, that they deserve a recycle award! Besides I have no idea where I would find a barrel of corks or belt blanks to be re-purposed. Would you?
Just recently I incorporated some glossy cardstock from Scrap into my gift tags. The original sheets were 8 1/2 x 22, so required some cutting down before I could punch them. It took longer to punch them as they are pretty sturdy, but it was worth it. The paper is wonderful with my tags. It embossed beautifully and I am very happy with it.
I encourage everyone to donate to their local reuse program and to shop there. You just never know what you will find…
P.S. I found one in San Francisco too.. Scrap (Scrounger’s Center for Reusable Art Parts) Love it!!
To see more please visit my shop on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/SharonOrella
Have a great day!
As I write this I have just been reading about the East Coast and their recent snow event. Unbeknownst to me, this was occurring as I was creating paper snowflakes for the holidays. Of course my snowflakes are quite dry, don’t cause highway traffic snarls and should not cause anyone to put on their parka.
Contemporary Yellow print Snowflake cutout Ornament/Tag
These are one of my favorite designs, round with scalloped edges, made of two round cutouts then, Wha La!! A cutout in the center, allowing the paper underneath to shine through and accent the cutout of a snowflake (or reindeer). I chose Organza ribbon as a hanger as I love the look of it, for these tiny little bits of creativity.
I have also made several of these from shimmery cardstock that I embossed and then hung a die cut snowflake on.
These are so shimmery and special and look so wonderful, that have done them in several colors. More colors coming soon to my Etsy store near you.
Copper Swirls Ornament tag 2011
I think what intrigues me is that they are versatile, they can hang on a package for that special someone, and then hang on a tree as holiday decoration. You could pack them away for next year and use them several times or save as a paper ornament. I have decorated a small tree with them and they are really fun and bring the holiday spirit to life.
Bring on the holidays, I am ready!
During this time of year, many begin the discussion about when is it appropriate to start seeing Thanksgiving and Christmas promotions. Halloween by this time is a given, and although it seems to get bigger every year, it usually stays within a Sept – Oct timeframe for the most part. There might be some random things you see earlier but usually they are delegated to the crafter community that needs a head start to finish creating in time for Halloween.
Thanksgiving although a good celebration for families and friends, is not as heavily promoted as Christmas and Halloween and really does not require the preparation that the Christmas Celebration does. Every year, I think that the distance between Thanksgiving and Christmas gets shorter and shorter. It doesn’t really but I love a wonderful Christmas and it takes time to build that. Unless you like to rush around panicking about where everything is and what you need to replace and what you’re going to get for Aunt Sue and Uncle Jim. Then you start planning for it early. I prefer to take it in stride and start planning in October for Christmas. This means, yes I am working on it NOW. Part of what I do is create for the holidays, so some of that takes place in July (even tho it can be difficult to get into the Christmas Spirit when it is 80 outside) but I enjoy it. I want to share with you what I have in store so far for the holidays. I hope you will check them out and start preparing for your best holiday yet. Of course you can find them all on Etsy in my store. http://www.etsy.com/shop/SharonOrella
I have always loved paper, I love the feel of paper, I love the smell of paper and I truly love the versatility of paper. Paper can become so many things and mean so much. I always wonder who and how the first bits of paper were made. I know that as far back as Egyptian times they were we writing on fibers and making papers. I have dabbled in making paper several times and enjoyed doing it. My favorite was when I decided that I was going to make use of all of the junk mail I kept getting. I began shredding all of my junk mail, envelope and credit card applications and sales flyers etc. It was not long before I had bags and bags of shredded paper. I than began throwing it in a blender with some water and unflavored Gelatin. I had read that the gelatin would hold everything together along with the fibers all interweaving together. I wound up with some pretty amazing paper pulp (after a LOT of blending). I made several batches of paper but my fave was the one I added a tiny bit of green food coloring to. In that batch I threw in some dried flowers, some green food color, and some other twiggy like fibers I had lying around. All of my 8 x 11 sheets came out a pale green with lots of texture. I thought they were fabulous! I little hard to write on, but they went through my inkjet printer rather nicely. I will have to do that again, perhaps next summer would be good. I found it best to do this outside, that way I did not worry about spillage or mess. Memories of my handmade paper are good ones and fit right in with my latest endeavor of paper creations. I discovered (drum roll puleeze) embossing! I have gone a bit overboard in collecting little embossing folders that I put paper in then crank through my little roller machine. I never get tired of seeing the end product! I have made tags, lots of tags, many experimental and some that have made it to my Etsy site. Did I tell you I also love to package these up, and make then pretty so that when people get them I hope they will like them as much as I do. I only wish I could give as many gifts as I make tags for because then I could gift wrap with paper too. Ahhh…. so much paper and so little time!
Of course I must share some pictures of my paper creations!
There are two ways I create, one is on a deadline and the other is free form with no particular purpose. I have learned over time that the sounds around me make a difference to how successful I am at both of these. I usually have the radio playing or my IPOD is playing.
When I am on a deadline, meaning I need to finish some artworks for a show, then I listen to NPR. I know, talk radio? It keeps me grounded, and is calm enough to keep me on task and helps me be more methodical. Of course it does have its risks, sometimes the program is so interesting, that you stop working to listen. If I am worried about that then it time to listen to either slow jazz or Classical music. I often wonder how many people use music or sound to motivate and influence their work. I will tend to get scattered and forget stuff if I am trying to hurry, so slowing down and paying more attention works for me.
Now when I am just playing around and experimenting, which I wish happened more often, is when I play music. Anything will do but the more up tempo the better. Recently one of my new favorite songs in Rolling in the Deep by Adele. That girl can SING! The up temp music gets me in a groove that says, no rules! Do what you want, it is all good. I will admit, that sometimes this creative jaunt involves dancing around, sometimes just chair dancin’ but other times, it is full on spinnin’ around the room!
I have often thought that I should just name my artworks after whatever I was listening to when they were created. Some would have names like, Radio Lab or Wait, Wait don’t tell me or Jar of Hearts, I found a boy or Revival. Now that would give them more punch and probably cause quite the conversation to ensue when explaining the names. What kind of Music do you listen to when your feeling creative?
Have you ever etched on Metal? Me either. But, I found this video by the ever wonderful Sherri Haab on how to etch metal. I know people who have done the etching, using their own calligraphy as the base and copying it to create the template for etching. It is definitely on my list of to do’s.
If you like to watch artist as they create, this is a great video I found. He is creating a filigree bracelet to music and I could not stop watching.
