Mar14

Illustrator progress

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Illustrator progress

Boys

I am thoroughly enjoying my Illustrator class, so much so that my post for this week will simply be another one of my assignments from my class.  I have been spending all of my limited free time, and much of my should be sleeping time playing with my new found skills.  I attached a blank version of this image in case anyone wants to use it themselves.  I uploaded it as a PNG, so the circle inside the hero frame should be empty, making it easy for you to place an image you want to use behind.

Enjoy:)  I hope my boys think this it true…

BrotherSuperhero

 
Mar9

Enough with trial and error…

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Enough with trial and error…

Definition of luck

After years of playing with Adobe Illustrator, I broke down and finally signed up for a class.  I had thought about taking a class for a while but it took me a while to find a course that would be a good fit.  I found Nicole’s Classes and was thrilled with the options.  I love the artwork that this group of designers creates, and it appeared that the courses would indeed teach me HOW the program works, not just simply go through a series of example projects (you would be surprised how hard this can be to find…).  Additionally, the Illustrator courses were split into two parts, which was helpful for me since I knew enough about the program to be able to start the second course.

I stumbled upon this quote a while ago and one of the course projects was to create a justified (squared off) quote.  Since St. Patrick’s Day is almost here, I thought this was particularly appropriate.  I have also made a myriad of other things, and feel light years ahead of my level of comfort with the program.

If you are short on time and want to learn Illustrator, I highly recommend this course.  My only complaint is now I have another Adobe product to be addicted to, as well as a strong urge to purchase numerous beautiful fonts from MyFonts.com.  When I finally get around to updating my archaically designed website, perhaps I should post a sign that says “Will work for fonts”…

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few more of my creations:

Delft inspired tulips

Delft inspired tulips

A T-Rex for Robert

A T-Rex for Robert

Illustrator Poppy
Feb27

Craigslist Chair

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Craigslist Chair
Crocker swivel chair

Crocker swivel chair

I have a slight obsession with our formal dining room, and my quest to turn it into a proper art studio.  We can’t turn it into a studio quite yet, so in the meantime I am working on slowly acquiring items one at a time, looking forward to the day that it will happen.  My latest Craigslist find was an antique swivel chair from the Crocker company, which I found out went out of business during the depression.

firstpic

 

 

When I first got the chair it looked a little sad, but hey, it was TWENTY dollars, and the people selling it lived about a mile from our house.  This meant two things: 1) The awkward trip slugging it home in my ’99 Corolla was a little less awkward and 2) The neighbor was able to watch the boys while I quick picked it up (which was good, because the car seats had to be re-arranged in unusual ways).

You can’t tell very well from this image (I was impatient to get started), but the casters (wheels) on this chair were not original and were FAR too small for the chair.  My first job was to find new casters.  After a couple of internet searches and phone calls, I set out to visit the Rockler store near our house and got some great, peg style casters that fit perfectly.  I had to take a second trip to Woodcraft to get an 1/8″ red oak panel to repair a piece of wood missing from the bottom section, and also picked up some glaze from them.
poopbrownBecause I was in a hurry, I didn’t think to fully research my technique for the glazing process.  I had seen items that were done using what I now know to be milk paint, but I thought that a glaze was what I wanted.  After turning my chair into a lovely shade of baby poo brown, I realized the error of my ways and picked up a can of buttermilk yellow milk paint to cover the chair instead.

Once I covered the chair in buttermilk yellow, I tried again applying a little of the ochre glaze (the baby poo color shown), but I felt the color was still not right.  After a conversation with the General Finishes people, and some more research, I made my third treck to the store, this time to purchase antique white milk paint to, AGAIN, cover my chair.

