August Giveaway: Wanna Win Washi?

Okay, you guys already know how much I love washi tape — it’s an addiction, I know, and I just can’t help myself from wanting to have all sorts of pretty colors and designs. A few weeks back, I was hyping it up in a TopHatter auction room and I said in the chat, “I love this stuff so much I should be selling it!” Then I started thinking wait… why don’t I?

So I took a leap and put all (yes all!) of the profits from my growing supply business into ordering placing a large wholesale order of washi tape. Scary? Absolutely! Don’t think I haven’t second guessed myself at least a dozen times about this choice! Thrilling? Oh yeah!

The last month has, needless to say, been a little washi-obsessed. I sold out of my first sample batch of washi tape within 4 days, which meant I had a lot of orders to package and mail out.  I decided, in the meantime, to create a YouTube video series, Washi Minute with Craft Moira, in order to show some quick techniques for using all this awesome tape I’ve been selling.

So… I thought, what better way to officially kick off my new business venture by doing an awesome tape giveaway???

The winner will receive:

• Your choice of any roll of washi tape from my current inventory (40 designs/colors in stock)
• Plus one random roll of washi tape!
• Plus 5 random rolls of deco tape!
• Plus 1 random roll of washi lace tape!
• Plus 1 random roll of cotton fabric tape!

That’s NINE rolls of tape, people! Imagine all the fun you can have in your art journals with this score!

This giveaway is open to anyone in the world who leaves a comment on this blog entry answering the following question:

If you could only have one roll of washi tape in your inventory, which color and/or pattern would you pick?

That’s it — no hoops, no special requirements, no purchase required.

You should definitely share this giveaway with your friends — if I get 100 entries in the contest, I will choose a SECOND prize winner! So you’ll be doubling your chances if you:

• Pin this giveaway on Pinterest
• Tweet about this giveaway
• Post about this giveaway on Facebook!

Plus — for every 50 entries over 100, I’ll choose another winner for a single roll of washi tape! Lots of chances to win if lots of people enter means more potential goodies for you!

Let’s get social…

If you’d like to subscribe to Weekly Art Date here or on facebook, awesome! I’d love for you to visit again.

If you don’t want to wait and would like to buy some washi tape or other awesome art supplies, check out my etsy shop: Key Lime Supplies. Or “like” Key Lime Supplies on facebook to stay up to date on current promotions and/or giveaways.

You can also check out my auctions at Tophatter.

If you want to check out my YouTube channel, you can do that here. Or check out my Pinterest boards.

You do not have to be a member of Weekly Art Date (the paid class), but I will be choosing one member of the class for a second identical prize package, so you can get a year’s worth of awesome art journal content plus an extra entry just by signing up.

Since I’ll be on vacation at the end of the month, you have until September 15th to enter.  Please be sure that I can contact you by leaving your email address!  I’ll choose a winner by random generator on September 15th and announce it here.

Art Journal & Supplies Auction — Saturday night

I’m super excited about the Art Journal and Paper Crafting Supplies Auction that I’m hosting Saturday night, at 10 PM EST, at Top Hatter. You do have to be a member of TopHatter to visit the auction, (and please don’t say I didn’t warn you: it’s addictive!) but once you sign up, you’ll have access to some awesome deals on great supplies — like a handmade journal by me starting at $3 (retail is $16!), rolls of washi tape starting at $1.50 each or less, vintage wallpaper samples, kraft tags in a few different shapes and sizes, plus LOTS more — currently have nearly 50 items up for grabs. The great thing about the community auction is you can often get a way better deal than in the bigger auctions where hundreds of people might want the same thing you do! I’d love if you could attend (and if you can RSVP ahead of time, that will mean I can list more items, too!). Plus, if you want to sell anything, you still have time to submit your items!

Washi Minute with Crafty Moira #001 – DIY Printed Washi Tape

Art Journal Supplies Auction – July 28th @ 7 PM PT

You are cordially invited to a private auction event Art Journals & Paper Crafts on Saturday, July 28 at 7pm PT.

http://tophatter.com/auctions/4273

We will be selling a range of art journal supplies, handmade journals, and destash materials. You could score a great deal and have fun at the same time! (Items will be listed in the next three weeks — more will be added each week!)

Your RSVP matters — if you can take a second to head over to TopHatter and RSVP, you’ll help us make this auction bigger and better! The more RSVPs we get, the more items we can offer up for sale.

FYI I am selling an exclusive Book Cloth Tape sampler set — it’s your chance to try out an assortment of book cloth tape at a great price! The sampler starts at $8 and includes enough book cloth tape for making 5 8×10 journals — or even more smaller journals!

