Art With the Doodle Girls

I get the opportunity to spend art time with my friends, Anne and Cynthia, once a month. 

This is Anne showing us her sweet card.

On this particular occasion, Anne and I had just gotten back from the Scrapbook Expo and we were so inspired to make cards.

We used a glitter paper that we made ourselves.  Lots of cutting involved, which is not really my thing, but I like the results.  These are mine!

And, these are Anne’s.  We both used them for Mother’s Day.  I think they are cute!

On this day, the three of us worked on a Maura Johnson inspired art journal page.  This is Anne’s.  I love her color choices.  I really enjoyed doing this as you can tell from an earlier post.

This one was made by Cynthia.  The night before, she spent several hours cutting butterflies out of magazines so we would have a nice selection.  I love her placement of the butterflies.  I also really like the way she anchored the girl to the page and to the text with the lines.  I’m going to remember that for my next girl.

What actually started the little gathering of the three of us was a Traci Bautista online workshop with Strathmore.  We met for five weeks in a row and created some very fun art. 

Traci teaches a fantastic art of doodling and I’ve been doodling on everything ever since.

Traci also suggested making doodle art for cards and ATC’s.

And, finally, she taught us how to make a “Glam Girl,” which I loved.  Here's the beginning of the painting.

And here’s the completed project, where we actually painted the face right on top of the doodling.  This was so fun!

Another doodle page!

Another doodle page!  I really enjoy doing this!  It’s relaxing!

This is Anne’s doodle page that started out like this!  It looks like it could be finished…but no…

Now it’s finished and a gorgeous piece of art!

Anne’s other piece started like this…

And, ended like this!  Awesome!

Here is Anne’s Glam Girl.  Started like this…

Here’s another step in Anne’s girl.

This is not the actual final painting, but rather this is a 1x1” magnet that was made from the final painting.  Pretty dang clever!

This is the beginning of one of Cynthia’s doodle pages.

Here’s more of the same page!

Here’s another one of Cynthia’s pages.

This is the beginning of Cynthia’s Glam Girl!  Love her!

Here are some more of the pages that we created in different stages.

This is Laurie’s Glam Girl.  Isn’t she gorgeous!  Love her hair!

End

Marah Johnson Class

My Book Club friend Sherry, hosted a class in her home, with Marah Johnson.  Marah taught us all kinds of cool things about Twinkling H2o’s LuminArte paints, which is a Creative Imaginations product.  Here’s a fun video!  Here’s a LuminArte blog.

We started with this adorable ATC.  The Twinkling H2O’s are rich and sparkly and luminescent.  The camera doesn’t show the true effect you get from these beautiful paints.


Did you know that Harlequin Romance novels are the way to go for great words?

Then we each received a piece of paper and a face…A beautiful face from a magazine.  We painted the background, the lips and eyes and whatever we wanted with the paints. 


We used Gorgeous butterflies to create hair or a hat in my case. And, Paint pens and markers to add further doodling.


I had so much fun with my first girl, and we had left over butterflies, so what could be better than making another girl in my journal.

I know, she’s practically exactly the same, but that’s what my journal is for…techniques and I didn’t want to forget this one.  I just enjoyed it so much.  I still need to add some journaling.
We played with the paints for hours non-stop!  Oh, we made a page of flowers.  Mine’s not finished yet.


Marah is a great teacher and very generous.  She brought lots of product for us to experiment and play with.  Look, I still have a butterfly to play with!  She also brought product to purchase, so of course, I went home with 3 pots of this gorgeous paint.  Can’t wait to get some more.

Paint It! with LuminArte, also by Creative Imaginations is one of the products that was created specifically for the Twinkling H2O’s.  They are die cut embellishments with lots of detail.  Add the paint in any color, over 150 colors if you add in the Silks etc., and you have a custom embellishment for your project. 

Sherry’s studio was the perfect place for this class.  All the ladies were lovely and talented!  I really had a fabulous time.  Yay!  Let’s do it again!

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Happy Birthday Alex

Happy 1st Birthday Alex VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I just had to share this crazy boy with you.  This is my little grandson, Alex.  In these pics, he is having his first birthday cake.  I promise he did not eat that whole cake.  Most of it’s in the chair and on the floor.

 

We had Alex’s Birthday at Old Poway Park.  It was a beautiful day.

