Mixed Media Cute Girl Ornaments Tutorial

Hey friends! Hoping your week is off to a great start. Yesterday I did my best to keep a handful of things all going at once...orders, house stuff, and a little Springtime or anytime project. I've been in love with feather trees for as long as I can remember. Im' sure that any Folk Art collectors reading this share my love. Feather trees were created in Germany in the 1880's and were originally made with dyed goose feathers attached to wire branches. These days they are available in all different colors and sizes. There are multi-colored, Valentine trees, Easter trees, even black Halloween trees. I had a black one, which I sadly lost to hurricane Sandy, but we are keeping this a happy post! 

This tree here isn't a traditional feather tree, but for me it works just the same...it's actually made of paper! The branches are festooned with a fringe of super vintagey looking book pages. I love how sepia looking it is, and it is the perfect backdrop base for all holidays. In keeping with the Everyday is a Holiday palette, tan works as instant age, toning down candy colors. I found this tree on ebay a few months back and I was thrilled. I had seen the same one go for around a hundred dollars, which I could never ever do. I got this one for a great deal! I love this tree. And inspiration for making ornaments comes a bit easier to you when you've got a great place to hang them.

It was a grey day yesterday, and the house was really quiet, so after I checked some work off our checklist, I gathered up some supplies for the purpose of making ornaments for my Spring tree. I'm really happy with these sweet little girl ornaments. They are on egg shaped wood disks. So they can pull off an Eastery feel if paired with Springy things, and if not, they're perfect for year round display.

I gathered up some supplies without really knowing what I was going to do. Papers, paint, ink, string, and some favorite stamp sets. This part of the project is always the most fun.

One of my favorite artists is Ashley G. She is so incredibly talented! We were so happy to finally meet her in person at CHA where she debuted her line of stamps based on her original drawings. By far, our favorite thing at CHA! Above are the two sets I used for this project. You can find them in Ashley's etsy shop. 

I started out by painting the "eggs" with acrylic craft paint. 

Next, a Jenny trademark here...speckling! It's so hard for me not to speckle...it just makes everything I create feel right. To speckle these all I did was water down the left over paint on my palette, and then I dipped my brush into the color wash and tapped the front end of the brush with my finger, spattering each egg. The speckling is totally fitting being that real eggs are actually speckled.

 I really wanted these to have a very "loose" and whimsical feel. I didn't want them to be perfect...just perfectly imperfect. Of course if you are a neat freak, you could stamp your girls and color them in clean and neat with Copic markers. But what I did here is soft and casual, and I think really goes well with Ashley's loose drawings. I just traced the basic outline of each girl on white card stock and with  my finger tip or brush I blocked in the areas. I did this knowing that when finally stamped, the colors would be outside of the lines in some spots or not perfectly filling the lines in others.

You can see what I mean here, how the color just seems to almost accidentally fall into place. I stamped right over the dry paint using black StazOn ink. 

Next I speckled some red paint to take the whimsy and fun further. Anything but perfect.

I did graphics for each of the "eggs" and cut them out, then paired them with whichever egg contrasted best. 

I adhered each graphic using matte finish mod podge. I then stamped some hearts over some color that I brushed onto card stock. 

I cut out the hearts and added them to each ornament. After that I made sure to apply a topcoat of the Mod Podge to seal them and let dry. I used a blow dryer to speed things up. Next, using a brown paint that I watered down, I applied an antiquing wash. I just brushed it loosely around my girl and hearts. Then, with a piece of clean dry paper towel I blotted the wash away, just leaving a bit around the girls and hearts.

You can see how much of the wash I left here. It just adds another layer. You can also see that I added little pink cheeks to each girl. 

Next with my finger tip, I just rubbed a bit of paint in contrasting colors around the edges of each ornament. again, my whole point is to be imperfect and uneven. 

Next, I roughly cut a backing paper for each egg, and lengths of striped bakers twine. I found this adorable aqua twine in the dollar bins at Target around Christmas time.

I brushed an even coat of Mod Podge over the back, then laid the ends of the strings down, then laid the paper over, sandwiching the ends of string between the wood disk and the paper. At this point you should wait before brushing a topcoat of the Mod Podge over the paper. Give it a minute to adhere while using your fingertips to press out any air bubbles. Make sure to pay attention to the top where the string is sandwiched between. At this part press hard and make sure the string is sealed between. Then let dry. Once dry then trim the excess paper from the edges. Our trick is to sand the extra paper off with a piece of sandpaper or a sanding block...you could even use a emory board. It's super fast and easy. Now seal the back with a light even coat of mod podge and let dry.

