With the exception of professional artists with dedicated out-of-home studios and hobbyists with the luxury of dedicated studio space, art supplies storage never turns out looking quite as good as the uber-organized craft rooms depicted in magazines. Instead, art supplies tend to spill into common spaces, especially for those of us who paint at the…
In my time as facilitator of the art group at The Seattle School, one of the most successful events that I ever hosted was a Paint-Along-with-Bob-Ross night. Although my events were gatherings for artists at the school, it was well attended by non-artists and one of the beauties of Bob Ross’s work is that the…
Travel journalling is HARD. Every time I try to keep a regular journal on the road I give up- it’s way too much effort. Bullet Journalling, though, has been a perfect companion to travel. Most of us take lots of photos when we travel, but I created this layout to record the experiences and memories…
DIY dying cement is a tough job. Cement is often a dark media (my favorite crafting variety, Rockite, however, is already light, making dying easier) and the chemical processes and heating that take place during the curing process seem to destroy most pigments. In my initial attempts, I used a professional grade high pigment fluid…
Solo Travel never really appealed to me until recently. As I settle into myself in my 30’s, solo travel sounds more and more like an adventure with someone I enjoy rather than a stretch of loneliness. Florence’s open markets were one of the unexpected delights of Florence: I booked a truffle hunting tour…
Before making a tutorial, I’ve usually completed the project successfully a few times and know how to add my own pointers to the tutorial to help you get an extra-nice result. Not so much this time, friends. The sequence captured in these photos didn’t quite work out the way I needed it to, but I…
In 2015 I was commissioned to create 5 sculptures riffing off of the themes in Henri Matisse’s painting “La Danse.” I knew I wanted to represent moving water in my interpretation, and the months that ensued between being commissioned and delivering the sculptures were filled with a maddening course of experimentation with materials, resin casting,…
I’ve always been enamored by sea glass. When I was eleven, growing up in Kansas, I vividly remember opening an envelope from a pen pal on the coast that contained the beautiful soft frosted glass pearls she said were known as “mermaid tears” in her family. As I’ve become, in my professional life, a person…
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use scrap packing paper to produce this charming Christmas tree garland inspired by paper dolls but styled after classic gingerbread men. This project takes only a few minutes and uses materials you can probably find for free! This gingerbread man pattern is actually my own design, sketched and…
A quick tip Tuesday for crafters, moms, and anyone who’s wrestled with wet paint pallets or the mess of throwing away a pallette with wet paint only to find paint dripping through your trash: A few years ago, while frantically searching for a plastic plate to use as a paint pallette for a burst of…
I’m almost as excited to share this project with my readers as I was to complete this project for myself! Creating this vintage train case turned marker holder has been my goal for a while, but it’s taken some patience to find the perfect train case and marker holder that fit without wasting a lot…
Sometimes I love working with Polymer Clay. It’s versatility and the possibility to combine it with other materials for mixed media projects (something harder to do with traditional clay that has to be fired) makes it my media of choice for some projects. In 2011 I worked on a project that represented various emotions using…
With my home and business as my canvas and a shoestring budget my medium, I demonstrate how to create high impact projects, solutions, and mini-remodels in your home or business as well as unique and playful artistic creations. The bravery required to create art and the gutsy determination to try DIY are birds of a…
I always seem to end up at the end of each year with images on my phone that I’d love to share, but that don’t go with any particular theme I’ve blogged on lately. To that end, I decided to do a quarterly roundup of “favorite things”. This time: 1. Snowy blankets on snowy…
Last Updated: I’ve always liked paint-by-number paintings, but have terrible luck at finding them on my antiquing and garage sale trips. When I saw Ashley’s post about creating your own paint by number painting, I was excited to give it a try and kept my eyes peeled for a good candidate. When I found…
