Custom Craft Supplies And Materials

Since I already shared how to make air-drying clay dough in my posts on cornstarch clay and salt dough clay art, which you can find in the right sidebar, I won't repeat those recipes again. I do suggest you try making them; it is quickly done and tons of fun.

Besides making your own glitter, clay, crayons, etc., don't neglect to make the needed craft tools as well. It is very simple to cut out an image of a potato and use that as a stamp, but the same can be done with soft sponges.

That goes even quicker, since all that is required is a pair of scissors to cut the sponge into the desired shape. It can then be used as a stamp by dipping it into a thin layer of paint which is poured out on a tray.

Texture in a painting can be achieved by wrapping a small piece of a scrub sponge around the tip of a pencil or paintbrush. Secure it tightly with some tape and the kids can use it to give their artwork an interesting character.

Another great tip I came across was cutting small squares of cardboard into comb-like tools. By cutting the 'teeth' and the opening between them in different widths you will end up with a diversity of striped effects with each cardboard comb that is used.

We all are inventive and there is no doubt in my mind many other simple solutions are applied for developing our own craft tools and art supplies. If you have come up with one or have a tip, please don't hesitate to share.

It will and would be highly appreciated!

An Environmental, Creative Solution

This post brought to you by Harman Stoves. All opinions are 100% mine.

I suspect you don't consider how much pollution you are sending into the air when you turn up the heat, or put another block of wood onto the fire. Wouldn't it be great if someone came up with a creative solution which eliminated the carbon emission, while we still would be toasty warm?

Someone did! Harman™ has 36 different sizes and styles of Harman Pellet Stoves and inserts with advanced, money- and environment-saving technology. The distinctive features ensure the heat is radiated evenly and maintenance is a snap.

The thing that blew me away was that it is so extremely Eco-friendly. The biomass fuel produces no carbon emission at all. Check out this infographic and get updated on how to contribute to both your budget and the environment.

You would do wisely taking this popular heating alternative into serious consideration for this season. Keep in mind that any purchase between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2013, could qualify for the 'tax extender' for Internal Revenue Service Section 25C, which can yield a 10% tax credit of up to $300 on a biomass heating appliance.

Win a Harman notebook by entering the giveaway. Just leave a comment on this post in which you share why you like Harman. Don't forget to include your email-address, so I can contact the winner for additional delivery information. The winner will be selected randomly from the comments by February 28th, 2013.

Follow Harman Stoves on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Share with your friends how Harman is a wonderful example of decreasing the greenhouse-effect with an excellent, efficient, and artistic solution!

Home-made Craft Supplies

Our grandkids love to express their creativity on our patio and go through a tub of jumbo chalk in not time. I suspect they would have just as much fun making their own chalk as they have getting rid of it.

It is real easy to make. We would need 2 cups of dry plaster and mix it with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of cold water and some water-based paint. We stir the mixture well until it resembles cake batter.

We then pour it into empty toilet paper tubes which are standing up on some plastic or wax paper and let it dry thoroughly. I better take charge of that otherwise I can see more 'chalk batter' going outside instead of inside the tubes. Grin.

Our little artists have crayons galore, but most of them are broken or dwindled down to small stumps which are difficult to hold. We ought to gather them up and turn them into rainbow crayons.

This is done by taking a cupcake or cookie pan, greasing it with nonstick spray, and dumping the lot into the molds. We then bake it in the oven on 300 F for about 15 minutes or until all the crayons have taken on a liquid form.

Once they are cooled off, they come out easily and are ready to begin their second life. That may be short-lived as well, but this method allows us to grant them many more chances. And they say that only cats have nine lives!

The Many Faces Of Art

There are many different categories where art is concerned. Clowns, acrobats, tamers, magicians, and all the many other performers who see to our entertainment, are great artists as well. Their skills and abilities would be assigned to a totally different class of art though than the ones we normally do at home.

It is quite amazing watching them take the grandstand and perform their act in such a relatively short period of time. Those who were able to obtain Ringling Brothers Circus Tickets know what I mean. I would love to go sometime and need to check out the schedule to see where and when this circus is coming to town.

Don't confuse the artistic abilities of the Cirque du Soleil with those of a circus. Even though the concept stems from that environment, their field of expertise is more based on street performances including and surrounding opera, ballet, rock music, combined with circus elements. Why not book Cirque du Soleil Tickets and experience the difference in acts and atmosphere for yourself?

In case neither one of the above appeals to you and sports is more in line with your taste then you may want to pay a visit to the Harlem Globetrotters. This basketball team will stun you with their entertaining and clownish acts. Discounts for the already cheap Harlem Globetrotters Tickets are always close at hand.

And all of the above are just a few of the many faces of art!

