Love is in the Air

Valentine's Day brings out the little kid in me, with memories of small, inexpensive valentines exchanged between elementary classmates, eating teeny heart-shaped candy stamped with romantic words, and making elaborate heart shaped valentines trimmed with paper lace for my parents.

Seeing the new rag paper hearts on Gwen Lafluer's website brought out my inner artsy-crafty kid. They were in several shades of pink, and pretty all by themselves, but I knew I wanted to embellish them. After all, Valentines are meant to be over-the-top and schmaltzy, aren't they?

Lots of new supplies recently arrived. I used the new stencil, pink hearts and scrap cherubs
and flowers for this year's valentines.

I got to work mixing up shades of pink, and sponged various stencils onto the paper hearts. I found that some of the designs that I didn't expect to work, such as the deco series, looked wonderful on the paper hearts. I started out carefully, but as I got into the creative groove, I began mixing and matching stencils and colors and working on several hearts at the same time. And I got a little sloppy, but I covered any blobs and misprints with other stencils. I also knew that I would be adding cherubs, lace and words and some of the mistakes wouldn't show.

White acrylic was sponged through the Ornamental Petals Mask stencil onto a pink heart.

A Deco Border looked surprisingly good on the hearts, and covered up some blobs of paint that
leaked out when I printed the Ornamental Petals.

On a mauve heart, a pink Decorative Folk Flower looked just right.

The Ornamental Petals Screen looked good with shades of pink on a mauve heart.

The Ornamental Petals Screen was carefully lined up with the point of the heart before printing.

The Deco Border has a 1960s look when used with pink paint on a peach heart.

Here the Decorative Medallion stencil was applied in light pink on a mauve heart.

This valentine has a peach paper base, with the Deco Border and Decorative Medallion stencils. The white blobby misprint didn't matter once the center hearts and wings were added.

The stenciled paper hearts could have been left un-embellished, but what's a Valentine
without words, or cherubs or flowers or lace?

When I finished, they looked good. However, my inner child cried, "More, more, more!" So, the next step was adding some scrap cherubs and flowers. And some lace. And yarn. And decorative brads. And little hearts.

So I pulled out my boxes and bins and rifled through my stash of ribbon, trim, brads, buttons and lace looking for things that said "valentine." I "auditioned" different arrangements to find the right harmony of color and design.

My work table...creative chaos!

"Auditioning" various elements to see which to place where.

One thing I particularly wanted to use was some handspun yarn created by Artist Tribe member Lynda Shoup. I found a valentine in just the right shade of pink to harmonize with her yarn, and decided to stitch it along the edge.

The beautiful, hand-spun pink yarn matched the paint nicely.

An awl was used to punch holes, then the yarn was carefully threaded through.

After the yarn had been threaded through, I added white Nuvo Drops between each stitch.

I had carefully trimmed the excess paper away from my scrap cherub and floral bouquets. I also decided it was the perfect time to use some pink and white covered brads that I had been hoarding for about 10 years.

Fabric covered brads were placed along the edges of one valentine. The placement was planned on the back of the valentine, and an awl was used to poke the holes.

I had a rusted folk-art heart that went on one valentine, but I traced around it and cut several paper hearts from scraps of pink painted cardstock.

An elongated metal folk-art heart was the template for some pink paper hearts.

They still needed words, so I stamped "be mine" and "love" on some pink paper. I also used pink Nuvo Drops for dimensional interest and hand-wrote the word "love" on one piece with the pink Nuvo Drop dispenser tip. On another, I used a small floral punch to create peach daisies, and used pink mini brads as the center, then decorated the edges of a pinkish heart. They circled around the rusted heart, to which I added some whimsical mini wings.

This valentine had a border made of punched paper flowers with a mini brad center.

Here are the final valentines...now I just need to decide who to send them to!

In February, many of the Gwen Lafluer Artist Tribe are showcasing creations that honor Chinese New Year. You can check out their work here, and also save 15% on any of the items in the Exotic Orient section of the website with the coupon below.

Fly Your Freak Flag

On Saturdays and Sundays, I relax and unwind from a long work-week by puttering in my art journal. Collage seems to be one of the most therapeutic art forms for me. I pull out items from my drawers and shoeboxes that, at that moment, speak to me. Some days earth tones call to me, sometimes bright vibrant colors and shapes.