Plus: I am recruiting sellers — if you have something art journal related that you would like to try selling at auction, you should submit it or email me for details.

Destash time?

Take Inspiration Where You Find It!

I started my teen summer programs this week — and I’ve been looking forward to them! I love working with kids, and I especially love introducing them to art journaling! I love all the programs I offer, but I must confess I have a special place in my heart for art journals! 🙂

For my teen programs, I show the kids a bunch of my finished journals; encouraging them to pick them up, flip through them and to ask me questions about them. Then I start them off at the wet table: lots of wonderful paints, watercolor pencils, crayons, etc, everything wet. I tell them they have 20 minutes and their goal is to get a splash of color on every page before the time is up. It’s my way of encouraging them not to overthink it and to just go with the flow.

We then move to the dry table (after blasting our pages with heat guns) and work on collage and adding in anything that catches their fancy — this year I have a list of 28 prompts related to our night-time theme and I have them choose a number and give them their “assignment” — then I tell them that there are no rules to art journaling so they can choose another option or even make up their own. (They love the no rules part!)

During one of my classes, I noticed that one of the girls had torn an image out of a magazine and was copying the image onto her page — just the same way that I practice drawing, as I told her. I loved the way the pencil looked on top of the bright watercolor background, so I decided to try a similar thing in my own journal today. Instead of regular pencil, I used Derivan Liquid Pencil, which I bought last month and have been meaning to try ever since.

Since I had also issued a challenge to myself to use my own images — I used my favorite family photograph to make this page.

(Weekly Art Date class members will see the video for this page on Sunday along with all my tips and tricks for making it!)

The Halfway Point

Weekly Art Date started running at the beginning of January — the class was started as an experiment: could I really commit to making an art journal video every week that wouldn’t bore the heck out the students in my class? Could I really keep this up for a whole year? I’m happy to say that we’ve made it halfway! There have been a few issues here and there (let’s see: I broke my foot, my sister had her baby 3 weeks early, my beloved cat died, I was sick a few times, and I had some major issues with carpal tunnel [which I am now starting to think might be arthritis instead! Yikes!] Some weeks I’ve gone above and beyond… some weeks the bare minimum has had to suffice. I’ve done my best to do new-to-me techniques and to mix it up in the hopes that all the videos had something new to offer — you’ll have to ask my students if I’m doing a good job with that (Anyone want to chime in?)

So summer session starts tomorrow! I’m feeling renewed and ready to go for another ten weeks — are you?

Sign up for the rest of the year here. ($25 gets you access to Summer & Fall of Weekly Art Date.)

Or sign up for full year access here.( $45 gets access for Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall — plus the bonus class in December!)

What you can expect this session:

First of all, it’s summer! Which means we’re going to take it easy, man. Don’t worry, we’ll still have weekly videos and weekly lessons! I’ll do my best to get the videos up on Sunday mornings, as per usual, but if I’m away from the weekend, don’t be upset if the videos are a day or two late. (You’ve probably already noticed that happens every once in a while as it is?) The class is work-at-your-own pace in order to account for the fact that, well, sometimes I work at my own pace, too! I just want to be upfront with you all that this class might be a little more laidback this session. (I say this, believing it to be true, but I know me, and I know you’ll still end up with loads more than 10 videos! But, hey, I can *try* to relax, right?)

Secondly, I’m going to issue a few challenges for myself today and hopefully you’ll see videos on these during the class:

1) I want to do a page where I limit myself, in advance, to 5 materials or less used on that page. Something like: 1 color of paint, 1 roll of tape, 1 image, 1 pen, &  a colored pencil. (I reserve the right to change these 5 based on my mood.. haha!)

2) I want to do a page using only the scraps from my scrap box on my desk (all the bits and pieces leftover from other pages or projects). The box contents plus gel medium & that’s it.

3) I want to make a journal out of fabric! I don’t exactly know how this will work but I have lots of beautiful fabric, laces, and buttons that I need to use up!

4) I want to make a video tutorial for using book cloth tape — this is for my supply shop, Key Lime Supplies, as well as for Weekly Art Date students — I’m selling book cloth tape, but I feel like a lot of people aren’t sure what to do with it so I wanna show them cool stuff!

5) I want to create at least one page with a travel theme (the armchair traveler sort, most likely!)

6) I want to use some of the vintage buttons / lace that I’ve been collecting at yard sales on a page.

7) I want to make a page that uses some of the vintage poetry books that I bought at an estate sale two weeks ago.