Finally, I was heading in the right direction.  Once I applied the antique white milk paint, I lightly sanded down the surface (milk paint dries very different from regular paint and sands beautifully).  The areas that were sanded down revealed subtle portions of the buttermilk yellow.  Additionally, I sanded down the edge details of the chair to show off the interesting design lines of the piece, and give it a “shabby chic” look.  Or, as my brother Dan calls it, a “thrown down the stairs and left outside too long” look, sigh…  Here’s a close up of the chair:

DSC_0284

Some final notes if you decide to use milk paint on a project:

1.  Make sure you sand the piece of furniture well so the paint “sticks”

2.  Carefully read the directions on the General Finishes website, know exactly what you need, saving yourself multiple trips while lugging small children.

3.  Begin with the color that you want to lightly show through (in my case, yellow), then apply 2-3 coats of a polyurethane before adding your top color (not mentioned above), and then seal the finished piece with an additional 4-5 coats of polyurethane

4.  When applying the milk paint, brush quickly with a foam brush and don’t go over your other brush strokes because the paint will pull.  If there are places with not quite enough paint, you’ll get that in your future coats (for reference, I applied 2 coats of yellow, 2 coats of poly, 2 coats of white, sanded, then used 5 coats of poly)

I still think I’m a little crazy for having tackled this project, and I stayed up WAY too late multiple evenings to get it done. I also learned that if you purchase a chair with wheels, your 2 year old will insist on riding in it…

Robertenjoying

 
Feb21

Custom Desktop Screen

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Custom Desktop Screen
My custom desktop image, showcasing my boys

My custom desktop image, showcasing my boys


Often times I have multiple pictures that I want to place on the desktop of my computer, yet when you go to pick from your photos you can only choose one.  The other day I realized I could just make my own image in Photoshop, and voila, multiple images can be used.  I felt silly that I just thought of this, but I did.  For those of you who are Photoshop novices, all you need to do is create a blank document to start.  For my document I made it 1920 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high, since that was the dimensions of my screen display (you can google it for your own computer).  For reference, I have a 17″ MacBookPro.  Below, right is a screen shot of my Photoshop set up:

Setting up my new file for my custom desktop image

Setting up my new file for my custom desktop image

Next, I did a google image search to find some corkboard and placed that into my Photoshop file.  If you have an image you want to use, simply go to “File” and then select “Place”.  You can also open a file, select the area you want to use, and copy and paste it into your new image.  Remember to pay attention to the order of your layers.  The corkboard, or whichever background you choose, needs to be below your image layers and any other embellishment you decide to add.

Once I was happy with the cork placement, I added some flower details using graphics acquired from Designer Digitals.  Photoshop Elements also has a variety of graphics to choose from as well, including backgrounds, frames and embellishments.  Note the screen shot of the graphics icon below (click on it to open the graphics panel) as well as the drop down menu that allows you to pick between the different types of graphics available.  Note:  this screen shot is from version Photoshop Elements 11.

Graphics icon

Once I added the flowers, I contemplated adding some text but couldn’t decide on a quote or verse to go with.  I may add it in the future, and figured it was worth mentioning since someone else might like the idea.  For the finishing touches, I added some photos that I took of my boys this past Fall.  The frames that I used also came from Designer Digitals, and are called “Deckled Frames No. 2“.

The only down side of my new desktop image is that my 2.5 year old, Robert, keeps asking me to remove the image of his brother Hunter.  Sigh…  The rivalry begins.

A note on saving:  When your Photoshop file is finished save it as a PSD, but also do a file “Save As” and select Jpg, this is the version you will use for your desktop.  If you’re on a Mac, save the Jpg to your desktop then drag it into iPhoto.  If you’re on a PC, save the image to your pictures folder, or somewhere you can easily find it when going to select the desktop image.
Feb14

Vogue 7937

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Vogue 7937

 

Vogue 7937

My husband bought me a new sewing machine last summer, and since it’s addition to our household I have had a renewed interest in the hobby.  Having little boys has also spurted my interest, since sewing is a good hobby that you can do in small, 15 minutes increments- which is the kind of time you have with little kids.  I should note that I also think i’m probably half insane for trying to still keep up some of my artistic endeavors, but it’s something I have to do.  I MUST be creating.

