When the weather is so gorgeous out, my favorite projects are those that combine art with spending time outdoors. Whether it’s something that can be completed outdoors or something that requires found materials from outside, count me in.

Today’s project falls in the latter category. Painting sticks is a fast, simple, and fun craft… and is a unique, pretty decoration for any room.

So for painted sticks, all you’ll need are… surprise… paint and sticks! A quick trip to the backyard or local park is all you need to get started. On the other hand, some people actually collect neat-looking sticks (for many years, I saved one with a weird eye hole from a hike when I was eight years old). If you already have a good handful of sticks you’d like something to do with, now’s the time to use them! If you don’t have any, just go for a walk and grab some! Look for various lengths and widths and avoid those that are too tiny or brittle to work with.

 Photo: Ginette Lapalme

Once you’ve got your sticks, wipe off any excess dirt with a cloth or damp paper towel (you don’t have to be too thorough). Depending on the look you’re aiming for, you could even sand your sticks down with sandpaper for a smoother surface. Personally, I like the rustic aesthetic. Let your sticks be bumpy—the charm of this project lies in the imperfections.

Now it’s time to start painting! Grab some paintbrushes and acrylic paint and decorate your sticks however you like. You can make your designs as intricate or simple as you choose. You could paint the whole stick or only a part of it. Use tons of bright colors or adhere to a limited color scheme. Have fun trying ideas out.

 Photo: Scandinavian Deko

Once your beautiful new creations have dried, one great way to show them off is to display them in a vase. It’s a bright, unexpected twist where one would normally expect to see flowers. You could also simply lay them on a shelf or mount them on a canvas to hang up.

What do you like to do your painting on? Do you tend to stick to canvas and paper or do you branch out sometimes? Have you tried other natural surfaces like wood or rock?

 Photo: Uploaded by Pinterest User

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Call me crazy, but lately it seems like Q-tips and flowers are a crafting match made in heaven. Q-tips make a great, inexpensive alternative to paintbrushes, especially for little hands and their texture is perfect for creating beautiful dandelion paintings. They also present the perfect opportunity to show how what’s ordinary or even a nuisance to some can be beautiful to others.

Take dandelions—technically, they’re considered weeds, but both species (the yellow florets and the white seed heads) are so pretty. And how fun is it to make a wish on the white seed heads and blow on them so the little white fibers sail off into the wind? Well, when you do that, you’re actually just helping to spread the seeds and grow more weeds! But what’s pesky to some is beauty to others.

Q-tips don’t get a great wrap either. They’re a bathroom accessory that’s mostly used for make up or nail polish cleanup.  Q-tips aren’t often given much thought and are usually hidden in a drawer or dressed up in a glass dish. But these little guys can also make a great art tools. And when you combine them with dandelions, these two outcasts can make a beautiful painting.

To create your own dandelion painting, grab some Q-tips and white paint. Now, there’s a lot of room for interpretation here. You can either start with a blue piece of paper or take white paper or a canvas and paint it blue. You could paint a scene, such as grass or a field, or leave it plain. If you painted, wait for the background to dry thoroughly. Next grab a Q-tip and dip it in white paint. For a simpler interpretation, just start making dots. Create a cluster of dots for the flower’s base and then trail your dots off to represent the seedlings blowing away. Finally, add a black or green stem with paint, charcoal, or crayon… whatever you prefer. If you want to get a little bit fancier, you can use lines and dots to create your dandelions. Draw lines coming out of a central point to create a sphere and then add the dots to the end of your lines. This will give your dandelions a full, round look.

Photo: “Fly Away Dandelions,” Artsonia

There are no mistakes here. Experiment in making your dandelions however you like. As long as you have a Q-tip with white paint and a surface to paint it on, you’re over halfway there. It’s important to remember that the ordinary can be extraordinary and you have the power to make that transformation every day!

Photo: “Light Blue Wishes,” SVPPLY

Happy crafting and have a creative day!

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Confession: I love magazines. When planning for a relaxing night in or getting ready to travel, I always run to the newsstand for a glossy or two. The problem is I end up with a stack… nay, a pile, of finished magazines at home that I don’t want to throw out, but probably will never open again. While simply recycling them all is viable option, why not make something creative with the colorful pages?

To create a unique kind of collage, gather your magazines (try 3), a canvas, scissors, and glue. The best part of this nifty project is you don’t have to cut out a million shapes, making a mess of scraps everywhere. Just roll and glue! Grab a colorful page, cut a straight line across so it’s the size you want, roll it up and glue it to the canvas. Once the whole surface is covered, you’ll have a cool, textured work of art.

photo: Pro Arts

For a cool variation, cut the magazine page into strips and roll them horizontally so they sit stoutly on the canvas, not long-ways. You might lose the color of the page once it’s rolled up, but you can always grab a marker and create your own color scheme.

Photo: Rag & Bone

Fun, right? Now when someone comments on my magazine hoarding, I can say I’m just collecting materials for an art project! Do you have any tips or crafts that involve recycled magazines or newspapers?

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Amani and Mario Natescapes with Nate Williams!

Here’s what Nate said about the artistic collabo collage experience:

Amani looked at the collage “Liquidraw Paintscape #3″ and thought it would be a great place to create a narrative with the game character Mario. Amani describes her collage “Amani and Mario’s Natescape” as an adventure story of Mario, Luigi, and a band of polychromatic toad friends, on a heroic jourey through a Natescape; seeking to rescue Princess Peach. Princess Peach is Mario’s best friend and one true love.

