Cynchronicity Live September 26, 2011

Last night’s Cynchronicity Live Webtv Show was all about raiding the sewing room to make some cute jewelry from fabric scraps, beads, buttons, and zippers!

Above, fabric and bead necklace with removable flower made from zippers, a fabric yoyo, and a button.

Above, a zipper brooch.

Here are some great links with other ideas for zipper flowers:

http://mayaroad.typepad.com/mayaroad/2011/02/zipper-flower-tutorial-one.html

http://www.craftaholicsanonymous.net/2011/01/daylily-zipper-flower-tutorial.html

http://sumossweetstuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/tutorial-tuesday-zipper-flowers.html

Check out the playback link for the details on how to make this jewelry, designer tips for no sew versions and ways to vary it, and some fabulous ideas from the viewers! http://www.linqto.com/PlaybackRoom.aspx?roomname=creativeedventures&name=SingleExplicit_2011_09_26_19_58_19_872

Cynchronicity Live: Spin me a Yarn

Thank you so much to everyone who joined me last night for the premiere of Cynchronicity Live webtv show! I’ve missed you all so much and was so happy to be back sharing creativity with you.

If you weren’t able to join us, here’s the playback link for the show:  Cynchronicity Live Episode 1

The shows will encompass everything from art techniques to craft projects to cooking to home decor and more!  Last night, I got a head start on holiday gifts by breaking out the yarn stash and creating a couple of cute projects.

I shared a Saori weaving technique I first heard about on Gingerbread Snowflakes to make this mug rug.  I’m making some of these to go along with cup wrappers and then I’ll include some of my home made tea, coffee, and scone mixes as well as chocolate dipped spoons.  The above is for my daughter and along with what I’ve already mentioned, I’m going to include a tea tray, a teapot cozy, and some jars of my homemade peach butter (her favourite) and raspberry preserves.

I also demonstrated how to do corking (French knitting, using a knitting Nancy), including making your own corker.  There are so many things you can make with this method but I’m starting with some hot pads for my daughter’s new kitchen.

Be sure to have a look at the replay for all the details.  I’d love for you to join me every week for Cynchronicity Live on Monday nights at 9 pm Eastern in the Creative EdVentures chat room. 

Also check out my personal crafting blog:

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Finding Creative Inspiration

By Cyn

Saw this on Jamie Ridler’s site and had to share it:

What’s holding you back?

The Art of Breakfast

Check out this great video from Danny Gregory:

http://vimeo.com/26850647

Christmas in July

For my little nod to Christmas in July this past week during our In the Zone show I demonstrated how to make these adorable little Santas.  You need some sort of a ring – this one is wooden but plastic or wire or even one you fashion yourself out of something like wire hangers will work.  Then you need yarn or fabric cut or torn into strips – I used white for the beard and a red print for his hat.  Cut each piece of yarn or fabric strip in half and then loop over the ring and tie on with a lark’s head knot.  Gather the red strips together and tie another piece of yarn/fabric around to form the top and pompom of the hat.  String some beads on a piece of yarn/fabric as the eyes and nose and tie to each side of the ring.  You can use smaller rings to make these ornament sized, medium rings work great if you want a doorknob hanger (just put the doorknob right through the hat), or large ones to make door or wall decor in place of a wreath.  With the larger ones, you might even want to experiment with adding a second string below the eyes/nose with a red bead for a mouth and tying on some small piece of yarn or fabric strips to add a moustache as well.

Here are some of my favourite Christmas projects from past blog posts:

http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/wreath-photo-frame/

http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/o-christmas-tree/

http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/christmas-napkin-rings-from-todays-intheseao/  (Several other cute options for napkin rings here too)

http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/santa-napkin-holder-from-todays-cool2craft/

Lots of other great ideas – check out my blog for more:  http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com

Important Announcement

We're taking a break! Yes, Creative EdVentures is going on hiatus for the rest of the summer but don't you worry - we'll be back with more shows in the fall. Please stay tuned to our fan page, blog, and Twitter accounts as we'll continue to share creative ideas with you and you'll be first to know when the shows will be returning.