Now to finish the ornaments, add some of your antiquing wash to the backs. Brush it on and blot it off using dry paper towel same way you did earlier. And that's it! They are ready to hang! 

This little gal kills me! She has a kitten in her pocket!

I love how "sketchy" this gal is! And her shirt is so fun! yellow with pink speckles! 

This may be my favorite. hmm

How sweet are these little friends?

This girl is so Mod looking.

And our sweet little kitty! Meow!

It was a fun little afternoon project. And there are so many possibilities! I love them for Spring, but I'm pretty sure they will be on display all year! They'd also be adorable tied to gifts. 

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial! Now if Spring would just hurry it up and get here! Thanks for popping in!

xo Jenny...and Aaron says hi!

DIY Faux vintage crate shadowbox shelf (styled 2 ways)

We had a tiny little taste of Spring weather this past week and it felt great! I was instantly filled with inspiration and wanted to put that inspiration to use. First I went shopping, and lucky for me that the stores are inspired too. The craft stores and markets are now fully stocked with all the hallmarks of Springtime...tulips and daffodils, the makings for Easter baskets and Spring wreaths, bags of Easter grass. All of this stuff got me thinking about putting together a Spring vignette in our kitchen. We're at the "focusing-on-the-smaller-details" stage of our kitchen re-do. We're ready to hang some little shelves that will hold some of our everyday kitchen objects, as well as our smaller collectibles. For shelving I adore the look of old crates, but they are always so expensive at antique shops or flea markets. And in my ebay searches I'll find old crates with prices ranging from $20 to $200 or more...and then with shipping factored in...jeez! So I figured that I could save myself some dough by buying new crates and with the magic of paint I could totally get close enough to the look I'm going for.

At Michael's when I picked up the supplies for my last shadowbox project I saw these cute little unfinished crates. They have a larger size as well, but these little ones were just so incredibly cute. They measure 11" x 10" x 5", and they are $6.99. They'd be great just simply spray painted in soft candy colors, or painted white, but I knew I could get the look of a vintage crate easy enough. Even though we have the skills that pay the bills when it comes to painting and faux finishing, I really wanted this to be an easy squeezey project, with no fancy supplies or expert techniques employed. I wanted to start, finish, style, and hang them in a single afternoon. And I did. All I used was craft paint, water, a paint brush, and a rag. No stinky sticky stain whatsoever.  

First, this is a messy wet project, so be sure to put down some newspaper or cardboard. For my basic wood color I chose a warm brown with reddish tones. I used "Dark Chocolate" by Americana. I painted the entire crate and let it dry. Actually this is when I went to the kitchen for pretzel crisps and hummus. Ya know, the snack industry really needs to start making commercials and ad campaigns that are aimed at crafters. On a day to day basis we find way more snack opportunities than the average sports spectator. 

Next, once the brown paint had dried, using black paint mixed with water, I brushed it all over the crate, letting it soak in. This is a wash, not straight black paint, so I could still see the brown paint through the black. I let the black wash dry a bit, but not all the way.

Now, using a tan color, (I used "Mushroom" by Folk Art) I just used my finger tips to rub some of the tan over some areas (you can of course use a brush if you'd prefer)...I just rubbed it onto accent spots, not the entire crate. Since the black wash was still wet, the tan blended with it and gave those areas a cloudy & aged appearance. This mimics those cloudy, aged spots you'd find on crates that have been sitting in old basements or barns.  

I then dipped a paintbrush in water and then into the black wash, and then brushed that over the areas where I had just rubbed the tan. When I'm brushing on the watered down wash I'm "distressing" the finish at the same time. By brushing back and forth with the wet brush it pulls up some of the paint and will almost bring it back down to raw wood in some spots. These spots will have a warm glow that you wouldn't be able to achieve with sand paper distressing. 

You can see what I mean here. Sand paper would give you fresh brand new wood, where here you see a warm glow. Do as much or as little as you like, and then let dry. I decided not to seal it with a clear coat since I wanted a rustic old feel. 

To hang the crate and turn it into a shelf I just added a self leveling sawtooth bracket to the back. You can find them at Michael's or Home Depot or Lowe's. They are our favorite, we use them on all of our diecuts and plaques. 

