Have an Adventure Every Day

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

I took a Dina Wakley art journaling class this week, and I really think half of her art instruction is really just fantastic life advice for creatives. 

She just has a way of saying things that are so calming and helpful and USEFUL.

She was talking about the process of "fixing" something you've made you're not happy with, and she said something so simple - and that is that the best way to FIX paper - is to cut it up! It's so true! I was thinking about so many of the Gel Press prints I was unhappy with that were so beautiful torn up for collage or other projects. Even just die cutting a "bad" print focuses and improves it. 

She's such a great teacher in so many ways. I highly recommend ANY of her classes.

Today - SURPRISE - one of the cards I'm showing you is a squirrel! Clarence, to be exact! This image was actually colored by Jammie Clark! These beautifully colored squirrels were used in a make & take at a show, and Mary Ann was nice enough to send me a few, so I chose the brown one for today's card because it so perfectly matched this beautiful watercolor/alcohol ink style paper pad! You'll see what some of the other colors look like below. The sentiment I built with these stickers - something I'm enjoying a lot more lately! So I did literally no work to create this card!

I really did work for this next card though. This is MaryAnn's new bunny set from her newest illustrator! I took a particularly Monet-ish brayer cleaning sheet from the Gel Press session where I created some fabric you will see in a sec.

Then I colored the bunny's artwork to match the print, and gave him some messy watercolors in his palette. So sweet.

The print that I was making when I created that background is this and I uploaded it as a fabric to Spoonflower! I made it so I could make a handmade journal with it, but then I thought someone else might like it, so I'm leaving it out there! Go take a peek and see if you don't recognize the colors above!

So for my second bunny I thought I'd make him a dark grey like my friend Libby's daughter's beloved Silver Bunny. I started with a base layer of alcohol marker and then added three different colors of Polychromos for his fur. I used two of the other watercolor papers from the pack for his background. There's a fun rainbow one too.

And don't forget this awesome deal on a beautiful glass mat at www.glassboardstudio.com

Clarence Coffee 3x4 – The Rabbit Hole... [ THR ] Color My World [ THR ] Getting Inky Paper [ THR ] Hoodie [ THR ] Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and... [ BLIC | AMZUS | SSS ] Blick Artists' Gloves | BLICK Art... [ BLIC ] Artist's Choice 110lb White Card Stock [ GNK ] Coloring Glove - Anti-Smudge [ AMZUS ] Derwent Battery-Operated Eraser [ BLIC | AMZUS ] Ipoint Orbit Pencil Sharpener, Turquoise [ AMZUS | BLIC ] Global Art Classic Leather Pencil Cases [ BLIC | AMZUS ] Staedtler Mars Plastic Erasers [ BLIC | JGG | AMZUS ] Sizzix BIG SHOT EXPRESS Gray and... [ SSS | ELH | BMS ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC | AMZUS ]

Hope you've had a good holiday and have lots of leftovers!

Loveyameanitbye.

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CURRENT COUPON CODES

15% off beautiful tapes and collage items HERE with UNDERSTANDBLUE15

15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

Marker Transfer Squirrel

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

I was noticing the other day how my squirrels have changed in the last few months, and it's so drastically different between the males and females that I'm really wondering what's happening.

About a month ago, the males turned BRIGHT orange in the sort of dull orange areas around their ear floof and on their tails. 

Clarence got slightly more orange, but not like the males.

It makes sense, if these squirrels lived somewhere where the leaves changed, because obviously it's free camoflauge. But we don't have fall, and our trees don't lose their leaves in fall - live oaks lose their leaves in the spring. 

And why were the males so much more pronounced? 

Then, last week, I noticed that the males were SO FAT!!! Even Blind Baby is so chunky, and he was always super scrawny, most likely because life is harder for a blind squirrel. (Unless you have me, of course!) If you're friends with me on FB you can see several photos and videos of these changes.

Even Tail, who was so sleek and muscular looks like a cartoon of his former self!

