Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm am SO excited for today, and hope you all are as well! Thanksgiving is on of my favorite holidays because of all the delicious food, and also it's the official kick-off to Christmas!! I'm not one to go out shopping on Black Friday, but now that I'm an online shop owner, I have to do a LOT of prepping to make sure I'm ready for the online shoppers. So here are my holiday WEEK deals!

From now through December 1st at 11:59 p.m.:

• Receive a FREE 8" x 10" piece with every custom item order!
• 20% off any orders over $60! Enter promo code TURK3Y(Must total to $60 before Shipping and Handling!

I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving spending time with all that you're thankful for! Now go stuff yourselves full of deliciousness, enter a food coma, and get to shopping! =)

Pimp My Ride

Photo by Piel de Metal

Have you ever looked at something and been blown away by how much time it must have taken? I'm a person who thinks of a project and knocks it out as quickly as possible. Too much time spent equals a bored Jessie and an unfinished project. Therefore, I admire anyone who devotes weeks, let alone months, of time on one project. Now, in this case, I'm not talking about a painting, or a dress, or a sculpture. Let's talk about something so complex that just thinking about doing this project makes my back hurt! Applying tiny beads to the surface of a VW Bug. Yup. What?! I know, I was baffled as well. 

The Wixaritari of Mexico are known for this kid of artwork (well, maybe not so much including the car). Traditionally, they create intricate patterns by placing individual beads into beeswax to cover the surface of bowls, plates, etc. This lovely little number, El Vochol, uses a more resilient resin and a whopping  2,277,000 beads. That's A LOT of beads! Two Wixaritari families spent seven months creating the peyote-trip inspired artwork, and it was worth every single bead.

El Vochol was commissioned by the Association of Friends of Museo of Arte Popular in Mexico City (whew! That's a mouthful!) as part of an effort to show off Mexico's traditional arts and artisans to the global community. "The project took on a greater message to the world: indigenous work is not to be forgotten, and in fact, celebrated." (Maria Gracia-Vasquez) Well, I'm going to jump out and say that this is definitely a success! 

The decked out VW Bug is starting on it's global tour this Fall, and will be swinging around to the Smithsonian next year! I'm inspired to grab some beeswax and seed beads to try out this art! But just so my impatient crafter doesn't get too restless, I think I'll start with a coaster. 

To read more about this fantastic artwork, check out the full article here, or check out the embedded YouTube video.

Just plain honored!

This morning I discovered a message in my Etsy inbox informing me that I had been featured in a new blog post on A Bit of Bees Knees. When I checked out the post, I was blown away that I had been included in this collection of Amazing Artists: Julian Beever, Margaux Lange, Shu Uemura, Dalton Ghetti, and Janine Golbert. Some of whom I had heard of before, some who are new to me, and all of which are fantastic artists! Thank you, Brittany, for loving my art and including me in this post! Check out her blog - it's full of great posts ranging from art, to home tips, all kinds of fun things! =)

Gas Masks, Google and Low Blood Sugar

My life currently consists of the following:

• Email
• Crayons
• Crayons
• Babysitting
• CS5
• Crayons
• Etsy
• Sleep

In that exact order. Where does food fit in? It doesn't really... sometimes overlaps with Etsy and babysitting. So you can probably add "low blood sugar" to the list as well. In other words, I'm busy! And I LOVE it! Talks of books, galleries, and art shows has my head floating in the clouds. Though I'm sure part of it has to do with my consistent exposure to VOC's...

Which brings me to my favorite new purchase - a protective breathing mask!! Yay! No more spraying several pieces with lacquer and walking out of the room gasping for fresh air! I really hope I haven't killed too many brain cells from the times I've done this... I'm worried though because I keep mixing up their and they're - I'm becoming one of my biggest pet peeves!! Hopefully my brain will recover quickly. =/

Something else exciting? I'm officially a Google celebrity. At least by the standards of 6.5 and 8.25 year-olds. We had a Google venture today and I checked out "Crayon Art" and BOOM! Pages 1, 2, & 3 all have references to my work!

Go to "Images," and after seeing some seriously awesome art (sculptures made of crayons, who knew?!) I have three pictures on page 4! Awesome... 