For reference, I have been sewing since I was a little girl and would consider myself to be an intermediate sewer.  With that in mind, I still find myself making mistakes or being frustrated.  Sewing is not something to pick up because you want to save money on clothes.  You can make better quality clothing, and you can custom fit your clothing, but generally items you make will cost about the same as a store bought item.  Next, sewing takes time and if you’re a novice, you will probably end up sending a number of your first attempts to Goodwill (at least, that’s what I have done in the past).  If you want to sew clothing because you enjoy making things, enjoy customizing items (picking the fabric, roaming through patterns, etc.), and have the patience to learn the skill, then go for it.

Back to my skirt, I feel like the photos don’t do this skirt justice.  I was really happy with how this item turned out and the custom fit makes it extremely comfortable.  Almost every ready to wear (store bought) item I own is either a little snug in the waist, or fits me in the waist and is loose in the hips and thighs.  I started this skirt by making a muslin, which Tasia from Sewaholic has a good article on.  For those of you are unfamiliar with sewing, a muslin is simply a sample garment made out of an inexpensive cotton called muslin.  I never used to make a muslin, which resulted in the Goodwill offerings described above.  By making a practice garment, you can work out any kinks and adjust the pattern so that the garment fits you properly.

DSC_0464

For this skirt I cut a pattern size 14 (yes, 14- pattern sizes are WAY different than RTW sizing), graded the hips to a size 12, and then after making the muslin ended up taking an additional inch and a half out of the hip area!  Yeah, I have a super straight figure…  I also decided to shorten the skirt about two and a half inches, which may have partially been due to the fact that I probably decided to fit the garment to wear lower than the pattern intended.  Another change I made was that I added a lining.  Often times a pattern will come without lining instructions, but all you usually have to do is make the same pattern out of lining pattern, make it a little shorter, and attach it inside.  Voila!

You can see the lining of this skirt on the right.  I actually hand stitched the lining to the hem of the skirt to create a really simple, more flowy edge (due to the design of the pattern).  Note:  this hem was done after first doing a traditional hem, then removing the entire hem because it was too bulky (booh).  Also, hand stitching, while seemingly labor intensive, is more logistically possible since it can be done in a chair in your backyard, while making sure your toddler doesn’t try to terrorize love the dog too much.

If you are new to sewing, this is a really simple pattern with a lot of fun options.  I would like to make some of the other options in the future, but based on my current rate of finishing projects, it will probably be a while.  To finish, a final view of the skirt…DSC_0467

 

 
Feb11

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

DSC_0460

My 2 year old, my little man Hunter, and myself regularly visit a nearby nursing home.  In honor of Valentine’s day, and an excuse to make another art project, we created these Valentine’s last night and distributed them to the residents this morning.  I find that finding crafts for a two year old can be a little bit of a challenge, particularly if you want the finished project to actually look like something other than an art explosion.  My favorite activity for his age is any kind of collage, since it’s easy for little guys to put pieces on with glue.

I began by cutting a bunch of pink, purple, and red tissue paper into various sized squares and rectangles.  Next, I placed out a bunch of blank white cards (you can just use blank 5″ x 7″ index cards).  My cards came from Xpedx, and have appropriately sized envelopes for them to fit inside.  A tip for others:  I bought a big box of blank white cards and envelopes years ago and still have plenty to spare.

Once you have some cards spread out, squiggle elmer’s glue all over the surface and have your “helper” place the pieces of tissue paper on the blank cards.  Tip:  if your child is quite young, make sure you break the little stacks of tissue paper into separate pieces so it’s easier for them to grab one piece at a time.

Once the tissue paper squares are attached (and don’t worry if they hang over the edges), you can let your child decorate with glitter glue to add some sparkle.  You can see a tiny bit in the corner of the image above, but we didn’t have much left in our art bin.