Creating Your Own Craft Supplies

Crafts are always enjoyable, but it increases the fun when the art supplies are home-made. It is cheap and easy and it wouldn't hurt to involve the children as well. I came across several of these craft supplies I thought were definitely worth sharing.

Our grandchildren love to play with stickers and even though those are not really expensive, I know for sure they would enjoy making their own. Making sticker glue is rather simple and doesn't require much: a package of gelatin, 1/2 cup hot water, a paintbrush, and a bowl.

For making the glue, pour the hot water in the bowl, sprinkle the gelatin on top of it and let it dissolve. Once that is done, you brush it onto the back of drawings and/or pictures and let it dry. They stick by licking the back of the pictures and can be stored for future use.

Glitter is even easier to make and only requires 1/2 a cup of salt, 4 to 6 drops of one shade of food coloring, and wax paper.

Mix the food coloring and salt well until the salt is evenly coated. Distribute it evenly over the wax paper to dry or bake in the oven for about 10 minutes on 375 F.

Store it in air-tight containers or zipper bags to keep the moisture out. It works well with sugar too and if you want to add a little sparkle to it then mix in some of the silver dust which is used for decorating cakes.

That's all there is to it. Have fun!

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More On Garage Door Art

You would definitely hit the breaks when spotting an elephant sitting in a garage. Upon taking a very close look you would come to find out it is nothing but a photo cover for garage doors; and an excellent one, as I may add.

I already touched the subject in my previous posts on garage door art. I thought to dive a little deeper into it, since there are over 350 designs to choose from and it is so simple, quick and easy to transform your plain garage door in a work of art.

You can choose between several photo cover options, ranging from vehicles, aircrafts, old-timers, landscapes, animals, rooms, gates, flags, seasonal, to Halloween, Christmas, and more. If neither one of those appeals to you then your own preference can also be turned into garage art.

The material is totally weather and rip-proof. It can be cut without any problems and many even come with a fire safety certificate. Installation is a snap, because it is applied to the garage door by Velcro.

This makes it perfect for covering all kinds of different materials and easy to install, remove, or changed out. In case you fear theft; simply secure the cover to the door with a few screws.

The covers come in several different standard sizes, but can be custom-made as well. What's more; there are not only photo covers for garage doors available, but for regular doors, and walls as well.

There you have it; art is right at your fingertips!

A Scientific Art

Practically ever since human kind came into existence nature has not only presented them with a smorgasbord of food, but also with a wide array of natural ingredients and means for healing many conditions and diseases which would ail them.

It was common practice to chew on the leaf of a specific plant or brew a tea from a particular root as a means to cure an illness or alleviate pain. It took some knowledge and expertise though as to which plant would cure what.

That is still the case at present, although experience has taught that applying a combination of food, exercise, heat, and other natural therapies, all work together to promote an even faster healing. It is called naturopathy and for an excellent naturopath Toronto is the route to go.

Nature is still providing, but many have put their trust into the chemically fabricated cures and methods trying to get rid of their ailments. The perfect, much safer balance between and in natural medication, hydrotherapy, nutritional supplement, and changes in consumption of food and daily life, is still available to anyone.

It takes a lot of education, insight, wisdom, and experience being able to practice naturopathy. That is why I consider it to be more then just a science; it is an art!

From Trash To Tune

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. When life hands you garbage, make music. That may not be the first thing to cross your mind when you would be living in or near a landfill, but it did Favio Chavez' mind.

This social worker and music teacher started the "Landfill Harmonic", an orchestra consisting of 20 teenagers who along with their families are living in one of the largest landfills in Cateura, Paraguay.

Music is something many of these young people love, but the instruments are unaffordable and therefore out of their reach. Their families collect trash and that gave Favio Chavez the idea to turn trash into treasure and make instruments out of it.

Thrown out cans, aluminum bowls, food utensils, and so much more, provided all the materials they needed to create instruments for a grand orchestra. There was no lack of talent on both the creative and the musical front and the "Landfill Harmonic" has already performed in Brazil, Panama and Columbia.

Plans for performing at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, are in the makings for this coming year. If you like to admire their rendition of Mozart and Beethoven then keep an eye out for these talented musicians.

They are a wonderful example of turning dreams into reality. It all boils down to creativity and making the best of and with what you have. Doesn't that sound good? Watch the video and you will have to agree: it sounds great!

Think Outside The Box

One of the best opportunities for coming up with a flow of artistic ideas and applying your creativity presents itself when planning on remodeling, renovating, or updating your home's interior. You often yield the most gorgeous results when you think outside the box.

Most of the projects we undertake concerning improvement of our abodes are rather substantial, such as a renovation of kitchen and/or bathroom. After thorough consideration has been given to the color scheme, it comes down to picking those tiles which fit the plans.

