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All our new tutorials and freebies will be posted on our new blog, so come on over and check it out!

This blog will remain open so that the art tutorials will still be available.

Halloween Cupcake Picks

September Freebie #2: Halloween Cupcake Picks

Just copy and paste, cut out, and tape on toothpicks. Then stick them into your Halloween cupcakes.  Artwork by Marie Scott.

We hope we’ve given you some resources to make your Halloween a fun one!

Apothecary Labels

Here is an October freebie # 1: Apothecary Labels

Just copy and paste.

Paste or tape your labels onto jars of all kinds to create a spooky Halloween scene.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and Caldron bubble. . . .

Here is an example of the coloring book page colored by flood-filling on the computer.I think this is going to be a fun and spooky month!

Paper Beads

Paper bead keychain

This week’s project is almost purely a craft. The best you can do to use your artistic skills is to draw patterns or decorations along the borders of the beads, and on the very last inch of the paper strips.  There’s no end to the beautiful beads you could design if you wished.

Rather than put designs on these beads, I chose to use words, and I colored the edges. 

Just copy and paste the bead patterns, cut them out, roll them up over an orange stick or knitting needle, and glue the end in place.  Then you can shellac the beads and use them to make jewelry

The paper beads featured here

             As a child, I used to cut bead wedges from the pages of discarded magazines.  This craft has taken off over the years, and crafters continue to make a large variety of beads using this method.

Paper beads made from magazine pages

Make your beads this way, or design your own, as I did.  Have fun and see what beautiful

Beads you can create.

Enlarge for bigger sized beads

Teachers and parents, remember this project if you need Indian beads for costumes at Thanksgiving time.

Scully Scarecrow

Here’s a cheerful scarecrow, with his pet bird, for your home or school bulletin board that can be made to bend into many funny positions.  Copy and paste him in color, or in black and white so you can color him any way you want.

Share the fun with everyone!

Fall Banner

Autumn Leaf and Owl Banner

            This cheerful autumn banner can be hand colored or copied in color.

 After you’ve colored each ornament and cut it out,

 you bend back the strips at the top of each piece and tape them in back.

Then you can thread the ornaments onto cord, twine, or ribbon, and mount your banner across the mantel or wall.

Save space above each ornament to tie on a little extra cord or ribbon bow.

So fun! 

   

Middle banner ornament

Leaves--copy and paste, then print out as many leaves as you wish

If you'd like to hand color the owl ornament, here is your picture

Leaves for hand coloring


Have a blast!

September 2013

Autumn

Change is in the Air

September 2013 will be a transitional month.  We will present you with projects to do, and provide you with the art to do it—free this month.

            Next month we’ll present the projects, then send you to Etsy to purchase the art you are interested in acquiring. (Very inexpensively) 

We will still have  freebies and a coloring book page, and will welcome any input you feel brave or generous enough to make. We hope this will make our blog more useful to you. Enjoy!

Teacher Appreciation Label

            As we start a new school year, teachers look for ways to make school welcoming to new students.  It might be fun to make school welcoming to your child’s teacher as well.

Here is a little teacher appreciation label to go with any teacher gift you may want to send.  You can copy and paste the colored and black and white labels, and decide for yourself if you want to use one or both labels.

The Coloring book page this month can be copied, pasted, and scanned into your computer. Then you can paint it in a program that employs some kind of flood fill device.  I have done one picture on the computer, and another one by hand with colored pencils. See what you can do with this month’s page!

Computer colored picture

Hand colored picture; colored pencil

Week 5

          This last choice of underwater magic either had to be some kind of shell, or some kind of fish.  I chose the shell, because it is more of a background object.

Week 4

          This magical weed pattern can add an aura of mystery, or even leariness, to a picture. It’s almost as if the loopy weeds are out to grab you. 

Week 3

        This ballweed is very easy, but also dramatic. It can also be textured or colored in a variety of ways, making it pretty versatile.

 

Week 2

Bubbles are so fun, why not make them laugh?

Underwater Fun

Black and white versions below:

Black and white underwater scene

Easy-to-cut-out mermaid

Hard-to-cut-out dragon and mermaid

            Use these pictures to color and make a 3-D scene, or copy the colored versions to make a 3-D scene, as shown in previous pictures.

Cut out and color pictures

Put mounting tape on the back of the cut-out, paste the cut-out on the background scene, and frame the picture

Now for the first week’s tutorial—

Week 1

This is an easy, but great background pattern. These wave shapes almost double as schools of fish at first glance.

August 2013

The Magical World of Underwater

It has been a whole year now since my partner and I started this blog. So this month our celebratory theme is of the magical world of underwater—and you never know what you may find in the depths of the ocean.

          But first, if you have been making and keeping track of the 4X4” squares we talked about in the beginning, you should have quite a pile of them by now. If not, you can always start back at the beginning and make those squares from the tutorials. There are at least four per month.

They are great creativity starters, or prompts, that you can pull out of an envelope or scrap book.

Here are a small number of them.

          This month’s coloring page is either just a coloring page, (actually, there are two of them), or it can be a 3-D coloring and craft project as framed and shown at the top of the page.

         You can make one of two different scenes, or you can make both scenes if you like.

          In addition to the two coloring pages, I have given you one underwater background and two different cutouts. One cutout is a water dragon with a mermaid, and the other is just a mermaid. Choose the mermaid.

(WARNING:  Believe me, the dragon/mermaid duo is a bear to cut out even with tiny scissors. It requires better schirenschnitta skills than I have.)

Why would I create such a scissor-contortionist picture? I’m still wondering that myself.

          If you want to copy and paste all of it in color now, here it is below.

This is the background

This is the easy-to-cut-out mermaid paste-on

This is the very-hard-to-cut-out dragon and mermaid paste-on

Week 4

Week 4

This tree tutorial is more of a traditional tree; very basic and good to learn how to draw. You can make those branches just as thick and bushy as you want. If you notice, every tree you draw free hand will be a little different, just as in nature. Be sure to experiment and try different things with your trees—maybe the branches droop down farther, or raise their arms up straighter, or spread out farther. Put leaves on your trees, or hanging moss, or birds, or owls, or anything you like. Because of the huge variety of trees in the world, there is nearly unlimited inspiration.

This is my last diverse example of family tree charts. It’s English, so I’ve used the English rose. If your family hails from Asia, Europe, South America, Australia or anywhere on earth, look up examples of the folk art and create similar patterns to design your own family picture charts. It’s so much fun, and you might catch the genealogy bug along the way. Doing this kind of art project is guaranteed to make you proud of your roots—as you should be.

Week 3

This week gives you another opportunity to use all those flowers we learned earlier. Have fun creating all kinds of flower trees using this same tree trunk.

 Here are African and Russian family tree charts. I love the different feelings achieved through using different types of folk art.