Lesson 35: You Can

I have rediscovered my paper people, and I am having so much fun with them. I first discovered them last August (Sassy, Lilly, and Abigail are a few I made last year) when I found the book "Collage Couture" by Julie Nutting. I had a great time with them before some other craft dragged me away.

I am not sure exactly what ignited the love for them again- possible the dresses my 6yo has been creating at Barbie.com, or it could just be random. Who knows.

All I know is I am having fun with them!

We have a bit of scrap lumber laying around, so I was inspired to use the scraps in some crafty way.

A scrap 2X6, some new techniques mixed with some old favorites created this:

Carly sitting on my art table. 

The new technique was the background. I started with a layer of watered down acrylics sprayed over some stencils, then I went back with a credit card and some regular acrylics. I added some collage material (and some window screen), and stamped a bit on top of that using bubble wrap.

Carly was created using text paper from an altered book, neglected scrapbook paper, and artist grade acrylics for her hair.

The saying, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" is one of my favorite sayings.

Here are a few more photos!

Paper punched butterfly

Fun little boots! 

Carly is enjoying the beautiful day. 

 I hope that you are inspired to make something wonderful today!

Just for fun I decided to enter Carly into the September Challenge over at Unique Crafters Challenge. Wish me luck :0)

Rarity, Courage, Strength

For the last few months I have been working part time on a farm called The Country Hatch. I LOVE working on the farm. I am learning to take care of chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys. I eventually would love to raise a few of each. The woman I work for raises mostly rare or endangered breeds.

Anyway, this last week, someone tried to set fire to her chicken building twice. For more, you can read my post over here.

Crafting and creating are my ways of dealing. I made this for Kristin, my boss.

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." Mahatma Gandhi

For anyone else going through a tough time, I hope these words help you as well. Stay Strong.

Meet River

Before I introduce you to River, I need to go back and tell you a bit about Where It's At. To tell you more about Where It's At, you might want to read my last about Ames C.art.

  I met a gal named Shelley at my very first Creative Collision get together. I sat next to her and we chatted about different types of sewing and flower making. It was fun. Life got crazy and I wasn't able to make any more Creative Collision's for a while. I have been going back for the last 3 or 4 months and I love it. Such a great group of people with awesome ideas about everything. I hadn't seen Shelley at the get together's, but someone mentioned that she had opened a little shop on Main St and was looking to rent shelf space to local artists.

 I managed to be brave enough to make my way in one day and Shelley and I chatted about crafty things. She was interested in the things that I make so I brought some goodies by a few days later.

Where It's At is a fun, funky, eclectic, hippy kinda store. I fit right in :) Shelley makes a lot of patchwork items; skirts, bags, shorts, pants, etc. I love all that she makes and if I ever sell enough stuff, I plan to buy a skirt :)

Well, I really like Where It's At, and I really want it to thrive, so I like to help out where I can. After all, if Where It's At does well, chances are so will I.

Shelley had a boring open sign, so I made her a new one. I will probable make another one soon, but for now, River does a great job letting people know that the shop is open.

River's skirt was made using scraps from some of Shelley's projects. The tapestry hanging behind River is one that Shelley has available in her shop. Feel free to check out the photos from Where It's At's face book page. If you see anything you like, give Shelley a call and I am sure something can be arranged.

Have a great Friday!

Meet Lily the Paper Princess

Please say hello to Lily the Paper Princess. Lily lives in my August Altered Journal . She was drawn directly onto the page, and her name just jumped right out at me. She knew who she wanted to be. 

Her beautiful skirt  is made from strips of scrap papers. Her top is a bit of leftover scarpbook paper. She has a glittery belt made from tiny seed beads of green, with some matching seed bead leaves next to the blue flower in her hair. The background and her hair are painted with acrylics. 

 Before finishing Lily's page, I scanned her and made some mini-Lilys.

I printed out the minis and glued them to a page from a book that I painted with black acrylic. I added a few more strips of paper and colored the belt and leaves with a green glittery gel pen. I added a blue flower to the hair. I then went in and added a boarder on each of the minis. I haven't decided if I want to leave them plain or add more so they are ladies in waiting. 

I have since finished the original Lily.

I hope that you are having a fantastic Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by.

Meet Sassy

Sassy started out as a page from my crafting dictionary published in 1943. I usually like to try and line up the head of my people with a fun word on the page. That is how I have decided to name my people. I was a little tired when I started this girl, so I forgot to do that :(

Here is the outline of her body and the dress I made for her on some tracing paper (hence the light lines). 

Here is Sassy all dressed up and ready to go.  

I went back and added a purse to the original. 

Once I have finished with most of the dressing and what not, I like to scan them and add text.  

Then I print it out and add a few more touches.

Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. The printed version isn't always as vibrant, so sometimes I repaint, or color the background. 

