TOTALLY PIC HEAVY POST!!

Hey all you people!! I managed to make it back here today with yet another post. Sorry that there wasn't one yesterday, but this one's really long and pic heavy to make up for that. I don't know about you guys, but when I'm on a forum, or even a blog, I LOVE to see tons of pictures. There are a lot of people who apologize for that, but I just love to see all different angles and pictures. :P It could just be me though.

The first thing I wanted to share with you guys a bunch of envelopes I've been saving - rescuing from the mail in fact. I know that probably sounds kind of weird to you, and maybe even a bit hoarder type thing to do. But trust me, it's not. I have a specific project that I'm saving these for... I'll be able to share it with you soon hopefully. It's going to be a journal type album THING. Yeah. That's about the best description that I've got. But I'm gonna need a LOT more envelopes. These are used ones that I got in the mail. I was just lucky enough to get some colored ones. If any of you guys have any you'd like to donate to the cause... that'd be cool. :P

Another thing that I've been thinking about doing lately is a Dear Jane quilt. I started one a while back, but the different things didn't quite fit, and the size was waaaay off. So I'm just going to start over. :D I know it's sort of a bad idea, and kind of wasteful, but I think it's just worth starting over, in order to make it look nicer. Sometimes there's no other choice. Do you agree?

This is a little piece of folded, knit fabric that I managed to salvage from a tee shirt that was too small for me. You know, the ones that you don't want to throw away since the fabric is soooo cool, but you don't know what you'd want to do about it? I take them apart using a seam ripper, and most of the time manage to get really large chunks of knit fabric. You can actually also use cotton shirts for cheap quilting fabric.

Here are the scraps that I have leftover from taking apart the shirt. It was a care bears shirt, that was rimmed around the sleeves and neckline with the pink fabric shown above. Yeah. And I got all of that fabric from just one shirt. It makes you think though, doesn't it?

It's been a little while since I posted a picture of my cross stitch progress. So here's one for you. I've got quite a bit further, and I've got about three full cars done, one half done, and one not even started yet. :) I just love working on cross stitch though, since the more hours that you put into it, the more the shading develops and the better it starts to look. But this definitely isn't a one day project. Six months perhaps. But definitely not a day. Or a week. Or probably not even a month. I just like working on it cause it's so calming to play with the colored threads. But it's not too difficult.

Here's another calming endeavor that I love to do, even though I just dug this out of my many boxes this morning. It's a quilt that I'm making. I'm actually working on the quilting part currently, stitching the three layers (top, batting, and backing) together with tiny little stitches. BY HAND!! Of course, I guess I could use my machine, but I decided that I'd rather practice my stitching by hand, since I kind of stink at it. I'm getting better with practice though, I think.

Here's a closer up view so you can sort of see how the pattern goes. It's taking a LOT more work than I originally anticipated, but it's relaxing to try it every now and again...

And... I FINISHED MY GLOVES!! I don't know if you can see the cable pattern too well in these, but they really turned out well. On one of the gloves (the right one I think) the seam I did made the thumb hole a little too high, so I'm going to need to rip it out and do it over. It doesn't look bad, it's just a little bit uncomfortable to wear. So I think I'll do it over. But it doesn't look bad at all. At least I don't think so. But of course, I'm totally biased. XD

One last picture before I go; another quilt that I just laid out - the diamonds are blocks, but there are only twelve of them. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to make it bigger. Right about now it's pretty darn small, but I sort of like the size of it. I think I'll just have to wait and see.

Another thing that I'd like to share with you guys is that you probably won't be seeing me for somewhere around a week, starting Monday. My mom is cutting us off from screens for a week, and that includes blogs and stuff. But luckily, she's still going to let me find my patterns and stuff online. Thank heavens. Without that stuff, I'd probably be lost. :D

One last thing that I'd like to leave you mulling on - I'm starting another project sometime soon. I know, I know. I just started another project the other day. But I can't help it. I found an amazing tutorial HERE, and I about DIED looking at it. It's crazy. And it's totally me. Anyways, I'll probably see you guys tomorrow, but if not, then next week!!

MORE Knitting!!

