AEDM ´12 Day #2 Talking about shoes

For Art Every Day Month I´ll show you my working table and my scrapbook page for Day#1.

Scrapbook page is On The Road by Yorkshirelass for UKScrapper´s 10th anniversary cybercrop.

This week we have had a look at our shoes. Some were fixed like Lisa´s boots and some were disposed of. Ginny has cleaned her closet and the only things left are those that she wears. Way to go Ginny! Enjoy the space and freedom.

Today I have an awesome guest: Vanina Cabai from the blog Ayloviú with a creative project with shoe trees. Not only creative but also generous. Vani and her students painted some beautiful pieces to be auctioned.

It all started with the shoe trees that were donated to the art class.

They prepared the pieces to be painted.

Some of the finished ones:

As Vani says in her blog: the pieces will be sold during the exhibit at the MAT (Museo de Arte Decorativo ~ Decorative Art Museum) in Tigre and the money will be for children in need. 

This will be done at La Usina del Bienestar from November 15th to November 18th during Expo Tigre. The painted shoe trees will be auctioned by Sergio Mazza for the Cooperadora Única de los Centros de Salud de Tigre (Tigre´s Health Center Cooperative)

Do you want to see pictures of the pieces being painted? Visit this post by La Usina. If you are planning your Christmas shopping it´s a wonderful opportunity to get some of these as presents while helping teh local kids. 

This is Vani´s next seminar flyer in case you are in teh neighbourhood. :)

You can find Vani in Facebook: Ayloviú and Twitter: Ayloviú.
Thanks for being my guest today Vani!

Is it November yet?

Time is a social convention, so I´m starting "early" by setting an intention for Art Every Day Month in November today.

 I´m prepping my materials, choosing media and concepts.
I have decided on the daily scrapbooking, with cards for scraps.
But I´m also throwing in some art journaling for which I will use the quotes journal. I only had 4 spreads in it. Totally love the 4th, I´m ok with #1 and #2 but I truly didn´t like this one:

Right. Let´s cover it up with circles cut from magazines. It all started when I cut the crown seen in my Full Moon Board last month. I liked the ring left over, so I tried it again, this time on purpose.

 Added purple paint on one extreme, white on the other and worked my way along the degradé. Too much paint made the first circle wrinkle and loose grip. Looks like a Full Moon. Moon over tulip fields. Yes, I can live with this one. :)

 This year I will post a daily picture of my working space like in 2011.

 WIP aka my usual "no paint left behind" style. I also had some circles left.

Thank you for your visit today! I´m linking this post to Paint Party Friday so you can look through more painted art and also Blogtoberfest for some blog love. :)

Getting tidy but messy on Paint Party Friday

This week for the decluttering & creating series we are going through our jewelry.

Option #1, the ready made: a frame with hooks on the wall. This is my pretties corner at home. The first hook has white, black and grey necklaces, the second reds and pinks, the third browns and oranges and the fourth purples and blues. I´m wired that way. ;)

 Option #2, the crafty version: a year ago I made this necklace hanger for Tati. You can click here for that post or here to read the decoupage steps we used on the first week for the pencil holder.

Now you are asking yourself: "What can we do with the pieces we no longer use?" For example:

Step 1: make some jell-o. Delicious, nutricious and really easy to make.

 Step 2: open the cardboard box.

Step 3: cut the pieces.

Step 4: get your choice of acrylic paints. Paint a base layer, let it dry. And now ... let´s get messy and do some finger painting. :D

 Step 5: poke holes on the finished piece. Eyelets will make them tidier. Use a necklace as a handle or as embellishment.

Share your jewelry corners here in the comments sections so we can travel around the world in a fashion tour! :)

What to do with loose paper: Creative Project #2

Our task for this week was to gather all those pieces of loose paper: bills, brochures, cards, junk mail, pretty scraps ...
Now, what do we do with all that paper?

Option #1, the easy way out: buy a folder put everything in it. If you are feeling inspired you can organize the bills by service provider and date.

Option #2, for a fun weekend: get a manila box and go to town with acrylic paints, stencils and stamps.

Step 1: paint the manila box with a base layer. I used a soft yellow. When it´s dry, paint a second layer for a solid background.
Step 2: use stencils and a brayer to decorate with several designs/colours.

You can also decorate with foam stamps and acrylics, like my "Scraps" lettering or rubber stamps and inks.

Edited to add the finished decorated box.

We can also take this project a step further and make a "vision box". If you´ve never heard of vision boards and are the reading type, check Christine Kane´s explanation of them. If you like the video learning experience, check out Jamie Ridler´s videos on the theme. 
Here´s a quick one for your watching pleasure. :D


In easy words ~  because we are making our lives lighter, right? ~ get your favourite magazine/s, your "go to" cutting tools and a glue stick.

Get comfy, set your intention and start cutting. When you have enough images (that is pictures and words) glue them to your box. 

Have a creative weekend!
I´m linking my painted box to "Paint Party Friday". Go visit other participants to be inspired!

What to do with dry pens: Creative Project #1

Last Monday I introduced my "Guided easy steps to declutter your home" series and we started by trying all the pens at home and discarding those that didn´t work.

There are bound to be dry pens that you don´t want to discard because their sentimental value. What can we do with those?

Option #1 for those in a hurry:

put the pen in display in front of the picture of the place/the person you got the pen from. 

Option #2 for a creative weekend: a decoupaged pen holder. This one also is useful for working pens, markers and brushes.

Step 1: Start by choosing a wooden pen holder. Oh, yes! You can get creative here, buy a plastic one, put your souvenirs there and call it done. :D

Step 2: paint the pen holder with acrylic white base paint.
Step 3: let it dry and apply a second layer of white.
Step 4: choose two pretty coordinated printed napkins and coordinated acrylic paint for the inside.

