Vision Board

My friend is having a Vision Board party on New Years Day. I made one for this month's project.

A vision board is a collage of images, pictures and/or words that affirm your goals or encourage accomplishments that make you happy.  The idea on the first board is from "Green Craft" magazine.  The words I used in the second board: "I am a gift, evolution, adventures, dance, free, living, and celebration". ~ JM

Christmas Gift Ornament

Christmas gift ornament

I made this with a little wooden block and then covered it with Christmas music wrapping paper, added bells and ribbon! I saw this idea on Pinterest :)

Holiday Card Ideas

Most years I have created homemade cards.  It is fun to do with glitter, stencil, paint, crayons, stamps, and/or stickers.  I wrote Christmas song lyrics like "let it snow", "partridge in a pear tree", "silent night", "joy to the world" and so forth. ~JM

Leaf Mobile

For my annual Fall fun craft for my dear friend....I made this leaf mobile.  I preserved the leaves by soaking them for 3 days in a mixture of glycerin and water, then dried them. I used fishing line to hang them.

More Fall Crafts

I was having so much fun with Fall crafts that I did another one.  This is great for both young and old alike!  I used small pumpkins but any size will do to decorate.  Materials: different color glitter, glue, and/or acrylic paint. This goes well with Halloween and Thanksgiving festivities.  ~ JM

Fall Crafts

Fall is the best!  There are so many fun crafts that relate to this beautiful season.  With a muslin bag, I stamped leaves on it and filled it with candy and gave to a friend.  I also collected real leaves and painted different designs and covered with mod-podge. - JM

Guitar Practice

This month's goal was to practice my guitar more.  I took lessons when I was a child but as an adult the guitar sits in a corner and I take it out maybe once a month for 10 minutes.  In order to regain the skills I had  I need to practice more.  To teach myself I bought two of The Fredrick Noad Guitar Anthology (The Classical Guitar and The Baroque Guitar) which is intermediate to advance level.  I practice 15-20 minutes per day at least 4 days a week.  I had practice a harder song (Cancion O Tocata) but felt I wasn't ready so I decided at the last minute to do Study in C by Dioniso Aguado.  I made some mistakes but oh well...practice, practice, practice.   - JM  :-)

My Little Stream

My little stream

I made this little area in my garden and added a bunch of tiny pebbles to make a stream...it is the best when it rains!

Tasty Beach Scene

Tasty beach scene

This month I made a tasty creative treat I saw on Pinterest.  The water is blue jello...with graham cracker crumbs for sand...gummy candy for the towel, a life saver for the floaty toy and of course an umbrella and teddy graham. It was a hit with the kiddos!

Sketching 101

Every now and then the museums in my area have free sketching workshops to learn a few techniques while drawing in their galleries.  One way to get rid of fear and intimidation of drawing the human body is to use broad and general strokes with a glue stick and string (picture 1). When first learning to draw a human figure use simple shapes like a circles, blocks, and lines (picture 2).- JM

Glue Stick and String

Using Simple Shapes

Berry basket

I love berry season and one of my favorite parts is to share our berries with people.  I ran out of little containers and putting them in baggies doesn't work well or look cute.  I found this idea on pinterest...I cut a paper plate and shaped it into a little basket and added some ribbon :)

Self Portrait - Les Fauves Style

My eyes were drawn to a painting by Kees van Dongen that I had do one similar of myself.  According to Wikipedia, Fauvism is a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artist whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism.  I used pastels. (As you can see I am growing out my afro.)

Kees van Dongen

Yours Truly

-JM

Fun clips

I have been using plain clothes pins to close up bags and thought I would jazz it up.  I used fun tape and then put magnets on the back, so I can keep them on the fridge.

Special Effects: Crayon and Water Color

Using white crayon to draw the flower I then painted over it with water color to create a unique textured surface.  I did this twice to cut out one and pasted it to the main picture making a simple collage. Afterwards, I cut to size to make a greeting card. - JM

Buttons

I have too many left over buttons.  Therefore, this project is all about buttons!   I made button flowers using green wire. Also, I made a necklace that is accented with buttons.  - JM

Strawberry Sign

Strawberry sign

For May, I made this sign to put in our strawberry garden.  I used an old piece of wood I found and attached some pretend strawberries :)

Spring Wreath and Spring Poem

Winter is finally over! It's Spring time!  With a bare grapevine wreath I added artificial flowers (which had twist-ties to make attachment easier) and butterfly clip to spruce things up.  Also, April is poetry month and I saw it fitting to write a Spring poem.  -JM

Charms

This month I made charms from polymer clay.  I got a book with all kinds of fun ideas from Michael's craft store, which also had all the needed supplies. It is very fun and I look forward to improving at this.

Driftwood Candle Holder

We are adding a new bathroom in our home and I have decided to decorate it with a beach theme.  I saw something similar to this at a store and thought I would try to make it.  I used a plain glass jar and hot glue gunned driftwood to the outside.  I then added beach sand to keep the candle nicely in place.

Geometric Fun!

I saw a painting of a farm and realized that basically it is a picture full of rectangles, squares, triangles, and circles.  Here is my attempt of making a farm with just these basic polygons.  I also did a picture that focused mainly on circles which represents flowers in a vase.   Materials: acrylic paint and canvas board. 

   JM

Winter Scene

I was so excited to get this stamp set. I love benches and lanterns and snow...so I combined them and added colored glitter to make it sparkle!

Drippy Painting

The newspaper featured an article on "impossible-to-mess-up DIY canvas projects".  Below is my so-called fool-proof art work.  Materials:  canvas board, acyclic paint, spray bottle with water.  

 The directions in the article are a little different from how I did it.  Here is the article and sample pic:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2014/02/14/try-these-impossible-to-mess-up-diy-blank-canvas-projects/

Colorful Ice Decoration

I found this idea in Family fun magazine.  I made ice cubes with 2-3 drops of food coloring in each, used blue and green.  I put them in the freezer until they were solid.  I filled up a pan 2/3 full of water and put it outside for an hour.  I then added the ice cubes and everything froze together.  They look similar to path stones which look pretty in the snow.

Bookmaking

I enjoy attending museum after-hour events.  In one activity I made a simple book for listing New Year's Resolutions.  My resolution is to have more fun!  I made two books.  One was sent to my blogging partner as a birthday card.  :-)   Below are the instructions.  ~ JM

Book Example

             




Instructions