Thursday Theme: A Farewell to Acorns

Okay, one last acorn post, and then I'll move on to something else for next month.  I promise.  And I don't have much to show this week, unfortunately.  It's been a busy two weeks. 

Remember this tag? 

I did two more like it.  But... I didn't take pictures.  Sorry.  I used them as gift tags on hostess gifts for Thanksgiving.  (Yes, two, and "gifts" plural.  We do two Thanksgiving dinners, one with Mr. Pocket's family and one with mine.  Both on the same day!)  So, imagine that tag, but with a red acorn at the bottom instead of a green one.  That's the difference.

The only other tag I've managed to do since then is this one.  Somewhat inspired by the one above, but also coming out of a desire to try a new technique and to use the Authentique stickers.

The background was done with a Tim Holtz technique of embossing a design, then inking over/around it, then melting the embossing powder off.  Super cool.

This feather came from our wedding centerpieces!

I had fun with it, but the embossing powder technique was tricky.  I'm not sure I really successfully melted all of it back off.  But whatever, I like the way the tag turned out.

Lest you think I haven't been artsy at all in the past two weeks, I did get myself set up for Christmas tags.  They just don't go with the acorn theme.  But stay tuned for watercolor paper, heavy body acrylics, and gratuitous use of stencils...

Anyway, back to acorns, I thought I'd share with you my favorite earrings which I just replaced.  See, I had lost one of my favorite earrings, and had to get a friend to pick up a pair for me at the Renaissance Festival before it closed.  What are these amazing earrings, you ask?  Well, they're acorns! 

Silver acorn earrings, by The Crafty Celts.

The Crafty Celts are my favorite vendor at the RenFest.  I have a cuff from them that I wear every day, and you can just barely see in that second pic up there a little bit of the awesome neckring I have from them.  I have several of their pieces, all from when I was living at home and didn't have many bills to pay.  I'd buy something from them each year.  Like I said.  Favorite.  Maybe some Thursday of a particularly unproductive week, their jewelry will have to be my theme.  We'll see ;)

So there you have it.  My November of acorns.  I still have to finish my acorn rosette thingie, but Mom has the jump rings I need.  I'll post it when it's done.  Next month I'll share all the Christmasy and Wintery things I'll be working on.  This year, expect lots of white, lots of metallics, lots of green accents, and probably lots of Narnian motifs.  We'll see how that divides up into themes.  I can't wait!



P.S. Okay one more thing.  Since I brought up jewelry.  I took advantage of a sale at Spiffing Jewelry in order to get a pair of rings that I'd been going back and looking at all year.  Like a lot of Etsy sellers (while they have their own domain they also have an Etsy shop, which is how I found them), they do hand-stamped word jewelry.  Unlike a lot of Etsy word jewelry sellers, they specialize in geekery and pop culture, and my first purchase from them was a pair of cuffs for Alex and me with Star Wars quotations.  But even when I bought those, I had my eyes on these:

Two concepts that are important to me.  Many believe them to be mutually exclusive, but I do not.  And as if to confirm one of them, this pair of ready-made rings in a mostly custom made-to-order shop sat there for months, like they were waiting for me to buy them.  I'm happy to give them a home.  Please check out Spiffing Jewelry and see if you find something waiting for you!

Thursday Theme: Acorns pt. 3 - Mixed (media) Nuts

Only one project to show in this week's installment in the continuing theme of acorns.  I spent Monday at Mom's house, working on an idea I had gotten over the weekend.  See, one of our favorite dies for the die cutting machine is the rosette designed by Tim Holtz.  And I like to put things other than the provided circle in the middle of them.  So what did I do? 

Well...

I cut an acorn, embellished it with Distress Ink, Distress Embossing Powder, and Glossy Accents.  While that dried (all freaking day), I cut and assembled a rosette from the Authentique Fall papers.  By the time I was done, I really liked the back of it:

There's Tissue Tape on it to keep it from falling apart at the perforations.

So I decided that this would not be something I glued down onto something else.  I'd have to hang it from something so I could see both sides.  So I made two more, in the smaller sizes:

The tiny one is so cute.

Fortunately, I had two cut out acorns that hadn't turned out so good (embossing powder fail) which I still have to do the Glossy Accents on, but which are now stuck onto the fronts of the rosettes.  So here's how they look from the front:

The tiny one is a little wonky because I had to trim it down from the full-sized acorn cutout.

The plan is to hang the medium one from the large one, and the small on from the medium one.  I just haven't decided how.  I think I want to use either white and brown baker's twine or the acorn charms Mom gave me:

What do you think?  Would the rosettes look better connected by baker's twine or by metal acorns?  Leaf me a comment and let me know what you think would look better (see what I did there?).

