paint flowers

"I perhaps owe having become a painter
to flowers."

Claude Monet


{here's to a weekend filled with lots of time to paint flowers!! enjoy!}

inspiration monday

here are a few pink-inspired projects to get your creative week started!

 to make this little paper heart ornie, start with a piece of your favorite paper (i used a piece of white mulberry paper and then rubbed a pink stamp pad over it for color).  cut two heart shapes,  then  sew some little embellishment doodads onto one of them.   hand-sew the two shapes together, and add a little stuffing before you're finished sewing......pink happiness!

for this project,  take an unfinished wood frame, cut a piece of scrapbook paper to size (this design is by teri martin), and adhere it to the frame with glue.  once dry,  paint the frame edges with some black acrylic paint, add some heart doodles using a micron pen, and tie a piece of ribbon and heart charm around the side.  now you've got a frame that's as special as the photo inside!

  my sweet daughter melissa is an avid knitter and she made this soft and fuzzy cutie for me.

not only does this little birdie make me smile every time i look at him, but he smells good too because he's stuffed with lavender!

this is a super quick embellishment you can make by tearing some scrapbook paper into circle shapes.  then crunch them up into little balls in your hands, unfold them and use stamp pads to distress them a bit.  stack the shapes on top of each other, and place a brad in the middle to hold them all together.  tear out some leaves, distress them, and glue them to the back of your flower!

and don't forget to add a little pink to your journal, too!  

the only thing required is your micron pen, some pink watercolor and your imagination!!

pretty in pink

there was a time when the first color i reached for in the crayon box was blue-violet. everything in my world was blue-violet. and then one day my eyes were opened to orange....any shade of orange. i love orange......especially with this color infusion of hot pink!

this dynamic duo looks great in little diamonds.....

or as dots on steroids....

or all folded up neatly, with just a peek to lure you inside for more.

it's orange, it's pink.

it's a dreamsicle, with a cotton candy chaser.

(the only thing missing are the chocolate chips.)

this journal is available in my shop here.

hello pink

  when i have a chance to play in my studio, i will usually end up picking up my calligraphy nib, mixing up a batch of lamp black gouache and just having some fun.  i'd like to eventually have journals...many journals...filled with stuff like this.  i've realized recently that i'm not having nearly enough fun in my studio...and times, well, they are           a-changin'!

p.s. in the Barbie world of valentine's cards, here's what i'm wondering...is it pink enough?!  :)

live, laugh, love...repeat

this is the first in my new series, "so true".  all of the artwork in this series will measure the ACEO size of 2.5 x 3.5" and focus on a short quote, quip or truism.  this piece was written on canson paper using dr. martin's bleedproof white (which is like gouache and used by photographers and graphic designers to do touch-ups).  while i like to work on a smaller scale, i think that this will prove to be a fun challenge!   we'll see how it goes!