Here are a few of the nice things that students have said about "A Year of Gelatin Printing: Simple Acrylic Paint Monoprints." Testimonials: “It’s incredible to me how little I knew about using my gel plate. I’m grateful for all the simple, yet important tips and directions.” – Corinne “Julie, I’ve really been enjoying this class. I know how to monoprint better than I previously did, and I’m happier with the results!” – Deborah “I am giddy with excitement over this class. I’ve been playing successfully, and I’m loving the results of my prints. Thanks again, Julie….you never disappoint!!” –... Continue reading

Hello, friends! Here is a little bit about life around here right now: What are you working on? I am working on a tutorial for the paper birds I shared last week (using either a cut file or a PDF for hand cutting). It takes about four times as long to make the tutorial as it does to make the project. So hopefully I will have that finished by next week. What are you loving? Steve shoveled out a tiny snow maze for the baby in our driveway. He loved it and so did I! Of course, it's nothing compared... Continue reading

If you want to make art quickly, you need to have all the supplies on hand. I'm not talking about paint and brushes...although those are useful to have. I'm talking about pre-made "art parts." What are "art parts?" Well, it's a term I made up. But in essentials, it's substrates and bits and pieces that are ready to go into your art without any work. It's the kind of stuff you make when you have a bit of free time, without any end result in mind. If you've bought a scrap pack from me, you know what I'm talking about.... Continue reading

Check out how cute this fleece ugly monster doll is! This is a project that Michaels hired me to do and by their request I have the full tutorial in my instagram stories (follow the link and click on my face). I hope you'll check it out! Thanks for stopping by! --- P.S. The Member Livestream is tomorrow (Wednesday) night and ScanNCut: CanvasWorkspace for Mac is on Thursday night. Continue reading

We are 22 days into The 100 Day Project. Just 78 more to go! You may recall from my previous 100 Day Project post that I have been smushing together my #100DaysofArtBotanical with #februllage. I gave it a good try... ...but I was really struggling with the mashup. I wasn't enjoying the process or liking the results, so I gave it up and tried some new things. And then I floundered some more. And then I found my way! Yay! I decided to commit to creating the next 30 days of my 100 Day Project in this small junk journal... Continue reading

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal. No need to finish anything or even like it. It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day! If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day. If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog... Continue reading

I spent a big chunk of yesterday prototyping some three-dimensional paper birds. I am planning to cut some out of white paper and experiment with different surface design techniques on them. Then once I have a menagerie of lovely birds, I'm going to climb a ladder and hang them from my ceiling! I really enjoy this kind of contemplative making. Experimenting. Trying new things. Learning what works and what doesn't. Problem solving is my happy place. And that's a lucky thing since most art making is just solving problem after problem! Thanks for stopping by! Continue reading

I stumbled across these fabric bookmarks that looked cool and super simple to make: source But I didn't feel like dragging out my sewing machine and ironing board. So, I made one out of paper! I cut a 3"x3" square and then cut another 3"x3" square into a little bit more than half. Because I'm using adhesive and not stitching it, I knew that I would need a bigger corner area, which you can see on the piece on the right side. And then I decorated the papers and simply glued them together on the top and left side. This... Continue reading

The folks at The Crafter's Workshop sent me some of their new stencil butters to try out. And so I did! You can watch my explorations in the video below: Links: Stencil Butter Shimmery Goodness Palette Paper Palette Knife Black Tags Manila Tags Stencils: Cut Outs, Shape Landscape, Fantasy Tile Stencil 101 free e-mail course And here is another peek at the tags from the video: Let me know if you've tried out the stencil butters or the shimmery goodness. Any thoughts on using them? I'm kind of tempted to try the stencil butters on my gelatin plate next! Thanks... Continue reading

Andrea Clement taught a wonderful unit in the Carve December Class all about designing animals with folk-style doodles inside of them. You may recall that I carved this chicken stamp... ...and this squirrel stamp... ...based on her lesson. Well, I got sooooo super obsessed with designing these folk style animals and I decided they didn't have to "just" be stamps. So, I made a t-shirt: And here's my little guy doing his very best model poses: Standing still was more of a priority for me than for him. But he did pause briefly: I know I'm biased, but what a... Continue reading

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal. No need to finish anything or even like it. It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day! If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day. If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog... Continue reading

One of my favorite features of the ScanNCut is how easy it is to scan in an image and cut it out. And once you've digitized the design you can cut it out of multiple materials. I recently made a notebook and an apron from a simple sheet of doodles. Later, I took it a step further by adding another doodle drawing to the lower half of the apron. And I used the new doodle to decorate the cover of a notebook I had previously painted. How fun is that? To learn more about scanning, you can watch this video:... Continue reading

We are 10 days into The 100 Day Project. As I mentioned before, I have been smushing together my #100DaysofArtBotanical with #februllage and I'm not sure that it's working for me. I'll show you what I've done and then I'll talk about why I'm feeling a bit unsure about this mash up. This was my first day, before #februllage started -- so it's the only piece without collage: Starting with this next piece, all of these contain collage and are in response to the daily prompts: Let's talk about these pieces. The good: I said that I wanted to try... Continue reading

I thought that I would resurrect an old blog feature: Book Club...but with a twist! If you listen to the podcast then you know that I love our local library. And I love requesting books from different library branches all over the state of Massachusetts and being able to pick them up at my local library. For free. A public library truly is an amazing thing! One of the main ways that I use my library is to figure out whether or not a book is buy-worthy. Over the years I've bought a ton of books online -- based on... Continue reading

As you may recall, I created mix & match Valentine's Day cards using a combination of hand painted black and white papers and painted/printed deli paper back in 2014. So, I challenged myself (and you) to do it again but with a 2021 flair. I would say, I'm still the same artist, but I've definitely gained some design skills over the past 7 years, don't you agree? I would even venture to say that I'm better at creating interesting black and white papers now (note the variety of line textures and weights as well as varied density of pattern)... ...than... Continue reading

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal. No need to finish anything or even like it. It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day! If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day. If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog... Continue reading

I wanted to share a round-up of just a few of the fun Valentine's Day DIY projects I've shared over the years. You can find the links to all the project tutorials below: Stamped & Masked Valentine's Day Cards Pop-Up Valentine's Day Card Valentine's Day Flipping Photo Cubes Gelli Masked Heart Prints Valentine's Day Explosion Card Heart Boxes And finally, a post from the archive and a challenge to you! In putting together this post, I came across a post from 2014, which I had totally forgotten about: In the original post, I set out a challenge for myself: Using... Continue reading

I accidentally stumbled across an online challenge called "Februllage." The Scandinavian Collage Museum and Edinburgh Collage Collective are the hosts of Februllage -- a combination of the words "February" and "collage." The challenge is to make a collage a day throughout the month of February, using the prompts from the Februllage Official Word Prompt Calendar: The challenge is hosted on instagram. Even if you don't wish to participate, I think the work that people are doing is super inspiring. So I thought you might like to see a few of the entries from the first two days (these images are... Continue reading