SPRING Crafts and Creations Archives |

From the Art Studio | Watercolor Painting | 1 Apple and 4 Chicks

March 26, 2018 By Laura 6 Comments

I’m so glad you are paying a visit today to one of my favorite places in the world to be: my art studio.
I’m going to chat a bit about watercolor painting, and show you some fun pieces I did.

Not too long ago, I invested in more art supplies, some of which are shown above. Supplies such as professional-grade watercolor paints, some high-quality brushes, and some blocks of top-notch watercolor paper.

I promised myself that this year (2018) I would start spending very regular time working (creating) in my art studio again, for me, much like I did when I was in my 20’s. I’ve had the same intentions before, but I never managed to balance my time and other obligations, to really get up there very consistantly. Even though inside, I had badly felt the need to.

Well, this year I have really been really doing it! I go up and work up there almost every day, even if I only have a little bit of time.
And I’ll tell you what . . . . it fills that ‘thing’ in me, that needs filling. Almost as much as my faith does for me. It settles my soul, fills my heart, and sometimes even gets my head straight. Well, the last one is a little trickier, it seems. But, I try to think of nothing else but whatever it is I am working on. Because I’ll tell you what . . . . I have one of those brains that never stops, and it could really use the rest, anytime I can get it. I have to say that many times I pray while I work, too. If I’m not singing along with Pandora, that is. (Which is usually the case.) But neither of those things are the kind of thinking I can’t shut off, and the kind that I get so darn tired of doing.

So anyway, one medium I have always loved working in, and I have been dying to get back to, is watercolor painting. Thus, new supplies. Because I intend to really develop my skills in watercolor, over the many coming years. (Provided I live many coming years.) I have much to work on. I do clearly see myself in the future, as an old lady, drawing and painting in her art studio. So hopefully that is a good sign, eh? Anyway, while I am working on my watercolor skills, I decided I will just do small paintings for awhile. When I am feeling a lot more confident, and I’ve mastered some things, I’ll go bigger.

The blocks of watercolor paper I bought are 9″ x 12″, because I felt that was a good size to start working again with. No larger than that, anyway.
Arches, 300#, cold-press.

Ok, I’m ready to share with you a couple of my watercolor paintings.
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How to Blow Out Egg Yolks and String for Hanging | Decorative Eggs for Keeps.

March 6, 2013 By Laura 10 Comments

A couple of pre-Easter seasons back, we blew out and decorated eggs, and prepped some for hanging. I took lots of photos of the process of the way we did it, but never blogged it for you all. It’s not all that hard. And the best part is, you don’t have to figure out what you’re having for dinner that night! You’ll have a bowl full of egg yolks, ready to scramble. : ) Breakfast for dinner! We do that sometimes around here.

Scroll down to read and see just how simple it is to blow out eggs, and string them for hanging after decorating them.

When you’re done reading through, the above collage is the perfect Pin It image for these tutorials.
(Hint, hint. ; )

So let’s pierce some eggs.

Using a drill makes putting the holes in the egg very easy. Use a 1/16 drill bit for the top of the egg. This is the smaller hole.
On the bottom of the egg, make a slightly bigger hole, using the 1/8 drill bit.

Next, use a long pin in the bottom/big hole, and move it around and jab in and out, to break up the yolk sac some.
Now it’s time to blow that yolk out.
We let the kids take turns blowing them out. They thought it would be so fun. But I was worried their head would explode, seeing how red their faces were getting! I was like, “Oh my gosh! Breathe!” Ha ha ha.
It took them a little bit to learn how to direct the air from their blow, into the hole. You need to do that best you can. You can also try a syringe, to push air through. Once the yolk starts coming out, it comes out pretty fluidly.

Plenty for our family of 6.

So after you have blown all of the eggs you want hallowed out, you’ll want to wash them off and out a bit. Run them under warm water, getting water inside the egg too, and shake them some, to wash the inside of the egg. Drain them as well as possible. You can then put them all on a plate in the microwave for microwave them for 10-15 seconds

Now you can decorate them. It is a little tricky to dip-dye the hallowed eggs, because they tend to float now. So if you are dyeing them, you’ll need to keep it submerged with a spoon or whatever. Of course, there is a host of other ways you can decorate eggs. And remember, since these are blown eggs, you’ll be able to keep them! So consider drawing on them, doing a little decoupage with dried flowers, using Washi tape, or embellishing them in a number of ways. Just use your imagining and have fun.

