It's official!

I am a paid artist now! After many hours, I am finished (and delivered it). The colours are what she wanted, and then I had to do the rest. The main colours of her walls are tan/beige, with bright colour accents, so I thought the dark brown would look good against the light colour.

I still can't get the camera working, so this is with my low megapixel phone camera. I think it looks much better in person though, since each butterfly is raised, you can really see some "dimension" in it. 

-xo Dev

Jute Wine Bottle Vase

This morning I made a super cute vase for our bathroom. I got the idea from this blog, except I couldn't find the right raffia, like the kind she used, anywhere. We went into the city, 2 1/2 hours away, on Saturday for a baby shower. Couldn't even find any at Micheals, or any jute/twine. I was pretty sad about it.

But, as it turns out my mom had a spool of jute at home, that she will probably never use again. (She used it at my baby shower for arrangements). And this is what I made!

I started at the bottom, adding some crafting super glue, and then kept wrapping from there. I would glue every few rows, but it is so tight, I don't think there was a chance of it coming undone. I thought the neck would be tricky, but it wasn't as bad as I though. I just glued it down, then put glue all over the whole neck of the bottle. And Voila! Done!

Then I added some "flowers" that I bought at Micheal's this weekend. Our bathroom is dark purple and a light, sage like green. So they match perfectly!!

We find out when we move into our own place soon, just waiting for the call. But in the mean time, I have a kitchen table, 2 end tables, and a coffee table to paint and glaze! And Reid's little table and chairs to finish painting. I am stumped about them now, not sure if I will like finished product at the moment. I guess we will have to wait and see!

- xo Dev

Technical Difficulties

I have a bunch of new pictures of the stuff I am working on, completed and my table. But the problem is, my camera won't let me upload, the cord must not work for the camera. (I have been having lots of problems with the camera itself lately, since it is like 6 years old). I hope to get them up as soon as possible, until then, I may just have to use my phone camera so I can keep updating this blog.

Bird's Nest Bowl

I recently bought the book Home, Paper, Scissors, which I bought after seeing this blog. I love all of her stuff, she is one amazing woman.

So after I got my book, I decided to make the first thing in it, The Bird's Nest bowl. It was soo easy to do, and it is one tough bowl!

I am for sure going to invest in other colours for more bowls. Love them!

Well, time to clean the house, my "parents-in-law" may be stopping over. Have a good day!

The Paper Addiction

Good evening! I probably should be going to bed right now before the baby wakes up, but oh well, I have been thinking about writing a post all day. I came on to do one earlier, and my laptop wasn't working. The hubby fixed it though, he never tells me what he does though.

So yesterday, I went into the city, 2 1/2ish hours away. I found a $50 table on Kijiji, and loved it. I ended up getting it too! The top is very nice and in very good shape, and all the chairs are different (some antique) which I LOVE. I will try to put a picture up tomorrow. My mind is just going crazy with all of my ideas for it! So excited. 

I'm a little disappointed we didn't get to hit any of the thrift stores though, but there is always next time! I was hoping to find other furniture that I could fix up. 

On top of finding an excellent deal on my table, I had a really good shopping day at Micheal's. The canvas' I wanted were on sale, and the paints I usually buy were also on sale. I found a poster for my boyfriend, less than half price! AND the poster frames were 40% off. Since I have an addiction to paper, we hit the scrap booking isles. I got a pack of 80(ish) sheets for $8, regularly $30! AND (lol) every pack of scrap book paper was 40% off, so I bought 9. Individual sheets were also on sale, so I picked up a few. I also found a small butterfly punch for $10, and the Martha Stewart butterly punch for 40% off (the one I bought is normally $20). I am SOO excited about all my purchases. If I didn't get everything on sale it probably would have been an additional $300. So now that I am all stocked up, I am ready to craft.

Tomorrow I begin my first official, compensated piece of artwork. Wish me luck!

Goodnight!

