Fun with Tins

Since my Art and Soul Retreat, I have been playing around with tins. I have used spray paint, and "Sophisticated Finishes" which ages the tin to look antique. I have finished 2 tins so far and the 3rd should be done in a couple of days. Sophisticated finishes are so much fun. You can take a tourch and burn off any paint or paper that might be on the tin. Then all you do is put the finish on with a sponge or paint brush and watch it age right in front of you. There are different colors, gold, patina green bronze and blue. The 2 pictures I am showing now I used both brown and gold. I found a card, yes...I save all my cards that are given to me, that looks like my sister and me when we were small. I glued it on after the finishes were to my liking. I used distress ink to age the picture and put a a clear sealer on the can and picture. I added ribbon and lace and lined the inside with fun foam. I also added a latch so it will be easier to open. This was a fun project that is a present for my sister. A late birthday gift.

The next tin is more "Steampunk". It is aged but also has copper on top for a handle and nickle star washers for the steampunk look. I also lined the inside with foam and I use it to keep my change in for my purse. Everyone comments on it when I pull it out and that is when I tell them I am an artist. This is great way to start a conversation about art and give them a business card!!! Advertise yourself!! Promote, Promote!! I will be posting more tin on Etsy.com

Summer is almost here

Summer is almost here and I wanted to dabble in my watercolors, something I am not very good at. I painted in watercolor a picture of a woman and did not like how it turned out. I took a picture of it anyway, then I got on my computer and printed some small pictures up of her. You could not see all the mistakes in a small picture so she looked pretty good to do some projects like a collage or even my new art journal.

Then I decide to make it a black and white and really liked how she turned out. Can't wait to see how I use her.

Art Journal

I went to Art and Soul Retreat at the end of April and learned so much. I got home and organized my art area and put all my new goodies I bought. I wanted to create a project and notice I just don't have enough images, so I started searching on the internet. One thing led to another, images to blogs to magazines to the art stores to ebay. Ok, ebay was addicting! And that is a whole other story I will tell at another time.

I was reading a blog at collagedivatypepad/TrueNorth
which is a great blog for getting ideas to journal about. It was Signs and Serendipity. At the end there are suggestions on ideas and one of the ideas was to open a random book to a random page and be open to the message. Design a journal page about what you discovered. So I did just that, I opened a magazine and I found these words "The road ahead is merely a suggestion". This was a sign for what is going on in my life. Without using any pictures, I jumped in and did my first journal page.

To learn more on art journals go to www.TrueNorthArts.com