In the Mail, In the Shop, and In the Stores!

So…the Mailman totally made our day with today's mail. Actually, he made our week with this special delivery. Yep…our stamps arrived!!!

And thanks to all of the sweethearts who pre-ordered, a big chunk of them will be leaving here just as quickly as they arrived! After we wrap them up nice they'll be heading right back out the door. We'll hopefully get them all out by Saturday. I'm really so psyched for everyone to receive them!

We've shared these pics before, but I just wanted to show some details again, and show how cute they come out, even with the most minimal embellishments.

Using only black ink and haphazard painted polka dots, we stamped some simple tags to tie to our candy pops for our students at Art Is You last month.

The stamps really turned out so great! They're available in two styles, "Allie & Amy", and "Classic  Cakes" . 

 We are so excited to see what you guys do with them! 

 Very excited about this new piece! A JUMBO Triple Scoop neapolitan ice cream cone die cut is now in the shop! It's so big and so fun! It looks super sweet hanging in our kitchen!

Here's another shot…to give you an idea of size!

And I don't think I've shared this yet…this is very cool. Artful Blogging magazine included us in their "Banners we Love" section! So FUN! 

And when we ran out to grab our copy of Artful Blogging, we were also super excited to see that our book is popping up in more and more Barnes and Noble locations.  It also finally showed up in our local Michaels. For the longest time everyone we know had been able to find it at their nearby Michaels, but for some reason, the Michaels closest to us didn't have it on the shelves. Well it's there now, and that's a very good sign!

Ok, just wanted to pop in to say hi! We hope to find time to share a couple projects here on the blog using our new stamps. We also look forward to seeing creative pics of our stamps in action from any of you guys who ordered them…which reminds me…any of you dolls who pre-ordered...keep an eye on your mailbox this upcoming week! Stamps are on their way shortly!

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi!

Eat More Cake Art Journal Spread

I find Art Journaling to be such a break from the everyday work. In our "real" work everything has to be so perfect. And I feel like Art Journaling is the opposite of that. It's a chance to be haphazard and messy. It had been a long few days of making, packing & shipping, and while the clear coat on a bunch of die cuts was drying I found some time to play around in one of my Art Journals. This is one of my smaller Moleskine journals and it's nearly filled up. This is one of the basic Molskines with the very thin pages. Prior to doing this spread I had went ahead and bolstered most of the pages with extra layers of paper and paint. Me and Aaron each have several Art Journals and jump back and forth between all of them.

Many times with me, an Art Journal page or spread begins with a vague idea that's related to a certain image or piece of ephemera that I'd like to use. In this case, it was this birthday cake image I had cut out from a piece of vintage wrapping paper. Everything about this image makes me swoon! I just had to use it. So I started the page by painting simple oval shapes in pink and cream, and then pieced in some pink and cream stripe paper. A lot of times when I'm doing a spread, meaning two pages, I like to make the pages mirror each other in some way. Sometimes I do one full composition that spreads across the two pages. But here I wanted it to be two separate pages that fit together perfectly.

Then I did some sketchy colored pencil outlines around the ovals, and added some paint spatters. Like I said…haphazard and messy is what I'm about when it comes to Art Journaling.

Besides the cake, I felt like the spread needed a muse. A face to be the spokesperson. And who better than this little chubby faced doll. I love using my collections in my spreads without actually "using" my collections. I just snapped a pretty close and clear photo of the cutie and printed her out.

I then glued her in with some decoupage medium. And from that same piece of vintage wrapping paper I cut out the corresponding slice of birthday cake and put it in her hand. I didn't want the page to be all pale color, so I then added some bright berry pink polkadots with a dauber, some Sharpie pen doodles, and bit of bright aqua paint details.

I knew I needed washi tape somewhere on the spread. I always need washi tape!

I selected my washi tapes and then pulled out my vintage printers tray full of all my bits and pieces.

Last week I had made these tags using my fave Ashley G stamps. I def wanted to use one of these!

I love how well black compliments pretty pastels. I added some more sketchy details with my Sharpie and also a bunch of stamped flourishes. I remember when flourishes were all the rage. I've got tons! I wish I knew who made these. I don't have the original packaging, and I doubt they make these anymore.

So I taped in my cute girl tag with a bit of metallic gold striped washi. I love how it compliments her gold glittered skirt.

I used some fairly crude handwriting skills to render these letters and cut them out of aqua polk dot paper. I adhered them to the page but then felt that they needed to pop a bit more. So I added a drop shadow with some tan paint, and used my sharpie pen to add "stitching".

I glued in some pink sequins for a bit of shimmer.

And while I was in shimmer mode I figured I'd add some glitter. I keep my most used glitters in this adorable chicken wire wall rack.

I added some ultra fine gold glitter to the candle flames.

Just wanted to share some of my Art Journaling with you guys. I plan on sharing a bunch more…I had been Art Journal all this time but I wasn't taking the time to take in progress photos. I'll try to do this a lot more. And yes…I 100% believe that we should all Eat More Cake.

Not so much that we blow up like a paint and paper filled Art Journal…but you know what I mean. :) I still get a kick out of watching a new moleskine go from the skinny guy on the bottom to the chubby colorful guy on top. 

Thanks for reading! And Happy Art Journaling to you!

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi!

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!