Welcome! I’m Carolyn Dube – This colorful journey is all about the freedom of play!
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The holidays have arrived faster than I realized…and I am running late getting my nephew’s advent calendar together. The fact that I have zero holiday wrapping paper isn’t a problem because I am going to make my own. But I needed to get this mailed out yesterday…so I need to get lots of wrapping paper created in a hurry. And I need to wrap all 24 gifts pronto!
Why 24? A tradition in our family is to open a small gift each day of December until Christmas. For my car and truck loving nephew, I am wrapping an inexpensive car or truck for each day for him. One could even call these cheap. He’s preschool age, so the numbers on each gift will also allow him to get a little practice counting too.
The solution to all my obstacles? Gelli Printing®! And as a bonus it let me create 2 coordinating looks without any extra work!
Want to know more about Gelli printing®? I’ve got all sorts of getting started information here.
Why was this so quick? I used just one stencil and just one color of paint but it created 2 coordinating looks. There was no thinking involved here…it was all about speed. As a bonus, I was able to use up some of the red paint that I have but I so rarely use.
This could be a lot of wrapping of odd shapes so instead of tape, I am going to sew them each in a paper pouch. I don’t know a lot about sewing but I can sew an almost straight line. I cut the pages to create pouches or bags to hold each vehicle and painted the number (1 to 24) so my nephew will know which one to open each day.
Then it was time to hit the sewing machine to seal these all up. Now that they are all ready, I am off to the post office to get these in the mail to him and start on the next holiday task that I am behind on…hope you are farther along on your holiday to do list than I am!
Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free. Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!
It’s Tuesday and that means a new Let’s Play link party for all of us to share what we’ve been creating! What play have I been up to? I’ve been making a plan and then not following it. The plan came about while I was checking out the all the fun stuff shared in last week’s Let’s Play link party. A great big thank you to everyone for the inspiration!
I gathered my supplies that fit just perfectly into my plan that was crystal clear in my head. It was going to be lots of yellow and orange, with all 4 of those birds, and just a hint of stenciling. In the video, you’ll see that I didn’t follow that plan…but I did have fun playing!
Thank you to everyone who shared their play last week! Here is the art that inspired my art journal play. Click on any of the images to visit their photos, blog, or Instagram.
AtopSerenityHill
Atticartist
InkyDinkyDoodle
JillHolmes
MariaBeBrave
MaryCNasser
SparkleDayStudio
Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free! Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!
Is creating always easy for me? Does it always go well? Do I always feel happy about what I create? Is it always easy to say Oops? Heavens NO! Here is what happened in my art journal on a particularly challenging day. Nothing serious or anything, just one of those days when everyday stress collided with getting up on the wrong side of the bed. And boy, did it show in my art play.
This art journal page felt like a failure many layers ago. It was colors that just didn’t work with images that just didn’t work in layers that just didn’t work. I didn’t even take photos. I didn’t want to take photos…thanks to an angsty inner teenager having a big pout about the whole thing but really, these are just layers of Oopsies. Oh the drama in my head.
I just couldn’t seem to say OOPS. I felt so frustrated it clouded my thinking. And lives were hanging in the balance because of this art journal page. This paper and paint was apparently the last piece of paper in the world and I was ruining it. What did I do? I gave myself a time out just to make myself stop and get off the crazy train in my head. I took a deep breath, okay, it was twenty five of them. I was then ready to accept that these failures were a gift. Mistakes are always gifts. They are just Oopsies and this is just paper.
With a clearer head I realized a big part of the problem was that these weren’t my usual colors. Now that was probably obvious to you, but to me it wasn’t because of that crazy train in my head. There was a definite brown vibe happening. I needed some color. I grabbed some gesso and covered up most of the mess. I added a subtle yellow layer with Eddy Rose. Then I brought in a brighter color with the blue thanks to some spray inks on the appropriately titled stencil, Just Breathe. The title was done using oil pastels through my Vintage typewriter stencil. How did I do that? You can see the technique in a video here.
Then I noticed a scrap of book text on my table. Shall I try again? Yes! This incredibly small scrap was a reminder from the muse to pause (and take a deep breath) when things aren’t going well so that I can remember it is all just an Oops. And keep adding more layers until I like it because this is play and not a world peace summit.
Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free! Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!
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The holidays have arrived faster than I realized…and I am running late getting my nephew’s advent calendar together. The fact that I have zero holiday wrapping paper isn’t a problem because I am going to make my own. But I needed to get this mailed out yesterday…so I need to get lots of wrapping paper created in a hurry. And I need to wrap all 24 gifts pronto!
This could be a lot of wrapping of odd shapes so instead of tape, I am going to sew them each in a paper pouch. I don’t know a lot about sewing but I can sew an almost straight line. I cut the pages to create pouches or bags to hold each vehicle and painted the number (1 to 24) so my nephew will know which one to open each day.