That is not such an easy task, as you can see at www.glasstilediscounters.com. The selection in glass tiles is enormous and besides a wide array of colors, there are also many different sizes, shapes, forms, and color combinations available.

Once the main work is done, you are probably left with extra, unused tiles and that is where your ingenuity comes in handy. There are many smaller projects for which these beautiful tiles can be used.

You can make a mosaic frame for mirrors out of them, create your own countertops, accentuate a couple of kitchen cabinet doors, or glue them on terracotta flowerpots for instance. The options are endless and will draw a room together.

So, the next time you open a box of tiles; think outside of it!

A Combination Of Arts And Crafts

This cake was posted on one of the social media sites and way too cute to pass up. It is an excellent example of several hobbies combined in one and would fit well in either the cake, fondant, sugar, or even the optical illusion and 3D art category.

I wished I had come across it before our latest granddaughter was born, 10 days ago. I would have considered trying my hand at creating a cake like this. I would of course have applied the color pink instead of blue and I would have opted for writing the baby's name on the cake.

It sure is something to keep in mind for when a baby is on its way in your family or circle of friends. Even though it looks complicated, it is not that hard to do at all. There is no doubt in my mind a cake like this would be a smashing success and get a lot of attention.

You may have heard the expression 'babies are so cute, you could eat them up. As they grow older, there are times when you wished you had'. By creating a cake like this, you now can do both! Grin.

More On Bridget Riley's Legacy

During the early eighties, Bridget Riley was asked by Rambert, the director of the Ballet ‘Colour Moves’, to design sets for the ballet. She also did a series of murals for the Royal Liverpool Hospital.

She was appointed the Companion of Honour in Britain in 1999, and received the Praemium Imperiale in 2003. She won the Kaiserring of Goslar in 2009, the 12th Rubens Prize in 2012, and became the first woman to receive the Dutch Sikkens Prize in that same year.

She wrote on several artists and her work was an inspiration for many others such as Ross Bleckner, Philip Taaffe, and Diana Thater. She also was the curator for several shows at different galleries.

You can still admire her work in exhibitions all over the world and her art is included in many collections some of which can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

I don't think we have heard the last of Bridget Riley or seen all of her work. It may well be that the best is yet to come, although I don't see how that would be possible; her work is already among and considered to be some of the best!

Get Creative

This post brought to you by No nonsense. All opinions are 100% mine.

Being from Dutch origin, I like to pinch a penny where I can. I suppose that is why I gravitate so heavily towards arts and crafts that hardly cost anything and/or promote recycling.

Take tights and leggings for instance; those are excellent for crafting artificial flowers and with all those new colors available in the No nonsense tights and leggings, you can make a gorgeous arrangement.

The No nonsense tights/leggings are easily found at food and drug stores as well as mass retail stores. Since they are highly affordable, having several pairs in a different color will benefit both this hobby and your wardrobe.

Concerning the latter, I like a classic, stylish look with a modern twist. Colorful tights add just that little extra to make an outfit stand out without overdoing it.

It actually compliments it and by exchanging the green tights for black or khaki, I can be creative and achieve a totally different look with these same items.

I am not surprised that Jill Martin who is a fashion expert, Emmy Award-winning TV personality, co-author of the New York Times bestselling style guide "I Have Nothing to Wear!", and the New York Correspondent for Access Hollywood, is partnering with No nonsense.

She likes to create style on a dime while keeping up with the latest fashion and trends and as the new brand ambassador she is the 'go to' person for excellent, artistic fashion advice.


You will be surprised how many different outfits you can create by using a different color of No nonsense tights and leggings. Stay updated and follow No nonsense on Facebook or follow them on Twitter at @benononsense and don't hold back; get creative!

Bridget Riley's Legacy

Bridget Riley received a B.A. from the Royal College of Art in 1955 and won the AICA Critic’s Prize in at the John Moore’s Liverpool exhibition in London in 1963. More invitations for exhibitions followed soon.

In 1965, Bridget Riley, along with Peter Sedgley with whom she was living and working, and journalist Peter Townsend, founded the artist group SPACE (Space Provision Artistic Cultural and Educational) in 1968. It was a group who strived to provide affordable studio space to young painters.

That same year, she exhibits her work in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She participates in documentas IV in 1968 and in 1965 attends the Venice Biennale as a representative of Great Britain. She became the first British contemporary painter and was the first woman to win the International Prize for Painting.

She receives an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Manchester in 1976 and participates again in documentas VI in 1977. More Honorary Doctorates followed. She received an Honorary Doctorate from University of Ulster in 1986, Oxford University in 1994, Cambridge University in 1995, De Montfort University in 1996, and the University of Exeter in 1997.