But Clarence is exactly the same, and so is Speedy Baby, who I believe is a girl too. 

Do female squirrels do something different in the winter? Is her nest full of pecans? It's very strange.

Anyway, today I have a squirrel for you that I did with an oldie-but-goodie technique - alcohol marker transfer. I stamped this image on copy paper and then just colored it on top of my cardstock panel. In this tutorial for the technique, Kathy uses coloring book pages - and those are even better than copy paper - you want the paper very thin. 

I love the abstraction you get with this technique. This is a beautiful image on its own, but it looks like a  little painting now. Fun. (Oh and they have all their Marabu alcohol INK on sale right now, speaking of alcohol.)

I filmed this card, but decided to ditch it because my hand was in the way the whole time, and it just didn't make for a great video. 

Designer Boutique Clear Stamp -... [ JGG | SSS ] Copic Marker [ SSS ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #1... [ CTC ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | SSS | ELH ]

FYI - I will NOT be posting about all the Black Friday sales this week, but I will tell you lots of crafty places are happening. If you would like to use my affiliate links to shop these sales, my store list is here - I appreciate your support if you do click any of those before you score your bargains!

I feel like email has gotten out of control during the pandemic, and I don't want to contribute to something I'm struggling with as well. I know y'all know how to shop. I certainly do! :)

Happy Monday - Loveyameanitbye.

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CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

VIDEO: Twofer Gel Press Technique + 30% off Coupon!

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

Okay - was this just a Lutheran thing? A Texas thing? When I was little, we lived next door to our Pastor, who was Norwegian. We attended a Lutheran church, and I don't remember if we did it every week, but quite frequently there were potlucks in the church hall. 

I've always been freaked out by potlucks, and have many food poisoning stories to prove it, but there were two things that EVERYONE found irresistible - banana pudding - DUH - and those delicious little church meatballs. 

Now mind you - I did not know the ingredients of said meatballs. I just knew they were delicious. There was also a similarly delicious warming tray full of Little Smokies! And why, might you ask, were they similarly delicious? Well, that is because they share the same "secret" ingredient. 

GRAPE JELLY

I kid you not. And now that we have the internet, of course I have come to learn that other people, too have had the insane 70s classic - church meatballs. Now a lot of dishes in that era reflect that people were still infatuated with "convenience foods" like sauces, and also there was definitely a crockpot heyday in the 70s, and these were a SOLID crockpot dish for a potluck. Campbell's was busy coming up with cream soup ALL THE THINGS during this era, and so it was also a golden age of casseroles - King Ranch being the winner where I grew up and still one of my faves. 

But those meatballs - they cast a long shadow in history. Have you had them? Do you still make them? I have half a mind to try them again with a homemade chili sauce, as I absolutely cannot stomach the idea of buying Heinz Chili Sauce. I don't even want to know what that is. And I'd never let it touch one of my delicious homemade meatballs. But I'm not ashamed to admit I ate many a meatball at church potlucks, and I found them quite tasty. 

When you break the recipe down to its essential components, to me it's got similar bones to some of my favorite Korean dishes - like bulgogi (I love Hyosun and mine her website often - she's really great about doing education in her recipes - I've learned a lot!) It has a higher fat content meat, a sweet element, a salty element, and a little spice. So if you can calm down after reading the recipe uses grape jelly and realize that a lot of cuisines use sweet glazes for savory dishes, you can really appreciate it for what it was - a salt, fat, acid heat triumph in a crockpot. Thanks church ladies!

So today I have a twofer technique for you with the Gel Press, as you'll see in the video. And I just used the same process I used here to create the resulting shaker card, but with lace instead of packaging. In today's video you'll learn how to mix paint on the Gel Press with your Taylored Expressions Gel Printing Kit, use lace to print with, and then your freebie is the shaker!

I finished this card with this beautiful flower, simply colored. I sketched lines around the sentiment to match the style of the floral. I used these sequins for the shaker.

