Water Garden Joys by Jenn White

HELLO EVERYONE! It is so great to be back here on the BLOG with you! I have missed you! I hope you have been enjoying the Summer of 2021!

For the past two weeks, I have been taking day trip getaways with my youngest daughter Victoria, visiting a favorite garden of mine in Kingsville Missouri, Powell Gardens. It has been so nice to get out of the house & enjoy such a beautiful place together.

We have spent many delightful hours walking, exploring, discovering, sitting quietly watching the gold finches, cardinals, hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, bees & dragonflies frolic all around us. My favorite place in this garden is where the water lilies & lotus flowers grow. I am so at peace & inspired there. Gazing into the water falls & at all of the dreamy lovely flowers, lily pads & water plants growing all around me.

While gazing & marveling at all of this beauty I remembered that I had purchased several water lily, greenery, koi fish & flowery ArtFoamies stamp sets about a year ago & I had not yet played with them. Now was definitely the perfect inspired time!

When I arrived home from our last visit on Thursday night I searched for these ArtFoamies & started to play & experiment with them, seeing what worked best for the designs I had dancing through my mind.

The Artfoamies products used in this piece are: 

• Balzer Designs | Leafy Mandala | Foam Stamp
• Marta Harvey | Frog Tessellation | Foam Stamp
• Lisa Walton | Water Lily Circle | Foam Stamp
• Red Tin Roof | Lily Pond | Foam Stamps - Set of 3
• Red Tin Roof | Koi Fish | Foam Stamps - Set of 2
• Kae Pea | Mistletoe | Foam Stamp
• Kae Pea | Field of Wild | Foam Stamp
• Moonlight Duo Tint & Hue Ink Pads in Galaxy Green, Martian Green, and Solar Flare Orange

I started out stamping around with the Galaxy Green Moonlight Duo Tint & Hue inkpad on the edge of a giant pad of 140lb hot press water color paper with Kae Pea's large sized FIELD OF WILD ArtFoamies foam stamp, curving the position and overlapping as I stamped it down. 

Then I decided to stamp on some of the very large circles I had previously traced & cut out of those same sheets of watercolor paper. I traced around the edge of my largest circle shaped canvas with a pencil to get it centered & perfectly round. I adore big spheres, circles & mandalas!

I was so driven to create I totally spaced off taking step by step photos of the beginning of my artistic process. I decided I wanted my creation it to be three dimensional & have many layers for lots of depth to give it the illusion of life & movement.

To achieve this I stamped several different ArtFoamies foam stamp images separately on different pads of paper & fussy cut them out, layering them with double sided adhesive foam mounting tape. 

Water soluble watercolor crayon sticks were used to paint the water & watercolor paint directly onto the Water Lily & Water Lily Bud Artfoamies by Red Tin Roof as well as the colors in & around the green stamped ArtFoamies image Mistletoe by Kae Pea & Leafy Mandala by Julie Balzer.

I hope sharing my creations with you inspires you to experience the joy of creating with ArtFoamies too! Please be sure to share your inspired creations with all of us so we can be inspired by wonderful you too!

Tag your inspired post with @artfoamies & #artfoamies if you would please & thank you. What are your ideas after seeing my creation? What will you create now? If you have any questions for me or if you just stopped by to take a look please let me know by leaving a comment below. It is the only way I know you visited. Thank you! I hope you enjoy the remainder of this Summer!
HUGS! YOU ARE LOVED! - Jenn White

Springtime Bunny Fun By Jenn White

HI EVERYONE! I invite you to join me in creating some simple, fast & fun Springtime creations with ArtFoamies foam art stamps. 

I have been busy inking, stamping & working my scissors getting gifts of Springtime cheer ready to mail & send out to my friends & family members. ArtFoamies foam stamps make it so fast & easy to stamp mass quantities of identical gifts.

I am known for my mass assembly line crafting, creating & fun bits of business. I am very seldom a one & done person! I am compelled to create lots of parts & pieces to share with everyone! YAY! The more happy mail I send out the merrier everyone will be! Right? We all need some joy in our lives. Who does not love opening their mailbox to find a happy joyful surprise in there? Let's put all of the art supplies we have collected & accumulated to good use. SHALL WE?