Have you ever Googled yourself? It's pretty awesome seeing what others find when they type your name into a search. And it's also a good idea to check out what potential business contacts are pulling up when your name is explored. Hope you all are enjoying your August!

Facebook page!

At the request of a lovely reader, I have created a Facebook page for my art. It also imports all my blogs and I'll set it up to import any updates I make to my Etsy shop. Pretty cool, eh? So here it is: JK Create's Facebook Page.

In other news, this has been an intense week (to put it lightly). It started with the Post Office not keeping its word in regards to shipping estimate, which resulted in a piece taking WAY longer to arrive to my buyer than originally predicted. That has now been sorted out, thankfully, but this experience has somewhat robbed me of my security in the USPS. I would switch to another carrier, but in the summer months, ground carriers such as FedEx and UPS cannot guarantee any temperature control without a hefty shipping fee. With crayons softening at 105° and melting starting at 120°, I don't want to take many chances with the ground transportation and trucks that reach well over that melting point during the summer months. So, USPS is my best bet with their Air cargo, where the biggest temperature concern is it being too cold. I've just learned that meeting the delivery date of Priority mail isn't always a priority. Oh well, at least it's all worked out and the piece has been delivered to its happy home!

Then, tragedy struck again... as the lacquer on several of my pieces was drying, my air conditioning stopped working in the studio. Enter: humidity!! The new bane of my existence. Humidity is not an annoyance to lacquer once it is dried, so why is it so horrible while the lacquer is setting? Because when moisture gets trapped within the coating, IT CLOUDS. Not exactly appealing for a CLEAR protective sealant! I'm sure you can imaging the heartbreak when I walked into my studio and seven pieces were damaged. I don't want to think about it... luckily, the most important pieces (ones that had been purchased) were salvageable! One humidifier, and several acetone-soaked Q-tips later, those pieces were ready for re-lacquering and shipment. They'll be heading out tomorrow. Other pieces have to be remade, but that's alright. I'm debating what to do with the damaged pieces... I'd hate to throw them out, but they're beyond repair. Maybe I'll try to melt over them? We'll see. For now they'll sit in the corner of my studio, reminding me to make sure humidity is below 35%.

On a brighter note! I've started applying to be in local art shows that will be coming up in the Fall!! I hope to hear back soon with good news. (Cross your fingers for me!) I can't wait to start on fun fall-themed pieces. Autumn leaves and Halloween have my head swimming with ideas and experiments that I can't wait to try! I hope every one's doing well and you're all enjoying this final month of Summer (can you believe it's August already??), and if you have any ideas of what you'd like to see me try with my Fall crayon art, let me know!

Smiles to The Painted Laugh!

A few days ago I was contacted by someone in San Diego regarding my art. I won't divulge the details (it'll be a surprise!) but I am so excited about her work! Sonja is an extremely talented artist whose work has been featured in OK magazine, San Diego Home and Garden, and The Luxury Spot Magazine - just to name a few! I've been exploring the website (which you can also do right here!) and am absolutely in love with what Sonja does. I can't wait to see her artwork live when it's featured at the Grand Rapids' Art Walk! Her work will be located in the b.o.b.!

What does every parent love more than anything in the world? Their child! And nothing is more precious than a child's laughter. It's hilarious, adorable, infectious, and pure joy. The concept behind this art is to take that beautiful laugh, and turn it into beautiful art. I love the way she translates the sound waves into brush patterns and the use of color!

As soon as I have a little one, this is definitely something I'll be looking to do! Hopefully Sonja's still doing this when that time comes (a few years out still). Here's one of my favorite pieces, but you can see more of her work at thepaintedlaugh.com and request a Push Button Recorder by clicking the button below to start progress on your custom piece!

Rain, Rainbows & Melts

It has only been a few days since I launched my Etsy site, and the feedback has been overwhelming! Already, I've been featured in a few treasuries, been favorited, made contacts, and had a major confidence boost (extra perk). Take a look at the lovely Etsians who have shown my artwork a little love, and peruse the treasuries they've created. I want to say thanks to each of you and I wish you the best!

