See It ~ Say It ~ Saturday ... on Monday

This week's featured artwork for See It Say It Saturday was created by ZNE Member Joanna Grant. Joanna's beautifully crafted piece inspired me to write the poem found beneath the picture of her work.

Note: You do not have to be a ZNE Member to participate in the See It ~ Say It ~ Saturday experience. ZNE invites you to have an artful week, and we hope you enjoy the artwork below.

April's Fool

April’s Fool am I, she said,
from up upon her floral bed
of roses where she smiled with love
in a basket perched on high above
the creatures of the earth below
and watched the last of winter’s snow
slowly
melt
a
w
a
y

A Bookmark For My Baby (And A Love Note For The Road)

I was feeling especially motivated yesterday and so I set to work on a number of new and creative pieces (which will eventually make their way onto here and into my Etsy shop - hint, hint). While I was working (and making a lovely bit of a mess) in my living room, Don (my absolutely wonderful husband!) was finishing up the reading of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and preparing to move on to his next big read, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, when he asked if I could make him a bookmark. So, still riding my creative high, I immediately set to making him a nifty little placeholder for his politically charged paperback pages.

I wanted to decorate both sides of the bookmark so I began by creating a digital collage to place on the backside. Initially, I was going to have the whole thing focused on books and knowledge as power and on taking the time to read (he's a very, very busy man) or something along those lines. However, after I had the collage for the back side completed, I was pretty much tired of working with the theme of books and reading.

To be sure, I was really enjoying the process of making something special for my hubby and, truth be told, was feeling more and more than a little bit schmoopy as I worked and watched him reading there on the couch across the room. So, against every Obsessive-Compulsive urge in my body (the meds must've been working well yesterday!) I decided against my initial plan of a cohesive theme of books and reading for the two sides of the bookmark and chose instead to get a little lovey on the other side.

The words that I chose for the front side read: Love is ... the MASTER KEY which opens the gates of happiness. In the center I placed a transparency of an old key and then added bits of scrapbook paper around the outsides which I edged with some hand-drawn stitches to compliment the antiqued look of the key and to give it the comfy-cozy feeling of home and of something handmade with love.

It warms my heart and sets a smile on my face now whenever I look over and see the bookmark peeking out from the pages of my Donnie's new book. And, just in case you are wondering ... he absolutely loves it!!!

Mark My Words - With A Bookmark!

Whoo-hoo! I made a pretty little bookmark! It could actually be a bookmark or a gift tag or even a scrapbooking embellishment if it wanted to be. I'm trying to work on making things other than ACEO's and since the supplies for my upcoming venture into the world of altered art jewelry have yet to arrive, I decided to play around with making this little treasure.

So, how did I do it? I started by cutting a piece of cardstock to measure 2" x 5" and then cut and attached some gray distressed looking paper to both sides. Then I randomly stamped some scrolls on the front with both aqua and silver metallic inks. On top of that, I placed a clear sticker with a great quote from Todd Ruthman on it that reads: It is the things in common that make relationships enjoyable, but it's the little differences that make them interesting.

After that, I added some aqua colored rhinestones along the bottom and up on the top corners and inked the edges all the way around to help pull it all together. Finally, I made a little tassel of sorts from coordinating fibers and finished both sides with a matte sealant. All in all, I think it has a very nice look to it.

This One-Of-A-Kind bookmark is currenlty available in my Etsy shop, harvestorm creations.

Crayon Cupcakes

I joined the ZNE Book Club for the month of February and the book we have been working with is Collage Unleashed, authored by artist Traci Bautista. In it, she introduces artists to the concept of painting with crayons. She recommends the use of Crayon Cupcakes (which are created by melting various crayons together in a muffin tin) in order to have multicolored pieces with which to create beautiful and highly texturized backgrounds.

Here's a background I made using the the cupcake in the center of the pile - that's why that one is so much smaller than the others. :-) I used a small crafting iron to melt the multi-colored cupcake onto a sheet of card stock and then randomly pressed the iron onto the paper to create some interesting textures and patterns.

You can melt the cupcakes like I did, drip them, smear them, or just outright color with them. I created this background with the green colored cupcake in the front of the pile and then tried stamping some images over the top of it.

After making my first batch of six cupcakes, I was hooked! I have decided to make more and more and I am listing some of them for sale in my Etsy Shop. All of my Crayon Cupcakes are made from a mixture of 3-4 non-toxic new Crayola Crayons. Each cupcake is approximately 2" in diameter and about 1/4" thick.