Thursday Theme: Acorns pt. 2 - Nibbling Away

This may turn into Acorn Month, Pocketeers.  I put some things together but there's so much more I could do with all my wonderful acorns.  Here's what I've done so far...

First, I put together my Paper Source garland, and I'm really pleased with the result.  I was afraid my Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous flourish stamp would be too fancy for the cute style acorns, but I think it works, though I just got a new flourish stamp that probably would've worked better.  Oh well.  At any rate, I stamped half of the kraft paper acorns with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink so that it's just a subtle detail and shows up almost randomly.  I'll let you decide what you think of it:

Hanging over the fireplace where at some point we intend to put up a mantel but for now I like garlands there.

Closeup shot - a slightly better view of the wood vs. the kraft paper.

I tried doing some tags with details from the Vagabond machine at Mom's the other day, but they weren't really coming together the way I had envisioned, so nothing is even assembled.  But last night I decided to experiment with my new flourish stamp (it's by Hero Arts) and my little Paper Source acorn stamp in a much more minimalist style.  I used Antique Linen Distress Ink, Sepia Archival Ink, and Peerless watercolors with a tiny bit of Forest Moss Distress Ink for shading.

This was actually a lot of fun and even a little tricky.

Playing with the Peerless watercolors made me want to take a watercolor class.  I've always liked watercolors and have experimented with them in the past, but I've never really known what I'm doing with them.  I usually end up laying the color on too darkly and then have to wet my brush more and just sort of push the color around on the paper and usually end up with it too wet.  Not exactly a smooth practice. 

Anyway, maybe next week I'll get something done with some of the dimensional stuff I've got.  Or maybe I'll knock out some ATCs or a few more tags.  We'll see what I'm in the mood for.  There will be more acorns though!

Thursday Theme: Acorns pt. 1 - Gathering Nuts

Like any good series, Thursday Themes may require a few two-parters.  Here is the first.  To be honest, between feeling low and having my routine disrupted by our uninvited guest Hurricane Sandy, I don't have anything new to post.  But I have been, as the title says, gathering nuts.  All supplies that are acorns or acorn-related.  Because I am a squirrel in disguise.  Now you know my secret.  So here's my stash, starting with paper...

The three papers in the foreground were a gift from RunningWave, the one in back is from Authentique's Fall line.

I've got stamps, too.  There's one I can't find, must be buried but not in the ground, more like in the mess that is my stuff.  But there's one from Paper Source and one from the Tim Holtz collection that are new and I can't wait to use:

Now, because Mom kind of spoils me sometimes ;), she found me all kinds of cool acorny things at Michael's.  Don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'll think of something...  Check it out:

That's a lot of glitter but I'll manage.

How cool are these links?

Lastly, there's one kit from Paper Source that I just had to have.  I had seen it last year and passed it up, but now I'm glad they brought it back this year.  I'm gonna hang it over the fireplace once I get it put together.  And of course there are going to be some alterations made to the original, because why leave it plain and looking just like everybody else's that bought the kit?

Ta-daa!  Ohyeah.  Kraft paper and wood veneer.

So the goal is to have made something with at least some of these things by next week, so that next week I can post part 2.  I don't have anything planned for Sunday so in theory, I can at least do something then.  We'll see what I come up with. 

Thursday Theme: Halloween!

Just a short one this week.  I did work on stuff this week, but it's all just started and I haven't taken any pictures yet.  But for this week I did want to do a particular theme.  Halloween!  Normally, Halloween is my second-favorite holiday (behind Christmas).  However, this Fall is not normal for me, and for various reasons I just haven't been all that into it.  But while I was feeling pretty okay, I did do a few Halloween tags anyway.

First off, Mom and I were both quite taken by this collection of papers this year:

There was a sheet of stickers available too.  Really cool ones!

So I wanted to use the papers, but I also wanted to play with my Michelle Ward stencils, and the new embossing ink dabber from Ranger.  so I did a background kind of like this:

This is not the one I started with, but it's the same technique:  Ripe Persimmon and Black Soot Distress Ink directly on my non-stick sheet, sprayed with water and Perfect Pearls mist in Heirloom Gold, and I soaked up the resulting puddle with the tag.  It's a Tim Holtz technique that I've now seen elsewhere as well.

Then I laid down the stencil I wanted to use, dabbed through it with the embossing dabber, and embossed with clear powder.  With that done, I scudged black Distress Ink onto the tag, letting the embossing act as a resist.  Then I went ahead and played with papers, Martha Stewart and Authentique stickers, and feathers to embellish.  And I ended up with these:

The owl one wasn't as successful a background.  I like the other two, though.

Then also, Mom got me this awesome stamp.  I used it on a similar background, but then haven't done anything else with the tag.  So here's what it looks like:

That's right.  That raven is wearing a witch hat.