Amani has recently renewed her appreciation of Mario, by playing real life re-enactments of Mario games with her mother, Rachel, sister, Mariah, and new friends Mike and Michael. I love Amani’s collage re-mix! She is a true scribble artist, collage adventurer, and visual DJ. Looking forward to seeing more collaged adventures.

Amani and Mario Natescape 1

Amani and Mario Natescape 3

Make your own Natescape by having a look at http://nate-art.com/#/gallery.  Choose a collage and let yourself go with the flow.  Thanks Nate for sharing with Scribble Blog!

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Thanksgiving was great this year (as always)!  Loads of family, friends, food, laughter and then double gobble more of it!  The next day my family and I all went for a stroll through the park to digest our feast and we found all these fallen leaves on the ground.  I thought the branches would’ve been bare by now, but no, not yet!  We got lucky.  The fallen leaves looked like feathers to me so we had an idea to make them into Turkeys!

Meet Leafy Turkey

We glued on some googley eyes to make them extra silly, but I’m sure you can come up with something just as good without them. Oh, maybe a nut fallen from the tree?  What do you think?

I know Halloween just passed, but since I was on this kick of transforming fallen objects into artwork when I saw the stick I thought of a broom.  Put a flying lady on it and you have a witch!  What do you think a stick could turn into?  Anything is possible!  Please share with Scribble Blog your fallen object creations.

A Sticky Witch

Thank you Thanksgiving for the fun, family, and more crafty ideas : )  Gobble.

A Sitting Leafy Turkey

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Turkey Day is just around the corner! And how better to celebrate than with the mascot of Thanksgiving… the turkey! Here’s a fun, colorful, collage-tastic craft from A Girl and Glue Gun that just you or the whole family can enjoy!

Grab a stack of magazines, some cardstock (plain paper will also do the job), scissors, and glue.

On a white piece of paper, draw a simple outline of a turkey. Cut squares of cardstock and give some to each family member and let them pick a color (or a few) to be in charge of. You can make a color theme like autumn or rainbow.

Now everybody start cutting out magazine clips in their colors and cover the cardstock in them. Once all the squares are covered, cut them into the shape of feathers and one for the turkey’s body. Glue them down—start with feathers so they’re behind the body. You can use the cardstock scraps for details like feet, a beak, a wattle, and eyes.

And you’re all done—right in time for Thanksgiving. Now, no matter what you’re serving on Thursday, you’ll have the most stylish turkey on the block!

Photos via A Girl and a Glue Gun

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Hi Scribblers,

While wandering through the internet, I stumbled across (of course, through StumbleUpon) this amazing image of a structure made entirely of glass bottles and mortar.

Photo Credit: Kathy LaForce

This scene is comprised of “junk” (one’s man’s garbage is another man’s treasure, right?) that was turned into art! It’s amazing how creative a person can be when they really put their minds to it! Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey created a village of found objects on 1.3 acres of land which is now called “Bottle Village.”

Grandma was definitely waaaaay ahead of her time! Grandma died at the age of 92 in 1988. I’m sure at the time, people may have passed by thinking she was a crazy lady, and I’ll admit, a few things were a bit odd…

Photo Credit: Kathy LaForce

However, there is much to be appreciated in her work. She had a unique way of blending colors and shapes and maximizing the use of the sun to change the look of these wonderful creations!

See how the light passes through the bottles in the top image? Working with light and glass is a great way to explore your imagination and creativity! Have you ever seen beach glass? Beach glass is made from broken pieces of glass that have been tossed and turned in the ocean. The glass pieces then wash up on the shore with a slightly cloudy appearance. What can you craft with beach glass? How many colors of beach glass have you seen?

You can see more pictures of Grandma’s Bottle Village and learn more about her at Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village

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Hi Scribblers,

Check out this funky sculpture I came across in Denver.

Dancers, by Jonathan Borofsky

This sculpture, by Jonathan Borofsky is truly compelling. Just seeing it up close really moved me- literally! I wanted to get up and dance with the sculpted dancers!

Jonathan Borofsky is a sculptor and print maker who lives and works in Maine. Borofsky uses bright colors and long lines  and tends to work with  the human form in his artwork. The bright colors really add a happy feeling to the art, and the white sculptures really leave more to the imagination- isn’t that fun?!

You can see more of Borofsky’s work on his website here.

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So while stumbling through the interwebs today, I came across this…

How amazing is that?? I don’t think I have the surgical tools to pull this off but the wheels are already turning on this one to inspire creativity!

What does this inspire YOU to make? What could you do with cut outs and layers?

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Hi Scribblers!

When I was growing up, everything could pass as a hand-me-down…clothes, shoes, backpacks, gameboys, cameras, whatever! Sometimes though, kids aren’t too excited because they want something unique to call their own. Do you have this problem? Get scribbley and dress up old clothes and gadgets with Puffy Paint!

I saw this on Kodak.com’s blog and I just loved they idea! This is a great way to dress up old clothes, cameras, handheld games or even phones!

Try exploring your creativity with Puffy Paint and see what things you can jazz up! We would LOVE to see your finished projects so be sure to share with us on Facebook or send us an email! You just might see your craft featured on our blog!

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