A few weekends ago, pink called my name. One item in particular was a pretty napkin that was tucked into an envelope full of Paris-themed ATCs. I decided to use it as a background. It seemed to clash with the other pink tidbits that I had piled on my work table, but I pushed ahead anyway. I also used a pink carnation printout that was gifted to me from Kelly Kilmer when I took a class a few years ago. I had been holding on to it, waiting to find just the right collage to use it in, and decided that I had waited long enough so I used it in the center of the page.

When my pink collage was done, it looked kind of yucky. I had mixed the napkin with some old dictionary pages, a pink argyle piece of washi tape packaging, fabric scraps and paper scraps. I put the collage page aside and left it for a while. Something wasn't working but I couldn't put my finger on what exactly went wrong.

The unfinished, too pink collage page

The next weekend I was playing with some Jane Davenport washi tape facial features. I had been waiting almost a year for my local Michaels to restock the tape and was so happy to find it. I made some peculiar faces and dolls with the tape, and one face with oversized eyes looked freaky-wonderful, but I didn't quite know what to do with it.

The face was too big for a paper doll, so I auditioned her on the loud pink collage page, and it seemed to work, but I decided that I needed to knock back some of the brightness of the collage with white paint and gesso. I also added Gwen's Ornamental Petals stencil/mask in a few places in the background for a subtle texture. It looked better...but not done. I decided that the page was already looking pretty strange, so I decided to try adding some Dresden Trim. One extra-large gold wing seemed to suit my girl, and a tiny gold Bourbon Crown added a touch more of whimsy. I liked the weird proportions of the giant wing versus teeny crown, with the round head and oversized eyes. I thought about giving her a second wing but she looked like she could fly with just one.

An oversized face, gold wing and tiny crown, background stenciling,
and white body suited the overly pink collage background

Still, the page didn't seem done. It was too clean, and too pink, so I decided to add contrast with a Scribe All black watercolor pencil. I added a little hair, some chin definition, and gray tones around the figure and in the background, which brought out the stamped design nicely.

It occurred to me that she looked decidedly freaky, and that she seemed to make no excuses for her oddity. The words "fly your freak flag" popped into my head so I wrote them big and bold on the page. Even with just one giant wing, she is certainly ready to fly, and not afraid to be a little unusual.

The words "fly your freak flag" popped into my head as I was finishing the journal page

If you like the German Dresden Trim wings and crown, take a look on the website to see Gwen's amazing collection of Dresden items. While made of paper--not actual metal, they are strong and flexible, hold their shine and have fine details. And here's a coupon you can use for a discount until the end of the year for Dresden Trim and/or German and English Scrap. Happy shopping, happy New Year, and happy creating!

2016-Breathe-Pink

Previous New Years have been filled with grand plans. With a lot of uncertainty looming ahead for 2016, I decided not to go crazy trying to plan, but I did give some thought to my word of the year. There is an online, inspirational, year-long art series that many mixed media artists take and one of the elements is to decide on one word that will represent what you want to focus on in the calendar year.

Due to time constraints, I am not taking the online course, but last year I did embrace the one word aspect of the course. Last year my word was "BE". It reminded me to just be me, do my own thing, not worry about judging myself or being judged or doing any judging. It reminded me that just existing is enough, reminded me to be calm.

After some thought, I settled on the word "BREATHE" for 2016. Breathing is usually overlooked. It is automatic and for the most part, involuntary. But the right kind of breathing can be calming and healing, so that is why I chose it. There are some things in my life that I can't control. The company I work for is undergoing a major restructuring. People are retiring, leaving for greener pastures, and wondering if they will be transferred or their jobs phased out. There are some family health issues that I have no control over. I just have to wait and see what happens for both these major issues.

What I CAN do is breathe. Of course I will do my best to eat right, exercise, get enough sleep and do art. But even if I feel I am exhausted or stressed, I will always have enough energy to breathe through it all.

As a secondary symbol for 2016, I chose the color pink to go with my word breathe. I love pink. It is girly and happy and pretty and hopeful, and the two seemed to go together. My first journal page of 2016 isn't the most fabulous art I have ever done. But, it served it's purpose...it got me rolling for 2016, it solidified my focus, and it is an expression of myself that was done to just let out feelings and emotion and thoughts and help me accept that not everything I do is beautiful or perfect, and that's okay.