Our Summer Schedule

Here's our summer schedule of shows:

Mondays: Noon Eastern - Come to Chat with Kelly

9 pm Eastern - In the Zone with Cyn and Roberta

Wednesdays: Noon Eastern - Come to Chat with Cyn

Thursdays: Noon Eastern - In the Paintbox with Amanda (and sometimes her little helpers!)

Fridays: Noon Eastern - Come to Chat with Dawn

Noon Eastern = 11 am Central, 10 Mountain, 9 Pacific

9 pm Eastern = 8 pm Central, 7 Mountain, 6 Pacific

Click on this link to enter the room at show time: Our shows

Prayer Flags

By Cyn Gagen

The belief behind prayer flags is that prayers, mantras, and symbols are written and drawn on them.  The flags are then hung up outside where the wind can touch them and carry the prayers out in the world to touch all who come into contact with that wind.  Buddhists believe that anyone touched by these wind-carried prayers feel uplifted and are granted good karma.

My first prayer flag:  Cultivate joy and bestow kindness.  Under the layers of cloth, I’ve written some more personal intentions.

The other day during Come2Chat I was working on painting on fabric in preparation for making prayer flags.  You can see some of the painted fabric above in this prayer flag.  Here’s the post where I shared the painting techniques I used:  http://creativeedventures.blogspot.com/2011/07/playing-with-paint-and-fabric.html

For more information about prayer flags, check out the post over on my blog here:  http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/quilt-ladies-quilt-show-saturday-prayer-flags/

 

Playing with Paint and Fabric

Cyn Gagen

On yesterday’s Come2Chat, hosted by yours truly, I was playing around with some paint techniques and sort of mono-printing onto fabric.

The techniques I used were inspired by some I learned from Traci Bautista’s book Collage Unleashed.  I put down a piece of freezer paper shiny side up and then just squirted on some acrylic craft paint.  Then comes the playing around part.  You can scrape across the paint with old gift cards (or hotel keys or whatever), you can paint through some mesh (like the kind you get onions in or wrapped around pears) or on some bubble wrap and press that onto the paper, or you can run something like a popsicle stick or bamboo skewer through – randomly or to create a particular design.  In the picture above you can even see some circles where I used a toilet paper roll, pressed it into the paint, and then turned it to leave the circle shapes on the page.

Then I laid a piece of cotton broadcloth over the painted freezer paper.  I couldn’t find my brayer so I laid a piece of waxed paper (pictured above) over the fabric and then used a paint bottle as my brayer.  I saved the pieces of waxed paper with the paint on them as I can use these in mixed media work, ATCs, and greeting cards.

Instead of fabric, you can print onto paper towels as well.  Once you place the fabric or paper towel over the painted freezer paper, you can spritz it with water to get the paints to mix and blend some more, you can drip on some more paint, sprinkle on some glitter, and so on.  Once the paper above was dry, I used some Liquitex Gel Medium to collage on some Lutradur, tissue papers and candy wrappers.  You can keep layering on as much paint and other items as you want!

I scraped through the paint with a bamboo skewer on this one.

Now once you’ve taken a print or two off the freezer paper, maybe it has started drying up.  Well you have a couple choices.  You can just leave it as is and use it in a collage, ATC, greeting card or more or you can spritz it with some water to reactivate it and take more prints.

Can you see where I used jumbo bubble wrap and plastic mesh on this one?

Stay tuned to see where I take these fabric pieces and how I use them next!

Join us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at noon Eastern for Come2Chat.  It’s a casual chat time where we share what we’re working on in our studios while we chit chat.  http://linqto.com/rooms/creativeedventures

In the Zone: A Demo Inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe

By Cyn Gagen

On last night’s In the Zone, we did a 4th of July salute to American art.  Roberta chose to focus on Janet Fish while I went with Georgia O’Keeffe.  Both female artists who brought a different spin to traditional representational American art and who demonstrated a love of colour.  That’s where the similarity ends though as Fish is a contemporary realist artist and O’Keeffe’s paintings, considered part of the American Modernism period, bring more of an abstraction to them. Her ability to blend representative and abstract art in one is what made O’Keeffe one of the most distinctive and innovative artists of her time.

