Happening Around Here Lately

1.) Storing paint.

The other day I had one of those forehead-smacking, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that kind of moments when I read somebody’s tip to storing acrylic paint!

Up until then, I would paint a little dot of the color in the bottle on top of the lid, so I could easily find my colors. The problem is, that it required me to open all the bottles, had to wait for the dot to dry before I could store them and quite often, depending on what light I had in the studio, the dots wouldn’t show the subtle color differences clearly enough!

Well, turns out there’s a much easier way!

Store them upside down!! No-brainer, right?

Not only does it make color recognition much easier, it also helps with easily dispensing the paint in the bottles that are less than all the way full. And, it also stops the paint from drying out if the cap happens to be on less than perfectly closed.

2.) A quote for today. This has been so true for me lately. Well, it’s true all the time, let’s say it has been more relevant lately!

“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith!”

-Margaret Shepard

 

3.) Inexpensive Light Box.

I used to have a lovely light box for tracing, embossing and pretty much anything I needed to have illuminated from behind. The last time I pulled it out of the cupboard to use, I saw that the D batteries had dumped all their not so lovely content all inside the light box and essentially irreparably ruined it.

When I went to look for a replacement, I remembered just HOW expensive these thing were. And honestly, I don’t really need anything terribly sophisticated - I just need something that doesn’t take up too much space and shines a reasonably bright light through various thicknesses of paper!

I came across this Crayola Light Up Tracing Pad and I thought I’d give it a try. It was less than half of what others cost, and with two young kids in the house, even if it didn’t work for me, it would get used plenty!

Well, let me tell you! I LOVE this thing!

It’s thin, it’s light, it stores away easily, it gives me what I need light-wise and I’ve used it a LOT for quite a few weeks now and I still love it!

What do I use it for? I find I use it for many things, but one of my main uses for a while was sketch transfer.

Well, when I first started doing faces, I realized that I was really holding back because I didn’t want to “ruin” the expensive paper with too much erasing. Yet, I found that if I sketched on cheap paper, I was more willing to experiment and go with the flow. If it didn’t work out, nothing much was lost!

And as a beginner sketcher, you HAVE to practice and have to be willing to make mistakes and “loosen” your wrist and all that. And every once in a while, even while just playing around, you’d manage to create something you actually liked and then how do you get it to your good paper?

So, once I had it sketched onto the cheap paper and to my satisfaction, I would then use the light box to trace it onto my hot-press watercolor paper. Double the work? Yes. But it’s worth it to me!

And as I grew/grow more confident, the less I need to do the double sketching.

4.) The big 20/20 event is starting on March 1st! I you haven’t heard yet, I have gotten together with some really talented ladies and we put together 'The Big 20/20 Event'.

The event itself is all about creativity, ideas, instructions and all things inspirational. we have got a whole host of gorgeous contributors on our team, and they have some fantastic tutorials to share with you.

Here is a sneak peak of what I will be giving one of my tutorials on.  Yep, I’m doing two!

5.) Yum!

These are grain-free/paleo Spaetzle! So easy to make, so yummy!

I slightly modified this recipe for Paleo Pasta and prepared it in the traditional “Spaetzle way” with the most delicious result. And much less work than pasta!

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