It doesn't end here. The list of Bridget's accomplishments in life and work is not only extensive, but very impressive as well!

Bridget Riley's Work Part 2

After visiting Egypt in the early eighties, her work not only consisted of more colors, but also more contrast and different patterns, diagonals and so called Shadow play.

Her work was constantly changing. Around the end of the 1980s, she reintroduced the diagonals again for which she had become famous, but this time in the form of a sequence of parallelograms which was different from the vertical stripes from her previous, characteristic paintings.

Her latest exhibition at the Timothy Taylor Gallery in London in 2007 concerning fifteen paintings which were created between 2005 and 2006 again shows a change in her style. This time, the shapes of the typical ‘lozenge’ which can be found in her paintings of the 1980s and 1990s, sweep across verticals in fluid, soft-colored arabesques.

Bridget likes to work large and creating and completing a painting can take up from six to nine months. She solely mixes all the colors and the pattern is painted free-style. Since her canvas is so large, she works with assistants. They do most of the painting so that Bridget can totally focus on the design.

Even though Bridget is in her late 70s, she still works and her art can be found in exhibitions all over the globe.

A Creative Solution To A Growing Concern

This post brought to you by hzfweb. All opinions are 100% mine.

We all have great artistic abilities and creativity. If you tend to differ then simply consider raising children. That often takes quite some inventive thinking, talents, and skills.

The biggest concern most parents struggle with is if their little bundle of joy is growing as well as it should in an optimal environment. This is measured according to the percentiles of the international standards developed by the World Health Organization.

These standards are used by pediatricians every time the baby sees the doctor, but inquiring minds need to know and can't and don't always want to wait until the next visit to find out if their child is growing at an optimal rate.

Moms don't have to anymore. They can now keep track of their baby's growth with this Baby Growth Chart Widget which can be used anytime they like.

Powered by Baby Calculators

This online growth chart application is simple in use and the generated growth chart image is easily saved or printed. It is configurable to fit into almost any website and adjustable to use either the metric or the U.S. measuring system.

It will add great value to any mommy blog. It enhances, increases, and prolongs visits from like-minded, concerned mothers who would and could benefit from the shared knowledge.

The visitors are most likely to come back in the future and use the widget from BabyCalculators.com. That will definitely have a positive impact on a blog's search engine ranking, but the main thing is that this creative solution can ease mother's biggest concern!

Bridget Riley's Work

Bridget Riley always wanted to establish her own style and when she started painting again in the late fifties, after seeing an exhibition of teacher and writer Harry Thubron, her paintings were mainly influenced by Matisse and Bonnard.

She attended Thurbon's summer school in Norfolk and met his assistant Maurice de Sausmarez, who prodded and encouraged her to study the art of Georges-Pierre Seurat. She traveled to Italy, gathered up more impressions and worked herself in the picture during her teaching years at Croydon in 1962 when she also had her first exhibition in spring of that year at the Gallery One in London.

In the years that followed, Bridget found her own style, working only in black and white with an occasional touch of gray, using simple geometric shapes, squares, lines, and ovals. Her work was called 'Op Art' and became popular worldwide after an exhibition in 1965 in the Museum of Modern Art and the Richard Feigen Gallery in New York.

A little apprehensive, Bridget slowly began to incorporate color in her paintings, but used no more then three and she produced her first striped, color painting in 1967. She began to travel more and after a trip to Egypt in 1980-1981, found the combination of colors in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics that worked for her and extended the number of colors she worked with to five.

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More About Bridget Riley

When Bridget Riley's father began to recover from the injuries of his accident and it was no longer needed for Bridget to look after him, she went back to Cornwall for a few months and tried to paint.

It was to no avail and after going back to London in 1956, she spent several months as an in-patient at the Middlesex Hospital, moved on to a hostel, and took a job at an antique shop in Marylebone Lane.

An exhibition of American Abstract Expressionist painters at the Tate Gallery in London which she visited helped her getting back on track. She took a teaching job at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Harrow, and taught art to 8-18 year old girls during 1957-1958.

She started painting again and in 1958 switched jobs and became a commercial illustrator at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, where she worked part-time until 1964.

From 1958 to 1964, she had several jobs such as art teacher at the Loughborough School of Art, then at the Hornsey School of Art, and from 1962 to 1964 at the Croydon School of Art.

She began to travel, painted, and eventually developed her own signature Op Art style in the early sixties. During the late 1960s Riley lived and worked with her contemporary Peter Sedgley. How long that lasted and if that is still the case, is unknown.

Her unique style of painting made her famous all over the world. At present, Bridget Riley is a trustee of the National Gallery in London and is living and working in London, Cornwall, and France.