For my demo, I showed how to make these simple little flower pictures inspired by the close-up flowers O’Keeffe painted.  To begin, you need a thick white glue.  I’m creating these on basic black construction paper but you can do this on a canvas as well and you can choose whatever you want as your background colour.  For the glue, I prefer something like the Crayola No Run School Glue http://www.crayola.com/products/list.cfm?categories=GLUE (I get a similar one at Dollarama here in Canada) because it’s nice and thick.  You can use Aleene’s Tacky Glue as well but it’s not quite as thick. http://www.michaels.com/Aleene's%C2%AE-Original-Tacky-Glue%C2%AE/gc0040,default,pd.html

You can lightly pencil on your outline or just freehand it with the glue.  Let this dry really well before proceeding.  I find it takes a good 12 hours give or take depending on how thick you apply the glue.  You can use chalks (just regular coloured chalk such as you would use in school or the chalks that are sold for scrapbooking and rubber stamping) or pastels (soft or oil – the ones I used here were called Water Sticks – they’re very much like pastels but if you add water to them you can get a sort of watercolour appearance to them).  I used a combination of both.  The pastels work really well to go over the glue outline and to add a little definition to the piece.  In places where I got a bit of the pastels onto the actual petals instead of the outline, I left that because I didn’t mind the punch it gave to the flower.  For the colours on the petals, I applied the chalks – I found using my finger gave the best appearance. 

For more information about Georgia O’Keeffe, check out this blog post:  http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/in-the-zone-a-demo-inspired-by-american-art/

Grungy Mixed Media Art Journaling July 4th

Happy 4th Everybody!!!!! I had a great show today on Creative EdVentures Come2Chat showing a grungy Art Journal Mixed Media technique. We learned how to make sequence waste with a piece of poster board and hole punch, using a glue stick round bottom to add more texture and so many other cool things. We had so many great suggestions today in chat! Using mesh bags from fruit as texture different colors and ideas on what to write or to put on as picture. I chose a star today for July 4th and to let the world know I AM INDEPENDENT! Here are a few pics and the video of the demo! Any questions please feel free to message me!!!  You can see the video here on my YouTube channel   

ROBI@NITE June 30, 2011

By Robi Cohen

What went on during the show? Did you win a prize?
ROBI@NITE June 30, 2011

Jasper Johns Kid Friendly Encaustic Technique

by Amanda Marks
On In the Paint Box on Thursday I showed a Kid Friendly Encaustic Technique.  The show itself was a little bit of a train wreck working with small children that will happen.  I went through and made templates of the flags so everyone can make their own Jasper Johns' Flags.  I also included a Canadian Flag Template to celebrate Canada Day. 

Playback for In the Paint Box

Blog Post about the technique

Monday-June 27-Recap of my first Come2Chat

HI-It's Kelly!!!!! I am a believer that Art can heal. I think we all have at least 10-15 minutes a day to sit and practice or do our "creative" thing. It is a form of meditation to me. I want people to have a way to express themselves and not feel overwhelmed by money to get supplies or complicated projects. Actually, I feel no project is complicated if broken down in to steps.....we all have it in us to create in some form or another whether it is writing , painting, sculpting, photography...oh the list can go on and on!

