paint cut paste

a few evenings ago, we noticed a little bag of silver pendants in our art cabinet that we had yet to use — and i have my friend, rachelle of tinkerlab, to thank for passing them along to us! so, thank you, tinkerfriend, for these great blank “canvases” of the jewelry variety! they provided N and i with some enjoyment, as we decided how we wanted to design our pendants.

N wanted to make a “nature one” and a “beady one.” so we gathered some pebbles and shells from random buckets of beach treasures that are still in our backyard.

then N rooted through my seed bead collection and found some colors she liked.

she arranged the seed beads in the circular metal pendant, and put a white shell in the center of the square one with some pebbles and a few random neutral beads around it.

once she had them arranged how she wanted them, i squirted dimensional magic onto each, and let it dry for 3 hours. after it dried and encrusted all of these jewels to keep them in place, N wore her new beautiful mandala necklace!

and she decided we should give the “nature one” to rachelle and her little artist, N, as a thank you gift.

this is just a quick little (momma art) entry about what has become a bit of an obsession of mine in the past year and a half… painting with white ink on smooth, dark stones.

stones i painted in july 2010

i first fell in love with this idea when i saw them on genine’s art blog a long while back – if you have not yet visited this amazing blog, check it out! sooo inspiring! although little rock paintings are not a new idea and they’re all over the internet. i figured i’d share them with you here regardless. mostly because i love creating them — even though it’s intricate work, i find it very relaxing and soothing. i love to look at the stones and let them inform me, by their shape, color, and texture, what sort of image might live on them.

i like to use white acrylic ink and a script liner brush when i paint mine. recently, i purchased some different inks in sepia, gray, and turquoise, so i’ll experiment with those on rocks soon. (N and i have already played with inks on red clay pottery.) for some reason, N has yet to paint with the inks on rocks with me, but i imagine she’ll join me soon.

these make for easy and personal gifts for birthdays, thank yous, hostess tokens, etc. and it gives me something fun to do with all of the lovely stones i can’t stop picking up along the pacific coastline.

a few weeks ago, decoart was kind enough to send us this awesome package of free art supplies, and among them was glow-in-the-dark paint! of course this was N’s big favorite, so we decided to use it to celebrate with our friend deborah over at teach preschool today, who has reached 20,000 facebook likes! she is seriously stellar – go check out her blog if you don’t already — congrats deborah!

thank you for inviting us to join you in the ABCs. today N and i are presenting the letter N for Night light! when i asked my N what she wanted to do with the glow paint, she immediately said, “paint rocks!” hmm, okay. why not!? we got all set up with a few big stones.

and painted them with this milky yellow-green paint on both sides.

we also decided that we’d use some of these tiny pebbles as a glowy treat.

we let them dry (and charge up) in the sun.

once dry, we put the pebbles in an adorable tiny honey jar and the stones on the windowsill to soak up some more rays.

then it was the moment of truth — do they glow? we tested it out in our window-less guest bathroom, and YEP! glowy rocks!

pardon the shaky long exposure photo

okay, so maybe not the most useful night lights, as the luminescence isn’t that intense, but they are like magical phosphorescent stones that N is psyched to put on her night stand, next to her real glass-encased glow-in-the-dark jellyfish from the monterey bay aquarium! what kid doesn’t love things that glow?

i’ve been wanting to try this one for a while now… and we finally did! remember that plethora of stones we got from the beach recently? well, we chose a few…

and baked them and colored on them with crayons. visit our guest post all about it over on moms by heart.

today i have the absolute pleasure and honor of guest blogging on one of my super-duper-favorite blogs, mamaroots! chris willow, of mamaroots, is a talented toymaker extraordinaire and such an inspiring writer, healer, and momma!

chris makes these beautiful wooden toys, which bless our home in just about every nook and cranny… so what on earth was i thinking when the art material i shared on her blog was WOOD when i know nearly nothing about woodworking!?? haha! perhaps it is the inspiration of chris and our lovely pacific coastline with its magical driftwood…

but i was called to post this simple driftwood mobile we created as a family. it’s a paired-down, less-is-more version of the beach treasure mobile we shared here last week. don’t you love how mobiles are all about moving in the wind and all about balance? please hop over to mamaroots to check out my guest post over there today.

so easy, so lovely. so perfect for father’s day.

*wink wink*

as you know from our recent post, we spent some time along the lovely beaches of the pacific over memorial day weekend, and gleaned a few treasures in our beachcombing. N has always been obsessed with holding and running around with sticks (safe, huh?) so she’s a natural at finding nice driftwood, bringing it to me, and saying, “we have to make art out of this!!!” so what’s a mom to do? make art!

we sorted our findings in the backyard and were inspired by the driftwood, (and of course by the lovely stones we used in the rock picture holder post! i’m still obsessed with making those!)

N decided that she wanted to paint some of the driftwood like we did last summer, ginette lapalme style and create a mobile from them. first, we got some exposure to the power drill, to drill holes across the top of a long piece of driftwood and in the ends of five short pieces. N marked the stick first to show where she wanted the holes to go.

then we were ready to paint, al fresco!

the two of us had so much fun striping these wooden sticks.

as we painted, we chatted about the wood and “what colors it was telling us that it wanted to have on it.” one of N’s pieces wanted light pink at the bottom (which she learned to mix for herself) because it looked like a ballerina’s slipper.

we let the sticks dry in the sun – so very pretty! (i’m a sucker for rainbows and natural materials.)

after the sticks were dry, we laid out a plan for the mobile. the next morning, a pj-clad N helped to thread the cord through the sticks, a rock, and a couple shells.

i used knots to secure everything in place.

the whole family is smitten with the outcome of this project…

so much so that we chose to hang it in our tall stairwell so we can enjoy seeing it from all angles, watching it twirl around.

i’m in love with the shamanic look of this piece – now i feel like we need to make more of them as gifts and for our backyard!

this weekend we took a long drive down highway 1 along the pacific coast, stopping at various beaches along the way. days like that remind me of how lucky i am to live here in northern california, and on this beautiful earth in general. nature offers some of the most amazing art inspiration!

one of the beaches we visited had amazingly colorful stones all over it. we spent hours wandering this beach, enjoying running from the chilly waves and collecting stones.

when we layed out our bounty at home, it was a rainbow of gorgeous rocks.

i can’t wait to ink some of these rocks – and i also want to learn to crochet around them like i have oogled over on one of my favorite blogs, resurrection fern. but today we opted for a simple rock craft – picture holders. easy peasy. all you need is floral wire (or any other type of wire, but i prefer this wrapped kind in dark brown) and a pair of pliers.

wrap the rock with the wire, then point the wire upwards.

now make a curlycue at the tip with the pliers – you can make a fancy spiral or just a little curl like i did.

wedge a photograph or a little piece of art in between the top spiral, and there you have a rock picture holder.

it’s sort of addictive once you start making these…

i think a collection of old fashioned hipstamatic/instagram/pictureshow images would look fabulous displayed in these. (yes, i’m obsessed with iphone photo apps.) but N’s tiny watercolor paintings make for an awesome exhibit.