Design Project!

My sister recently opened up a handmade soap shop called The Clean Weenie. She's been into soaping for the last little while but has decided that she should probably sell some of her stash before she makes more. Which I'm pretty sure we can all relate too when we get obsessed with a hobby! BUT she asked me to design her logo and banners. I had so much fun creating these and think they turned out really great!

I always get a bit of a identity design crises when it comes to design work for other people. I'm lucky that all my things seem to fit the same design and style. BUT for some reason I'm rarely in love with my style. I think that means that I need to hone in on my skills a bit and practice more! Until then I'm happy with the way these ones have turned out. If you ever need cute little animal logo or banner done I can definitely help you out! 

Lovely Things: Snail Mail Love!

Its not a secret that I love snail mail. I think its such an amazing hobby and everyone should at least give it a go once! Sometimes it can feel like work, but I still get great joy in the end. Even if sometimes I don't feel like writing or creating letters. I've been staring at my computer for a while now and couldn't come up with anything to share, so I thought I'd share some snail mail loves I've found lately. I get overly excited when I find cool mail related things! 

I adore this tiny tattoo and really wanna get one some day! 

Snail Mail My Email is doing there last round this November. Sign up now before its too late! 

 Amazing mail love stickers! 

Because sometimes its hard to find something to write about, this zine is very helpful! 

Teeny lapel pin that is a must for my collection! 

And last but not least, cute clippings are always handy to have when creating cool mail art, or journaling! 

Current Creative Adventures!

I've been adding "adventures" tacked onto things lately, mostly to make myself more excited about it! Anyways, I've been experimenting with a lot of new mediums. Its been heaps of messy fun and I wanted to share a few bits with you.

 First, this is a page from my new experimental art journal! I bought THIS one and it is lovely. The paper is thick, absorbs mediums easily and lays flat! This page still needs a bit of embellishing, but I just love how the colors turned out. Most of my art I have a general idea how the end product will look, but with these new messy paints and techniques I never know until its dry! For this page I used THESE inks and THIS stencil!

Second, my mini background test! You can't really tell in the photo but this was my first test using modeling paste! I wasn't quite sure how it was going to set up or how easy it would be to paint. But it created a really neat texture! I didn't use a whole lot to start, but now I know I can really pile it on. I mostly just used it on the corners for now since I plan on drawing on the yellow bits, instead of painting. Painting on a bumpy surface not bad, marker pen on a texture surface isn't going to go well. Next test run though I'm thinking MORE! haha

I have multiple projects I've slowly been working on. Once I actually get some finished I'll share those next! Do you have any mixed media secrets you'd like to share? Or maybe a favorite medium or tool you can't live with out? I'd love to hear about them! 

Out Going Mail!

I recently bought some of these really cool spray ink mix media stuff, like THESE! I was testing them out and ended up using some envelopes and cards as testers. I'm on this mixed media trip lately. I've watched way to many art journal videos and have a long list of things I'd like to try and products that seem like must haves and haunt my dreams! Every once in a while I treat myself to something new and these spray inks are definitely a treat! They are messy and unpredictable and unique and challenging and did I mention messy?? I think I'm getting into the swing of things. I still watch the tutorial videos before and during! Overall I think these turned out pretty neat! I'm loving my new tools! I got a whole new art journal just for experimenting and doing tests! I'm sure I'll share some pages soon! 

 I added the "hellos" with a bit of my homemade paper!

 Really diggin the purple-blue watery-ness!

These were a bit more messy, but I blame the orange envelopes to start out with!

Three cheers for messy mail art!

List of Thoughts + LINKS!

1- This summer hasn't been very good for my little blog lately. On the bright side I feel like I've done a good job at keeping up with my snail mail and art journal.
2- THIS giant pop-tart cake looks pretty much amazing and I'm going to save this recipe for birthday season next year!
3- School has started and it feels like summer is officially over. If I'm being honest I'm kinda excited for fall! The beginning of this year hasn't been too good to me, I've high hopes for the last bit.
4- "In a jar" recipes are really popular lately and I must say I'm not objecting it at all! THIS recipe for lasagna in a jar looks fantastic! Although I'm a bit weary about baking stuff in jars, in my head it doesn't quite work out.
5- I bought new glass from Eye Buy Direct. I think they're real lovely! I got THESE ones!
6- I also updated my side bar photo! I'm wearing my snazzy new glasses, also I felt like black and white made my skin look better. Ha.
7- I've been debating updated my entire blog layout but then I remember how much work it is and maybe I should start posting regularly before I take the time to re-do it all.
8- I have been painting a ton lately! (As I posted earlier) I'm happy to say my creativeness hasn't been fading lately!
9- I'm hoping that I can get my Etsy shop going soonish. I really want to re-do all my banners and icons before posting anything new. I have lots of ideas for new stuff and lost of paint-ish postcards that I'm excited for!
10- Does anyone watch Stranger Things on Netflix? What do you think? Everyone keeps going on about it, but I haven't gotten myself to watch it yet.

Paper Making Adventures!

This weekend I finally got around to trying my hand at paper making! I got an amazing kit for Christmas and have been dragging my feet buying the rest of the supplies needed. Since it was a long weekend I figured now would be the perfect time! Overall I think it turned out pretty well! I definitely learned a lot and am excited to try it again.

I realized that I needed to blend up my pulp a little bit more, I left it in large chuck its. It turned out alright though cause my paper has little letters, but next time I think I'll blend it more. 

 The kit that I got was from THIS company. It comes with everything except a blender and the recycled paper! The instructions got a wee bit confusing, but theres a few good youtube vidoes out there that show the process also THIS blog post was really helpful!

 My pulp was pretty grey-ish, but when it dried it lightened up a little bit.

I added in some flower petals which came in the kit! I should've mixed them better and swirled them in a bit more, they seem to just sit on top the paper. BUT now I know for next time!

They took a surprisingly long time to dry. I was a bit nervous cause they were getting quite curly and wobbly. After they were completely dry I stuck them under a book and they flattened out! I did loose some of the flower petals once they were dry, they just kept flaking off. Which was probably from my lack of swirling! 

I had a surprisingly fun day pulling paper all by myself! I can't wait to give it another go!

August Art Journal!

My last journal was a little too much commitment for me so now I've switched to some small hand made little books. I made this last months book out of an old envelope and some scrap paper. I loved it so much I used another envelope to make Septembers notebook, although a little bit smaller and thicker paper! This year has been full of so many twists and turns that I'm so grateful that I have my own little way of documenting it. I was recently looking back though all my journals. I started in 2014! So I've quite the collection growing and I can't help but think when I'm really old I'm going to love having these! Anyways, here is August's art journal!

 Air mail envelope!

 Little honey bee fold out!

 This hedgehog turned out more hairy looking then pokey.

Making. Listening. Eating.

 Making. Little watercolor scrap paper notebooks. 

 Listening. The Boys by Lisa Mitchell. 

Eating. Livin that ramen noodle life style.

Song and Doodle #61

Today song and doodle is my favorite Beach Boys song! I've been on a major Beach Boys kick lately. I think it has something to do with watching Love and Mercy last month. I've always listened to the Beach Boys growing up but now I've a lot more appreciation for Pet Sounds. I have been trying my best to learn this song on the ukulele. You can find the chords HERE! Its pretty straight forward, but the E chord is giving me troubles. I just need to work on it a bit longer. Learning new things is always tricky! This is a lovely song that I think everyone will agree with me that its pretty much amazing! At the very least I hope this song finds you well today!