I am going to do a recap of what I chose to do on Monday and what my goals are for future Come2Chats. I showed everyone how to make an Art Journal for $1.00. YES-$1.00! First I bought a piece of white posterboard. My Dollar store sells them 3 for $1.00 but Craft Stores also sell them .79 a piece and A.C. Moore brand acrylic paint for .59 a piece!!! I then proceeded to cut them into strips approximately 6 inches wide and 7 inches long-You can make them ANY size you choose. Once they were cut I put them all together with the dull side facing up and shiny on the opposite side. I gave them a tap.....poked 3 holes in the stack about 1/4 inch from edge. I took 3 pieces of scrap yarn and tied them in the holes. I used a pencil to tie around to give space for book to open well. There were some great suggestions in the chat room about putting beads on the extra yarn, using twine and ribbon to tie the pages together. It is yours so GO FOR WHATEVER YOU LIKE!

I like Positive Energy and Intention pit into my work so I wrote "Today no matter where I am going or what i am doing I will find something positive and look for joy and happiness" I then began to cover it with an easy background technique. Here is a link for a quick tutorial of the technique I used for the background on my YouTube page knittingandthings

On my Creative EdVentures Come2Chats I will continue to teach Awesome - Inexpensive Techniques and even start some great Mixed Media and layering. I LOVED the positive energy that you all brought to my first show and I am so thankful and hope you will come again!!!! Here are a few still shots of the project

My Favourite Canadian Art

By Cyn Gagen

Gitwangak, Charlotte Islands, 1912, Emily Carr

Tonight on In the Zone, Roberta and I shared Canadian art in honour of the Canada Day holiday coming up on Friday. I began by sharing my three favourite Canadian artists:

Left: Totem Walk at Sitka, 1907, Emily Carr Right: Big Raven, 1931, Emily Carr

Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) She was both an artist and writer who was greatly inspired by the Native Canadians of the Pacific Northwest Coast and did a lot for sharing the culture of the Pacific Northwest with others. She was one of the first painters in Canada to use a post-impressionist painting style.

Blunden Harbour, 1931, Emily Carr

There is a free stained glass pattern of the painting above available here: http://chantal-stainedglasspatterns.com/2emilycarr.html I could see it working well for paper crafting, art quilts, and many other things as well.

Carr didn’t receive much recognition for her work until she was quite a bit older and later in her life, the focus of her work moved from aboriginal themes to landscapes with a particular fondness for forest scenes. She was a contemporary and friend of the Group of Seven.

Lighthouse, Father Point, 1930, Lawren Harris

Lawren Harris was born in Brantford Ontario on October 23, 1885 and died January 29, 1970. He was well known as a member the Group of Seven and in fact, A. Y. Jackson (another member of the Group of Seven) has been quoted as saying that Harris was the one who provided the stimulus for the group. I’m actually not a huge fan of the Group of Seven as I find most of their work quite dreary but in the 1920s, Harris's work began to simplify his paintings and make them more abstract and colourful.

North Shore Lake Superior, 1926, Lawren Harris

This is when I start to really develop a love for his work. I quite love the cold, stark landscapes he began to focus on of the Canadian north. Around this same time he also stopped signing and dating his work because he wanted people to judge art on its own merit and not by the artist or when they were painted which I found a really interesting concept.

Left: Before the Bath, 1892, Paul Peel Right: After the Bath, 1890, Paul Peel

Paul Peel was born here in London Ontario on November 7 and died in his sleep in Paris at the age of 32 from a lung infection. He was a Canadian academic painter. Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture influenced by European academies or universities. He received his first art training from his father at a very early age and later studied under experts in the US and Paris.

Left: The Young Biologist, 1891, Paul Peel Right: The Young Botanist, 1888, Paul Peel

He won a medal at the 1890 Paris Salon for his painting After the Bath which made him one of the first Canadian artists to gain world-wide recognition within his lifetime. He was well known for his pictures of children and nudes with a sentimental slant to them. In fact, he was one of the first Canadian artists to paint nudes.

I shared information about Inuksuit and showed how to make a small version for yourself. If you’d like to see more about them, check out this blog post: http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/inuksuit/ ‎

If you’d like to see the show’s playback, here’s the link: http://www.linqto.com/PlaybackRoom.aspx?roomname=creativeedventures&name=SingleExplicit_2011_06_27_19_58_55_750