Color this Quotes & Sticky Journals: Cutting out shapes from tape


The quote for June from Artists in Blogland is: 
"May there be peace and prosperity within your walls."  Psalms 122.7

Here I will show you the steps I used to make my art journal page.

1.  First, take a separate sheet of paper and put patterned and colored tape in straight lines across.  Overlap them for interest.


2.  Cut out shapes and strips from the page of tape.  Glue to your art journal page.



3.  Add lettering (I used a Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen.   Add smudging and marks with other markers, Gel Sticks - 12 ct and RoseArt Neon Gel Crayons.)


Check out the other posts in this series about using your stickers and tapes in art journal pages:

1.  Sticky Inspiration
2.  My new stickers & some pages with them
3.  Using patterned tape in an art journal page
4.  Guest Post:  Marly Martinez
5.  Tape Lines artwork
6.  How to Create Your Own Stickers Using Picmonkey
7.  Sticker Art Inspiration

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog!  Love, Marcia
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Watercolor Doodling in My Art Journal

Here are more watercolor doodles in my art journal!





Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day

Best wishes, Marcia
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Lego Brickworld Convention-2013: Part Two


We went to the Lego Brickworld Convention a couple weekends ago and I wanted to show you some of the fun things we saw!  The first post about this is here.

One of the most fun part for the kids were two areas set up just to play with Legos.  They had two huge tables full with regular size gray Legos and then an area on the floor for Duplos.  Daria and her cousins spent about an hour just playing in this area.

The Lego mosaics were on of my favorite types of Lego projects to see.  There was a wide variety of these mosaics, built with flat Lego pieces.  


Do you recognize this artwork by George Seurat?

This is a close-up so you can see the type of Legos used to build the mosaic.

And how about this one?  Do you recognize Charles Demuth's The Figure 5.  Awesome!

Those faces are superb!

A Lego house inspired by Piet Mondrian

Silly rabbit!

Magritte mosaic, astronaut, and I think Star Wars...  (I don't know.. there were a lot of projects like this, but I'm not really into them, but they were impressively large and intricate!)
And here is a Lego rave video! 




Best wishes, Marcia
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Sticker Art Inspiration


Check out the other posts in this series about using your stickers and tapes in art journal pages:

1.  Sticky Inspiration
2.  My new stickers & some pages with them
3.  Using patterned tape in an art journal page
4.  Guest Post:  Marly Martinez
5.  Tape Lines artwork
6.  How to Create Your Own Stickers Using Picmonkey

Since I have been writing about stickers and making art with stickers, I have begun to notice sticker art everywhere.  Once you are thinking about something, you start to notice it more.

Doodler's Anonymous had a feature about Naomi Vona. 
She has some really intriguing artworks with tape and stickers.  Check out her flickr account.

Writing on masking tape from AllMyMetaphors

Wow, this is an amazing art tape party!  I would so love to do this!

Phoenix Peacock created this colorful card inspired by Sticky Journals



 

Beautiful cards made with washi tape, watercolor and doodling by Bonita Rose

Sticker Collage wallpaper via Babyology

Also, I love graffiti sticker art:

I hope some of these pictures have inspired you to see stickers in a new way!

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How to Print Your Own Stickers Using Picmonkey

Keeping with the theme of stickers, today I'm going to show you one way that I've made my own stickers.  First, I went to the Avery website and tried their label maker.  The letters and the sizes turned out all wonky when I went to print them.  So instead I tried Picmonkey and that turned out much better.  You can use their whole site to edit photos and collages for free.  There are premium options as well to add more fonts and graphics. 

Materials: 
1.  Start by opening a collage in Picmonkey.  Choose one of the layouts.  I chose Biggie Smalls.  It doesn't really matter too much, because you can place your cursor on the edge of the squares and drag them to change the sizes.         


2.  Change the bottom setting to 2550 x 3000 pixels.  That would be the size (at 300 dpi) for an 8.5 x 11" piece of sticker paper.  You will have to click the little lock button on the side in order to allow it to change proportions, otherwise it will stay in a square shape.