I love creating custom inked ArtFoamies StampBuddies & ScrapBuddies with The Moon & The Maker Moonlight Duo Tint & Hue Re-inkers & MoonGlo re-inkers. This is how I create the colorful ombre & rainbow stamping effects with my ArtFoamies. I also love to use the Moonlight Duo Tint & Hue Ink pads if I want solid color stamping.

 

This creation began as I was playing with Marta Harvey's BUNNY WITH SWEATER TESSELLATION  ArtFoamies foam stamp. This was my first time using it. I think it is adorable! This bunny is also available without a sweater if you wish. Marta's tessellation ArtFoamies are so fun & fascinating to play with! I have a ball with them! Have you tried them? They fit together like puzzle pieces in many different directional patterns. I chose to stamp these in a spiral dance pattern onto 140 pound hot press watercolor paper.

Here I chose to color in the sweater patterns with a black gel pen. I was inspired to use my pens by my friend Nancy Sheads' incredible art. Have you seen her pen & alcohol marker stamp art? Did you see her last post? I am still GASPING at the GORGEOUSNESS! I discovered I need a lot more practice & perhaps a steadier hand. I tried & I will try again. Practice, practice, practice! We all start out as beginners, the important thing is we try & try again. Practice is the only way to improve.

I think this Bunny dance would be great as a spring flag, banner or a matted print framed on the wall. I thought about stamping or hand lettering "Let's Go To The Hop", "Hop To It" or "Don't Forget To Dance" on it. "Springtime" perhaps? I have not decided yet. I might just leave it as it is. What would you write on yours?

When I was fussy cutting some of  the bunnies, an idea HOPPED into my head. Why not create some darling whimsical spring baskets, tags & door hangers with these? SO FUN & ADOORABLE! 

I had Sandra Evertson's CUPULA  ArtFoamie sitting in front of me on the table. I thought to myself, that sure would make a perfect basket handle! So I inked it up with my custom inked StampBuddies & stamped a few sheets of them. YAY! It did! It worked! It made the perfect basket handle!

Kae Pea's PINWHEEL ArtFoamie was at my left hand so I stamped a few sheets of the pinwheels on 140 pound hot press watercolor paper using 2 of my different custom inked StampBuddy foam stamp pads. One was inked with MoonGlo Neon Brights & one was inked with the beautiful Moonlight Duo colors. 

Which color scheme is your favorite? You can ink up the StampBuddies & ScrapBuddies with the re-inker colors that are most pleasing to your eyes. I intend to make several more varieties & variations in the future. SO MUCH FASCINATING FUN!

To make the basket I decided to clip a few wedge sections out of the stamped PINWHEEL image with the scissors because it looked a lot like a purse or a locker padlock. Ooh! EVEN MORE inspiring ideas for future creations.

To make the basket handle, I short stamped the CUPULA ArtFoamie on the "B" side & fussy cut the middle piece out & followed the scallops around the edges with the scissors.

You will find there are many different ArtFoamies stamp designs that are two, three, even 4 different design options in one single stamp when you use their front, back, upside down or right side up. I even sometimes use just pieces & parts of some ArtFoamies designs. My imagination visions constantly show me & inspire me to try new & different things with my Art Foamies foam stamps.

My hot glue gun was hot & ready so I decided to attach the handle to the basket with hot glue. If you are not a hot glue person feel free to use use whatever paper adhesive you like best or have on hand.

The BUNNY WITH SWEATER is a perfect fit for the basket I created so I hot glued it to the out side of the basket. The thing I love about hot glue on paper is if you make a mistake or need to reposition something, all you need do is heat the paper with your heat tool & it will easily melt the hot glue & release the paper so you can move or remove it.

These baskets I made turned out to be the perfect size for hanging on door knobs or hooks. Great for cheerful springtime decor. You could also use them on greeting cards or as gift tags. I am using some to label my Grandkids' Spring Solstice & Easter baskets with their names. Put a pretty ribbon bow on it. Punch a hole & add some string. Add some bling! There you go! You did it! YAY!

Did you learn anything new? I hope I have inspired you to create now too!  Please share photos of your creations after seeing this blog post with ArtFoamies & tag me in the post so we can all be inspired by you too.

