Music Heart

Now I know I said I would post Wednesday and Sunday and today is Friday so I'm sorry but I have been very busy lately. But on to the Art Journal Post...

The Finished Project...

 Inspiration...

saatchionline.com via Pinterest

What you will need...
A drawing of the heart either printed or drawn
A photocopy or actual piece of music. Please note that you will be cutting this up and therefore use something you won't want to play again. I photocopied a piece of my band music.
A pencil
A work surface
A surface to put the craft on such as paper or cardboard etc.

So first you will want to draw or print out your heart. I got mine from dragoart.com This website also shows you how to draw the heart if you want to do that.

 You will then want to cut it out to the best of your ability...

 Then print out your music or photocopy it or you can use an piece of music laying around. Old music would look really cool for this project. You will then want to trace the outline of your heart onto your music...

And cut it out...

Then just add whatever detailing you want to the heart. You don't have to do any detailing but I just redrew what was on the heart printout in black colored pencil. And then glue it down...

Then you can write whatever you want or decorate it however you want. I wrote the caption that was on the Inspirational Pin from Pinterest.

And I don't know if you can tell a different from the last picture to this one but later I went back and added some shading with the black colored pencil.

I totally like this idea but I feel that mine could've turned out better. I wish that I had used more color and as my mom told me the heart looks too real. I wish I had dome cooler lettering and had distressed the music sheet.
Please leave comments and maybe a picture of this. I'd love to see how you made it your own.

Crocheting Hats?!

So I know that this may be a shock but over the past couple of weeks I have started crocheting! Now this is not going to be a tutorial but I do want to give you some tips that I found out if you want to do it. This is great for beginners.

And sorry for the randomness of this post.

So first of all the hats I crocheted...
This was the first one...

And this is the second one...

I personally like the second one better. The first one uses double crochet (if you are a crocheter) and the second one uses single crochet and a decrease.

These are the videos I used...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rip0Zqw6nbI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2iayZ7DCws
They are both by the same person and are really easy to follow. The first one is for the first hat and the second one is for the second hat.

As for the first one I was really curious as of what is looked like before you pulled the top together so here is a picture of that...

And as for weaving if you don't have the right needle you are forced to use your hands. I didn't but I found it particularly helpfulto just put a piece of tape around the end so it would be stiff and the ends wouldn't stray.

This goes for anything you have to weave. I also think this would look good if you did the double crochet but did a slight decrease as done in the second hat.

As for the second hat you might be able to tell that I didn't do it exactly like she said. After I got to a certain point I just kept skipping stitches until I got until there were no more stitches left. I cut my string and pulled it on the inside where I just did some random knots like she demonstrates in the video.

If you have any questions at all please leave them down below and I will answer them to the best of my ability. Also any requests?!

Have fun taking your knowledge of crochet and applying it in different ways. Mix up the stitches and decrease or not. Make it your own.  By the way hats look really cool with multi color yarn.

Tree Branch

The Finished Project...

The Inspiration...

What you will need:

A material to do this on

A workplace and a mat or surface you can get paint on

A writing/coloring utensil

Watercolor (it will give you the best results) but you could use anything

A paint brush

A water cup with water in it

A stencil for the tree branch or you can free hand it like I did

 A funny story about how this came to be. When I first set out to do this art journal page I was planning on making this...

I tried to use watercolor but things didn't turn out too well. I ended up with this...

The circles weren't distinct and I didn't like how it looked for what I was trying to do with it. So I ended up water coloring the whole page. That would be the first step. (This page is really quite easy)

 If you don't have watercolors coloring with washable markers and misting/spraying/dousing with water with create a water colored affect.
When it was dry it looked like this.

 Then you are simply going to want to draw/trace whatever design you wish on top, I chose a tree branch. You can do it in any color but I choose black because it was what was used in the example and it gave a nice contrast. you can barely see it traced in this picture but it's there. I used black colored pencil by the way.

 And then just fill it in and you are done...

My tree branch could've been better but I am proud of how it turned out. This project is very versatile. You can do whatever colors you want or a black/gray background with a color picture on top.
Make it your own and I would love it if you would comment some ideas of things you want to see and any tips on how to make the posts better. Thanks :)

Collage

My Collage...

So... I had to decorate a manilla folder for Health with 10 things about me/I cared about. I decided to make a collage. I don't know a way to really tell you how to make a collage but I wanted to show you   the collage I did and just give you some tips.

My first tip is to make a background for your collage and then glue whatever things you want to collage on top.

So for my background I took a sheet of newspaper and watercolored it in a stripe pattern. This is how it turned out...

I then glued it on my folder. I didn't use any mod podge for this project so you guys would know that you don't need mod podge.  If you don't use mod podge although you could I would use liquid glue and not glue sticks. I think the method I used works better for decorating notebooks and folders.

 For this collage I had to do ten things about me. My tips for collages is to use different colors and textures and methods for the things you are collaging.
My first thing about me was softball. I cut a circle, watercolored it and drew the red lines on with marker.

