Typography Self Portraits

I was tasked this week with creating a typography self portrait. I had this assignment in a previous course but I was looking forward to a second chance. There is something exciting about taking the shapes of words and letters to create a likeness of yourself. This time I had an entire new approach, instead of creating a literal representation of myself using words, I wanted to use letters and fonts to create and capture my essence.

I wanted to achieve a playful illustration so I used script and hand written fonts. I really liked the curlz mt font to achieve my curly hair. I think the expression and style of the fonts I chose captures my playfulness. 

I have had so much fun playing around that I have created a list of projects just for illustrator. Subscribe and stay tuned for printable illustrations coming soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

The mysterious glowstick xylophone

I spend a lot of down time browsing pinterest for inspiration and ideas for all of my artistic outlets. One day I came across a pin by Play at Home Mom for the glow stick xylophone shown here. I thought wow what a cool idea for a photograph and pinned it for later. Well I ran across some glow stick in the dollar store today and decided to give it a go.

My boyfriend and I immediately noticed that there was no aura given off by the glow sticks in the test shots we did. We tried a couple different shots with and without flashes and nada! Since we thought we had failed, we decided to do some light paintings with the glow sticks so they would not go to a complete waste. 

That's when it hit us it's a light painting! We used a creepy naked baby from our photography prop box to illustrate the child in the photo playing the xylophone as we don't have any children at our disposal. We set the baby down in place then turned off all the lights. You will want the room to be pretty dark so that hands do not show up in the picture. You will need to set the camera on a tripod or hard surface and set it up for a long exposure. We used a shutter release cable with the camera set in bulb mode and an external flash. If you don't have an external flash you can "paint" the scene with a flash light. We started the exposure then brought the glasses down from the top and set them in front of the baby one by one creating a light trail. After we sat down the last glass we manually fired the external flash to expose the rest of the scene (creepy baby). Viola magical xylophone aura!

Light paintings are fun to play around with and danbo is much cuter than the creepy baby so we had to do one with him as well. 

If you have any questions please feel free to leave comments bellow. Don't forget to follow me on facebook to stay up to date and pinterest because it is just plain fun! 

My favorite Photoshop filters for photos

It has been such a busy week and I feel like a slacker. I haven't got near as much done as I wanted to. This week I have spent most of my time in Photoshop retouching photos, trying to design a logo, and overhauling my Flickr  account. I went on a delete spree a few months back and pretty much deleted everything to start fresh. I was going through some old photos and decided to give them a second chance and that ended up being a much bigger project than I had anticipated and I am still not done! So many of the photos needed to be re-edited, because I didn't have some of the filters that I have now. Nix software is amazing and I highly recommend it. It can make the most blah photo into something spectacular! Also they have a 15 day free trial so you can try it out first. 

Dull and boring before,

Mysterious and whimsical after!

I do my best to try and capture the image I want when I am out shooting but let's face it, it doesn't always happen. I love this software because it is so easy to use and gives an otherwise dull photo a wow factor. I am in no way shape or form a professional photographer, nor do I aspire to be. I enjoy learning as I go and is a fun pass time and hobby. 

Then there is that pesky logo I mentioned earlier. Thinking, stewing and fretting over what I want to live with for an extended period of time is quite the daunting task. I am still not sold but will share some of the roughs I have been doodling. 

Have a happy weekend!

Cheers,

Mosaic Decoupage Table

My goodness it's finally done! I didn't think that this project was ever going to get finished but after 3 very long weeks the table is complete. I purchased this ugly kitchen table for $5.00 at a garage sale. I loved the price but hated the table and knew when I bought it that it was definitely going to need a transformation. I considered painting it but because of the wood contact like paper surface I didn't think that it would work out. I then planned to decoupage the top with pictures from National Geographic magazines. Once I got all my pictures cut out I got to thinking that it would be even better to do a picture out of pictures in a mosaic style. 

So I cut and cut and cut colors to lay out the landscape and used watered down mod podge to glue the pieces. Most of the landscape are squares and abstract shapes but in some spots I cut out shapes. After I completed the landscape I went through and cut out interesting pictures from photography magazines and old encyclopedias. I then cut strips of text out of the encyclopedias and made the edge border. I plan to do 3 coats of polyurethane over the top but I wanted to take pictures so I didn't have to much glare in the photos. 