Thank you for spending some of your time here with me. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to make use of the comments section below. I will respond to you as soon as I am able to.

Enjoy the glorious Springtime coming soon March 20th!  I will be back here again in April to share some more ArtFoamies FUN with wonderful beautiful you! 

SHOPPING LIST FOR THIS POST:

• ArtFoamies | StampBuddy
• ArtFoamies | ScrapBuddies
• Moonlight Duo Reinkers | Assorted Colors
• MoonGlo Extra Bright Dye Reinkers | Assorted Colors
• Moonlight Duo Tint & Hue Ink Pads | Assorted Colors
• Marta Harvey | Bunny w/ Sweater Tessellation | Foam Stamp
• Sandra Evertson | Cupula | Foam Stamp
• Kae Pea | Pinwheel | Foam Stamp

My next post will be full of Gnomes, mushrooms, butterflies & flowers. Get these ArtFoamies ordered now if you want to play along with me in April. You will find them all & more at artfoamies.com

NECCESSARIES FOR NEXT PROJECT:

• Kae Pea | Gnomely | Foam Stamp
• Kae Pea | Whimsy Wings | Foam Stamps - Set of 2
• Kae Pea | Shroom to Grow | Foam Stamps - Set of 4

OTHERS:

• Kae Pea | Gnomely | Foam Stamp
• Donna Downey | Intricate Butterfly | Foam Stamp
• Candy Rosenberg | Butterfly Wings | Foam Stamps - Set of 2
• Sandra Evertson | Cupula | Foam Stamp
• Sandra Evertson | Solar Flare | Foam Stamp
• Cat Kerr | Star | Foam Stamp
• Gypsy Soul | Empty Jar | Foam Stamp
• Mindy Lacefield | Create Magic | Foam Stamp
• Mindy Lacefield | Fairy Wings | Foam Stamps - Set of 2
• Red Tin Roof | Toadstools | Foam Stamps - Set of 2
• & any of the flowers, leaves & greenery stamps you like on artfoamies.com 

Thank you to my friend Nancy Sheads for putting up with me &  making this blog post possible. She has some magic technology & art skills!

Thank you to Kae Pea & the Powers family for making my artsy life so full of moon magic!

HUGS!  YOU ARE LOVED!  

Jenn White

Mosaic Valentine Banner

Hello, it's me Patti Campbell here to share some Valentine's Day magic on my first post of 2021 as an ArtFoamies Guest Designer.

For this project I used:

• 140 lb watercolor paper
• Pink and red cardstock
• Ann Butler | Heart Burst by ArtFoamies
• Nathalie Kalbach | Weave by ArtFoamies
• RubberMoon Patreon Exclusive Nov. 2020 Jone Hallmark
• Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black
• Moonlight Duos in Milky Way Magenta, Mars Red, and Heavenly Pink
• Guangna neon gel pens in orange, light green, dark green, pink, blue, purple and gold
• PVA glue
• Scissors
• Twine

Step 1:

I stamped each of the ArtFoamies four times on the watercolor paper using a combination of the Moonlight Duos.

Step 2:

I made a paper template of a heart, traced it onto the stamped images, and then cut them out. 

Step 3:

I made a larger heart template and traced it onto the red and pink cardstock four times each and cut them out.

Step 4:

I stamped the Jone Hallmark stamp on watercolor paper using the Ranger ink five times, colored them in with the gel pens, and cut them out.

Step 5:

I folded the double bird images in half to make a single bird and then poked a tiny hole in the bottom for the twine to go through.

Step 6:

To make the mosaic look, I took one of the stamped hearts and cut it into several pieces. I glued the pieces to the red heart, leaving spaces in between the pieces forming a mosaic look. Then I repeated this with all eight hearts. 

Step 7:

I threaded the birds onto an approx. 4 ft. long piece of twine. Then I spaced them out so the hearts would fit between them and glued them into place.

Step 8:

I took a red heart and a pink heart and glued them together around the twine in between the birds. Then I repeated this step with the rest of the hearts.

Step 9:

With the twine I created a tassel for the bottom and tied a loop in the top.

Hope you enjoyed my fun and easy Mosaic Valentine Banner.

