Etsy Treasuries

These are three findings from an Etsy treasury, go HERE

To find more items.

An Etsy treasury, in case you don't know, is a collection of favorites made by a member of Etsy, the seller picks out their favorites to use in a theme, sometimes the theme is a challenge from a team they are in.

It's a way to spread the love of Etsy items.  Go and look and see some wonderful handmade gifts and art.

Beyond the Pale

A Passion for Bracelets

Out of the Labyrinth

These links are to treasuries I had made, enjoy.

New Additions

When I get a camera that works I'll show you how this scarf really looks.

This is a muppet scarf, usually it's done with a faux fur to make it fluffy and it's long like a boa, and it looks like one of the muppets used on the muppet show.  This item is not listed on Etsy till I can get a good shot of how it looks on a person.  It has to be wrapped around the neck twice as it is very long but it's a great style for the cool fall months ahead.  It's 100 % wool from Lambsears, she makes lovely yarns.  It is a touch scratchy so it's best paired up with a turtle neck.

I have a new addition to my Etsy shop, it's a gift pocket

I had a bunch of felt scraps from VBS and didn't want to see them thrown away.

There was so much material left over I took all their scraps and said I was going to do something with them.

The little yarn bow is a scrap piece from Lambsears yarn.  I sewn it on there.  The gift pocket is handsewn.

It was very  easy to make and I plan on making a pocket for all my jewelry.  I wanted a neat way to gift wrap. But I do NOT know how to wrap things.  It's funny I can paint and draw and do origami and work Celtic Knotwork but I cannot wrap a gift, it comes out sloppy and pathetic!  You always know which one is mine because it's the crappiest looking wrap job you ever seen!

I'm being totally honest here!

I can sew, just basic stitching and some embroidery as long as it's simple.

I showed this on Kaboodle and got some more ideas on what I can put on the front since it's going to be different each time.

This item can be found HERE  

3 Things Never to Say to a Homeschooling Mom | Homeschooling Blog | TheHomeSchoolMom.com

3 Things Never to Say to a Homeschooling Mom | Homeschooling Blog | TheHomeSchoolMom.com

New Children's Bracelet Summer Birds

This new bracelet is on ETSY HERE

My four year old keeps snatching this one up as well as a bug one I have

This one is available HERE

They are both $6 each and make great summer gifts or back to school gifts.

I love making bracelets.  I learned how to make bracelets on my own.  Just something I wanted to try and I prefer to work with wire, it's stronger.  My older daughter broke a bracelet I bought from a store, it was pretty and cheap and strung on stretchy elastic which breaks because when kids get a hold of it they fidget with it like crazy till it snaps!  At least MY daughter does that!

My two girls obviously LOVE these bracelet and I said I would make one for them when these are sold.

Sometimes when we go out together I have my oldest wear a bracelet for advertisement, she has an easier way of talking than I do, she's a chatterbox.  I think too much.

I have more bracelets to come so keep an eye out on this blog! 

VBS WEEK

Going to be kind of hard to keep up this week on my blog, it's VBS week, Vacation Bible School.  I actually got roped into it by my husband and he was supposed to be a part of it to but no one contacted him on anything and I just got sucked into it.  I haven't done a VBS before but I have sent my oldest daughter to them last year, this year she's RVing with my parents up in Washington.  Because she is gone I save the crafts we do for her.  We have some pretty neat stuff going on and I end up with a LOT of scraps.  I noticed that today when we did clay crosses we had three boxes left.  I'd LOVE to take one home but I wanted to wait to see if they have other plans for it after all they do Bible School with the kids and probably could use that later.  I did get to do a clay cross, tried to roll out a piece to do a triskele, a triangle type of celtic knotwork but it would not work, clay was drying out and breaking up so I just engraved it on the middle of the cross.  When it dries I'll show it on here.