I am still playing around with the best way to shrink them down so I can make prints, bookmarks, cards, etc from the original.  If you have any tips on programs that work well (and are free) I would love to hear about them!

Thanks for stopping by :)

p.s.- Feel free to use my images as you would like. If you make money from them, great job! Let me know how so I can make some too :)

Almost Bedtime

I should have gone to bed at least an hour ago, but I just had to finish this guy.

A simple collage paper person just for my hubby.

 

A combination of his 2 loves. Mountain Biking, and paintball. Can't see the paintball aspect? Look a little more closely at his bike, body and clothes. All taken from a paintball magazine. 

Now I need to get some sleep. I have more people to create tomorrow :)

Paper Abigail meets my Altered Art Journal

My latest paper person was interested in meeting my other paper obsession, my Altered Art Journal. She found a page she liked and decided to make it her home.

She originally thought she might like to blow some bubbles, but once she saw all the beautiful flowers, she just had to pick a few.

Enjoy your new home Abigail, the birdie sure is happy your there!

Paper People- Forms

Just in case anyone would want them, I decided to scan and post my people forms.

 I plan to do more with this later so stay tuned!

Still In Love

Oh boy. I think I may end up need an entire room for all the paper people I have running through my head!

I spent more time today sketching figures than actually putting them together, but I still had a blast. Especially because if you had told me 2 months ago that I would be drawing people (not just stick people) and that they would actually resemble people (if a bit whimsical), I would have laughed. Hard.

So, long story short, I am enjoying drawing the figures as much as I am enjoying creating the finished person.

So, without more "Wah wah, wah" (you know, the noise that the adults make in the Peanuts movies);

Meet Lolyta. 

I love her. 

She makes me smile when I look at her :)

Here is Lolyta with her sketch. 

Her sketch is referred to as #8 (cause, well, she was the 8th sketch I made). 

Close up of Lolyta's skirt. You can just see her cute little shoes peaking out. 

More sketches. Actually, the rest of the pictures are sketches. I used a magazine lady as the inspiration for the pose on the left. Then I wanted to see if I could draw a man. Turns out I can :)

I REALLY want to make a cowgirl for Emma. I thought that if I could also make her a cowgirl that could sit on a horse (either drawn or cut from a book/magazine)

Sketch on the left is taken from a magazine ad with Beyonce. The right is a sketch from my imagination. Amazing isn't it :) That is also Miss Lolyta!

I have vision of including my paper people in my altered art journals as well as trying to make them into cards or little pieces of art that I can submit to our local ArtVend (an awesome vending machine with small pieces of local art in it). In order to do that I needed them to be smaller then the 9" ladies I have been making. So, I played with dimensions. 

I ended up having to switch to graph paper at one point to get it figured out. But it worked! This sketch is just over 6 inches, about 2 inches wide. Perfect for oh so many things :)

I am loosely following along with the Altered Journal Craft Along on craftsters.org and the theme right now is sunshine, light, and music. I had the image of a kid blowing bubbles in the sunshine, wearing a fun summer dress with some birds singing in the background. The above sketch is the pose that came to mind. Not exactly a kids body, but it will be. 

Then I thought, "Well, she could be blowing someone a kiss. But if she were, she would be in a more romantic, dramatic pose." Yeah, might take a bit of imagination to see it, but hey, I WAS ABLE TO SKETCH THIS WITHOUT THE LINES!!! 

Yes, a bit over excited, but I like the idea of being able to just whip out a sketch without having to draw all the silly measurement lines :)

I hope you had a fantastic Sunday and I hope that your week goes even better!

p.s. We decided to name the tall girl (the one on my MIL's wall) Celeste. My very first paper girly is named Sophie. And I love them all :)

Latest Obsession- Paper People

I bought this book on a whim (after looking through about 15 other paper craft/art journal books). I am so glad I did!

This book has great instructions for how to draw people. She explains the normal proportions (the average human is 7 heads tall), then explains how she does it. 

Here are my attempts at drawing people in poses (left) and with some implied movement (right).

I gave the eyes and mouths a try, but I really didn't enjoy that part at all. 

So fancy pants (and skirts, and dresses).

My first finished girlie!! I love her. I really need to come up with a name for her... 

My mother in law loved my little lady so much that she wanted one! Except she wanted her "little" lady to be around 36"-40" tall! 

Here she is just about done. 

A little closer up. 

Here she is on the wall in my MIL's house. 

And just a bit closer. She needs some shoes (and a bit of lipo suction on her calves), but we are pretty happy with how she turned out. 

If you have any ideas for what to name my little lady, I would love to hear your suggestions! 

Off to create a super cute army! Actually, I do think I would like to try to make a few boys at some point, but not necessarily military. Maybe one riding a bicycle, or playing paintball...