The Butterfly Door Project

I was googling something about canvas' one day, and making them and I came across this, and fell in love in it. Except I did something completely different. But I still want to do something like that. And I also saw a picture of a, flock?, of butterflies, cut out using one of these. Well, I am not so lucky to be able to go out an buy one of those, due to my very rural town. There is a Micheal's 2 1/2 hours away. 


So one night, I happened to be flipping through an old Seventeen, looking for prints that would look good on butterflies. And what did I see? An ad with 4 different sizes of butterflies. So I cut them out with my X-Acto, went through all my LCBO Food & Drink magazines. (Best colours ever!). And this is what became of them:

 The door, I sanded it and prep'd it. We actually had this under the stairs, just waiting to get used! It was once a hallway closet door. 

 Sorry about the horrible quality of picture, I took it using my cell phone. After I painted, stating the obvious. I Covered the hole using some newspaper with glue. 

 All done! After many, many hours of cutting out butterflies, figuring out the arrangement, and then all the little foam pieces underneath.

All of the little foam pieces underneath to give it dimension. It made such a difference after they were all raised. 

Overall, I am pretty happy with the outcome of this project, it was well worth all of the work I put into it. I ment for it to be a headboard, but now I am thinking of having it more in the open, a nice "conversation piece". 

This project actually opened some door for me! After putting it on my Facebook, I had people asking me if I will make them one, and they will even pay me. I am so excited. When I go to the city tomorrow, I am meeting up with one of them, she has a canvas she got, and wants me to make one similar for her. I'll post pictures when I am done! I will soon be a paid artist! Woo!

The beginning

Welcome to my blog! This is my first blog ever, so bare with me on this. Where to begin?

After having my son, who is now 6 months, and busy as can be already, I started crafting and painting again. I hadn't done anything in about 2 years, and my creativity was screaming to come out. I always had good intentions of painting or making a craft of some sort, but I always had something else I found was more important. But now that I am a stay-at-home mother, I have some time to do these things. (I am very fortunate to be blessed with a happy baby who naps twice for 2+ hours. Although he does have his days.) So, I have been Facebooking all my recent works, and been getting lots of attention of it, so I thought, why not start a blog of things I make, find and love? I regularly check 6 blogs of talented woman who paint, craft or reuse, and more often than not, they give me the inspiration to keep on making things. Now that I have unleashed my creative monster, I can't stop!

Living in a small town (around 3 000 people), it has been hard growing up creative. When I was Gr.9 in high school, they cut the art class, since the school didn't have enough funding and a teacher willing to teach it. I atleast got my mandatory credit, but it shattered every dream I had of ever going to University for the Arts, since I need the prerequisites to get accepted. In Gr.11, I moved 2 hours away to take art at a high school with 900 students. Boy was that ever a shock. I was one of the top students in the art class and I made some beautiful pieces, but my living arrangements were not working out, so I moved back home before I could finish the last half of the semester. It was a very sad time. Then I entered Gr.12, and my favourite teacher (She teaches English), decided to take over the art program. She got enough funding to buy basic supplies, and everything they need to have a successful art class. Since it was a Gr.9 class, I was unable to take it, but I got to do something called "Peer-helping", which is basically and older student who does well in a particular area (which is art for me), who help the younger students. It is like a teachers aid basically, but you get a credit for it. Anyways, so I started "peer-helping" in this class, and boy it was ever fun. I loved being around art again, and I even got to get my creative on. Due to the lack of funding, we started to make things for a fundraiser, and we decided to make jewelery. Since we had to use what we had laying around, we used magazines, since numerous people donated them to the art program. So I started rolling paper beads, and thus my love for paper began.

I have a feeling that I may be rambling on, but I just thought I would give some personal information, and make this blog a little more personal. Although, I am one of those people who see lots of text on a blog and just skip it, unless I am really interested by it.

So, I think this where I will end this post, before it becomes too long. I can't wait to start posting and making things to post. Not to mention learning how to make this blog look how I want it too!

My son. This is after his 5th haircut! Isn't he so handsome?