Mommy's Craft Box created this bright and beautiful Color My Summer Treasury











Curious Little Bird pulled together a lovely Rainy Saturday Treasury

I just love this collection of melty goodness I'll Stop the World and Melt With You Treasury organized by Rachel








And the lovely Tracy (Luv Laugh Sparkle) featured one of my pieces in her fresh and fun blog!

It's up! It's up!

The long wait is over! My Etsy site has officially launched, and within a few moments of posting, I already have become a favorite by a few members!! I'm so excited about this site as it's a huge step in my creative goals. So go ahead and check out what I have listed. As a reader of my blog, you can get 15% off any order - including custom pieces! Enter coupon code C2OBLOG. Also, if you're within a 30 mile radius of Lansing, MI, I will deliver the piece myself for FREE! Just enter LOCAL30 as your coupon code. Here are a few highlights of what I listed, enjoy!

JK Create's Etsy Site

 

East Lansing Art Festival

This past weekend was the dawn of a new era! Well, maybe not so dramatic as that... but still exciting! I had on display several pieces of melted crayon art at Blue Midnight in East Lansing for the art festival. I had always wanted to sell my art, but just never really had the nerve to put it out there before now. When opportunity knocks, you better answer that door! So when Rufus mentioned that Bossa Koba was going to display some art and I was welcome to join in, I jumped at the chance. Blue Midnight allowed us to put up our art for all of the festival goers to check out, and one of my pieces sold!!! 

The 16x20 "Reds" sold today!! It's the one on the left =)

Now, I'm so ready to put this artwork up on Etsy to see if any more of them will go. Since the piece I sold allowed me to break even on supplies, at the very least I'll have several pieces to decorate my office and Blue Midnight's walls for awhile.

Art in the windows! (Ignore my reflection)

I am SO happy that this weekend was as beautiful as it was. I was working all day yesterday, so i didn't really have the chance to enjoy the weather. Today however was a totally different story! Our dock is in now at the house, and therefore it is officially no longer winter! I can take rain storms, I can deal with windy days, but just keep the temperature above 50 and preferable always 80° and sunny! Once I get the money (and ambition) saved up I am definitely moving to a warmer climate. My boyfriend and I have had our minds set on Nashville for awhile now, and I'd love to make that dream a reality ASAP. Some things have to fall into place first though. For now, I'll just keep enjoying Michigan's warmer seasons and hope we don't have too many appearances of chilliness throughout the next few months.

Colby fishing while I soaked up some rays...

Since I had the chance to "relax" most of the afternoon, I finally checked off most of my cleaning list tonight. The past few... well... months have been CHAOS in this apartment.

One dog + one boy + working girl = MESS. 

My boyfriend is pretty great at cleaning once he puts his mind to it, but that doesn't happen as much as we'd like. I'm not going to pretend I'm a clean person (my friends can attest to that), but the mess was pretty ridiculous even for me. All I have left to do now is clean one rug, mop the floor, do two loads of laundry, and vacuum the furniture! Here's my favorite thing of the day: The Swiffer Duster. Love love love. Being in a basement apartment, there's A LOT of dust. It's nice to know I'm not just displacing the dust, but actually capturing and putting it in the trash. Sorry for the product plug, but I seriously love this thing!

After a very eventful day of the art festival and busting my booty doing chores, I am ready to wrap up this list and kick back with a glass of wine. My biggest decision: red or white...

Breathe in, breathe out, repeat as needed...

It's one of those weeks where I keep telling myself "just make it through the weekend..." That's pretty much been my life since January. I'm SO exhausted, but also excited. It's at this time I turn to age-old words of wisdom. "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Right, I'll keep that in mind. And then there's, "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Sure... Well let's focus on this one: "This too shall pass." Phew, okay. Just get through this week... =)

The chaos that is crayon art. The mess extends beyond the
boundaries of this photo.

One of the things that's bogging my mind is this weekend when I'll have art displayed for the East Lansing Art Festival! It will be located within Blue Midnight (the hookah club across from the Mariott) on Saturday and Sunday. My "krayon art" (I'm debating spelling it with a k... I know it's a little tacky) will be displayed along with artists from Bossa Koba. I've never been part of an art show before, and am SUPER excited! I've been lining up, attaching, and melting crayons for the past few days and still have many more pieces to finish up tonight so they'll be ready to set up Saturday morning! And, after the weekend, whatever doesn't sell at the art festival will be put up on my Etsy site. So keep an eye out for the new site, it'll be here soon! 

