3D Printed Garden Urns, Water Feature, Dalek, and Much More.

I am thrilled with these garden urns that JC designed and printed. We were sitting around brainstorming accessories that he could print for our Dickens Christmas Village one day.  

Garden urns was one of my requests. I think that got his creative juices flowing. 

I LOVE them!  They are just what I envisioned. 

Here they are after painting with acrylic paint. 

They go great with this fountain he printed from a design found at Thingiverse.com.

Here is the Dalek in progress.

I had to look up what mixture of paint colors to use to make the bronzy color. (burnt sienna and cadmium red light with more burnt sienna). 

Here is what he's supposed to look like and hopefully will at some point.  

It looks a bit dark in the above picture, but that's just the lighting. 

Here is Mister Dalek with some other items in progress; British Post Box and dogs, and cat. 

And then there is this lil' lady. 

If you don't know her right off the bat, don't worry, I wouldn't have either. 

 Though, I probably have seen her hundreds of times since the early 1980s.  😉

Thank you for visiting. 

🐍

{All 3D Printing Designs found on www.Thingiverse.com except the garden urns, which were designed and printed by JC}

Art Is Therapy: Acrylic Handpainted Mini Wooden Bowls

A few years ago we received some cute little wooden bowls in our Christmas stockings. I didn't know at the time, but they are for condiments when you are cooking. I just use them around the house to hold little trinkets, and I always had the idea in the back of my mind to paint them. 

When we started 3D printing after Christmas time and I was painting Jason's prints, I found that I couldn't put the paint brushes down. I was possessed. I was looking around the house, thinking, "What can I paint? What can I paint?" So, I found my little bowls. 

You can see Mollie inspecting them. I think she approves. ↓

I had so much fun painting them. I got completely lost in the process. It was so relaxing to randomly paint shapes and designs, and mix colors.    

I left a painted area on the bottom for my initials. ↓

One of them hasn't been painted yet because, at the time, I forgot about it, as it stays in my bedroom and holds my rings at night. 

Since it worked out that I have a bowl with a red background and another with blue, then it will be only logical (and fun) to paint the third one with a yellow background. After they are all three painted, then I will put polycrylic on them to protect the surface. 

I will post a little update when they are all painted and sealed. 

🎨

Thanks for visiting. 

Christmas Angel and Tree Wood Yard Ornaments, and Some Christmas Google Doodles

All is calm. All is bright. 

This fall, my Dad asked me what I wanted him to cut out for me. I drew up some templates, and told him how many of each piece to cut out. I had a plan in my head, but I guess people don't always get my genius. When it came time to put them together, I had to walk him through it. 

I think they are mighty cute, and my husband and I just finished painting them this past weekend. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, something I thought was fun are the google doodles from the last few days. Do you know what the google doodle is? I assume most people know, but really I shouldn't assume. 

If you go to the google search page during the holidays, they have special little holiday doodles in place of the GOOGLE name. This week it has been cute little houses and figures that you can cut out and glue together. 

Here they all are in one place for you to print out and glue together. Just click each of the images and you can either print them directly, or save them and print them later. Then, I guess it's pretty self explanatory. Just cut them along the edges and fold along the dotted lines, and then glue the tabs. 

If you'll notice, they all spell out the word, GOOGLE, stylistically. Very cute. 

And here are some little figures that go along with it. 

I don't have a picture of the figures cut out, but here are the little buildings glued together and lined up to spell GOOGLE. Great fun for big and little kids. ;)

I am wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and a Healthy, Happy, and Peaceful New Year.

☺☻☺

Thanks for visiting. 

Women's Circle Traveling Journal

I follow this wonderful blog called Introverted Art, and when Ana mentioned she wanted to start a Women's Circle Traveling Journal, I just jumped on it without thinking. I've been wanting to break out my paints and do something creative, so I felt this was the perfect opportunity, especially since there were no rules. Anything goes. 

Once I received the traveling art journal, I had one week with it before I had to send it on to the next participant in the group. I was so stumped for ideas at first. I sketched a few things (in a lovely sketchbook my sister gave me a few Christmases ago). Then, I just decided to take the paints out, dip my brush in, and just paint. I just grabbed some color and started painting with no idea where it would lead. 

I always hear people say that all the time about art journaling. Don't think about. Just do it. Well, I didn't know how amazing it would be until I actually took that advice. I now know why people love doing them. It was so darn fun and relaxing, and it really does feel like a release of pent-up creativity.  

I painted a few pages in my sketchbook of nothing in particular, just shapes and colors. (I even got my husband to play along. Love his sunset, which he first drew on his ipad and then translated it perfectly with paint.)

I let them dry overnight, and the next evening I opened the traveling journal and decided to take the same tact, and just start painting. I didn't go as crazy, because I wanted it to be a clear background. Then, I started cutting shapes out from one of the pages I painted the night before.

With still no plan, I just started gluing the pieces to my painted surface in the art journal. Is it just me or does it kind of remind you of the 1980's? Maybe I'm just reliving my childhood. 

I let it dry another night and the next day I took some black paint and brushed along some of the edges of the cut out pieces just to give a little more depth to them. 

And the lettering. Oh my. This is where I really need to be more intentional; with my lettering. I love typography, so you'd think I could have done a better job. Next time I will try to be more creative with my lettering. 

I mod-podged the entire surface to preserve it, and I let that dry overnight.

"None of my pleasures are guilty". A quote by a non-famous person. Me. ha. It's my motto in life.

This was a great exercise and I hope to do more of this art journaling in my own sketchbook. It really was very fun, relaxing and such a creative release. 

A big "thank you" to Ana at Introverted Art for allowing me to join in this traveling art journal.

Here is a list of the other participants in this Women's Circle Traveling Art Journal:

Artful Fairy Tales

The Marmelade Gypsy

Goodness Recycled

Middle Girl

Ophelia's Art

Christina Jackson

Lovely Reveries

Kyra Wilson's Studio

She Who Seeks

Words & Blooms

Free Spirit Scribblings

A North End Journal

Magic Love Crow

Bichinhos na Cabeça

Art of Nadia

Castles Crowns Cottages