Sadly, that's kind of all I did for Halloween this year.  I haven't even put out any Halloween decorations, just my Fall ones.  It's okay, though.  Next year maybe I'll have the mojo back.  I'm still going to enjoy tomorrow night's Halloween episode of Haven :)

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Thursday Theme: Autumn, take 2

Festive Fall Wreath!

I'll be honest, I didn't really plan much for this week's theme, and I'm still focusing on Autumn anyway.  On top of that, I've been down again and thus haven't done much art in the past week, but I did start a couple of tools yesterday.  So there's not much to show, but here's what I've got, still celebrating Autumn!

Mom and I have been positively gaga (not Gaga) over the Halloween papers from Authentique, including their sheet of stickers.  We almost never use stickers, but these were an exception.  Well, they've also released papers and stickers for Autumn in general and Thanksgiving.  So Mom got some of them, and let me take some of the stickers.  Naturally, I chose the acorn ones:

Mmm... squirrel food!

Don't know what I'm going to use them for yet, but I've been wanting to play with acorns in art, so these just give me something else to play with :)

There are a couple of other things I've had planned for a while but never really sat down to work on.  The first is a border stencil and mask set.  I ended up cutting it from a sheet of acetate that I nabbed from reports I had to discard at work.  I probably should've used my stencil burner, because cutting it out with the scissors drove me bonkers, but eh, too late.  Here's how it came out:

A whole little forest of mushrooms...

The other plan is for a stamp, and I spent a while trying to get it just right.  I still need to tweak the design a bit, and then scale it down to a size I'm likely to use.  But here's a sneak peek:

So revealing, I know...

I'll keep the full design a surprise.  You'll see it when I start using it.... muahaha.

So that's it for this week.  A bit short, I know, but like I said, I didn't have much, but I wanted to keep up the routine.  I'll do better next week.  As a consolation, here's a squirrel:

He's digging, so all you can see is his tail.

Thursday Theme: Autumn!

I love Fall.  Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons, which is ironic because generally I hate change, but the transition is exactly what I like about Spring and Fall.  Fall in particular does something wonderful for me.  I don't know if it's the welcome break from the Summer heat, or the sight of squirrels frantically stashing acorns, or the abundance of said acorns, or finally getting to wear some of the stuff I've knitted and crocheted again, or the apple cider and pumpkin recipes and harvest flavors and colors and beautiful foliage and all of that wonderful richness of color and scent and flavor and beauty just before Winter comes along and kills it all... I don't know.  But there's something wonderful about Fall. 

 

So, being such a big fan of Fall, imagine how psyched I was last year when Tim Holtz announced his first set of limited edition seasonal colors of Distress Ink (now they're part of the regular range of Distress colors).  They were a fabulous set of orange, purple, and brown.  Fantastic shades.  And Fall is the only time of year that orange becomes one of my favorite colors.  Seriously.  So, naturally, most of my Fall work from last year and this year has been done in those colors, with sometimes some green mixed in.  Like these backgrounds I did last year:

 

Sorry, blurry pic, I know.

 



The purple and brown one didn't have leaves on it originally.

 

I added the leaves with an Inkadinkado stamp and copper embossing powder just the other day.  Maybe next year I'll finish the tag...

 

I even did one whole tag that I considered finished.  I was really loving on some clear Inkadinkado stamps I got last year, and with Archival Ink they worked really well, but with Distress they are hit and miss.  This was a hit:

 

Notice how the ink and the embossing powder coverage are actually pretty even?

 

But perhaps some of you will remember the catastrophe that I blogged about here.  Those squares are now finished.  Well, mostly finished.  I finished one last year and I'm almost done the other two, I just need more stuff.

 

Each one features two of the three seasonal Distress colors.  All three will be mounted on canvases, not just that one in the corner.

 

Oh yeah, Tim Holtz "Foliage" accents, with Ornate Frames, and thesaurus pages.

I inked the thesaurus pages and then painted over them with clear Distress Crackle Paint to get that cracked glass look.

 

Overall I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out, in spite of the embossing and clear stamp challenges.  Incidentally, none of the stamps that I ended up using were from the clear sets.  They were all red rubber, from Stamper's Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection, some old stamp I don't know where it's from, and a set of Graphic 45 cling stamps.  It was just too much trouble getting the clear stamps to take the Distress Ink.

 

Anyway, this year I've been a busy bee too.  Squirrel.  Busy squirrel. That fits better.  Anyway, I made a new cover for my iPhone (it fits in a clear case, woohoo!), and a new tag, and some ATCs.  All of this at art nights that Mom and Running Wave and I have been getting together for, to force ourselves to carve out time to focus on art.