Etsy Ladies

This is a blog dedicated to all those wonderfully talented and fabulous sellers on Etsy! I want to feature a few of my friends who have shops on there. It's so difficult to make yourself stand out on a site with thousands upon thousands of sellers, and these women are so gifted at what they do. So show a little love and check out what they have! Their sites are full of great gifts for anyone - including yourself!

JengaJam is owned by one of my friends who is not only awesome at crocheting/knitting, her paintings are beautiful as well! Unfortunately, those aren't up on her site since it's dedicated to knits. But you have to see all the crocheted/knit products she had! I just adore the baby hats and flower headbands she does. Look at how adorable they are!!

Fashion Lovers Dream is the site of one of my newest acquaintances. I met her out in CO last week and am blown away at how talented she is! She makes beautiful jewelry that I pretty much drool over. Don't worry, I didn't get any on her pieces! Not only is her stuff suited for any occasion, but her prices are extremely reasonable. Not like others who seem to slightly gouge their customers. I'm in love with these earrings and am purchasing them...now. Yessss... sorry to disappoint those who wanted them, but she has lots of other great stuff in her shop as well!

I'm moving toward setting up a small Etsy shop for stationary I'm designing. Right now it's all in the early processing stages, but I'll let you know when it's up and running! Yay!

For all of you Etsians who have shops - PLEASE - tell me what they are!! There's nothing better than helping out friends and knowing that someone you care for made something you own. I love that feeling. So share your site and I'd love to feature you as well!

Flower Power! I mean, pens! =)

A few years back, one of my close friends made me a bouquet of these flower pens and I LOVED them. Not only did they provide year-long color, they were incredibly fun to write with! Since then, I've seen flower pens at coffee shops, the pet store, and registers where any flower-loving person works. They're great! So to continue my "one project a week" as well as my "Pay It Forward" vow, I made a small set to pair with the notecards I made last week. For all of you looking for a quick, simple, and cute gift (even if it's for yourself), I'm including some step-by-step instructions.

Step 1: Choose your flowers! 
Obviously, you'll want to go with a fake flower, and it's best if the shape extends outward and drapes down slightly. Think daisy or lily. However, any flower will do. It's nice if you can find a bouquet already made, or, the "twist tie" versions that I found a Michael's. These were perfect because I didn't have to trim the stem to fit on the pen.

Step 2: Choose your pens and gather supplies. 
The pens don't have to be fancy, just grab a box of 20 for $3. As long as they write well, they're good. And it's nice to have a round barrel. The other supplies you'll need are floral tape (best if it's the sticky kind) and hot glue (yesssss).

Step 3: Attach flower to the pen.
Use your hot glue to affix the flower to the blunt end of the pen, utilizing the stem.

Step 4: Wrap the pen in floral tape. 
I highly recommend the sticky floral tape, however, Michael's was out of it when I stopped by, so I improvised. To work with non-sticky floral tape, I put a dab of hot glue at the tip of the pen (writing side), bonded the tape to it, and wrapped the pen up to the flower where I secured it with another dab of hot glue.

And you're done! Yay! So simple, right? To really embrace the pen bouquet idea, display them in a vase, or a flower pot filled with pebbles. Or, you can just have them hanging out on their own. =) They make excellent gifts or party favors, and the possibilities are endless! You can play with using ribbon instead of floral tape, combining multiple flowers on one pen, decorating a pot or vase to put them in, etc. I just love it! Or, if you're not so keen on crafting but you really dig these pens (ha, dig, get it?), there are professional flower pen crafters who sell them online. Here are just a few of the many shop sites:

Tanya's Bead 'n Craft
Favors by Serendipity
FlowerPens.com

Just to give you an idea of the many possibilities, here are some shots of other people's projects:

So much fun! I can't wait to experiment more with these. I have entire Saturday to do whatever I want, and I'm pretty sure crafting is on the schedule. The fact that it's 9° outside and snowing doesn't really make me want to leave the house. Although the movie theatre is pretty tempting... I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and for those in the cold-weather areas, stay warm!