The second thing about me was music so I printed off this cool treble clef music thing.

 So this one isn't really something about me but something important to me. I printed off a dog outline, traced it on some plain white paper, and cut it out. This is supposed to represent my dog, Piper.

 Because I was running out of ideas I also used a printed picture of a clarinet along with music, since I play the clarinet.

 The next two are also more of things that are important to me rather than about me. I just simply wrote the word family in black marker.

 I also wrote the word friends in the same fashion.

 And I really love skittles so I printed off a picture of skittles.

 I like to read so I drew a book.

 I also love to swim, I love to be in the water, and I'm on the summer swim team so I drew some waves, cut them out, and water colored them blue.

 And of course I had to do crafts so I used newspaper letters to spell the word crafts.

 After I had all ten done I glued them down. When gluing them down I would recommend mixing up the black and white with the colored, and the big with the little.

 To seal it up instead of using mod podge I just used clear packing tape. I feel that for notebooks and folder packing tape works better than mod podge.

I am so happy about this collage and that it was a school assignment. I hoped this help you for folder collages

Skyline

 The Finished Project...

Inspiration...
I don't have picture but there was a picture on Pintrest of a black skyline with a newspaper background.

 Personally I think this would look so cute if you did this on canvas and hung it up in your room.

What you are going to need:
A surface to do this on such as a piece of paper, art journal, cardboard or canvas.
A work place and preferably a matt you can get paint/color on.
A print out of a skyline or you can draw your own. I did mine of a major city near me. It just needs to be a sketch not something really intricate so try to draw your own.
Newspaper
Mod podge
Water color or a type of coloring device in whatever color to draw your skyline

The first thing you are going to want to do is print out or draw your skyline. You are going to want to make the skyline as wide as your paper. I did my art in landscape view so I drew my skyline in landscape view. This is the skyline I drew...

Then you are going to want to cut it out...

And watercolor or color your skyline any color I choose black...

While it dries you are going to want to rip up your newspaper. I ripped mine into strips but you can do pieces or one whole sheet. If you do strips you are going to want to make sure they are the length of you paper. Like I said before I did mine in landscape view.

 You are then going to want to glue them down. You don't have to cover the whole page only the parts that the skyline won't cover. I didn't cover the bottom of my paper because I knew my skyline would cover it.

I had some overhang of the newspaper so I trimmed that off...

 Then just glue your skyline down...

 And you're done! Have fun and I think this would look really good on a canvas to hang on the wall. It would also look neat is the background was black and then the building one color or the other way around. Have fun with it and make it your own!

Button Bowl

The finished project...

Inside

Outside

Inspiration...

Found on Pinterest with a Faulty Link 

I love how this turned out. It's very customizable and very versatile. You can make it however big you want and can use whatever type of buttons you want.

What you'll need:
A balloon, whatever size you want
Buttons
Mod podge
A brush for the mod podge. Small and large.
A toilet paper tube or a bowl depending on how big you blew your balloon. This will keep it upright while it dries.
A needle or pin to pop the balloon.

I know you might be confused about the balloon so let's get started...

You are going to want to blow up your balloon. How big you blow up your balloon will determine how big you bowl is. Since I didn't know if this was even going to work I blew my balloon quite small.

This can take quite a lot of buttons so make sure you have a lot if you are going to make a bigger button bowl. 

You are then going to want put a layer of mod podge on the rounded part of the balloon.

And then start putting on buttons! You might want to hold the button on the balloon for a little while before moving onto the next button so you won't have to deal with falling of buttons like I did. It might also help to put the mod podge on the button and not the balloon.

Try to put the buttons as close together as possible. But as you can see my buttons weren't very close together and my button bowl still stayed together.

You are then going to want to let it dry so when you go to put on a top coat the buttons won't move around. This is where the toilet paper tube or bowl come in handy so you don't have to hold it while it dries. You can totally hold if you want to, get to know it.

Just wait... and wait... and wait... until it is completely dry or the buttons aren't moving around. You are then going to want to apply a very thick layer of mod podge using a small brush to get in the cracks. It is important that you get mod podge everywhere.

After applying the mod podge your balloon will look white but don't worry it will dry clear.
And then you will have to wait... and wait... again.
Once it is dry (when the mod podge is clear and not white) you can feel free to add a second coat or pop the balloon!

When I popped my balloon it didn't really pop it just leaked air very slowly and feel that this was because my balloon was very inflated since it was smaller than you would normally blow it up.
So I had to kind of squeeze my balloon to make it deflate.

 Or you can just pull the semi-deflated balloon away from the bowl. It should pull back easily.

 And then you are done!!!

I noticed that my balloon was still wet on the inside so you'll want to let it dry before you use it. I would not recommend this for food but it's a really cute decorative bowl to keep whatever you want.

Have fun trying it!!!

And I would really love it if you would comment what you think or maybe some future craft ideas for me to try out and tell you about.