Finally, I cut out an assortment of hearts, and cut some designs in the centers (paper snowflake style) before opening them.  I glued the hearts on the cards, because by this time my two year old’s attention had moved to building lego towers.

We had fun making them as a family, and look forward to passing out the remaining few in the upcoming week.

 
Feb1

Cardboard Rocket Ship

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Cardboard Rocket Ship
Rocket ships made from cardboard carseat and diaper boxes

Rocket ships made from cardboard carseat and diaper boxes

When we weren’t testing the burn rate of various flammable materials (sorry Mom), my brothers and I were often building something.  Many of these projects involved large volumes of tape; including an airplane that my brother Dan and I crafted using his bedroom furniture and an entire package of masking tape.  Carrying on the tradition of building (and hopefully skipping the flammables), I had been eyeing a giant cardboard box left over from my oldest son’s carseat.  After a few days of monotony due to a stomach bug, I decided the box needed to be turned into a ship.  My son excitedly agreed, and the ship construction began.

Rocket ship under construction

Rocket ship under construction

I began by cutting the top of the carseat box off, and then cut along the crease of the long sides of the bottom (shown).  I trimmed the large back area of the box into a point, and then wrapped the loose pieces of the side around to make a point.  As the ship began to form, my son Robert jumped inside and stated, “This is a great rocket ship!”.  At this point, I reassessed by mental blueprint and the ship (boat) became a rocket ship.  I’m glad he suggested a rocket ship, because it ended up entirely more awesome than my original plan.

The next step was to add some cool fins. I traced along the edges of the rocket base to allow the fins to fit nicely, and Robert enjoyed playing with the dryer venting that would become the burners.  I was feeling pretty good about the progress we were making, and then I got suckered into making a secondary rocket for Robert’s little brother, Hunter (because he didn’t want to feel left out).  And then… got suckered into making a mini ship for his toy Lightning McQueen.  Much more impractical than the ship for his brother, but Robert loved it…

The boys enjoying their prototypes

The boys enjoying their prototypes

The boys were completely thrilled with the cardboard bases for their ship; however, I am an artist and could not stop there.  The ships needed to be decorated.  I knew that you could buy colorful duct tape, so we went on a space mission to Hobby Lobby to acquire some decorations.  Forty dollars later, we had a bag full of silver, blue, black and red duct tape, as well as some large sheets of thick silver paper.

I cut the silver paper into varied squares and rectangles and taped those on to the ships first.  Once the “heat shields” were in place I covered the rest of the ship in silver duct tape and used the colored duct tape to decorate the rest.  If we had some colored ink left in our printer I think it would have been fun to put some space pictures in the interior of the ship, but my boys get to settle with a photoshopped picture of space in the background instead.

Rocket ships made from cardboard carseat and diaper boxes

Rocket ships made from cardboard carseat and diaper boxes

 
Jan28

Flower Power

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Flower Power
grocery store flower arrangement

TIps for selecting and arranging fresh flowers

Every once in a while I splurge and buy myself flowers at the grocery store.  In honor of my son finally being potty trained and a healthier grocery budget because of it; I decided that this week was a splurge week.  A neighbor once commented on flowers that I picked up and how long they lasted so I figured others might enjoy these tips.

1)  For the best flowers, go to a florist.  They always have the best quality.  If you have a hard time making it to a florist, pick a grocery store in a fancy part of town.  Where we live, if I head North of our house you quickly arrive in a very affluent area, and the “fancy King Soopers” (as I call it) has a much better selection of flowers than the one that is actually closer to our house.

2)  At the grocery store look for a “display until …” date.  King Soopers (Krogers) has these on the flower packages, the further away the date, the fresher the flowers.  If your store has less obvious date markings, look and see if you can find some sort of numeric code that looks like it might relate to a date.