We did the clay crosses with the older kids but with the pre K and Kindergarteners we did a pillow turtle.  I was part of the pre work on that in helping cut out all those components of the flippin turtles.  And got to keep the scraps afterwards.  Everytime we get our youngest group in I get down on my knees to be eye to eye on them, good thing to because I got a very rambunctious boy who is adorable but must be in pre K.  He doesn't  know his colors yet.  I had to help him a lot.  I got to take home a turtle to make at home for my younger daughter.  It's a felt turtle and the leaders of the craft group found out while making a sample that glue does NOT stick felt together so they sewed up the sample turtle and tonight they are sewing all those turtles up.  It's a turtle pillow and they were worried the project would fall apart when the kids waved it to show their parents.  I have to hand sew mine, I haven't used a sewing machine since 8th grade Home Ec.

I have been working on some new bracelets and getting my plastic hummingbirds painted.
The first one I show you is how the hummingbirds were originally painted.  I did NOT like the color.

Forgive me if it's a little blurry, I had to scan it, it's the best I can do.  Now I'll show you the other ones.

This is the first one I painted, it was the same color as the one above.

This one I did today and you can't see it here but there is glitter on the bodies of the hummingbirds in this one.

I coated it first in Calypso Blue then I painted over it with a bit of turquoise glitter paint.  It has a nice shimmer to it.  The colors are brighter and let's face it it looks a lot newer too.  If anyone is wondering if hummingbirds have this kind of color, who really cares, it's called artistic license, it looks pretty, I don't always go for true to life color. And what am I going to do with these flamboyant birds?  They are going to decorate frames and I am putting the frames up on Etsy.  I just love coming up with fun ideas to make old things new.

Not sure what to do with the last humming bird yet, maybe purple with yellow and the flowers will be yellow and orange.

Into The Mind of the Crafter

Been busy trying to spend time with my family that I am neglecting my blog.  But I have something to blog about.  I don't know what other creatives do but I do NOT sleep well if at all when I have an influx of ideas.  I had an idea the other night of a children's barrette that I can make with polymer clay.  I only have white available so when I make three cute ladybugs I can paint them with my gloss enamel paints that I use for decorating bottles and other non porous items.

I have made a barrette for myself once

I

I made this with no prior instructions.  I just had the idea in mind and I did it.

Now I want to do a barrette that is inspired by my first customer, whose granddaughter loves purple ladybugs.  Using what I have on hand I can make a cute barrette using polymer clay and paint.  I will also add some fall leaves, I have some glittery ones on hand still and the colors will go well with it.

I get inspired in small ways like that.  I have made a memory wire bracelet with pink seed beads from a messed up necklace somebody gave me.  Yeah I'm one of those who will take any one's junk.  If I can use it I take it.  It's amazing what a little paint can do, becoming a cliche around home here!

This will be listed on Etsy soon.  But the necklace had a pendent which is now a charm on the bracelet.

I still have a lot of beads left over so I will be making another bracelet but it won't look like this one.

Since Everybody on Etsy is coming up with Fall and Winter items I have been trying to figure out what to make for the seasons.  There is a painting that I want to redo.  My Fall Harvest Unicorn.

Most of it is really good, just one objection.  The nostrils of the unicorn look like a PIG'S!!

Of course whenever you change and improve ONE part of the painting you end up changing the whole thing.  Really what would happen is the whole painting will get another glaze of paint that will punch it up more.

This was done before I really studied how to do horses.  I have a great book by Walter Foster on painting horses.  I also want to work on that pumpkin a little, got too many lines I think.

I also have some new painting ideas for fall, one called Moon Gate, that is eerie, and a Halloween still life, and some knitted items.  I can knit, but only scarfs and maybe blocks, been wanting to make a block blanket.

I have a problem with numbers so measurements are tough for me.  Besides I STILL haven't figured out the ribbing stitch.  I hope someday to do socks.

Now a PERSONAL craft venture I have in mind is to redo this table I dragged out from next to the garbage last year.  I don't dumpster dive, I just drove by and saw a table there and I dragged it home.  It had two sections to put up as leaves right, but the mechanism was broken so I just unscrewed that and left the leaves off and kept the middle portion, which was a large rectangular section.  I want to paint a Celtic Knotwork piece on that table.  Just haven't figured out what color and what knotwork I want.