8) Ditto to the vintage yearbooks.

9) I want to try at least one technique that’s completely brand-new-to-me — perhaps liquid pencils?

If you aren’t already a class member, you can still sign up!

Sign up for the rest of the year here. ($25 gets you access to Summer & Fall of Weekly Art Date.)

Or sign up for full year access here.( $45 gets access for Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall — plus the bonus class in December!)

Any other goals I should add to this list?

A Much Needed Vacation

I’m on vacation from all of my jobs at the moment, so why does it feel like I’m working harder than ever???

I just finished up a 6-week session of Bling Bling, mixed media arts programming for middle school youth, including working with a 9th grade intern (my only 4-year graduate!). This session we did shrinky dinks, buttons, lip gloss, duct tape purses, bracelets, potion bottle necklaces, and nail manicures. I even organized an event for one of the classes to give free manicures to adults in the community — we had 13 clients which was amazing considering the “salon” ran from 3 – 3:45 on a Tuesday afternoon.

Plus, we’ve reached the halfway point for Weekly Art Date — 6 months down, 6 months to go! Have I lost my enthusiasm? Heck no! Am I tired? Oh yes! I feel like I did a bad job with the class the last two weeks because I was too exhausted to do all the videos I’d been doing — but I know myself enough to know when it’s time to take a break. For Part Two, a ten-week session, I did 24 videos that are exclusive to the class!  I feel super inspired about art making again after a few days off and am inspired to create a page (I’m going to follow the step-by-step in this week’s Art Journal Every Day post.)

I’ve also been making a lot of sales online — I feel like I’m mailing packages every day — considering that I’ve made 59 sales since April 30, that’s not actually far off from the truth! Despite all these sales, my studio space feels more cluttered than ever — what gives?!?

Not that I’m complaining! My etsy shop is doing well, I’m blessed with an awesome job both online and off, and I’m in better health than I’ve been in two years! Things are good — just hectic! Truth is, art has taken a backseat the last two weeks and that seriously bums me out — and my JOB is mostly art making. I can’t even imagine how tough it must be for those of you working full-time and raising a family — any time you manage for art-making is a serious miracle! Bless you for that!

Some positive points I want to mention, just to remind myself that things are good, and then I have a video to share:

• I was recently honored with the AfterZone Champions Award for my work with middle school youth.
• I’d lost 13 lbs since my last doctor’s appointment.
• My A1C (blood sugar measure) is at 5.9 — which is AWESOME!
• My blood pressure has dropped — just by altering my diet. (Low carb, high fat, yeehaw!)
• I made over 50 sales in my new supply shop, Key Lime Supplies!
• I have discovered a shared love of yard sales with a friend of mine and we’ve been indulging that love every weekend for a month!
• We have a furry new family member: Sam the kitty. He and Smudge the kitty are now friends.
• I successfully taught my first in-person adult art journaling class without throwing up!
• The Providence Arts Festival was rained out (boo!) but they issued everyone a $50 refund anyway (yay!)

So, tell me, what’s going on with you???

Weekly Art Date is currently on break for two weeks — I just posted a bonus “week eleven” video for the class and thought I’d share it here for anyone not currently enrolled:

Are We Home?

Sign up for the rest of the year:

Art Journal in Person

I did my very first in-person art journal class for adults last night — I was nervous! Sure, I’ve been doing online art journal classes for over a year now, but I can (and do!) edit my videos before I share them with the world. Plus, I’d only done art journal classes for teens and I didn’t want my information to be too basic — I figured the adults were paying for the class, so I wanted them to feel like the class had value. (Not that the teen classes don’t have value — it’s just that the teens aren’t the ones who pay me for those!) It was also my first class with that location, so I wanted to do a good job so that they would ask me back in the future.

For my teen classes, the program is pretty freeform — we spend the first half of the class working at the “wet” table — using spray paint, watercolor paint, stencils, watercolor crayons, etc, to create pretty backgrounds. Then we spend 5 minutes or so blasting the pages with the heat guns and move over to the “dry” table — where I have collage materials, glue sticks, and markers/pens spread all over. I’ve found that middle school kids need little to no prodding to come up with ideas — as soon as I show them a few pages of “frankenpeople” their minds start whirling with ideas that never cease to amaze me.

I thought adults might need (and want) a little more guidance.  Plus, adults tend to be way less messy than kids, so I figured I could up the quality of the available supplies without worrying about things getting ruined. And I wanted the pages we created to reflect my style now — frankenpeople are perfect for kids, but I haven’t made a frankenperson page for ages.

