Organic Art

I could call this "pressed flower art", but Organic Art sounds better to me......

I used some dried snapdragons, a paper butterfly and a dried leaf butterfly for this piece.  Like my other butterfly art,  I used photo stickers to keep the different pieces in place on watercolor paper. 

Paper Butterfly Art Tutorial

My butterfly paper punch is one of my favorite craft tools.  I seriously can't get enough of making tiny paper butterflies, even if I don't know what to do with them all!  haha!  They're just pretty so I keep making them!  Maybe I'm a little addicted :)

Here's an idea I came up with to use some of them up........

Paper Butterfly Art Tutorial

Materials:

Card Stock or Watercolor Paper - cut to desired size

Other colored or decorative patterned papers

Butterfly paper punch (optional- you can make this without it, but this makes it much easier)

Photo Stickers

Ballpoint Pen

Step 1:  Using a butterfly paper punch, cut out butterflies of different colors and patterns. I used two plain colored papers and then some fun patterned paper I made before by stamping with watercolors.

If you don't have a butterfly punch, cut butterflies out of paper by folding the paper in half and and cutting the shape of a butterfly's wing out of it- similar to cutting paper hearts.  You can find a tutorial for butterflies HERE.

Step 2:  Arrange your paper butterflies on your card stock paper.   You can line them all up in rows or place some in a corner and have them flying up from there to make it more interesting.  

Step 3:  One by one, place a photo sticker on the back of each butterfly and press it into place on the card stock.  I had to cut the photo stickers in half for them to fit my butterflies.

Step 4:  After you have all the butterflies stuck on your paper, you can add a little more interest by drawing the antennae with a ballpoint pen.

Step 5:  Don't forget to sign your masterpiece!

Printing with Flowers

Grape Hyacinths..... so pretty, but so invasive.  These little bulb flowers were once planted in flower beds and are now all over our front lawn.

 Good thing I came up with a fun art project to put these to use!  My son had a great time smashing flowers with me :)

Materials:  

Flowers, grass, weeds- whatever kinds you like

heavy weight paper- I used 300lb watercolor paper

a sheet of regular printer paper

hammer (optional)

Step 1. Gather up and wash some flowers and grasses.  Just to make sure they will work on your nice paper, test them out on some scrap paper first.  I couldn't get leaves to work with this method, but try whatever you like!

Step 2:  Arrange your flowers and grasses on your nice heavy weight paper.

Step 3:  Place a regular sheet of printer paper on top of your arrangement- you can fold your printer paper in half if you like.

Step 4:  Without moving your flower arrangement, press the printer paper on top of it carefully, making sure to squish the juices and natural dyes out of the plants.  This is where you might need a hammer.  The grape hyacinths pressed easily with my fingers, but I had to pound the grasses to make any marks on the paper.

Step 5:  Lift the printer paper off and see the prints you made with the dyes of the flowers.  Remove the smashed plants and repeat the previous steps to add more to your artwork, if desired.  

Step 6: Some plant remnants may still stick to your paper, so let it dry and then scrape off the extra stuff.

Yea!  You're all done.  You can frame your artwork or make custom cards out of them!

 

Bright Flowers Bookmarks

Hey guys!  Like the new header?  I can never leave one header up for too long before I get tired of it.  Plus, I figured it was time to incorporate my watercolors in my blog design somehow.  I'm pretty happy with it!

Anyway, so...... onto some more watercolor goodness.....

I painted these bookmarks right after my latest flower painting.  I was having too much fun with the watercolors to stop!

I painted two sets with bright flowers.  I just love how colorful and vibrant they are!  I used stencils on the other set.  I love them all!

Crepe Paper Flowers

When I found a tutorial for crepe paper flowers involving watercolors HERE, I just had to try it.... I love almost anything to do with watercolors!

It seems like a simple concept: shaping wet petal shapes over a bowl, coloring them with watercolors, then drying them in the microwave, but for me, it was WAY harder than it seemed.  My flowers don't even come close the the ones from the original tutorial.  And, they took me WAY longer than I thought.   Plus my floral tape didn't hold, so I ended up hot gluing the petals together.  It was hard!

So ya, these look nice, but I think it would take more practice (and more time than I'm willing to spend) to get them looking great. 

At least they look alright on my table next to my Jackson Pollock eggs for now :)

A Few Fun Cards

Here are some cards I've made over the last few months.....

I don't think I'll ever get tired of butterflies or flowers or stamping with watercolors! 

This one was an experiment with colored pencils.  It's different from what I normally go for, but I like it :)

Watercolor Resist Valentine's Cards

Last week my son and I experimented with watercolors and crayons to make some crayon resist Valentine's Cards!  They may look a bit amateur- ish, but they were fun to make!  Plus, nothing beats a home made Valentine's card :)

Here's a simple tutorial I put together for you:


Materials:
white card stock or watercolor paper
white crayon
watercolor paints
paint brush

Step 1:  Draw a design or write a Valentine's message on the front of a folded piece of white card stock or watercolor paper.  This is kinda hard to do because you can't see very well what you are drawing or writing.

Step 2: Load up some watercolor paints on a paintbrush and paint over the area you just drew on with with crayon to see your design come to life!

Step 3:  Let the paint dry and add any other embellishments you like.

Another Use for Junk Mail

I recently discovered something to make with junk mail... snowflakes!  That's what I did over the weekend.  It feels good to make something beautiful of all that extra paper that would otherwise be thrown away!

Many thanks to Michelle of Michelle Made Me for the idea and the awesome tutorial.  I had completely forgotten how to make snowflakes.  So this tutorial is appreciated :)

The snowflakes are now taped to my windows.  The colors really show when the sun shines through them.   I could look at them all day!