You see, with me I can never run out of creative endeavors, the problem I have is making the choice on which one to do!

Dreamchaser Print with Frame

 This is my new frame with my Dreamchaser Print in it.  I had to scan it because my camera won't work.

You can find it HERE if you wish to purchase it.

I had an interesting time trying to figure out how to make this frame set off the picture.

The frame is a basic wood craft frame and I sanded it a bit first,

I put a base coat of white, sometimes I use a sealer but in this case I just did a base coat.

I used a Calypso sky acrylic paint and sponged it on and also used a blue glitter paint to add some sparkle.

I painted the inside window of the frame and the outside edge with a metallic blue and used the same metallic blue to make some spirals and dots on the frame and to paint the name Dreamchaser at the top.

The scanning lost some of that detail.

I wanted something more for this frame and I had some star beads and I glued those on along with some twisted wire I normally use for my bracelets.  The star is twisted wire also.

I think it would look pretty neat in a kids room.  Oh and I used Super Glue to get those embellishments to stick on there, they are NOT falling off.  Almost glued my fingers in the process too!

The frame came with wooden dowels to prop up the frame.  On this one I was not paying attention to how the frame was and when I was done the work was upside down according to where the holes are for the original dowels.  So I superglued a saw tooth hanger to the back, it's strong and won't let go, and it's ready to hang.  I started getting more notice on this item and will do the same with another print I have available called the Dream Tree.

The Blessing of the Tree and Wolfish Dreams

These two paintings were done a couple of years ago and were bought by my husband's uncle.  He was gracious enough to send me a download so I can show them off and perhaps get the images on Zazzle, I have to tweak it a bit, find a way to edit out the frame.  When I downloaded the pics I was surprised at how bright that Blessing of the Tree was.  WOW, I had a way of working the paint so it's not muddied but bright and instead of brown I have like a red orange thing going on here that really pops out on the bark of the dryad I painted.

Wolfish Dreams is a different painting altogether, cool and blue the one bright spot are the yellow eyes of the wolf staring out at you with a wolfish grin.  The uncle framed the paintings and originally the paintings were gallery wrapped, he thought the frames will make them stand out better and he's right, the man has good taste!

This was the first time I sold TWO paintings to one person and it was very self gratifying and it made me want to sell more.  I love being able to do something with my hands and being able to work my imagination and bring to life what is in my head and have others appreciate it, and even be inspired by the work to do things of their own making.  The ones I've met that can't even draw a stick figure love to appreciate my art and I love to appreciate others art.

In Memory of Trees is one of my best treasuries I have made.  Much of it is original art work of trees, but there are a few photos that made it in as well.  It's well worth looking into and I hope you enjoy the sample of art from Etsy.

Art of Homeschooling

I homeschool because I know my kids would not make it in a regular school.  I was teased because I read all the time.  Teasing today has gotten so much worse that it's more like harassment so in not wanting to deal with that I homeschool.  It's a lot of work, some ask how I do it.  There are a LOT of blogs out there I read to help me with knowing how to homeschool.  What I found out is that what works best is following the child's interests.  Focus on the strengths, and plan but not worry too much about the future.  My daughter is nine and said she does NOT want to do college.  I'm not pushing it, she may change her mind, she may not, but seeing how she learns I don't think classroom learning is her place.  She is a lot like me, learning hands on.  I am an artist on Etsy and so my daughter wants to be one.  I am planning on her learning to focus on making a kind of product someone wants to buy.  She and I will research and see what is on Etsy and then she needs to learn craft, how to craft something with care.  She will be getting a real world experience that most kids don't get while doing school.