See the ugly laminate! 

I am pretty pleased with the result but I will warn you this was a huge, long, messy, drawn out project. I might do it again but it would  definitely do it on a much smaller scale. As always Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed.

Cheers,

Silhouette Portraits

I had to take a break from the everyday DIY and craft and sink myself into some art for a change. I nabbed these frames from the Goodwill Outlet for around a dollar a piece. I really liked the ornate organic nature of the frames. When I got home and got to staring at them they just screamed silhouette to me. So I got to work! I found a couple of pictures of Jason and I from the side and popped them into Photoshop so I could get the exact shape of our profile. I didn't want to spend all day getting the shapes of our face just right so I lightly traced them on to water color paper. I used gouache and ink for the paintings. 

Over all I am very pleased with the way Jason's came out and can live with the way mine looks. I think my favorite thing that worked out quite by accident is he is looking up at my and I'm looking down at him.

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

DIY Keychains

I was inspired to make these little key chains from Can't stop making things blog. She created cute French enameled tags for mason jars. I thought it would be a cute idea for key chains and ornaments for the Christmas tree. The possibilities are endless in designing these cute little key chains and would make a nice personalized gift. They are also super simple to make.


Supply List

• Brass Valve Tags (I purchased these on Amazon for pretty cheap)
• Clear Embossing Powder
• Exacto blade or scissors
• Pencil, Pen, and Markers
• Paint
• Card Stock
• Mod Podge or craft glue

Let's get started!

Trace an outline of the valve tags onto your card stock. I used pencil so I would erase any lines visible from tracing. I then took paint and dipped my finger in it and made a print and had my partner do the same to make the other half of the heart. We practiced quite a bit to get our technique down. This was by far the most difficult part of the entire project!

Of course if you don't want to make the heart key chain you design your tag accordingly. After designing cut the circle out. I used a brush to place the glue onto the tag to make sure that I had a nice even coat with no bubbles. Then place the paper on the tag and smooth it out. Poke a pencil through the hole in the tag and allow to dry. 

On an electric skillet or non stick frying pan heat up to 350 degrees. Place wax paper or aluminum foil in the pan. Place your tag into the skillet and allow to heat up for just about a minute. Remove from pan with spatula. Dust embossing powder onto the tag and let set for a minute. I slide the paper back and forth under the tag to shake of some of the excess but this isn't completely necessary. I just wanted to conserve as much powder as I could for later. With your spatula return the tag to the pan and allow to sit until all of the powder is dissolved and is completely clear. Don't worry about the hole the powder melts out of it on its own. Remove from the pan and allow to cool. All done!

Once I was done making my key chain Jason had to have his own zombie one and I was happy to oblige. 
I hope you enjoyed this project. Feel free to ask questions, leave feedback, or shout out some other ideas to decorate these simple little things.

Cheers,

Love Notes

I have always thought it was cute how my parents framed a quick hand written note. On the mornings my step dad would go hunting he would leave the frame on the coffee table that simply said, "Gone Killin". We are big on note writing in my family. I chalk it up to the fact that we are forgetful and we need a nudge. Whatever the reason I have implemented this idea in my home. Jason was not used to having someone making his lunch and he was always forgetting it so one day I wrote him a note and left it on the door. The note stayed there for months until I decided to frame it and put it on top of his mini man fridge.

If you have the extra time to make a nice hand written card, do it! It can go a long way for a pick me up for the one you love. Jason works a lot of long hours so I filled his mini man fridge full of all his favorite beers and made a handmade card out of card stock. I wrote a silly haiku on it and stuck it in the fridge. He was thrilled about the beer but was impressed by the handmade card with a paper bow. 

Last but not least a note to myself. I feel like I am the most forgetful person on the planet. I am constantly walking out of the house without my keys and phone. If my phone was as smart as they say it is I wouldn't have to work so hard to remember it. A little simple typography and cheap frame keep me from wandering in and out of the house 3 times.

Hope you have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,