The Steam Engine was running and we had about 40 family and friends crammed into that train. 

We reserved a room at the Old Hamburger Factory.

The staff is so incredibly friendly.  The food is wonderful.  You get the room and it’s kind of like having a home-base.  You do all the festivities there, but then you also have the entire park.  People came and went all day.

We had lots of children at this party and they were loving being able to play all over the park.  I highly recommend it for a kids birthday party.  The park is quite large. 

 

This is part of my family, including granddaughter, and two grandsons, my son and daughter and her husband.

 

 

		Happy Birthday Alex VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here’s both my grandbabies…three weeks apart in age.  So different in every way.  The little girl is all Girlie and the little boy is all BOY!  It’s awesome!  What a Blessing!

They were already having a tug-a-war over the balls.  Cute!

My sister, her grandbaby and me.  We have healthy babies in our family.  He’s only 3 months younger than Alex.

I have a million pics of this day, but not one of my daughter with her son, Alex.  Hopefully she got one. 

If you’ve never been to Old Poway Park, it’s worth a trip.  Especially if you have kids.  They’ll love it.  It’s on Midland Rd. in Poway, right across the street from Stamping Details.  I know some of you have been there.

It was a special day for a special little boy.  Thanks to John and Christine for all that they do for our family.  Alex is a lucky boy to have such wonderful grandparents.

PJ Craft, Crop and Create

If you didn’t make it to the PJ Craft, Crop and Create this past weekend, you really missed a fabulous time.  Charity Wings took the FUN in fundraising and made the most of it with an outstanding 12-hour event to raise money for hundreds of children at the Boys and Girls Club in Carlsbad.  Honestly, I can't believe I made it twelve hours, but with all that there was to do, the time flew by. 

It was absolutely a whirlwind of fun.  We had different make and takes going all day long.  Just to name a few, Cheryl Waters of Artsy Findings was there with a stamping technique on a leather bracelet.  Terri Sproul joined in with her Sakura painting techniques.  Gayle from Gee Gee’s brought an adorable page layout for us to make. 

Lola Finklelstein with Creative Memories taught us how to make Angel Floozies.  Nicole from Sweet Stamp Shop brought her newest stamps and a sweet Easter make and take. Tricia Blum with Cookie Lee gave us some fun tips on jewelry layering.  The list goes on, and it was all day.  There was never a moment that something wasn't happening. 

What's so fabulous is that these generous ladies not only donated their time, but brought product to sell, and gave back a percentage of their sales to the Boys and Girls Club. 

We also had a couple of raffles and a silent auction for some seriously cool, artsy stuff.   I won a massage in the silent auction, which I truly need so much.  And, I won the grand prize in the raffle, which was an oil painting portrait sitting worth $1,000.  I have given it to my daughter for my grandson who just had his first birthday.  I can't wait to see the painting.

Food?  Lots of food!  There's nothing quite like a really good potluck.  Everyone stepped up to the plate and brought yummy food, which we had for lunch, tea and dinner. 

Oh, did I mention cropping, crafting and creating?  Yes, we did that too.  I had to seriously focus for a period of time to get something completed.  Between all the shopping and eating, there was lots and lots of laughing.   Because of the unique way the event was laid out, socializing with everyone was easy and fun.

PJ Craft, Crop and Create goes into my top three favorite events for the past year.  There is something perfect about doing many of the things one loves to do, i.e., crafting, shopping, winning auctions and raffles, eating and being with nice friends.  I look forward to the next time!

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Julie Nutting's Class

 

I recently took a class with Julie Nutting, artist and author of Collage Couture.  She taught us how to make these wonderful  Valentine paper dolls.  Three different dolls all with the same body.  I love them.  Pick up her book.  This is something I could make daily and feel like I really created something cute.

 

 

 

The other day my friend Cynthia came over and we created canvases together.  These are unusual colors for me to use.  I usually love the cool tones…purples, pinks, blues, and teals.  The texture on this canvas was created with encaustic wax, which was fun to play with.

 

 

Here is Cynthia’s beautiful encaustic piece.  It has a lovely old world look to it. 

 

It was a fun day and I hope we do it again soon.

 

My next paper doll is going to be a larger canvas.  I think I want to go big on the dress, with vibrant colors.  Stay tuned!

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