 She has a lot of trouble with things like staying on task, being distracted and skipping around.  But she is creative and wants to try things and has a lot of energy.  She best learns with projects, we have done mini science projects like burning sugar in a spoon to see what happens, and reading about Unicorns, and she has me reading Under a Blood Red Sun a book that is a sixth grade reading level and is about a Japanese American boy living in Hawaii when it is attack during WWII.  That has open discussions about war and how innocent people are treated and how strong friends stand by your side.  When someone asks about what she is learning I have to say, it's better to ask what she is not learning.
This is what she is learning
Opportunities are everywhere, just keep your eyes open and not be afraid to jump

Being yourself is the most important thing to be

There is a time to be quick and a time to slow things down

Take pride in what you do

Books are worthwhile when you read what you want!  (I hate it when kids are forced to read something that doesn't interest them, it kills the love of reading)  I had it easy, I loved to read everything.

Art IS VERY IMPORTANT!  It is the distinguished pinnical of a cultured society.  I use art to illustrate history, cultures, math, language and reading.

There is so much more that is being learned it would be hard to write it down in this blog.
The heart of the Art of Homeschooling is to keep an open mind and follow ideas.

The Art of Upcycling

I am big on recycling but I have a bit of a problem.  The walmart that accepts plastic only accepts 1 and 2 plastic items.  I have been saving all these butter tubs and such.  Now at one point my library needed such things to make gumdrops for a Candy Land day at the library.  They just took the butter and sour cream tubs I had and put construction paper around it and voila you have gumdrops.  If I was helping with those I would have added a shiny glitter paint to give it sugar sparkles but I was doing the gingerbread house.

But my problem came up again, I now have way too many tubs in the cabinets and my husband is at his wits end.  Now I have a few ideas of what to do with them.  Here is a list of things to do with those yogurt, butter, sour cream and whatever containers that are numbers 5 and whatever that are not easily taken in for recycling.

1.  Using for storage, of course I use it to store food but other storage is art items, I homeschool and have LOTS of items from old crayons to salt dough sculptures and ornaments.

2.  Well if the Library can use them to make gumdrops for candy land why not make them into parts of a castle, use construction paper and tape it over the plastic.  I haven't tried another alternative and that's using enamel paints for the project, my paints adhere to glass I am not sure if it will work on the plastic ones or not.

3.  Donate, I'm sure preschools and Kindergartens can think up fun stuff to do with the items, ask around, sometimes it's just cheap storage, but you decorate it it does make a great bin for pencils or crayons.

4.  This idea is in development for myself.  I want to use air dry clay and make a pot with the plastic kept within the clay structure.  One thing it would give the pot some strength, the other you can put a bit of water in it to hold cut flowers in.  You have to be careful on this one because water will make the clay soft again unless you coat it well with a sealant to make it somewhat waterproof, just don't submerge it.
Or you can just use it as a neat pen and pencil holder or to hold art items.

If any of you reading this has any more ideas of what to use the old plastic butter tubs and whatnot please let me know, comment on this.

Before and After Changing the Mermaid's Wave painting.

THIS IS THE BEFORE IMAGE

 This got cropped a bit when I scanned it because the painting is slightly bigger than the scanner.  Now I will show the redone painting.

 

The painting is just brighter when I was finally done with it.  I glazed it over the original paint and made it all pop out more and it looks more defined when before all objects were more hazy, diffused.  I did want a blurry look but NOT THAT blurry!  The crab can be seen better, and before there were some muddy parts in the painting where I guess I did not mix the paint well in those areas and got brownish or drab colors.  My original paint was more diluted because I used Turpinoid Natural a bit too much.  I glazed with lindseed oil and the color looks a lot brighter.  I first started redoing this painting with the intent to only fix the brain coral at the far left of the painting.  Once I fixed that, the yellow was too bright and had to be toned down and I made little glazed grooves to make it look like brain grooves in green,  I started noticing how OFF everything else was.  The only thing that remained the same was the little bunch of firey red and orange coral below the crab.  That stayed the same.  Everything else got a glaze of color to punch it up.

Before and After Changing the Mermaid's Wave painting.

THIS IS THE BEFORE IMAGE

 This got cropped a bit when I scanned it because the painting is slightly bigger than the scanner.  Now I will show the redone painting.

