Artists Buttons Tutorial

Hello,
What a great day it is here in South Australia. The sun is finally shining after so much rain. The weather really does affect our mood, as I have been feeling a little dismal lately, but today I stepped outside and felt so much better in the sunshine.
I have a new tutorial for you all, as on the weekend I decided to try and make some buttons from my own artwork. They turned out pretty cool and Ill definitely be making some more real soon.

If you would like to make some here is how I made them.

Step 1: find desired number of buttons, flatter topped ones with no ridges are best to use.

step 2: Trace around your button with pencil onto watercolor paper if you are using watercolor paints.

step 3: Place some watercolor paint inside your circle, use 2 different shades for interest. Let dry.

step 4: When dry draw your desired image with black sharpie pen, or any pen that is waterproof. Cut around your circle. Get your plastic button and mark lightly where the holes for the button will be( I use a needle to poke them through. Draw your image keeping that in mind.)

Step 5: Using the needle, line up your paper artwork with the button holes and glue down on top of your plastic button with any good quality craft glue, remembering to keep those holes open.

step 6: When almost dry, I then use very soft sandpaper to sand the edges of the paper, sanding downwards, a little bit of glue will comes out to the side helping the edges to stick down fast.

step 7: When dry, use a couple coats of gloss medium or 3d laquer to give them shine and protect them.

Let dry.!

If you decided to make these please link back to my site and drop me a line I would love to see them!

Cheers Sonya

Image Transfer Tutorial

Happy Wednesday to you!
This morning I have a new tutorial for you on how to make image transfers from contact paper!
It's super easy, quick and fun. Enjoy.

I also want to tell you how much fun I had yesterday making 2 chunky journal pages for another swap I'm involved in.
Over at the Doll Dreams site, 5 or 6 of us have signed up so far, so that means at the end of the swap I should have a book of 5 or so journal pages from the other artists. So cool.
Here are two that I worked on with mixed media, I used acrylic and water paints, a bubble wrap stencil and a flower stencil, glitter glue, indian ink and whiteout. They are made from cardboard that I gessoed first. I will still add some fancy fibre or ribbon to them to chunky them up a bit more.
I am having such a ball with all these swaps and round robins it is sooo much fun and very rewarding.

All Finished!

Handmade Beads tutorial

Recently, I discovered the wonderful and inspiring ‘Jennibellie’ and her amazing blog. Her blog is Chock- o- block full of handmade art journal ideas, not to mention the fabulous recycling, when making your art. (Go to the list of blogs I follow to see a link to her blog)

I was particularly drawn to her handmade beads in which she uses to decorate her art journals. They are so pretty and as I found out, very easy to make yourself. All you need is acrylic paint, glue and alfoil really!

So, what I’m going to do is link to jelliebellies tutorial, so you can see for yourself, as well as showing you my photos of the beads I made, which I learnt from her video.

I am in the process of making an almost fluro green journal which I will show when finished, so I thought what a lovely way to decorate it.

Without delay I got out my green and purple acrylic paints and alfoil, and I was on my way.

So first thing to do was to paint both sides of my kitchen alfoil. i chose one side green and the other side purple with white glitter. For the purple side I used Ranger dabber paints and it dried so much quicker then my jo sonya paint.

I then cut into strips as directed by jennibellie.

Now all I had to do is scrutch into tight little balls and I did use the table to help me a little as jennibellie suggests. I have to admit by the end of it my fingertips were a little tender!LOL

I didnt have any toothpicks around the home so I improvised and made the holes in the beads with a sharp sewing machine needle which is thicker then most sewing needles.

For the glue I decided to use 3D Crystal Laquer and smudged it all over the bead with my fingers.

Last of all just let dry!

They are so pretty with the silver shining through. Now all I have to do is thread some string through the holes and attatch to my journal.

I think I'll need some more, so I'll post my bead journal as soon as its finished.
You can visit jennibellies video instructions here:
http://youtu.be/IUOU5HU4yww