Our super-hostess Ann came up with one I loved this year using stencils and acrylic paint. So fun and easy, so I made a bunch of backgrounds with it. I love any technique where I can pull out an interesting background from my stash and put a cute new stamp on it.
So let's talk about downtime.
I want you to appreciate your downtime. Your days with no structure, where you can do what you want. It's really, really an important part of adult life, just as much as it's pretty much the most important time in a child's life.
Those empty spaces are the workshop for your imagination and creativity.
Your brain is just like a closet. If it's so jammed full of stuff that it all tumbles out when you open the door, you're not in good shape.
You need silence, and peace and unstructured time. You know this instinctively when you're harried or in the middle of some unexpected event, but then you tend to forget it when you're in a "normal" stretch, and you let the clutter come in.
I'm here to tell you to Kondo your schedule like you do your physical spaces.
So I made a card for you to reinforce that point.
I used Ann's technique to create the illusion of water for my little floating tiger. I brayered turquoise and ultramarine paint directly onto the card panel, placed this fun stencil on top of it, and removed some of the paint with a baby wipe. I love the way it came out!
I then cut a half inch off the panel, and separated two pieces of it, and glued them down, leaving me enough room for the sentiment. I stamped the tiger, which is in the set with the sentiment, in Amalgam ink, and colored him with Copics, and cut him out with the matching dies. Look how happy he is, having taken a minute to do nothing.
Now I say all this as a person who has a hard time sitting still. But that's not all downtime is. Sometimes it's a mindless doodle, or a backyard watercolor happy hour - my favorite - listening to the birds.
I'm not a TV person, but I watch it to be social for a few hours before bed. But I can't just watch TV - it makes me restless and or I instantly fall asleep. So I do little things - I put cardstock in my stamp pockets, or zentangle - and my most recent favorite activity is this.
I used this teeny, tiny blue Sharpie, and these shells from Amazon. I will say - the seller did a great job making sure they weren't all smashed - the bag was thickly bubble wrapped.
I bought the box of Sharpies, because this can wear on the tips after a lot of shells.
Different kinds of shells give you different possibilities, as this amazing artist proved. Hers look like Wedgewood. Mine look like I'm doing them during Breaking Bad :).
Do you do something while you watch TV? Let me know in the comments!
And guess what? Just in time for your downtime, there's a big sale at Ellen Hutson! I have links to the stamps and dies I used today in Ellen's store below, or you can click the sale graphic to shop all the things. I hope you are safe and not in the path of the hurricane.
Here are all the things I used today.
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Loveyameanitbye.