So this is what I had in mind when thinking of creating a Spring vignette. I wanted a very old timey general store/pharmacy feel. The old crate seemed like the perfect setting for a small collection of items that would've appeared on the seasonal shelf display in an old time general store. The shredded vintage book pages add to this aesthetic...almost as if the shred was the packing material that these little treasures came nestled in.

These are definitely some of the things that would be in my dream Easter basket. 

And here I styled the shelf for everyday! 

Our new kitchen decor is all about keeping it simple and practical. It's about letting the coffee beans that we grind every day also serve as a rustic, cozy, vignette

I hope you give some of these techniques a try. There are so many great raw wood pieces out there that can be made over...made rustic, old and vintagey...with just a few tones of acrylic paint.

And creating a Springtime inspired or everyday vignette is easy...it's all about keeping it simple and practical.

Ok, here's to a Springtime filled with lot's of artful DIY's!

xo, Jenny...& Aaron

The Everyday is a Holiday color palette (colors, brands, finishes)

It happens all the time, whenever we share a glimpse of some art that we're working on, whether we put the photo on the blog, Facebook, or Instagram, we are always asked the names of the paint colors that we used, or which number paintbrush, or what type of finish we used to seal the painting, etc...lot's of questions just like those...Questions pertaining to what we call "Supply Specifics".

And we love to field questions like these. It's why we wrote our book, it's why we teach at art retreats, it's why we blog. 

So the other day I shared this photo on Instagram and a few gals had asked for the names of these paint colors. And the question had inspired me to do a couple of things. First, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to share the specifics of our Everyday is a Holiday color palette. And then I figured that while we're at it, we could kick off a new blog series. In the past we shared a series of Art Journaling tutorials and blogged about some of our fave Art Journaling supplies. But I'd love to really get back to basics, with a series that focuses completely on our Supply Specifics. Detailed posts featuring our go-to paints, brushes, mediums, papers, and anything & everything we use in our creative process.

The Everyday is a Holiday color palette is certainly a great place to start. By now I think you all are fairly acquainted with the Jenny & Aaron colors....varying shades of pink, aqua, blue, cream, buttery yellow, tan, and bits of black.

We often hear that even without seeing our names attached, that photographs are so easy to identify as ours. Whether it's a shot of our art, our decor, our collections, or even a pile of our paint covered rags...the color story is always true to our overall aesthetic. And in this case we think that repetition is an asset rather than a shortcoming. 

Because we make a conscious effort to change things up even while they remain the same. We switch color combinations, or pull a certain color into the foreground while subtracting another. For us, it's all about creating a specific color world, and the easiest way to go about this, is with paint. In our Art Journaling, scrapbooking, home projects, and crafts of all types, paint plays such a large roll for us. 

There are so many ways to get creative with paints...Ways that require no expert skills.

And if you work with paints as often as we do, you'll discover something that seems so simple, but in reality there are some people who never seem to grasp this simple truth...and here it is: Sometimes in painting, the ability to skillfully choose the right colors far outweighs the ability skillfully use a paintbrush.

The look you can achieve by simply filling in areas with the right solid paint color can far surpass the most expertly rendered detail work.  

Sometimes it's not about blending color...it's about simply "placing" color. This is a close up shot of a canvas I painted, and for this particular piece the varying stenciled bands of solid color were far more attractive than any detailed background that I could've spent hours hand painting.    

  "Bits of black"...here's a great example of that. For me these pastel polka dots would be so boring if not for the bits of black paint flecking.  

The thing with black is that it keeps the pretty pastels from getting washed out and lost. Another way to enhance your pastel color palette is with the use of stronger tones, like red or berry pink. The presence of these darker polka dots and her red lips among the pastels is what brings everything together and makes the imagery special.

Here's a little behind the scenes glimpse of our scrapbooking collection "The Sweet Life", being hand painted. For us, the starting point for the collection was our signature color palette. And then we designed motifs that illustrated what it is that "The Sweet Life" means to us. But honestly, first and foremost, the primary focus was color. And it wasn't about each individual pattern containing all of our colors...

The aim was for our color story to be represented in the collection as a whole. And if you take a pulled-back look at the papers I think you'll agree that it all came together quite nicely.