 

The backgrounds for these were both done using a "watercolor" technique that I've now seen from a couple of different artists, but first learned from Tim Holtz.  Naturally.  But I got to use my Blackbird stencil again!

 

The ATCs are a bit different for me.  The one on the left is stamped and then watercolored, like with brushes and everything!  And the one on the right I sort of carefully controlled where I scudged the ink.  Still want to do more with both of these.

 

Fortunately, there's still plenty of Fall left, because I'm not done with it yet.  There's more I want to play with.  Different color palettes, different tools, more dimensions.  I got these cool doilies at the dollar store:

 

Hellooooo cheap stencil/masks!

And I picked this up off the ground outside of work, wanting to use it in some kind of dimensional collage typey thing:

I love acorns.  I like to think of these as leftovers.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying my Fall decorations, crisp hard apple cider, new tea flavors (found a pumpkin spice rooibos that's fantastic), the local Renaissance festival, and having lunch outside at work, watching my squirrel friends find and bury precious acorns.  I've noticed they do this funny little thing where once they've buried one, they cover it over and then really quickly pat the dirt with their paws like a little kid drumming on something, I guess to pat it into place and hide the fact that something was buried there.  It's adorable.  Those little guys are so clever.

One of my lunchtime companions.

Fall decor in the Pocket household.  Notice the burgeoning collections of squirrels and garden gnomes.

Thanks for joining me again for Thursday Themes.  What's your favorite thing about Fall?  Or do you not like Fall at all?  What's your favorite season instead? 

 



 

Introducing: Thursday Themes

In the interest of getting a routine going with my blog and also hopefully motivating me to keep up with my art, I've decided to try something new.  A weekly feature.  I've seen Tag Tuesday, and What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, and WiP Wednesday and Yarn Pr0n Friday, but I'm starting something new.  Years back I tried starting Handspun Monday but I didn't spin enough to really keep it going.  This time I'm challenging myself to Thursday Themes.  Every week, or every other week, or as often as I can (because let's be honest, it's ME), I'm going to post all the art and all the stuff I have (or a reasonable amount thereof) on a particular theme.  And you, my few but loyal Pocketeers, are welcome to join me in this modest attempt at a routine.  Maybe you'll want to start posting Thursday Themes.  Or maybe one of my themes might inspire you, and you can riff on it and post your work on your blog.  But feel free to simply observe if that's all you feel like doing. 

For my first Thursday Theme, I'm posting mushrooms.  I have been super into mushrooms as a motif as well as a food for a couple of years, and especially right now.  You might say I have a Hobbit-like love of mushrooms.  I've always liked them as food, but I think I developed this affinity for this motif because I'm into faeries and gnomes, and mushrooms tend to figure into depictions of those tiny  supernatural beings.  You've seen a couple of things I've done with these delicious little cuties in the previous two posts, and I'll touch on them here, but there is so much more. 

Last year, I carved this set of stamps for myself: 



I also cut a set of masks, most of which I have lost, in these shapes so I could do a positive/negative thing.  With the masks, acrylic paint, and some tissue paper, I started this (still unfinished) canvas panel:

Still want to add the stamps, and some dimensional stuff like moss and twigs, and I'm undecided about whether to use that tissue paper that I stamped "faery ring" on, chillin' up there in the corner of the photo. 

Around the same time, I found a frame I really liked at Target or Michael's or someplace, and it was cheap, so I decided to do something with it.  This is what I came up with, using Tim Holtz Distress Inks, die cut letters, Fragments, and Foliage.  And my stamps, plus an acorn one from Inkadinkado. 

Lately I've been playing with my mushroom stamps again.  You saw my Deutschroom spread in my Debris Journal from Create, and some of the stencils I used in my Frond Chronicles book:

 

 

And in my last post one of my featured items was a medieval mushroom ATC.  Well, it actually has a companion, and I've been thinking about doing a whole series:

 



And since then, I've scaled up.  I saw this great color combination at Crate & Barrel, and decided that it's what I've been trying to come up with for our dining room.  So I cut some REALLY BIG mushrooms out of a file folder, got out my paints and my Michelle Ward stencils, and attacked this canvas background I had sitting around:

 



And ended up with this:

 



I've also been playing around with trying to incorporate my old medium, sketching, into stamping and mixed media.  So here's a test sheet that I did, featuring, of course, mainly mushrooms.

 

 

There's a lot I still want to do featuring mushrooms, but meanwhile I pay attention to where I find them, in town near my job, in the manga I'm reading, in things I see in stores and everywhere.  Where have you seen mushrooms lately?  Do they ever make their way into your art or onto your dining room table?

 

Mushrooms near work.

Look at that huge multi-shroom back there!

Cute tiny shroom.

 

How adorable are these little guys?

Reason #523 I should not be allowed in Crate & Barrel with my debit card - tea towels.