Love and laughter, Patti

MoonGlo Bright Rainbow HeArtFoamies Valentines by Jenn White

HELLO EVERYONE! This is Jenn White. Thank you so much for joining me on the blog today. This is the second ArtFoamies Guest Designer Blog post of 2021 for the month of January. Be sure to check out the journal cover tutorial Nancy Sheads created for you in the first ArtFoamies blog post of 2021.

I have been having SO MUCH FUN with my ArtFoamies art stamp collection! I have been creating Valentines for a Valentine happy mail swap that is going on in one of my Facebook groups. 

I wanted to try something a bit different than the traditional Valentine colors this year. I have always wanted to try to make my own custom multicolored art stamp ink pads so I decided I would for my first post of 2021. I had so much fun with this there will be many future posts from me using these ArtFoamies StampBuddy foam ink pads I created.

I used a large 8" x 6" ArtFoamies StampBuddy  & a small 3" x 4" Art Foamies StampBuddy. They are available in three different sizes at artfoamies.com. There is also an informative demo video by Kae Pea using StampBuddies for you to watch. Be sure to check it out!

I inked the ArtFoamies StampBuddies up using RubberMoon Moon & The Maker MoonGlo Extra Bright Dye Inks & MoonLight Duo Tint & Hue Ink Refill bottles. They are available at rubbermoon.com in many beautiful colors.

The colors I used are:

• Pink Crush
• Coral Fire
• Yellow Starlight
• Blue Moon
• & Galactic Green

Selection of MoonLight Duo reinkers used for project.

I chose to apply the ink in a symmetrical rainbow pattern on the largest ArtFoamies StampBuddy & a repeat pattern on the small StampBuddy. They turned out so bright & cheerful I cannot help but smile when I gaze upon them. Symmetry & pattern repeat is so pleasing to my eyes.

StampBuddy with inks applied in a rainbow pattern.

I am very thankful & so grateful to have many wonderful Artfoamies foam art stamps to choose from in my storage drawers. I chose many different ArtFoamies to experiment with that I would like to see stamped in a rainbow ombre gradient meld. Heart shapes were obviously chosen first since I was creating Valentines. I chose some others for accenting the hearts & backgrounds for the hearts.

Today's project includes:

• Sandra Evertson | ETERNAL FLAME
• Candy Rosenberg | DRAGONFLY WINGS
• Sandra Evertson | LABYRINTH 
• Sandra Evertson | EX-VOTO HEART
• Sandra Evertson | CUPULA
• Sandra Evertson | FOLK HEART
• Sandra Evertson | SOLAR FLARE
• Sandra Evertson | FLAME TOPPER
• Sandra Evertson | TENANGO OSCURO
• Sandra Evertson | HEART URN
• Sandra Evertson | WING SPAN

Selection of ArtFoamies stamps used for my project.

I stamped all of these ArtFoamies designs on the smooth side of many sheets of 140 pound hot press cotton watercolor paper. (Enough to make 12 of each one for the Valentine Happy Mail swap I signed up for.)

Some of the stamped watercolor papers.

PRO TIP- When you have finished stamping with your ArtFoamies art stamps be sure to clean the ink or paint off of them in a warm water sink with dish soap & a soft foam sponge. Do not let them sit around for hours with ink or paint drying on them.

Cleaning ArtFoamies stamps.

I let the ink on the watercolor paper dry over night. The next morning, l began hand fussy cutting each of the hand stamped art images from the sheets of water color paper with my favorite spring loaded scissors. 

I used strong double sided adhesive tape & double sided foam adhesive tape to layer & assemble each of the Valentines. 

Adhesives!

I had so much fun creating these Valentines! Here are some of the finished Valentines.

Finished Valentines!

If after seeing this blog post you are inspired to create some ArtFoamies Valentines too, please be sure to post a photo of what you create on your Facebook or Instagram account & tag me or ArtFoamies (#artfoamies) in the post so I will be sure to see it. 

I will be back again soon on the blog to share more ArtFoamies creative inspiration with you.
Thank you for your time & your love. I welcome any questions you may have. Please post them in the comments section below & I will respond to you as soon as I am able to. Thank you again!

HUGS! YOU ARE LOVED!
-Jenn White