Designing the cover of our book was sort of a challenge. We feel that our signature color palette is what most people associate with the Everyday is a Holiday brand. So we worked hard to not only accurately depict what an Art Journal page of ours might look like, but also to fully represent the Jenny & Aaron color world. Honestly, designing the cover of your own book is very rare in the publishing world. We told our publisher that we'd like to design our own cover, and they told us to give it a shot, but they also said that there was a 90% chance that they wouldn't use it. So even with those odds, we just had to give it a go. And apparently...we beat the odds! We were able to design something that was commercially palatable, illustrative of what's contained inside the book, artistically sound, and it accurately captures our signature color palette.   

And here's a shot of just one of the many Art Journaling projects in our book...titled "When I Grow Up and Have a House", which contains complete step by step instructions, including a technique that we love to use in our Art Journals...that involves the use of a stencil and molding paste. It adds such amazing texture. But again, this is a project that is just as much about the use of color as it is about the subject matter. This one is a favorite among our readers and lots of peeps have been sending us pics of their own "When I Grow Up..." pages. It's so awesome to see the different interpretations! 

Ok now...lets discuss Supply Specifics. Lets talk paint.

Every artist has their own unique way of doing things. For us, we've got our two separate stores of paint. We've got our small collection of slightly expensive acrylic paints from Golden, and then we have endless bottles of the cheaper stuff. These are what we call Craft Paints...brands like Folk Art, Ceramcoat, Americana, Apple Barrel, Craft Smart...

When we do a very detailed painting, like a portrait, or a Victorian style floral, or a tablescape of realistic looking sweets...things like that...we'll use our premium Golden acrylics in mainly primary and secondary colors, and mix the exact hues that we want right there on the palette as we go. The quality of the work will warrant the use of the premium paints.  And we mix our colors from scratch because we feel that this is an essential part of the serious painting process. These are not the paints that we're discussing in this post. This post is for everyone...the serious painter, the hobbyist, the crafter, the decorator, the Art Journaler, and just the everyday lover of color. 

Like I said, we've got a stock pile of these Craft Paints, tons and tons of 'em...it's amazing how many colors are available in stores like Michaels and A.C. Moore...colors that you can use right out of the bottle...no mixing necessary. But what we're going to focus on here is our essentials. The Everyday is a Holiday signature color palette. The colors that Jenny & Aaron can't live without. It really is a fairly limited looking palette...but it's pretty much all that we need. We've got a very specific design aesthetic...and a very specific color palette is required. 

(all of the following colors will be listed from left to right)

Pinks

Americana multi-surface Satin "Pink Cadillac"

Americana "Petal Pink"

Craft Smart "Pink"

Americana "Poodleskirt Pink"

Martha Stewart Crafts Multi-Surface Satin "Peppermint Bark"

We use pink a lot...and it's very hard to find the right pink. When we talk about pink we talk about whether it's warm or cool. Warm pinks lean towards peach, while cool pinks veer in the direction of fuchsia/purple...which is tricky, because we never work with peach or purple. So if a pink goes too far warm or cool it will be the wrong pink for us. The above shades are all in our neighborhood of comfort...good temperatures. Ok, the one on the far left, The Satin finish Americana is a very good paint. It has a very creamy opaque finish...only takes one coat where others require two. And it adheres well to lots of surfaces. The Martha paint on the far right is similar in finish and opacity. 

Red & Pale Pinks

Ceramcoat "Opaque Red"

Craft Smart "Light Pink"

Craft Smart "Light Pink"

We might use pale pink even more often than regular pink. These two hues are in fact the same brand and color name, but the color is definitely not the same. The one on the left is an older bottle, and warm in color. While the one on the right is the newer "Light Pink" and it's cool. We often use these two right out of the bottle. The hue is usually the perfect highlight for pink frosting, or pink hair ; ) 

And Ceramcoat "Opaque Red" is our favorite red when it comes to the cheaper brands. Red is often pretty transparent and takes a bunch of coats. But this one has good opacity. And we have a trick when using red paint: we always add a touch of tan to the red. This makes the red less transparent and makes it a bit vintagey at the same time.

Blues

Martha Stewart Crafts Multi-Surface Satin "Pool"

Folk Art "Aqua"

Delta Ceramcoat "Caribbean Blue"

Craft Smart "Robins Egg Blue" 

Again, the Martha paint is really good. Also, with the Folk Art "Aqua", a little goes a long way. We usually add a drop of it to some white and it makes the perfect pale aqua blue. "Caribbean Blue" by Ceramcoat has consistently been the pale aqua blue that we have used most over the years. It's the perfect shade for our needs.