3.  Next, click on the photos icon (which is the top one).  Click on "open photos" and choose photos from your desktop to upload.  I picked some of my artwork. 


4.  Drag your photos to the boxes.  You can drag photos into the spaces between the boxes.  Watch what happens when you do that.  It will add more spots to your collage.  Change the sizes of the pictures by dragged on the edges of the pictures.  I don't think you can zoom in or out on the pictures, which drives me nuts.

Click on the background icon.  You can change the spacing in between the circles, and make the corners rounded.  Here you can also change the background, but I left mine white.

5.  The Swatches tab allows you to add patterns instead of a picture.  I added a few swatches in between my photos.  I wish there were more patterns to choose from!


6.  Here, you can see my masterpiece taking shape.  I added my swatches and changed the sizes of my photos.  Now, save your masterpiece to your computer.  I saved it as a "Sean" size.  That is the largest file size. 

7.  After you save it, click on the "x" in the top right corner.  Then, go to edit a photo.  Your photo collage thus far should be there.  If not, just upload the one you saved.  Now, you can add text and overlays.

Click on the Overlays icon and you can add fun doodly hearts, stars and shapes.  At this point, I am really tempted to pay for Premium!  Drag some fun designs on to your stickers.


8.  Finally, click on the "P" on the left, the text icon.  Now you can add words if you'd like.  There are some very fun fonts here.  The orange crown next to the text shows the ones you can get if you pay for it.  Sigh.  So tempting! 

9.  The last step is to save your file.  Then, load up your sticker paper in your printer and print off your file.  Yay!  Now you have stickers!  Your stickers can be any shape or size, because you will cut out each shape individually.

I hope you've enjoyed this post.  Stickers are so much fun.  Add them to your art journals, mixed media artwork, scrapbook pages, greeting cards or whatever!


Check out the other posts in this series about using your stickers and tapes in art journal pages:

1.  Sticky Inspiration
2.  My new stickers & some pages with them
3.  Using patterned tape in an art journal page
4.  Guest Post:  Marly Martinez
5.  Tape Lines artwork

Linking up to:


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Glue it Tuesday and ICADs

 I've been making some index cards!






Linking up to Glue It Tuesday and Index Card a Day!

Best wishes, Marcia
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Awesome Giveaway from Craftsy

Artists in Blogland (a group I run) is having a giveaway from Craftsy for your chance to win one free class of your choosing, valued at $59.99.  Head over there to check it out!



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Lego Brickworld Convention- 2013, Part One

Lego superman, doggie, Batman and Alvin & the Chipmunks

Last weekend we went to the Lego Brickworld Convention in Schaumburg, IL.  My husband Andrew is an avid Lego collector and builder.  We made the trip with Daria to see the Lego convention exhibits.  As an art teacher, I found some very interesting displays!  It was really great to see all the kids engaged in building and designing their own Lego exhibits.  Such a better hobby than sitting and watching TV or playing with video games (not that there's not a place for that either, but moderation, right?)   Many of the exhibits were built by adult Lego groups and others with parents and their kids.  All of the designs were original, not built from kits.  

We took so many pictures and I tried to cull them down to my favorites.  I split up the pictures into 3 blog posts.   

This is a model of the capitol building in Madison that my husband designed and built for the show.  Isn't it great?


There were a lot of awesome city scenes built with Legos.  I found the Dunkin' Donuts!
Of course I found the Starbucks also!

There were a lot of fun little pieces within larger scenes.  I love the mermaid in the fountain.

This was part of a huge interconnected piece that went around the entire table.  There were little soccer balls that moved throughout the parts.  This was a giant ferris wheel type thing where the soccer balls went around until they moved to the next piece. 

Daria and her cousins were fascinated by the Lego trains.

Here is a video I took of one of the trains.

Best wishes, Marcia
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