I don't really have that much today - only knitting for you guys. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to have some more paper crafts, including today's daily card. Today I finished school late, so I didn't really have that much time to craft. I've been doing a lot of knitting lately, as you've been seeing on here. :P So yeah. The little sample above is a little knitting made from the yarn I showed in the last post. You know, the one that was made up of lots of different colors and textures?

I know that I promised you guys a sample swatch, and that's what I've been doing all day. Knitting for you guys. But I don't mind. It's kind of cool knowing that somebody's actually gonna look at it. It makes me feel good. I don't know why. Don't try and ask me. Cause I really don't know. :)

Now here's the beginning of a new project. We'll see if it goes well enough. See, I started a sock. That's right. A sock. I know that most socks are knit on either double pointed needles or circular needles. But I decided to try and find a free pattern for some made on straight needles, mostly because I can't afford to buy any circular ones. Though I'd like to have some to make a sweater eventually. I just think it might be fun. I made the sock cuff above from a blue to white variegated, but I don't know it I'll be able to even finish ONE sock in this yarn. It's just a bit annoying. I'm going to try and maybe go onto ebay to find a similar yarn.

And my one last thing that I've been working on - Fair Isle Knitting. Using two different yarns at the same time. You can sort of see how there are alternating colored loops on the actual needle, and two colors of yarn on the back of the needle. Try searching on google, and I'm sure you'll come up with a bunch of results.

I'll probably be working on this a little bit more on this pretty often, so I'll probably be showing this to your pretty often. This is a technique that I've been working with a lot lately.

Knitting! (And Some Paper Crafts Too!)

Hey everyone! I'm back with you guys again with another post. Today's card was for an accordion fold challenge on 365 Cards. I decided to keep it simple in this one. As I was working on it, I had other things planned, but as I put the butterfly on, I realized it actually looked best this way. I really like it. It's not common for me to be this simple in my work, so when it does happen, it happens every now and again.

See, here's a slight example of this difference. You have the very simple example of the previous card, and then a page that I was working on today - it's very different. It's actually very dark compared to the card as well, as you can probably see. I used a bunch of different stuff on it, and it was pretty fun to make.

Here's a more close up of the title as well. I really like how the black letters are so different from the 'e'. I'm pretty sure that I just ran out of the black letters, but I think that it sort of makes sense with the whole theme of the page. You know; how my style is so unique. It's just like that.

Something else that I've been working on is how I could actually make my own type of yarn. I just mixed a bunch of colors, textures, and types of yarn. I like how it looks, and I know that it could be used in many different projects. I'm thinking of knitting and crochet first off. I like the knitting aspect of it. That however, is probably because I've been really been into knitting lately. I don't know why, but I just think that it's a bit more calming and relaxing than crochet. Many crochet patterns are a lot more complex than in knitting, and in crochet there are DOZENS of different stitches, while in knitting, there are only two different stitches; knit and purl.

What you do is mix the two stitches. There are about a million different ways to do that, and you can do lots of things; such as cables, squares, triangles, and other things. It's known as a magic ball.

Here's more of a close up of the different textures in the yarn. I'm considering selling this yarn; how much would you suggest putting in a single skein, and how much would you pay for something like this? I'm just wondering... maybe I'll work up a swatch in this so you could see sort of you it works up.

One more thing that I've been working with - knitting with fibers. You know, the fuzzy yarns and such. It's such a pleasure to work with, even though it does get difficult in some places, and slightly bulky in others. You can sort of see where I switched from the stockinette stitch to the garter stitch. I've just been messing around with it. *shrugs*. I dunno. I just think it's sort of fun. Experiment. And play. Try it.

Art Never Ceases to Amaze Me

The title says it all. Art never ceases to amaze me. Never had and never will. It seems that the more I work at it; improving my technique and have fun messing around with paint and supplies... the more things happen. Good things. The feeling of freedom you get when you accomplish something. The accomplishment you have when you finish something. The pleasure of browsing through an old art journal and seeing the progress. Page by page. It all comes together and you can see your art journey to where you are today.

The page above is probably one of my very favorite pages I've EVER made. It's also the most recent. You think about that for a minute. It seems that almost every time I create a new page, that is officially my new favorite. It's art. And art never ceases to amaze me.