Aquas

Delta Ceramcoat "Turquoise"

Americana "Sea Breeze"

Craft Smart "Spearmint"

Craft Smart "Ocean Breeze"

Martha Stewart Crafts Multi-Surface Satin "Beach Glass"

All of these tones are very similar to one another. Americana "Sea Breeze" is probably our favorite of the group, both in color and in quality of paint. 

Tube Aquas

Artist's Loft "Phthalo Green" 

Liquitex Basics "Bright Aqua Green"

Artist's Loft "Aqua Green"

These tube paints are all as cheap as Craft Paints but they have the texture and color of more expensive paints. A lot of times we use just tiny squirts of these tube paints added to white, light tan, or very pale blue. It makes for great pale aqua tones and these tubes last forever.  The "Phthalo Green" is super rich in pigment and is great for tinting other colors. All three of these are amazing for painting abstracts. When these are mixed with clear gel mediums or molding paste the color is fantastic. All of the Artist's Loft stuff at Michaels is great. Super cheap and the quality is of a higher grade than you'd expect.

Yellows & Browns

Americana "Taffy Cream"

Americana "Dark Chocolate"

Delta Ceramcoat "Straw" 

Craft Smart "Golden Brown"

Americana "Buttermilk"

We paint cakes and cupcakes...a lot. So this is where the yellows and browns come into play most often. To render yellow cake texture we pretty much use a combination of all of these. And "Dark Chocolate" really does work well when rendering chocolate frosting, with highlights of "Golden Brown".  We also love to tie in chocolate and pale yellow when we paint a polka dot pattern of pastels. The main colors will be varying shades of aqua & pink, but then you can really warm it up and make it vintagey and classic with a random chocolate polka dot. And if you tie in pale yellow everything just becomes more sunshiney and bright.

Tans & Grey 

Folk Art "Mushroom"

Americana "Pebble"

Apple Barrel "Pewter Grey" 

Folk Art "Tapioca"

These are the shades we use most when making antique washes. "Tapioca" is great for making washes, and for muting other loud paint colors or bright patterned papers in your Art Journal. And if you mix "Mushroom" and "Pewter Grey" with a bit of water, you've got instant age...great for rubbing on the corners and edges of your photocopied vintage photos.

Neutrals & Black

Craft Smart Satin Acrylic "Gray"

Craft Smart Satin Acrylic "Vanilla"

Craft Smart Satin Acrylic "Graphite"

Delta Ceramcoat "Sandstone"

Apple Barrel "Black"

As we've said...Black is a necessity in our work. We feel like it amplifies the sweetness of our pastels. And we have to say that we're pretty impressed with the Craft Smart Satin Finish paints. They are cheaper than all of the other brands of satin finish, and it seems like they are always on sale as well. Great opacity and great satin finish. Neutral tones are always necessary for your shadows, for tinting other colors to give them a bit of age, and for making washes and muting louder tones. 

Whites

Artist's Loft "Titanium White"

Grumbacher "Titanium White"

White is the most important paint you will buy. You will use it the most by far. We always mix a color, and then we always say "it needs to be lighter."...100% of the time. So it's a waste to buy the small bottles of white. We also don't mess around with getting different shades of white since you can always add a tiny drop of something else to the Titanium white and it'll give you whatever offshoot of white that you desire. These big containers from Artist's Loft are great. They last a while, they don't dry out or clog up, you can always squeeze out another dollop...and the paint is pretty darn opaque. But it is super matte finish...it's the kind of matte paint that will instantly dry up the tip of your Sharpie if you write over it. We recently starting buying more of the Grumbacher "Titanium White"...it's very high quality, coats well, and it's got a bit of a sheen to it. It's a bit more expensive than the Artist's Loft brand, but we were able to get it on sale at Michaels a few times. If you buy one pricey paint it should be your white paint. Yeah, we know it's such a boring color to splurge on, right?? But it's worth it.

Ok, that's pretty much it as far as our color palette goes. I know...epic long post...but hopefully you can come back to this for reference whenever you need to. We've got so many more Supply Specifics we can touch upon in this series. We're definitely going to follow up with some more essential paint information. Namely, the basics of mixing colors...and we've got some excellent tips for establishing your own signature color palette.

There are simple things that me and Aaron do every single day that you just may not have thought to do. At this point we can mix colors blindfolded in our sleep. We just might be able to give you some very helpful tips. 

Alright, thanks for reading! Happy Painting!

xo, Jenny & Aaron