If you’d like to hang your hallowed eggs, here is how you can string them:
These are helpful supplies to string your eggs:

strong thread
eye needles
little scissors
toothpicks
small (wire) cutters. As you have probably caught on by now, my husband was the executor of this project this day, while I was the photographer.
(Please excuse my husband’s hard-working hands in these detail shots. Love this man so much, for all he does for our family. And then he does fun things like this with us, too.)
Thread one of the larger sized needles, and tie it off as a single thread.
Insert the threaded needle in through the top of the egg, all the way, but leave plenty excess out of the top for hanging later.
Now it needs to come out the bottom, and as you can imagine, it would be challenging to make the needle do that.
So here’s the trick . . . . .
Hover a magnet underneath the egg at the hole.
You can gently shake the egg as you do this, to try and get the tip of the pin to the hole as well.
The magnet will draw the the threaded needle down out of the hole.
Cut the pin off the thread now. You won’t need it anymore for this egg.
On the same end of the thread that you cut the pin off, tie on a toothpick, and wrap the thread around it, as shown above. You only need that little piece of toothpick where the thread is wrapped, (maybe 1/2″ or a little more) so you can cut the rest off using your cutters. So now you have this little piece of toothpick, tied onto the thread, that is coming out of the bottom of your egg.

Now carefully push the whole thing back up into the hole of the bottom of the egg. Let it fall in all of the way.
This will act like an anchor inside the egg, for the string coming out of the top of the egg, to hang it.
So with the single thread coming out of the top, tie it in a loop, to hang your egg.

That is the process you do with all of your eggs. If you don’t wish to hang some or any of your eggs, of course you won’t need to string them.
All of it is fairly quick, and you’ll have your beautiful decorated eggs for years to come.
Here’s how we have used some of ours:

Hung on an Easter Tree.

In a glass cylinder vase, with some pieces of Raffia paper.
What ways will you use yours?

I am considering making some more this year, decorating them in a new beautiful way, possibly personalizing some, and giving some of them as gifts!
We hope you found this tutorial helpful and learned some tricks that will help you blow some eggs of your own, and maybe string a few as well.
Thanks for coming by! May your Easter celebrations with those you love, be beautiful!

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Please come follow me here and there:

This tutorial was shared at Joyful Homemaking’s Think Tank Thursday Link Party #230!

Creative Easter Egg Dyeing & My Photography Fun

April 19, 2011 By Laura 14 Comments

Dyeing Easter eggs is one of our family’s favorite creative Easter activities. (And photographing the process, is also one of mine.) But every year, dyeing hard-boiled eggs causes us personal dilemmas. For one, there is the question of how soon, is too soon, to dye eggs. Then we are afraid to put them in the fridge, knowing condensation will likely form on our artwork, when we take them out on Easter day. Of course, we are always sad to crack and peel our hard work off, and then we’re a little leery of eating them anyway!

So this year we decided…..we’re blowing out the eggs!! It solves all of those dilemmas of ours, and we can save them until next year, for decorating, and collect more and more with each passing year. It was to be our first year blowing eggs out, and we were excited.

creative-egg-dyeing-ideas-photos Honestly, the kids were killing themselves, blowing them out. Michael had made suitable sized holes, and broke up the yolk in there, so it wouldn’t be difficult. Still….faces were turning red and purple. I could hardly watch. They only did a few. I didn’t want their head to explode, or anyone to get a headache.
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creative-egg-dyeing-ideas-photos-4 I had picked up a few tips from Martha Stewart, that I was excited to try. One was tying lace around some eggs, dyeing them, and hopefully leaving a lace impression on the egg, when the lace was removed. That was the plan, anyhoo.

Lots of photos coming up here. Some of how we dyed the eggs, and many are just photos I was having too much fun taking.

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All of these mason jars I had just picked up at an estate sale on Sunday! I knew I’d find lots of uses for them, and I did, the very next day! They are perfect for dyeing eggs!

We had cut some vinyl dots and stripes, to adhere to some of the eggs before dyeing, and to be removed after they were dry.