Take today's daily card for example. If you look back to when i first started up making my cards only a week or two ago, they didn't look too good. They weren't very enjoyable for me to look at, since every time I saw them I was reminded of how much I hated them. But now you can see I like them better. As you work at it, you gain more confidence in your work, and will enjoy working with the materials more than you quite care about the finished project. And sometimes... sometimes what looks like something normal - like the card above for example. Well...

It's not very normal at all.

From a Sketch to a Card

So I'm back here with you all and a whole 'nother post. Yeah. I just said that. I guess I'm just getting desperate for some new intros... it's sad, I know. So anyways, here's a page that I've been working on a lot lately, and I really liked the way it turned out. Actually, I had started the page a while back, and have pretty much just been adding to it since then. I like it as it is right about now, so this is probably the last time I'll mess with it.

Here's a close up of the title, since I LOVE the way it turned out. I used a bunch of foam letter stamps that were sent to me by a friend of mine as a RAK (thanks Dede!!) and I love the way they look. The tall, stretched out look is totally my style! Here, you can sort of see the faded texture/color to the background that I simply love. It's just hard for me to get it like this. However, when I do get one to turn out, it just makes it that much more special. :)

Last, but certainly not least, I've got a card to share with you guys today. I simply love the way this card came out. I used one of my favorite color combinations (you've probably already detected this from the short time on this blog); lime and black. With lots of white space. I worked from a 365 Cards challenge...

A sketch!!

I love using sketches, and you maybe can see where the idea for this card came around. I basically turned the sketch on it's side, and used the bracket in place of the half hexagon. I love it. It's fun using sketches, at least to me. I love the thought of sketches, and they're just so fun to use. If you haven't already, I suggest you try them!!

A Monochromatic Card....

Hey everybody!! Though I'm still playing a bit of catch up, this post may (or may not) be a little bit longer than the last post since I have very strong emotions attached to this page. This is, I think, the second time that I've actually emotionally connected to my pages. I had just gotten into a BIG fight with one of my brothers. It was horrible - a very bad experience, especially on my part.

But you see, in the end we made up and everything was good again. So I made this page as a representation of that. My favorite color is blue and his is red - when I scraped these colors together onto the page, it was a sort of literal representation of our differences being put aside; actually mixing even; into an entirely new color - purple!! I really like how it turned out, and I did a bunch of journaling on it. I'm still trying to think of the perfect title.

Here's another, more full, straight on view. I actually think that the colors are a bit more true in this photograph than the other, though they aren't THAT different. That's something else that I have trouble with; getting my colors true to life. I know it's never possible to get them perfect, but I'd like them to at least RESEMBLE the real colors. :P If anybody has any tips, that'd be cool...

And last but not least, a card for today's 365 Cards challenge. The challenge was to put color on your image in 5 different ways. I got my 5 colors on the first, upside down tear shaped bulb. From top to bottom, they are: gel pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint, markers, and glitter glue. The other bulb was simply colored in with gel pens and markers. I hope you like it, and have a good day!!

A Quickie Post

Hey all! I've got more of a quickie post today, and will for the next few days. I've mostly been working with paper crafts lately, which means that I don't have so many pictures to share with you all. Also, this from here until the 11th is all catch up, so that means that my thoughts on the pages and cards aren't exactly up to date.

Anyways, first off is this card for the 365 Cards challenge. I really liked working with smaller cards as it's a bit less intimidating, so this is only 3x3. It was supposed to be based around their sponsor's name, HeartSong something or other. I really liked it, but my card didn't quite turn out how I wanted it to...

I've got another art journal page for you today as well, and it's basically just a black background with some random blue paint scraped on there. I like the lace on it as well, though I'm not really one to use very delicate laces in my work.

And here's another view of it. I like it a lot, though it's actually not finished yet - actually it's not close at all.

A Wash Makeover

Okay, so as I told you guys plenty of times yesterday, I completely hated my page I made yesterday. So I thought I'd just give you a bit of a tutorial on how to fix/change a page that you hate. I decided that the best way to fix something like this would either be to paint over it or use a wash. I haven't done washes in a long time. So I decided that I'd go with that. I decided that the problem was that the page was just a little uncoordinated.