Headboard

It's time for my second installment in functional art. I suppose this one may not be as blatantly "art," but then again, art is what you make it! One of the simplest projects to beautify a bedroom is to create a new headboard. You can make anything into a headboard. Canvases, a door, books, etc... The opportunities are endless. However, one of the simplest versions only requires a few materials and a staple gun.

The first step is to find out how large you want your board to be and cut it to size, or have the gentlemen at Home Depot do that part for you. Next, add a layer of batting to the entire surface of the board and cover in your fabric of choice. Secure the fabric on the back side of the board using your staple gun. Make sure the fabric is pulled taught. Then, using your staple gun again, staple on the front side where you want your dimples to be. (I'm sure these "dimples" have an official name, but I don't know what it is.) Once the staples are in place, hide all but two with buttons. These two will be used to hang the board on the wall, which is the next step. Once secured, cover the final staples with buttons and your headboard is complete! Sorry I don't have step-by-step instructions for this project, but here's the final product:




I LoVE this headboard, and the project took me all of 90 minutes, if that! The hardest part was getting the giant board home in my Corolla. Make sure you have a large enough vehicle to transport your board... otherwise it can be quite a challenge.

Here are a few more headboards that I think are really great. I especially love the lighted one! I'll probably attempt it one day, at least as some artwork if not a headboard. Though the glow would be awesome!













Like I said, you can make a headboard out of anything. Pretty sure I'll need fifteen bedrooms one day to house all the headboard ideas I have! Or I can just alternate =)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Because it's awesome.

Hot Glue Art?

Ok. Turns out hot glue is much harder to work with than I thought. I've used it before, but never without a base of some kind for it to latch on to! I figured I'd need a frame, so I found a broken one that I didn't mind experimenting with and took out the glass. It was really a whole debacle of trials and errors that resulted in a piece that I'm not very excited about. But practice makes, well, at least somewhat better!

Initially I just draped strings of hot glue to the sides, kind of like a spider web construction without the main strands that actually offer the support, ha.





Didn't work so well. It was a good first attempt in that it taught me that hot glue re-melts the cooled glue strands (duh, right?) and the glue strands have an elasticity of about 2 inches that will hang without the weight dragging down the whole strand.

This was the final result.


It's actually not that bad, and really looks a lot better when you're face to face with it. The hot glue is extremely delicate and reflects the light beautifully so that it sparkles. I'm not very happy with my first hot glue project result, but I am interested in trying it out again and hopefully improving the results! At the very least, I have a cool Halloween decoration.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Because it's awesome.


I think I need to get a better camera... Oh well, work with what you have and work for better, I guess. =)

Crayon Art

I have successfully kept my resolution for one week! Yay! Only 51 more to go...
For this week's project, I decided to do another melted crayon artwork. My boyfriend and I created one of these artworks awhile ago and it's currently displayed in our apartment, and I used a segment of it for the banner on this blog!

This project is SUPER easy to do and I'll outline the steps on here for anyone who'd like to try it for themselves.

Gather you supplies:
Hair dryer
Crayons
Board or firm canvas
Hot glue or superglue




The first step is to arrange the crayons in the order you'd like. I really love the way a rainbow type organization blends the colors. You csnt realy go wrong with it, but my friends tried this out and did some cool arrangements too (as pictured at the end of the blog).


Once you've decided what order you'd like the crayons in, glue them in place. It's best to glue down 2 or 3 crayons at a time so you can adjust the alignment if needed and the glue doesn't dry before you get the crayons on.


Now, you're free to heat p the crayons with the blow dryer! This can get messy, so lay down a tarp and wear clothes you don't mind getting crayon on. It takes a minute for the crayons to melt. I like to work in sections until the color flows are the way I like them.



It's so amazing watching the colors pour out of the crayon wrappers and blending together.


Since I promised to create six homemade items for six different people, I figured this would be an awesome creation to gift! I still need to spray a protective layer on it and probably frame it, but I love how this turned out!


Here are some other crayon artworks that my friends (more like family really) created after Justin and I told them how we created our piece. I think they did a great job! They actually removed the wrappers from the crayons, and the radial design is one I think I'll attempt next!





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Because it's awesome.