 

The painting is just brighter when I was finally done with it.  I glazed it over the original paint and made it all pop out more and it looks more defined when before all objects were more hazy, diffused.  I did want a blurry look but NOT THAT blurry!  The crab can be seen better, and before there were some muddy parts in the painting where I guess I did not mix the paint well in those areas and got brownish or drab colors.  My original paint was more diluted because I used Turpinoid Natural a bit too much.  I glazed with lindseed oil and the color looks a lot brighter.  I first started redoing this painting with the intent to only fix the brain coral at the far left of the painting.  Once I fixed that, the yellow was too bright and had to be toned down and I made little glazed grooves to make it look like brain grooves in green,  I started noticing how OFF everything else was.  The only thing that remained the same was the little bunch of firey red and orange coral below the crab.  That stayed the same.  Everything else got a glaze of color to punch it up.

Tangleweb Fairy

You can find this Fairy HERE it is done on an 11 by 14 canvas and is the second fairy I did in Oil.

She was originally inspired by a group activity that was done on Enchanted Folk website, one person wanted to make a book of fairy art to sell to use the money to create fairy boxes to give to kids who are in hospitals.

There was a site that generated a fairy name to each person and it was always different.  I only remember the first part of the name, Tangleweb, so I did a colored pencil sketch and sent that in.  More recently I had found a different sketch and decided to do it in an oil painting and post it on Etsy.  When I was painting this I was going to have her mantle be all leaves, but I was getting tired of making them so I tried doing something a little different, and it came out looking like moss! I went with that idea and it gave the mantle two different textures which makes for a more interesting painting.  I love how the mossy part looks like velvet in a way too.  The green is lovely.  I have her hair going out in a web and being tangled with it.  Some say it looks like a halo.  It's hard to see but there are also dewdrops on the web too.

It is a wonderful and peaceful fairy I made and I hope to come up with more.  I really want to make another dragon but am having trouble coming up with an idea, that last Dragon I did was really good! 

wow a HORSE FLY !!

Find it here this is a glorious find!  I love how this was made.  Most sculptures I have found of felt creatures were rather amorphous which isn't bad, but I really like this that has such a strong shape to it.  I don't know much about felting but there are a lot of felted sculptures I found on Etsy that I love.  This sweet little guy is called a horse fly. I love the wings because they are blue and blue is my favorite color.  The eyes have such soul to them don't you think?  A great piece of art for the collector.

Redoing Paintings

This is my original look for the Green Man and Fairy painting.  I was critiqued by a judge at my towns art exhibit and she said the fairy didn't really fit in with the Green Man, well to be honest I never really liked the wings so what I did to start fixing that is to just paint over it in Titanium white, it blots it out and looks like I put white out on it.  I then painted layers of cadmium yellow to get rid of the white, I can still see it a little but what I want to do is add another layer and while the paint is still wet put in the wings, with the help of a Fairy Template book I found the right wings to go with this fairy.  Also when I am done with the fairy she will be wearing a dress.  

This is the work in progress, the colors are brighter and below the painting in what used to be brown is now becoming a rich blue violet with whitish sweeps going up in it like mist.  My little studio is actually the alcove where the laundry unit would be if we owned one.  My family (husband and two young kids) live in a small two bedroom apartment.  I am fortunate I can do my laundry at my mom's place and only buy her detergent once in awhile!

I hope to get this painting done soon and put it up on Etsy, it's frame it was in now frames my Epona painting and after I get done with re vamping Green Man and Fairy it won't really work with the original frame.  I am not sure if I will be able to afford a new frame right now, until I start selling stuff money is very limited.

I would love to see this as a poster print on Zazzle but I have to make a great pic without any glare and that's tricky for me as I'm still learning how to use my digital camera. I hope you enjoy a little peek into my art shop here, see ya next post!

A bit on Dragons

Go HERE to see or purchase my original artwork of I don't see any dragons.