So I decided that I'd use a black wash over top of it, just so all of the colors will manage to meld together, as that's what I was trying for in the very beginning. So what you do is you start off with a bunch of supplies. I show them above. It uses a page you want to redo, a pallet with some black paint in it, a basic paintbrush, and a little container of water. You mix the black paint with a bit of water.

Then, use the paintbrush to paint over the entire background. I like to totally saturate it. I think it makes the end result much better. Then take a baby wipe, a paper towel, or a napkin and just wipe away. The below picture is what it looks like after this.

I really like it now. I'm pretty happy with this. It's awesome. I think it may be one of my favorite pages now since I first started this Art Journal Everyday challenge. It's day 7 I think, and it's been going pretty well up until now. I know that it took a bit too long to get this post up, but at least it's still today. It's pretty awesome. I also worked on this page for the Green Isle Crafts art journal challenge. Today's challenge was No Waste. To use something in your page that you normally wouldn't. I chose phone book paper.

Here's the finished page all in all. You know what I mean? I know that I'm totally addicted to this zebra ribbon. I like it so much. It's weird. :)

I've also got this card. It's been fun working with cards lately. I really, really like this card though. It's cool. I like the way that the curved lines make it seem like space. I know, it's weird. But anyways.

Here's a better view of the card. I like it a lot. The card challenge was called Just a Touch, and the actual challenge was to use a stamped image and put two touches of color in the image. I like the way it looks. It's pretty cool. So anyways, that's all I've got for today... hope to see you guys tomorrow!!

Some ATCs and A Gouache Experiment

Yo. I'm back once more, and I've got some more arty goodness to share with you all. So I guess I'm just going to jump right in there and get it done. There is a sheet of playful/just plain random doodles above. I was really bored and sitting at the dining room table. I grabbed some colored pencils that just happened to be sitting there and just started to doodle out some random stars, circles, etc. onto the paper in different colors.

For the most part, I hated them, and was just doing it cause I was really bored. But as I continued to work on them, I sort of became more attached to them. I started to like their wonky quality, and didn't care that they weren't perfect. Now I really like them. I'm probably going to work with this a bit tomorrow. I was thinking of using it for either a collage paper for an art journal page or an ATC background. Or maybe both. You never really know 'til you try it you know. That's just how I roll. Not knowing what coming next, or what I'm going to get rid of. I'm more of a spontaneous person myself, if you can't tell by now.

And I know that you guys are going to totally scold me for this, but I started another project. I know, I know. It's wrong. I haven't even worked on the knitted cable gloves I pretty much started this blog off for a long time. But I tell you the truth, those are going on my list of things to work on tomorrow. I promise.

So anyways, getting back to the topic. I started a new crochet project. It's a basic single crochet afghan that serves several purposes. One is that when it's done it's going to be really warm. That's pretty much a bonus. Another thing is that it's really easy. I just chained about 150 stitches, then single crocheted up from there. It's a scrap project. I specially started it just to use up those little balls of scraps that you literally can't do anything with. I know I already have two of these types of projects started (I haven't shown you the second one yet...) but I thought it couldn't hurt to have another scrap buster!!

But the final and real reason that I actually decided to start this is that I just needed some simple, mindless crochet. You see, I homeschool. And there's a whole lot of reading involved in that (my Mom reads aloud to us) so I need something to keep my hands busy. I'm not the type to just sit around doing nothing. I either need to be doing something totally active (sports, working out, running, biking, etc) or doing something with my hands. I just can't sit and listen. So that's the beauty of this project. It's so simple I don't even have to think about it. Just listen to what we're learning about.

The picture above is a flatter version of the first picture so you can sort of see how it's working up. It's really a lot longer than this, but I wanted to have a pleasing picture rather than just showing you how long it is. Basically I'm just doing alternating stripes of white and cream with colors (so far I've only used blue and green, but that's because that's what most of my stash is made up of), so it's going to be pretty colorful when it's actually finished. Also, the stripes aren't measured at all, I just do some thick and some thin. It makes it more pleasing to look at.

