I give up… here’s some wall art!

I’ve given up on walking into a spotless art room every time. Silly me, so this New Year it’s resolved. Much less days cleaning, and organizing my room. More making.

And speaking of making… well this isn’t too far out there on the creativity reach there. BUT I did think up to tear this out of Better Homes and Gardens, (BHG magazine does this where they put a very cool image with a quote in it. I’ve got a Halloween one to do as well) mat it on Chocolate and Summer Sun paper (by Stampin’ Up!) and frame it.

I’ve got it right in my kitchen, and it’s nice to read every day. And to treat every day as such.

THIS next project is ALL over Pinterest. I made it for Ed for Christmas, and I didn’t say what it was. I just wrapped it. Gave it to him, and was pleasantly surprised at how much he liked it.

Looks like a big frame of numbers, and, well that’s what it is, but it’s our numbers… his birthday, mine. Our first official dating date, the day we were engaged (yes 5 months dating!) Married is the red number, and Mia and Alex’s birthdays.

All those dates are what made us. Us.

Easy peasy. If you’ve got a Cricut cutting machine, or a die cut machine. glue them down to white paper, mat it, frame it!

I’ve been tinkering with some clay, that’s a first in over 10 years, thinking that tomorrow will be an art room day with me and Alex!

Happy Creating!

JCat McGack

Paint & Scrapbooking

Since the garden walk on Sunday inspiring me to paint, and my want to combine it with scrapbooking I did a bit of both today, now it’s more of a coloring book style, nothing free hand painting. But still painting with a brush and fun at that.

This is some older paper by Rusty Pickle company (sadly out of business) called Pop Star, I have a bunch of this line, and it’s literally black and white, doodly kind of scrapbook paper. NOW it is regular paper, so if you water color on it, you can’t get too wet, or it’s, well a mess.

AND since I had my two assistants with me…

Mia chose to take some of her unfinished art work, up into the cat tower and work. While her brother, Alex chose to meow like a cat for 20 minutes.

I did have my other two assistants, Jordan who is not pictured was busy catching Bob, the fly who is trapped in the basement art room, and catching Bob meant sitting on my work, nothing says water coloring like cat hair.

AND there is this princess Chloe, who was ALL in my business.

Reasons enough why I chose to work on a easier piece…

I had a cute picture of my mom with her Mother’s Day arbor that we got her, and though this BIG flower would be cute to go with. This is after I added the water color crayons.

 

Yes they are amazing and they are by the company Stampin’ Up! I demonstrated for them for 6 years and LOVE their product. (there are also water color pencils out there, same idea, but the crayons to me are softer, and easier to work with)

 

They are that simple. Color your picture, and it doesn’t have to be ALL colored in, you can kinda sketch it. The water coloring part will blend it.

I use an Aqua Painter (again by Stampin’ Up!) but you can buy them at retail stores. Simple, fill with water, squeeze and water come through the brush. Just eliminates the cup of water. (see small children and cats above if you question my reasons)

 

Once ALL is blended, you get a much softer look. I did the dark pink first,wiped of excess color onto my hand (yes I do this out of habit. It’s the way I’ve been doing it since I was a kid) then switch to a different color, be cautious when doing lighter colors by darker, they may run together. But it’s water color so a bit of mess is good.

AND there you have it. A quick scrapbook page, that took me about 35 minutes to create!

JCat McGack

What do we see here?

What do we see here? Dirty stained too small clothes? I can't sell them, can't consign them to a shop, and love to hoard all things  hate throwing things away... SO what do you see now...

Exactly... no? Still don't see it? If your a scrapbooker, crafter or a sewer you should see some pretty cool tags to add to any project!! So now that Alex has seriously worn out his welcome in his clothes.

I can use them for a cute reindeer, a best friends tag, "Mommy's Little KING" tag, and a "lil sport" tag. So start chopping up those old clothes... don't forget to check the tags on outfits, kids have some WAY cute tags, buttons too...

Hope this inspired you to look beyond the expensive 3D items in the store, and look around your closet for some great items! OUTSIDE the box people!

Happy Creating!

JCat McGack

Pool time, poop time and hot peppers up your nose

Hello! I have to share a few pages I just finished up over the weekend.

I got this awesome glitterly, shiney paper (glitter gets no justice in pictures!!) and I thought it would look better if it was sideways!!

We celebrated the 4th of July at our house this year, having everyone over for nummy food, and some pool time. I still have one more page still being finished to add to this lay out.

But here's some other ones that I did too...

Click to zoom, and if you look at my dad's nose, he has two hot pepper stuck up there!! He thought it was funny, to bad it burned like hell when he took them out!

So this page is mostly information, but it's like a crime report. Don't mind the red paper strips, that is covering our address and phone number (a bit too much info to give out)

So the crime report was on the repeat offender, Alexander. And his poo vandalism!

(sorry bout the flash on his forhead!)

Hope you enjoyed the pages, as much as I did creating!

Jacki

Let's start with my first Stupid Sock Monster, I was reading a magazine and found a kit you can buy in stores, so I went a hunting one day on a coffee buzz kid free afternoon.

I came across just what I wanted. John Murphy's Stupid Creatures. I bought it and quickly took it home to play.

The box, which is a great box. Seriously, it's a flip top kinda box, so I can keep it forever, store Stupid Creature parts in it, and what nots.

The box includes a very detailed book, with different Stupid Creature patterns, stuffing, socks, needles, buttons... maybe some other stuff too... can't remember.

But I like that ugly is key. So the jacked up strings, two different sized ears, and such are ok... I made the above guy 13 months ago. For my son, Alex's first birthday.

Sadly I haven't really sewn much since, but I had to go to birthday party last weekend, and so since I am broke, I made another for Gavin's 2nd Birthday...

It took a bit of this and that, LOTS of notes in the book, some socks, ribbon and buttons, but these guys are fun, and getting better as I go.

This mess was supposed to be Gavin's going with the whole 4th of July feeling, but his crotch ended up in his neck... and well I moved on... (he will always have a home in my art room though)

Here is my sewing station, with my other creatures nearby for help, my stacking boxes full of sewing notions and tools.

I had help from my assistant Chloe, she loved the red ribbon

And these two are for future projects, they are $1 socks I bought at Jewel Foods, last winter. I did play with the pink and purple one for my 4 year old daughter Mia, I will post a picture soon. I think the orange one will be for me!

Happy sewing everyone!

JCat McGack