Step 5: paint the inside of the pen holder with the acrylics of your choice.

 Step 6: carefully separate the FIRST layer of the napkin (the one with the design) and apply it with decoupage adhesive to the sides of the pen holder. Tip for cutting the napkin to size: instead of cutting it before do it afterwards. Apply the paper with the adhesive and after the adhesive is dry, sand the borders with a very fine sanding paper until it cuts.

Step 7: apply acrylic varnish of your choice.

You can also go over a design that no longer serves your decoration style. Start with the white base over the previous design and go from there. :)

Step 8: smile at the completed task. :)
I´m linking this post to Paint Party Friday by Eva and Kristin
Next week: bills and other miscellaneous scraps of paper.

PPF #10 v.2

Thanks Kristin & Eva for another round of Paint Party Friday!
I´m taking part of Ayala Art 29 FACES in May project, so it´s been all about portraits this month. I sketch a lot while waiting for the kids at the school doors.

This is the face I was working on two weeks ago. Now I worked on the background adding some stamping, bubble wrap colouring, watercolour pencil, marker border and a quote by Pablo Picasso: When INSPIRATION comes, let her find me WORKING.
The final stage of these art journaling pages.

Want to see my table? Here it is:
P.S: my "desk" is our dining table. That means I put stuff out, work and put stuff away. My working space isn´t like that allllll the time. ;) And yes, I´m verging OCD when placing my materials in a line. :D

Now, there is something I want to say to you:
If you are coming from the PPF link, let me tell you this: YOU are one of the most interesting peeps in this world, that´s why I keep going back there. :)
 If you are coming from Jamie Ridler´s Wishcasting Wednesday: my truest gratitude for your loving & continuous support. I´m wishing for you too.
 If you are coming from Sunday Snippets: it´s sooooooo cool to get to know you and your vision of the world. Thanks for being my eyes where you are.
 If you are coming from Creative Every Day: keep creating my dear! You are making this planet a better place.
Yay for International Internet Day (May 17th)!

I love my local community too. That being said, I haven´t been able to form a local art/business tribe. I think I haven´t been asking the right questions. In a place this big there must be some "same wavelength" women. :)

It is great timing that Jennifer Louden is offering a "Learn to Create your own Mastermind Group" course! She will teach topics like the different styles of groups and how to determine what style you want, the  structures, finding the right people and how to manage the group. Groups are formed by humans, and as such they evolve and change. Lots of useful "how to"s about that too. :)  If we have met before you will certainly recognize some of the cool interviewees names and jump for joy. If we haven´t: check them out! They are awesome! Danielle LaPorte, Andrea Sher, Tanya Geisler + Rachel Cole + Kate Swoboda + Bridge Pilloud + Julie Daley + Jamie Ridler, Fabeku Fatunmise, Elizabeth Marshall, Mark Silver + Michele Christensen + Molly Gordon + Michael Bungay Stanier + Eric Klein (Louden´s group).

The dates: May 22nd & May 29th (4 pm Pacific / 7 pm Eastern) ~calls will be recorded~

 Finding the right people is nowadays the one point I need to master the most. The "more than one" group comment got my attention as I know there are people I like that have some points in common but not others and mixing and matching is an art. :D
After reading about Jennifer´s offering I met with a new mom from my girl´s class. I might be on my way! :D
 

PPF #7 v.2 plus Found poetry

Multitasker me is doing three posts in one:

POST ONE: As Jamie Ridler is living her dream of visiting Paris with Justin, there isn´t a Wishcasting Wednesday prompt this week.

POST TWO: My colourful bookcase. These are our bare essentials, having gone through a deep decluttering last year.This does not include my art books, Daniel´s engineering ones or the kids books. If it were for my husband´s our books would be ordered by size. As a librarian I have them by topic and then by author. History, tourism, fiction, biographies and reference are the main subjects of interest for us.

 This is my Agatha Christie collection. The ones in Spanish and oldest ones in English are my mom´s. I bought one in Portuguese in Brazil in the late 80s. In 1992 I bought one in Russia because it was super cheap and it was in English and Russian. I found 10 for ten pounds in a second hand shop in Chester, England on our first week living there in ´93. I can´t recall where I bought one in French but it was in Paris in April ´94 and I added one in Italian from the Termini Terminal in Rome in Dec. 94. Daniel brought me one in Japanese in June ´96 and one in German in ´11. Oh, the Dutch one! I bought it at Schipol and the assistant warned me about it being in Dutch because she said many customers were too jet lagged to notice what they were buying. I told her it was for my Christie collection which I could see puzzled her but was too polite to push the issue farther. :D

 Why am I showing you this? Because I´m playing along with Quinn McDonald´s (the author of Raw Art Journaling, a book for people who want to make meaning but don´t know how to draw) readers in finding poetry in their books´s spines.

The Adventures of the Christmas Pudding

Sad Cypress

Crooked House

Towards Zero

is totally lame, specially after finding:

Five Little Pigs

They Came to Baghdad

Sprinkling Cyanide

At Bertran´s Hotel.

Go read what other people found. There are some that are waaaaay cool. And sweet. And intriguing.

POST THREE: Quinn´s comment encouraged me to take the plunge and have my journal as bilingual. That is the way I am after all, living in Spanglish.
I had been stucked with "her" for a while. Non of my quotes fitted her as she looked as if she was up to something. I found a sign at Tracey´s wall in Facebook and knew "THAT" was what "she" was up to. ;)

Posting for Paint Party Friday, Issue # 7 Year 2. Visit other paintings peeps by the links at the original PPF post.