3)  Feel the base of the flowers.  If the base is nice and firm, these flowers are in good shape and should last longer than onces with more soft or overly flexible bases.  Obviously, some flowers are naturally more limp, so this is quite relative and may be harder on a flower like the tulip.

4)  Check out the bud.  I prefer buds that are tightly closed, but not so extremely tight that they look more like buds, these may never open.  While looking at the bud check out and see if there has been any pruning; meaning someone has pulled off a few of the exterior petals to hide the flower’s age (by the way, they do this with produce like lettuce as well).

5)  Beware of manager’s specials and sales.  This is rather obvious, but I’ve known people who were surprised when manager special or sale flowers only lasted a few days.  There’s a reason they are on sale; they are old and they need to get rid of them.  If you don’t mind only getting a few days, go ahead and purchase them, but I tend to think of the money I spend in terms of value.  Meaning, if I pay $5 for a bouquet of flowers that lasts 3 days I spent about $1.50 per day.  If I pay $8 for a bouquet of flowers that last 8 days I’ve only spent $1 per day.  I prefer to pay a little more and have them last longer.  By the way, the longest lasting flowers I’ve ever gotten have always come from a  good florist.

6)  I like to buy a mix of flowers, some longer lasting (roses) and some shorter lasting (delphiniums).  I buy some of the little extras, like wax flowers or greens, and when I get home I split my stash into 3 vases.  As the flowers die off, I pull the wilting ones out and condense my bouquets into 2, and then finally one vase.  This also prolongs the life of my flowers, and lets me spread the flower love throughout my house.

7)  When you bring the flowers home, cut at an angle at least one inch off the bottom of the stem, and put them in water right away.  Flowers that have little tubes running up their stems (xylem and phloem) that helps transfer water and nutrients.  As flowers sit the exposed openings of the tubes (which are connected to the root system in nature) can get plugged up.  Cutting off the ends helps make sure the water can get into the cut flowers properly.

8)  Plants (fruits, vegetables, flowers) all give off ethylene gas as they begin to die off.  Other plants nearby can sense this gas, and it causes them to ripen at a faster pace and rot earlier.  I purposely keep all of my produce separated in bags to help the spread of this gas in my fridge, and also quickly get rid of over ripe produce (including flowers) quickly to do the same.  Simply put, if one of the flowers is beginning to look sad, get rid of it before it affects the rest.

9)  Wash your vases in the dishwasher after each use.  This ensures that any bacteria left over were killed off and won’t affect your future bouquets.  If the vase is fancy, hand wash it in hot water to do the same.

10)  Because 10 makes a better list number than 9, enjoy splurging on something fun every now and then; whether it be flowers or something else that brightens your day.

Some of these tips are things that I myself have found useful, and some have come from my Biology background.  Enjoy the tips, and hopefully enjoy fresh flowers a little longer…

 
Jan23

Knick Knack Sewing Rack

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Knick Knack Sewing Rack

 

Thread storage

Thread storage

My Grandmother had three of these knick knack holders, because if you knew my Grandma, one of something was never enough.  She used these to house her vast collection of thread (and still didn’t have enough room), and when she passed away my Aunt passed this one along to me. When I got it it was a dingy brown and not very attractive.  I figured I would carry on the tradition and use it for thread, but give it a little makeover.

First, I cleaned off the entire piece.  Next, I tediously painted the entire display, which proved challenging with all of the little sections.  Some tips for others:  1)  Use a primer before you do this and 2) I’m pretty sure spray paint would have been easier, but I had some left over trim paint and used that.

Next, I bought a few sheets of scrap booking paper and cut them to fit into the back of a variety of the sections.  Some tips:  Use odd numbers for a better visual effect and use glue dots to affix the paper to the box, this keeps the paper from warping.  To make it more personal, I added a fun picture of my Grandparents.

Put your thread in and enjoy!  Oh, and make sure you look at it before your next trip to the fabric store, so you don’t end up with duplicate thread like me…