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One of my favorite shots of the day.

The kids always have so much fun choosing colors, and checking their eggs. I love to watch them work, and listen to them chat.

I was very eager to take the lace off some the eggs. But it seemed like they should be fairly dry before I did, being concerned the wetness would run onto the lace impression. I wasn’t sure if that was a good plan or not.

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Also another new technique we were trying this year: flat-head pins stuck in foam-core, to dry the eggs on. Worked like a charm! I never liked the mark that is left when resting a drying dyed egg on a flat surface. This leaves no marks!

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I started noticing how much I loved the dyed lace! I wondered, should I leave them on?

O.k., I guess leaving this one on, with the little rubber-bands, would just look plain silly. But I still loved the dyed lace.
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creative-egg-dyeing-ideas-photos-20 Our {O}.
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I did start removing the lace pieces, and this was the best that came out. Hmmmm.
It’s not what we were expecting. But the effect is interesting and beautiful, anyway.

I especially loved the dyed lace pieces…..

I’ll have to think of a way in which to use, such beautiful pieces.
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Some eggs came out nicer than others. But they were just beautiful, all together.

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creative-egg-dyeing-ideas-photos-28 I did end up coming up with a plan, to use the lace pieces. I couldn’t throw them out. You’ll see…I’ll be showing you all more finished eggs, this week. How about a peek around our Easter-time home? That’s coming right up.

Also…..would anyone like a step-by-step photo tutorial on how to thread blown eggs for hanging? I’ve got photos all set to show. We came up with a wicked cool trick, that makes getting the thread through, so easy. We could also share how to blow eggs too, if you are interested in that. Let us know!

Have you been creative lately? Creativity comes in many, many forms. So we’re betting you have.

By the way: GUESS what we had for dinner this night? ; )

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Spring Fancy Strands|Door or Window Craft Decor|Giveaway (Closed)

April 11, 2011 By Laura 11 Comments

I find spring-time to be such a craft-inspiring season. Although winter & spring has been taking turns around here in the past few weeks, I still like to think of it as just spring, as it should be. Time for garden planning, enjoying the new warmer, sunnier days, and looking for those very exciting signs of spring. They are popping up all around us, despite the occasional surprise snowfall! With spring comes all kinds of cheery colors and symbols always associated with this season of new life. It just makes me feel like crafting!

This is a craft you can do with ANY kind of doors or windows in your house!

The French doors between our sun room, which is always bursting with sunshine or a soft natural light, and our living room, has been the focus of my craft quite a few times! All of the rectangular panes of glass strike me as mini picture frames, calling for some little artwork. This past Winter, I made beautiful sparkly snowflakes on blue ribbon, which is a craft I am saving to share later this year. There was a functional twist of an idea I used with them, and I think some of you will rather enjoy using the idea for yourselves next year, when I’ll have the opportunity to share it with you in time to use the idea.

My craft idea for Spring is very similar, although strictly and adorably decorative, using very simple Spring shapes, ribbon and colorful card stock.

I designed a small collection of Spring Shapes in Photoshop, to use as stencils again and again. I will share these with you by the end of this post. But here is a peek at what I came up with.

The supplies needed were few and simple:

Spring Shapes, printed on card-stock to cut out
6 full rolls of thin ribbon
Card-stock in cheery bright Spring colors
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
*Any little embellishments you like.

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I found this block-pad of linen card-stock in beautiful colors, at the craft store. I knew it would be perfect, to use for my Spring shapes, that I wanted all relatively the same size. It was a pleasant surprise to realize they were sticker paper too! That was going to work out nicely, for adding the centers on flowers, etc. And if there was no need for sticky paper, I just left the backside on.But you can use any colored card-stock, that comes in sheets, as well.

Alright, so I didn’t take photos of every step. That’s needless really. But the simple directions are, that I cut my Spring Shapes out of the white card-stock I printed them on, and used them as stencils on the little square card-stock pieces. There was a whole lot of tracing stencils, and cutting out, going on. Then it was sticking or gluing pieces together, to make little happy die-cuts of art.

