Art Every Day Month

"Betwixt and Between" by Leah Piken Kolidas

Yesterday I watched the snowfall outside my window. It was a beautiful white fluffy snow; the kind they show in Christmas specials. Beautiful, yes, but for me, the first snow is a harbinger of the long, dark months. I think it was even more sad because it is only October. Far too early.

It is always a struggle for me to create once the days grow shorter and the temperatures fall, yet one thing that helps me prepare for the winter doldrums is Art Every Day Month. The low-pressure challenge, held each November, is the brainchild of artist Leah Piken Kolidas.

Here is how Leah describes Art Every Day Month.

“ I encourage people to make something every day, but my goal is to foster more creativity, so if you make just one piece of art per week or just one for the whole month, that's fine with me. The idea is to bring more creativity into your life, not to make you feel overwhelmed, pressured or guilt-stricken.”

This will be my third year participating. Of course I am under no illusion that I will be producing great stuff every day or that I won't come home from work exhausted and fling myself on the couch. This challenge is more of a reframing effort for me. It is a time to honor nature's rhythms and find a way to ease into winter without surrendering to total hibernation.

Stay tuned and I will share what the month brings. How do you feel about winter's approach?

Witchy Halloween Treat Bag

Creepy Witch's Grocery List

I have an annual tradition of making treat bags for my niece and nephew. Paper bags make a great base. This year I went with a witch theme since I was having so much fun making polymer clay witch fingers. The finger at the top is polymer clay piece that I glued to a mini clothes pin.

The grocery list is created on a free scroll template that I found here. I inserted the blank scroll image into a Word document and then inserted text boxes to add the witch's "grocery" list onto the scroll. I printed it out and used colored pencils to "age" the scroll. I decorated the plain paper bag with Halloween-themed ink stamps. Stop back to read about what is inside!

Witchy Halloween Treat Bag and its contents

Read about last year's Sepia photo treat bags:

Kids Photo DIY Halloween Treat Bags

DIY Fall Camouflage Wedding

When it comes to weddings my family is all about DIY. We risk sanity to save a buck, but we also get to put some pretty personal touches on our big days.

The latest one in my family to enter the state of holy matrimony was my baby brother, Michael. He married his girlfriend Ericia last Saturday in a stunning fall ceremony filled with browns, reds, oranges, and mossy oak camouflage.

Camouflage Dreams

To get ready for the big day, each of us took our place at the DIY table. My assignment was chief cake baker. I must admit when Ericia said they were going with a camouflage theme, my eye twitched a little. Camo is about as far from my personal taste as you can get. But when Ericia handed me a satiny camo ribbon with a woodland pattern on it, it felt so sophisticated and amazingly fitting for fall.

The ribbon complemented the gorgeous white wedding dress that my mom created for Ericia. It had a subtle peek-a-boo camouflage fabric stripe up the leg and camo detailing at the bodice. Mom recreated it from a photo that Ericia showed her. Mom also made a camo vest for Michael, rich brown dresses for the two bride's maids, and a precious little flower girl dress for my niece, Jessie. My nephew Ryan carried a camo ring pillow crafted from the same fabric. Mom did all that and still managed to fit in helping with the food and decorations. Talk about stress!

 
My sister also pitched in with favors and food. She painstakingly created darling paper leaves for on top of the favor boxes using my mom's Cricut machine. Everything turned out beautifully. And thankfully there are no more family weddings in the foreseeable future.

 

Halloween Treasures

I've been featured in a Halloween Treasures Treasury. I absolutely love this one.

Zombie Felties infect polymer

I absolutely love the projects in the book Zombie Felties. I picked it up even though I don't sew because I could easily see these grotesque cuties infecting my polymer stash.

Books and magazines are a great source of inspiration as well as a terrific way to learn new techniques.The challenge is to use the inspiration to create something that is not just a copy of another artist's vision. You see the copycat syndrome over and over again. A new book comes out and suddenly Etsy is filled with exact replicas of the featured projects. One way to move beyond the copycat syndrome is to translate the idea into a new medium.

Here are my first attempts at translating the felt patterns into cute little Halloween polymer pins. Now that I am getting the hang of creating them, I'd like to start experimenting with new designs. Since these pins are prototypes I'm offering them for only $5 each at Young Creative.

October Challenge: Polymer Clay Mask

The October PCAGOE challenge entries

I've always been intrigued by polymer clay masks so I was really excited to find it would be one of the themes in my guild's monthly challenge. Unfortunately this was one of those months when life got in the way and I didn't get an entry finished.

Vote and you could win!
I popped over to the challenge blog this morning to check out the great entries and cast my vote. Public voting is open through Oct. 7. Here's a peek at the prizes you could win just for voting. Vote here!