This was a fun piece to draw and a bit tricky because I wanted to have the dragon looked hidden among all the green of the grassy hills.  When I showed this to some kids it took them a bit to see the dragon.  It's not as  hidden as say Bev Doolittle's work whom I LOVE!  I do want to say for the record, no the dragon will not eat the human.  He is part of a story in my mind.  The traveler is a magician of sorts, but does more slight of hand and tricks with dexterity than with magic as what little magic he has he messes up with.  The Dragon is Gorith, who does have magic, he's a dragon mage, and a young one, only about 150 years old compared to other dragons and still very mischievous.  He'll just spook the traveler out but he senses the magic deep within the guy and helps him to unlock it.  That's pretty much the story I have for now.  Don't know if I'll ever go into a full story, a book for children or a artbook for adults.  I loved A Diversity of Dragons by Anne McCaffery, I don't remember the artist name off hand but I know his stuff, it was like a picture book for adults and it was all about the different dragons from stories people have created.  

Dolphins In Blue from Zazzle.com

Dolphins In Blue from Zazzle.com

Dolphins In Blue by Akemanartist
Shop Zazzle for another pendant

Dolphins In Blue from Zazzle.com

Dolphins In Blue from Zazzle.com
I made a cool bag in my Zazzle Store!

Special Feature

I found this lovely item on Etsy and had to share it here.  I love beautiful jewelry and anything blue.

Look Here and you will find it on Etsy I was looking for EETeam members to put into a treasury and I found this and was like floored by the beauty of this piece, what do you think?  Quite nice isn't it?

Beachy Keen Coral Memory Wire Bracelet

Here is my newest bracelet I just did on etsy HERE I have been chatting with friends on Kaboodle to see what they think of the picture. Of course I know I can get a better pic than this but I am using my new camera and am getting used to it.  So being next to the window probably wasn't the best place unless I had it behind me.  I thought using the bottle was neat.  I'm planning on painting the bottle too, I have lots of glass jars and bottles lined up.  I feel so bad just throwing them out so I kept them, and when there was a place open to take them to be recycled I did that.  It was run by volunteers though and they lost the use of a glass truck that took the bottles so now they don't take any glass.  I am up cycling them and will post them on here and maybe Kaboodle to get opinions and see if I should sell them on Etsy or not.

I mainly do oil painting but I love to take a turn on other crafts, working with beads is one of them.  This bracelet was fun to do but tricky, it was memory wire and irritating to work with on just one point, twisting the ends to make loops so the stones and chips won't fall off.  This is one tough wire, which tells me it won't break.  Now I had bought cheap but pretty bracelets at WalMart, my then eight year old daughter stretched the elastic too much on one and broke it.  Recently I made a new bracelet with that by putting the beads on wire.  I love doing wire and toggle bracelets.  They are strong, so on my site I have those types of bracelets.  This memory wire can fit any wrist.  Some of my wired ones are small for young kids, and larger for older kids and preteens and some will fit petite adult arms like me.  My jewelry line seems best fit to kids and preteens and those adults like myself who love colorful, quirky lamp-work jewelry like myself. 

Dreamchaser

This is Dreamchaser, it's one of my most looked at items on my Etsy store.  The price is $177, it is an original oil painting.  If you are not one for buying oil paintings then at Zazzle I have this made as a birthday card, designed on a coffee mug (I really like that one!) and a T Shirt and a mousepad.  I'm planning on making stationary with this too, it just looks too good to keep on a wall!

New to Blogging

Well, actually I do have a blog on Enchanted Folk but it's exclusive to it's own members, just right for those who love faries and fantasy.  I am Julie, known as Akemanartist on Etsy and on Zazzle.  I am just starting out this blog and will showcase art, my art as well as others that I love, the fellow crafters of Etsy and the products that I am creating with the help of Zazzle.  I hope to make this blog a site for art and art lovers to share and learn.  My background is of an oil painting called Dreamchaser, I have it on Zazzle as a T-shirt, mug, birthday card and a mousepad.  Hope to do more sharing and meet others soon.