So instead, I came up with a basic “formula” for an art journal page, bearing in mind that in art journaling, all rules are made to be broken.  I figured I’d share that formula with you here:

Step One: Get rid of the white page — Nothing holds people back like the fear of the white page, so we get rid of it immediately by gluing down scraps of vintage book paper and tissue paper.

Step Two: Add color — we used cheap-o craft paints and Liquitex acrylic paints (love that company!) to add splashes of color over the page. We also use some of my favorite Crafter’s Workshop stencils to add more pops of color.

Step Three: Add collage — we cut out words and images from magazines to glue down on the page.

Step Four: Doodle and write — I had a variety of markers and pens around on the table so that everyone could experiment with some different supplies. Most people had reached the doodling stage on their first spread by the end of the class.

It was AWESOME seeing the work that everyone created — just like in teen classes, everyone has their own style and ideas from the get-go — it’s so fun as a teacher watching the ideas evolve throughout the class; that’s something I don’t get to see with online classes. Plus, I got to talk about art — which is by far my favorite conversation topic. I know I had a blast and it sure seemed like my students did, too. I can’t wait for my next class!

[Do you live locally to Providence, Rhode Island? I’d LOVE to host an art journaling class at your location. Feel free to email me to learn more!

Free Digital Download: 100 Year Old Postcard

Over at Crafty Moira, I have a free digital download of this image:

The date on the hand-written part of the postcard is May 15, 1912! Exactly 100 years ago today! Wow!

You’ll get a full resolution PDF of the full postcard, front and back. Visit Crafty Moira to sign up for my new mailing list and get your free download.

30 Days of Me Giveaway + 2 Winners

Hello all! Long time, no post here on the Weekly Art Date blog! Don’t worry, I have posts in the work, just way behind schedule.  As you might have seen, I have a new class coming soon: 30 Days of Me.

30 Days of Me was originally supposed to start on May 15th, but this morning I made the decision to bump the start date back to June 15th — All of the content is filmed, I have the prompts planned out, and all of the content will be available on day one. I still need to get the video edited and the PDFs formatted, but I don’t want to rush the process, which is why I’m giving myself the extra month to get it done! This is a little different from how I’ve done other classes where I’m filming new content week by week. I wanted all of the content to be finished so that students could work as fast or as slow as they like through the course materials. I also want people to be able to jump around to do whatever assignment inspires them at any given moment!

I’m SUPER excited about this class, because I think the pages and videos I’ve created for the class are some of my best and I can’t wait to see other people’s takes on the projects! It’s certainly been a learning experience creating all of the content up-front, instead of my usual flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants experimental style, but I can tell that this is most likely how I’ll be offering classes in the future.

As you probably know, members of the Weekly Art Date class at artjournaling.ning.com have access to all of the great weekly content that Weekly Art Date (the class) has to offer. I post some of the free content here on the blog, but the good stuff is all inside the classroom. (It’s not too late to sign up!) One of the perks of being a member of the class is access to giveaways of art journal supplies, one-of-a-kind art creations by me, and, as with the current giveaway, spots in other classes that I offer.

For our current giveaway, we have two winners (drum roll please):

Congratulations to Phyllis & Teddi, who have both won spots in 30 Days of Me!

Feeling sad that you didn’t win? Don’t worry! I’ve decided to giveaway a spot here on the blog!  This contest will run until June 4th, so you have lots of time to get lots of entries!

So how do you enter to win your own spot in 30 Days of Me?

For 1 entry, leave a comment here on the blog telling me why you’d like to win.

For 1 extra entry, like Weekly Art Date on Facebook.*

For 1 extra entry, share this giveaway with your Facebook friends.*

For 2 extra entries, blog about this giveaway.*

For 3 extra entries, tweet about this giveaway with the tag #artdate somewhere in your message.*

So you could conceivably get 8 entries in this giveaway! * To get your extra entries, just leave an extra comment (or 7 letting me know which extra entries you won. If you already like Weekly Art Date on facebook, just let me know!)

You do NOT have to be a current member of any of my classes or of the artjournaling.ning.com network in order to win. (Though you should check out the artjournaling site for loads of awesome free and paid art journaling content!). Please feel free to share this giveaway with anyone and everyone!

This giveaway is open to anyone in the world!

If you win and decide you can’t take the class, you are welcome to gift your spot to a friend or family member.

Good luck!

[P.S. I have a free class coming this summer: Tiny Travels — transform an empty mint tin into a tiny art journal travel kit w/ a pint-sized journal to match.[