Craft: Dragonfly and flowers collage’

Just wanted to show you a few little details about this picture so you can see that there is not any intricate work involved at all.  The flowers are just four little circles attached to each other, brushed on with acrylic paint.  The small flowers are just to fill up space, and they are nothing but dots.  The stems are dots and then some of the dots have been connected.  Just put little dots of different colors in the middle of your flowers.


This little bird was taken from a gift bag.  I’m not that great at drawing, so I looked at it and painted it onto my wood paint stick canvas.  There is absolutely no detail involved in it at all.  But if you  fear drawing it directly on your picture after you have already done so much work,  use tracing paper and trace the image you want to duplicate, then cut it out.  Use the cut out to trace around, just like we did when we were kids.



Take a close look at this dragon fly.  I got on the internet and searched for a picture of a dragonfly.  Then took a piece of paper and drew it, cut it out and used it as a pattern to cut the wings and body out of the screen wire.  The screen wire wings and body were then painted white.  I used a sharpie to make the veins on the screen.  Tack the screen wire on with small tacks.  Sew the buttons, going in and out of the holes, then glue them onto the dragonfly.

To prepare the base for your picture, use stretcher strips for the frame and paint sticks to paint the picture on.  Assemble this first, then begin creating your masterpiece.  I just sloshed some blue and then blue mixed with white to paint the background.

Here’s the finished picture…………………………………..



If you try this picture, I’d love to see it.  Have a great time sloshing paint around and creating this picture.  Happy Crafting.

Craft: Sewing on screenwire

 

 

Here’s a really fun project to do, sew on screen wire!

There are so many interesting things you can do in the craft field.  I particularly like to work with sewing, paint, wood, wire and paper.  This project involves painting on screenwire and then hand sewing with a large needle and yarn.  I used paper doilies for the stencil and a butterfly cut out from my daughters circuit.

First I built my frame with stretcher strips. 

Next, paint the frame with acrylic paints very watered down.

Attach screen wire to the back side of the frame.  You can use staples or small tacks.

Using paper doilies and any other cutouts like the butterfly that you desire, choose your color of acrylic paint and design your picture.

Next decide what part of your design you’d like to sew and begin.  Because this is screen and you can see through it, be sure to watch the path you take, whatever is on the backside will show through, so try to keep it neat.  Also I found that as you are sewing the wire tends to want to stretch, so you’ll have to be gentle when pulling the needle and yarn through.

If you want to put something behind the screen when you are done, you can.  I kept this particular piece void of a background, when you hang it on your wall, you will be able to see the color of the wall behind the design.  I thought that was kind of neat.

This is the picture laying on beige carpet.

                                                                This is the picture laying on a black background.

 

                                                                     And here it is with a cream color behind it

 

You can do a lot of different things with this idea.  I hope you try something and I’d love to see what you make.

Get the stretcher strips for your frame here.

Craft: Freedom to Express Ourselves

I gotta tell you I am enjoying being able to express myself these days.  For so long I have tried to please other people and finally when I realized God made me to be me, not someone else and that He wants me to please Him, not someone else, it’s like I came alive.  A burden was lifted off of me.
As you can tell in this wild craft I worked on today.  And that’s exactly what I did, I went wild and enjoyed every bit of it.
There is absolutely no freehand work in this project at all.  It is all done with stencils and cut outs, paint, wood and a hardboard canvas.  Oh and a staple gun.
Any one can do this, as long as you are not worried what anyone else will think.  Do you like it, did you enjoy doing this?  That’s what matters.  Hopefully though, because I put the word “Believe” on it, maybe someone will think of God when they see it.  I do want to please Him.
1.  Prepare the stretcher strip frame and paint it what ever color you choose.  You can get the strips here for the frame.
2.  Load your brush with a small amount of paint and a lot of water.
3.  Hold your canvas up straight and then run your loaded brush across the top.  If you have it loaded with a lot of water, it will drip and run down the canvas.  Reload and do the same thing again using the same color or a different color if you like.  Continue doing this until you get the desired affect.
4.  Once dry (or not) lay a paper doily  in the center of your canvas (with the center cut out of the doily).  Apply different colors of paint by dabbing all around the doily.
5.  Using a paper butterfly cutout (my daughter has a cricut), lay it across the middle of the stencil doily design.  Trace all the lines.
6.  Pull the butterfly stencil up and work on the butterfly, painting within the lines and painting the traced lines different colors.
7.  Using a stencil for the letters, paint whatever word you would like underneath the butterfly.
8.  Staple to the back side of the stretcher strip frame.
This would make a great gift for  your daughters or grand-daughters for Christmas.  You could put their name underneath the butterfly.
My butterfly really stood out when I put little white dots all around the lines with a paint stick pen.  Try it, it was easy.
Hope you can use this idea, Happy Crafting!

You can purchase a print of this painting by clicking here.