Inspired by Pinterest: Art Gypsies

 

Many of the art and craft projects that we do in our group are inspired by Pinterest. 

Pinterest. What can I say about it? 

LOVE. 

It is an endless inspiring galaxy that is a happy time sucker for me. 

Clearly I need therapy. Along with many other "pinners" I'm sure.

Here I am on it. Follow me!

 

So I got some metal bracelet forms on Etsy and then some embellishments such as ribbons, button, gems, string, beads....and we all went to town.

Here we are at Kerstin's. We did burlap wreaths. So fun! You can get so creative with all sorts of goodies.

Major inspiration used: 

Thank you, Pinterest.

Oh how we love you.

 

Kim found these adorable little guys in Somerset magazine. Another huge inspiring magazine for artisans, crafters....creative's!

 

These are our guys we made from these vintage Chimes Candy tins she found.

Too cute for Halloween.

 

At Christmas time we all come together and plan a quick and simple holiday idea.

These are a couple that we did. A silhouette with paper, snow, glitter, paint. 

How fun is this ornament that we did? 

 

These are all over Pinterest. Sharpie pens on glass! Clean with alcohol, paint, and bake for 10 minutes in a low heat oven. Easy and expensive.

(Great to fill up with goodies for a personalized gift.)

 It's total fun supporting each other with our art and creative endeavors. Here is talented Becky. She does mixed media paintings. Aren't they fabulous? She did a show near here and did great!

 

Loved her canvases and display. Way to go Becky!

I was found by a gal on Etsy that had a store in a great area in Denver by some amazing restaurants. It's called SolShine. They have a yoga studio, an organic clothing store, local jewelry makers and a great gallery area for local artists to showcase their art and photography.

I agreed to do it and got the first wall right when you walk in the store/gallery. It was fun to show my art at the open house and throughout the month of October. There were some really amazing artists showing work. My art illustrations catered to the young families in the area. Especially young Mommy's coming in for a relaxing yoga class.

The above watercolor painting was done through a competition between all the artists showcasing art for that month. We had to do a yoga inspired theme with the SolShine logo in it somewhere. The winner was going to have their art on a line of clothing for the store to sell.

I got second place and won $50 gift card for the yoga store. Yay!

Art Gypsies paintings

 

This is the most recent project we did with art group. It was so fun to do colorful flowers among the cold wintery weather! These are cardboard egg cartons. 

Seriously, who knew?

 

We cut them up in a special way, then painted, then hot glued...

 

Then a stem and some embellishments in the center. Super cute and super cheap!

  This was a fun night at Becky's. She has this ginormous super awesome studio in her basement in her house and does classes for ladies. This night was just us girls playing around with canvases. Kerstin's artsy mom was in town from Germany!

 

Using fun techniques, colors...

 

Doing barns and getting all sorts of fab advice from Kerstin's mom about abstract painting. 

 Here is the start of my barn- a work in progress.

 

Rachel played another time and did these Aspen tree canvases. 

Using paper for the texture of the trees.

 

These little fun works were done in my studio (inspired by Kerstin) and we played with loose art medium, tools and color.

                                                   So blessed to be surrounded by art girls!
                                                                 Like, SO blessed.

 

Here's my sister-in-law Heather, Kristin and Monica at a "Paint and Sip" class. 

 

The final canvas! Towering Aspen trees in the fall. 

We rocked it!

more "Art Gypsie": Christmas gathering

Last year, us art girls had so much fun at a Christmas gathering doing holiday things. Most of us thought of something to do.... and we spread everything out and got started at Becky's big awesome art studio.

We did these paper cone trees. We got a bunch of paper cones at Michaels, different scrapbook papers, wrapping paper and glue guns or modge podge.

Some girls crinkled and pressed, some used a Circuit to cut and some just punched out shapes.

Then came the star. This one was a wooden one. Painted and embellished with pearls and a puff. 

It was attached with strong wire. 

Then we did mini trees on spools. So cute, right? Looove these! We bleached the tiny trees, added some "snow" with white acrylic paint and then embellished with buttons, twine and ribbon. 

This is one of many cute ornaments we made from the leftover tops of a previous mason jar project. We added a cute image, some ribbon and fluff....whatever we were inspired to do.

This was such a great project too! 

Some old empty 8x10 or so frames, letter stamps, twine, buttons, berries, greenery, etc....yay!

holiday "Art Gypsie" fun

Becky picked up some colorful old t-shirts at the Goodwill store. We then tore and cut and ripped and twisted...stretched...and sewed them into SCARVES. Is this not so cool? There are tons of tutorials all over Pinterest, so we jumped in. They turned out fabulous, I must say myself.

These are some sample pictures of the one's that we did. The top twisted/stretched one is Becky's. They were so easy! Really and truly. This bottom photo is a scarf sewn from many different pieces of tee shirts that Kim did.

Unique, one-of-a-kind fun!

art gypsies fall fun

Sometimes we do art, sometimes we scrap, sometimes we CRAFT. These pumpkins were so fun to do. Becky got some mason jar tops (you can buy them separate at Walmart) and we used her colorful washi tape (all sorts to choose from at Michaels) and wrapped them around, leaving some without. Then simply tie them together from the middle forming a pumpkin shape. We then took some Aspen tree trunks from outside for the stems. Put ribbons, string or leaves on them...and ta da!  Cutie pumpkin craft.

Kim brought her fabulous stash of paper, embellishments, stickers...

You name it, she had it to share.

We painted the clothes hangers and went with a Halloween or Fall theme.

Ribbons, leaves...all sorts of goodies to go with. 

I love how all of them turned out. 

As usual, every one was different and creative!

Becky and Nancy used old vintage Halloween cards to embellish with.

A-dorable.

Rachel covered the whole back of her hanger. Great idea too.