For this card, I used the flower from this stamp set, and the sentiment from the same set, and these sequins. You will see the prints made with this in the video.

Now on these cards, I used the prints. On the left - a normal application of paint on the Gel Press. See the spots of color? On the right, the exact same paint, but mixed as I show you in the video. The florals are from this set, and I used this super fun splatter stamp in black for the background.

Here's the video! Click here to watch on YouTube.

Taylored Expressions Gel Printing Kit [ TE ] 5x7 Gel Press [ SSS | BLIC ] In Your Corner [ TE ] Sketchbook Florals [ TE ] Splatter Background [ TE ] Sequin Mix - Spiked Cider – Picket... [ PFS ] Sequin Mix - Blueberry Mojito –... [ PFS ] Floral Glass Craft Mat — Glassboard... [ GLS ] Ultra Smooth Copy Paper [ AMZUS | AMZUS ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | SSS | ELH | MFT ] Purell Advanced Hand Sanitizer... [ AMZUS ]

So what's your fave retro potluck dish? Waldorf "salad"? Jello mold? OH - you know what else was great back then? Eagle Magic Cookie Bars! Phenomenal! Also way too sweet - that's the kind of thing you can only enjoy as a kid I think. But anyway, leave your faves in the comments!

Now for the exciting part! As part of their Black Friday promotion, the Glassboard Studio peeps have given me an exclusive coupon for 30% off! This is the mat you see in my videos - it's magnetic, and the little chess piece magnets are awesome - super strong for stenciling, flattening out cards, gluing things, etc. I love the magnetic feature - I wasn't sure it would matter to me, but it does. The mats come in different sizes with pretty art on them - I have the one shown here as you see in my videos. In addition to the craft mats, they have other glass boards - ones you can write on, art ones, and ones where you can create your own, so it's not just craft mats.

So if you want to buy yourself an early Christmas present for 30% off use coupon code (sitewide)

UNDERSTANDBLUE30

This coupon starts today and goes through the 30th of November!

Have a great weekend! Loveyameanitbye.

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CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

VIDEO: All Collage Card

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

Did you think I was done with squirrels? Well I am NOT. Not even close! There are way too many cute squirrel stamps out there for that to happen!

So I have a fun video for you today featuring an all collage scene with this adorable squirrel set. I created a sheet music collage to stamp and die cut my squirrels with - look closely for little bits of music notes in them. I love how it just adds subtle detail underneath the color, which I created with these watercolor pencils.

The tree is collage too - I collaged a panel from one of the techniques in my Stencil Workshop onto cardstock, and stamped and die cut the tree on that. 

The background is a Gel Press print! 

Here's the video of the whole process.

Oh Nuts - Pink and Main LLC [ PNK ] Oh Nuts Dies - Pink and Main LLC [ PNK ] Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Pencil... [ BLIC ] Golden Fluid Medium - Matte, 16 oz... [ BLIC ] Paper Artsy GREEN MAN Infusions... [ SSS ] Paper Art Bookmark. Quilled Book... [ ETS ] Pre-cut and scored A2 Cards - Neenah. [ CTC ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | SSS | ELH ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ] CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ] Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

The squirrels here get SUPER agitated when it's windy. Our theory is that it makes it hard to hear predators. And it's been VERY, very windy lately so Clarence has been a bit, well - squirrely. 

I'm not wild about high winds either - I have eyeballs that attract every particle in the air, and that's no fun when it's windy.

But, it's warmed up a lot, which is a good thing - I'm having fun watching my zombie tomatoes grow - we have NEVER had a tomato plant resurrect itself - they die out in the heat, but this one came back and is producing like crazy. Weird, wild times we live in.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? 

I'm not. I haven't even thought about it because it rudely arrived too soon. 

I'd love to hear what you have planned!

Before I go - I have to share these gorgeous quilled bookmarks. This girl is in a podcast group I'm in and her work is absolutely stunning. So if you want to support a maker during the holidays - she gets my vote! :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Like this post? Never miss a post by following me!

CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE