A Fun shopping Outing with Jenny

A fun time Friday afternoon, shopping with Jenny.  

We visited a new art store, new to us! - 

and got some lovely marbled paper, and great new art books.

  

A few pens and supplies I'd been looking for... 

 

..a nice looking pencil box and and rubber for carving stamps.

Very helpful , friendly staff and good prices!

Will definitely be back again!

Still Swooning - Art Supplies

More eye candy in the art supply department.

 I count tools in the same category,

colourful, irresistible and fun!

These are Margot's Sassy Feet paints -
 but she lets me use them!

I just love seeing the masses of colour!

 Fun containers.

My favourite journal pens.

Supplies - Swoon!

Is there anything better than art supplies?

 I can't pass by an art supply or craft store,

 I have to go in and look, and often buy,

not that I need more, but you know...

 ...they are irresistible, colourful, and I might

 need and use them - sometime!

I look at it this way - more healthy than liquor,

 they don't make you gain weight and they're not illegal!

Life is Just a Bowl of ... Tickets!

My daughter gave me a roll of tickets for Christmas to use in my art.  When I removed the plastic wrapping I absentmindedly began pushing the cardboard ring at the bottom in and out and the circle of tickets began expanding.

I'd seen these ticket bowls before but never realized that it was this easy to do.  I just kept pushing in one direction and pulling the top up evenly and voila! a bowl made out of tickets.  Now I want to get several different colours and make more.  If I'd tried to follow directions for this? - it never would have happened.  Talk about happy accidents!

Cigar Box Wednesday

When is a cigar box not a cigar box? When it's a wooden tea bag box that's just the right size for my over-sized Sennelier oil pastels.

These are so big and such juicy colours - even if I didn't love to use them in my mixed media art pieces they'd be fun to have just to look at and hold!

Cutting Edge 2

Here are 2 of the more interesting members
of my scissors collection.

This many bladed monster is a shredding scissor. I got mine here locally at a little art/gift shop - but if you Google "shredding scissors" you'll find lots of them, at a wide variety of prices. They were created to let people shred bills, personal papers, etc. - but they are wonderful for paper artists. Just make one cut - instant fringe or dozens of teeny tiny strips - endless possibilities!


And this handy little pair folds up to look like a pen and then opens up to be scissors. Thanks to Fran Meneley for finding these! They fit perfectly in my pen bag and I've had it from good authority that they will pass through airport security. I have taken the kindergarten ones out of the bag and replaced them with this beauty!

Cutting Edge

Scissors in a variety of shapes, sizes, and styles. This is just a selection of the many I have; in my studio, on the work bench in the garage studio, and tucked away waiting to be used in an assemblage.


Purchased at craft stores, fabric stores, thrift stores, flea markets, Renaissance Faires, swap meets, garage sales, and one or two found on the street! But with all these and more I find myself generally using just two - the orange Fiskars or the ones with the blue handles.

Visible Pens

After several years of keeping my pens in drawers I decided to get them out in the open so I can not only see what I have, but - gasp! - maybe even remember to use them more!


So I grabbed a few containers and now my Sharpie Paint Pens are in a metal flower can, and my Faber Castil Pitt Artists Pens w/ brush tips in a white flower pot.

My sepia, black and sanguine (I love saying that word - it's fun!) FC Pitts are in a ceramic coffee mug - sans handle.
And my Sakura Moonbeam Gels in this vintage pink lovely. If out of sight is out of mind - I now have no excuse not to be putting all of these to good and immediate use.