I have to tell you, as crafty as I am, I HATE CUTTING STUFF OUT!! With scissors. Thankfully, my kids love it! It’s great practice for scissors-skills for them. I did do a lot of the cutting for this project, but they enjoyed helping when ever and wherever they could. I was thankful for every bit.

window-door-craft-decor-5 Using almost an entire roll of ribbon for each row of windows top to bottom, attach one end on top of the door, and center of the row. Run it all the way down, to attach to the bottom of the door, again keeping it center. Cut off any excess before attaching. We use a tack at the top, and glue on the bottom.

Then just dab a little hot glue onto the center of each die-cut one at a time, and apply it to the ribbon in the center of each window.

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Here are my doors, all done!! CUTE, or WHAT??

Such a simple project, but just a lot of cutting. This was a craft for the kids and I to do together, from the get-go, so I knew which part I’d be letting them do some of! Hopefully you have a few of those happy-cutters, too.

You know, you don’t have to have French doors, to do this project!! You can do the same thing, in grid picture windows, or make horizontal strands as a Spring-themed decorative garland!

window-door-craft-decor-7 I can tell you, by the time we had made 24 die-cut pieces, trying to make them each a little different, we got to the last 6 and wondered if the doors would look cute enough still, with nothing across the bottom row of window panes. And then I had the quick and easy idea, to wrap up this craft, in 6 simple letters:

S P R I N G

Seeing my Spring-ish doors makes me smile anyway. But what really warms my heart, is the words spoken by my little boy the other day: “Mama, every time I see my butterflies that I made, that you put up on the door, I get a really happy feeling inside.”

Dang if that doesn’t make me really happy inside, too. I love doing projects with my kids. It’s so rewarding, for all of us, in so many ways.

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Just so you know….our French doors are rarely closed like that. Our 4 season sunroom, is open to the rest of the house most all of the time. It’s surely a cheery passage-way now.

window-door-craft-decor-9 When spring turns to summer, I’ll be taking these strands down, but keeping them to use again next year, just as I did the winter ones! They are easily re-usable, for at least a few years if not more, if they are stored nicely.

window-door-craft-decor-10 On a side note….I do struggle with displaying fake flowers in my house. I prefer fresh of course. But it’s just not budget smart, year round. Unless I can cut fresh flowers from outdoors now and then, and I do when I can. But in between….fake it is. I just like to have some especially, in my old milk jug.

So just for fun, I decided to design a little collage, to show you some of the pieces a little closer up. Naturally, when posting photos on a blog, some detail is lost. But it’s still a closer look.

And then I thought the collage came out so cute, that maybe it would be a fun idea, to have a Give-Away! It will printed as a 12 x 12 photo (such as it is), and mounted on a sturdy backing. It will be sprayed with a protective coating, so it can be popped right into a 12×12 glassless frame. (I never use glass in my frames. No need when they are mounted and sprayed, and they look so much nicer without the glare.)

The collage of these mini-photos, is of course, of little paper art. But how cute would it look on display, near your Easter tree, in your kitchen, or in a little girl’s room! It would look cute anywhere!

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If you’d like to try and win this Give-Away, all you need to do is the following:

1.) Follow our blog, via Subscribing or our Facebook Page, in the sidebar. (If you are not already.)

2.) Leave a comment below, saying anything you wish, or letting us know you are now following our blog!

3.) Link up a crafty idea of your own, right now, if you can!! (Not required, but we hope you share something if yours if you’ve gotten creative, and blogged it, lately!)

I’ll do a drawing from the comments by the close of the week!

Want to do this craft yourself? Here are the pdf links to my Spring Shape Sheets:

Spring Shape Page 1

Spring Shape Page 2

I hope those links work for you anyway If not just email me, and I will send them to you. I did free-hand draw a few on my own, that are not on the sheets, but most are here. You can add idea of your own too. Just keep the shapes simple.

ENJOY!

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Seriously Creative Egg Decorating | Easter Photo Series

April 6, 2010 By Laura 5 Comments

You know people are serious about creative egg decorating, when they break out the airbrush and air compressor!
The kids got creative in their own way! Check out the results in this Easter Photo Series.

It is our hope that all of the beautiful colors, creativity, and spirit of Easter in this post, brought you all of the joy that it brought us!
We are so glad you dropped by to check out our fun.

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You know, you don’t have to have French doors, to do this project!! You can do the same thing, in grid picture windows, or make horizontal strands as a Spring-themed decorative garland!

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