Here's something else that I've been working on. Some ATCs for a swap I'm participating in. It's called the 'One Good Egg' swap, and basically you just make some easter eggs using any technique you like. Zentangling was what immediately came to mind. Soo... long story short I made six cards, and am going to be sending them to the swap coordinator here soon. I just love how they came out. Especially the wonky one on the bottom in the middle. :D BTW, in case some of you were wondering, it was either a 3/3 or a 6/6 swap. Normally if it gives you a choice like that, I'll go for the larger number, since it means I'll get more in return. :) I know, it's sad. It's an addiction. But I love what I do.

I also did another card for the 365 Card challenge today. The theme/challenge/topic was pure contentment. They wanted to know how you would depict those words on your card. I basically just went through some of my images and found a picture of a girl who looked contented. I then just added a sentiment to finish it off after some stamping. But here's something... I decided to do a cute mini card today!! You can't tell in the picture, (I should have put something in for comparison...) but it's an ATC sized card! I'm not sure why, but I like the small size of an ATC or the large size of an art journal or scrapbook page. There's that card size in the middle that's a bit intimidating. Don't ask me why, though, cause I don't know. :D

Okay, so I've got a couple more pictures for you, and they're both of my new art journal page. I don't know why, but I'm not quite fond of this page in general. It's kind of weird, and the colors don't really go together. Also, I don't know if the phone book paper really matches the theme of the rest of the page. But anyways, I'll probably end up layering a whole buttload of crap on top of this until I'm finally satisfied with it. Or, if that doesn't work, I'll probably just layer white paint on over top of it and start over again. :D

Here's the same page, just further away. The idea for this page just was to experiment using gouache. I had gotten some of this for about 50 cents from a thrift store, just wondering what it was all about. I did a little bit of researching about what I had gotten, and it turns out I got a really good deal. An original tube of this stuff in a smaller size goes retail for about three bucks. It's literally the best of the best. And to think I had no idea what it was when I got it.

If you were wondering what gouache was in general, I think that it's similar to watercolors, only they're more solid. You squirt it out onto a pallet and mix with water. But these things have better cover than the acrylics that I use. Personally, I think that's pretty good! I just have to do some more experimenting to see what else I can do. Hopefully to make them look better. One last thing I'd like to share with you before I go is to try and post a list of what I plan to work on tomorrow. There's no way I can be precise to a 'T', but I'll do my best!!

Art List For 4-7-2011

-Art Journal Page

-ATCs

- Knitted Gloves

-Cross Stitch

- Crocheted Blanket

-365 Card Challenge

And of course, anything else that may pop up!! See you all tomorrow!!

Color Scheme!

Yeah! I made it back for the fifth day in a row. I've been doing pretty good so far on my commitment. We'll see how long it'll last. So today was also day five of Art Journaling Daily. It's pretty awesome. So today I thought I'd do a little bit of experimentation with doodling. I don't think I've done that yet in my journal, so I just messed around with it a bit. I used the colors blue, green and orange. I actually got the color scheme from the 365 Card challenge, and it's going pretty good so far. I couldn't actually find a challenge to use for my art journal page, so I just decided to try that. I doodled the stars, then painted, stamped, and collaged over TOP of the doodles.

Also, you can see that along the edges are a line of glitter. I did that in the normal way, just using regular school glue and shaking the glitter over top of you. I kind of like using it, though it's not really my style.

Here's a version of it a bit closer away. I'll probably add more to it, but that's all I'm going to do for now. I like it a lot. By the way, this is my official 100th page!!! I'm totally freaking out. I can't believe that actually happened. It feels like it happened so quickly. It's strange. But so cool!!

Okay, so this photo above is simply a view of a color scheme. This was on 365 Cards. I love this color scheme. It's totally my style, and I love the brightness of it.

Here's the card that I created for this challenge. I know it's a bit messy, but that's sort of my style. I used more of that zebra stripe ribbon. I seem to be addicted to this lately. I'm not quite sure why, but I just am. Crazy huh?

Here's another view of it. In this picture you can see the stamping a bit better.

I know I promised you guys yesterday that I'd show you what my cross stitch is supposed to look like finished. And here it is!! Do you like it?

One last picture. This is my progress. I know I showed one yesterday, but you can sort of see some progression. I like it a lot so far, and think it's turning out perfectly. You can sort of see in the dark brown in the back the two extra cars forming.