Jennie Says: February 2014

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Milk+Dishsoap+Foodcoloring=Art

Fun little project I did with my son this morning.

Just pour some Milk on a plate. Dot some food coloring. Put a couple drops of dishsoap in the middle and watch the magic!

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Theme List

Music
Dressform
School Days
Vegetables
Fruits
Lyrics
Quotes
Sleep/Dreams
Pen&ink
Black&White
Disney
Season
circus
animals
Ocean/Beach
Monotone
cupcakes
watercolors
alphabet
cake
dance
color wheel
chevron
circles
tangled
doodle
favorites
polkadots
tiedye
vintage
washi
butterflies
flowers
imperfect
polaroid
spatter
blind contour
swing
monochrome
fabric
water
My Town
prints
clockwork
robots
childhood toys
superstitions
sidewalks
found items
stencils
patterns
stamps
Marking the path
books
packaging
birds
bloom
astrology
something mystical
healing
sip
japanese
animals doing people things
food
rainbows
under the sea
negative space
carried away
collage
glitter
just keep swimming
memory
shadows
hats
fairytale
steampunk
botanicals
encyclopedia
peace
Vista
the color blue
at sea
rust
landscape
coconut ice
linear
circular
boxed in
smash
inside out
refresh
face
mother
feared medium
spot
Farm
Mountains
nature
breakfasty
sun and moon (space)

Making Envelopes for Happy Mail (with a naughty baby)

Today, I spent the morning making envelopes! I use some normal every day copy paper, a thick layer of gesso, which my son helped me texture with his hands and toys, and acrylic paints.

First, Gesso. Let it dry, let your kid mess it up with various vehicle toys, makes great texture plus apparently its a ton of fun.

Mr Texture

Then, add color. Lately I've been doing a ton of red and oranges, so today I tried to stick with cool colors. Staying in a single color theme makes it easier when making a group. I just squirt the paint directly to the paper and brush it out, you need a good layer of paint to make a sturdy envelope so slop it on.

If you have a toddler around, again encourage some good texture work. Or get in there with your fingers or something. You can even steal a baby's toy and use it yourself, like I did here.

NEXT, add a pattern. I used some household items, I will name them off with the photos. I tried to stick with the same colors for the patterns, I wanted them to stay vibrant, not to mud em up, so I used all the willpower I had to keep the red and orange far, far away. At the request of Greyson I did pull out some purple though.

The left is stamped with bubble wrap and a coaster I have been using as a stamp, it's shaped like a record, grooves and all, it's a great stamp! The right is made with a plastic bottle cap and ...you know, cardboard ribs

Left is just dots made with my finger. Right is bubble wrap and a plastic bottle cap.

Left is the Coaster. Right is bubble wrap, a few bottle caps to highlight the bubble circles, and a couple random cardboard rib stamps. Also Grey ran his truck through that one

Same stamps, different ways. Truck tracks, coaster, bottle caps.

Cardboard ribs

NOW! Please forgive me! I was not planning on making this blog post, so I did not take pictures of the next steps. Now, all of these looked fine.. but I wanted one more level. So I made some stamps. I took some cardstock and some copy paper. I cut the copy paper into 4 pieces and glued them together, I then cut out the design and glued it to the cardstock. I put some glue on top and made some texture with my brush ..just because I wanted to. I made a few stamps but I only used this one. Also, I couldn't hold back the red/orange monster any longer, so I ended up using it! Make sure everything is dry before you start. Also, when making envelopes I suggest you fold them BEFORE adding stamps, because you will get a better overall composition. I am sure you can tell I did not do this. I also took the red color I used for the stamps and added some little dots and smears to the other envelopes, embellish as you like. To fold the envelope, you can find a template and cut or you can just as easily do a simple fold, I take the paper, fold an half an inch on each side, fold the bottom up, fold the sides in on the top half (to make the triangle shape, but you don't even really have to do that, and then fold the top down, easy! I do cut the little half inch fold and glue it to the back.. I will make a folding and gluing post tomorrow :D