Creative Dawn

Yeah!  I am finally home!  It was a good buy busy few days and now I can relax a bit.  An ice cold frosty beer sounds so good right now.  But first, the blog.  It has been a while since there has been a frame post so here is another idea.  In my recent trip to the dollar store I found this frame for you guessed it, a dollar, but when it came time to checkout, it rang up .25, what a deal.  Now, the story on the beans, originally they were purchased for a bingo game for my class reunion.  The bingo was too much work but I still had the leftover pinto beans.  Solution, the beans have a nice pattern and they matched the frame so they got hot glued on it for a very unique look.  This is a smaller frame and the picture areas are very little so it may end up just as is but when you have such an interesting frame who needs pictures.

A few weeks ago at work we marked down some pictures.  They ended up being forty cents each, what a deal!  There were five and I bought all of them.  The frames are really pretty so they are going to stay as is, they will just get new artwork.  Here is the first piece. The design here is something that I've been thinking about for a week or so and finally put pen to paper and drew it out.  It is like a floral design but also reminds me of something from my childhood, a Spirograph.  I would sit for hours and make different 'doodles' with my Spirograph it was so fun!  Maybe that is were my preference for geometric designs started.  After the circular drawing was finished it needed something so it was cut out and put on a bright pink background.  It seems like a basic design but it is complex too.

Can you believe that over 300 posts have been made on Creative Dawn?  I just realized this today!  This has been a fun and challenging goal to complete and I have learned a lot about myself and found a few new creative outlets as well.  Today's post was kind of an accident.  This cute black top is a favorite of mine but the trim was always falling off.  The solution was to just remove them all and put them in my button/trim container.  After I snipped them all off I got the idea to add them to this green silk frame.  In the frame is a great picture of my Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day.  After the new trim was sewn to the frame it gave it a bit more personality.  The frame is a purchase from a few years ago, it was in a clearance bin.

  Another frame!  This one I didn't change because it was cool to begin with.  The person who originally had this added cabinet handles to the sides to make a nifty little serving tray.  What a great idea, why didn't I think of that?  Since the frame was ready to go, I just removed the picture and replaced it with my own.  This drawing came together quickly, the hardest part was deciding which words to use.   They are hope, imagine, create, dream and give.   It would be great as a tray but it also works as a wall hanging or I could just hang it on the wall until it was needed for serving.  Oh, by the way this is another Goodwill find, this was 1.99 and it is an 8 X 10 frame. 

A quick post because I am currently working on about three or four different things at the same time.  This is common when I paint because of the drying time.  If there are more than one project that is in progress, then waiting for the paint to dry isn't as big of a deal.  This was a bargain frame that just needed a bit more fun added to it.  A coat of black paint was the first order of business and then the idea of adding polka dots just seemed to fit.  This is something that anyone can do and is a quick update to an old frame.  The silhouette picture was a last minute idea.  I wasn't sure what to do with the frame, but the picture was the perfect addition.

My little idea for the day is another frame, but I glued toothpick to it for this project. From a distance it kind of looks like wicker. For a project like this, hot glue doesn't work it was plain old tacky glue so it did take longer to finish and set. I am still trying to decide whether or not to paint it. I guess it just depends on what picture goes in the frame.  I need to really find my muse again soon!  This job is draining my inspiration.  To overcome a bit of this, I am posting about my husband's Uncle John.  John was one of those incredible souls, he was a free spirit and enjoyed life so much.  He is the one who got my husband interested in Jimmy Buffett and was a very important person to my husband.  An avid outdoors man, he was always on the hunt for the perfect walking stick.  Here are three of them that we now have.  He had an eye for finding perfect branches for his creative outlet.  We lost him a few years ago at much too ...

Another frame!  Yeah!  This one was going to be used for another purpose, but when I tried to take the back off, I broke the glass.  It could have been easily replaced, but instead I decided to embellish it and use the frame itself as the art piece.  I have a few containers with bits of this and that so I just started gluing things on.  There are buttons, screws, puzzles pieces, beads and other stuff just randomly attached to the frame.  It was kind of fun to just keep adding.  The idea came from a Nate Berkus Show when they cleaned out a junk drawer and made art out of it.  On the show they painted the entire thing in one color, but this frame looks cool with all of the colors in it.  It has personality.  This would be a fun project to get the kids involved in too.  They could use bits of broken toys, crayons, game tokens, the possibilities are endless.  Hope this gives you a bit of inspiration today!

Here is yet another idea that came about when I was trying to fall asleep.  It was originally different in my head.  The design was a single rectangle that was divided into six smaller designs.  The frame is what dictated the layout.  Once the drawing was finished, I stood back and looked at it.  To me it had the feel of Frank Lloyd Wright a great architectural designer and someone that was way ahead of his time.  If any of you are not familiar with his work I highly recommend that you check it out.  I have a book of some of his stained glass designs and they are spectacular.  At one time when I was visiting a friend in Oak Park Illinois I got the privilege of touring one of the homes that he designed.  As a creative person this was a high point in my life.  He has beautiful clean lines but it also has a lot of intricacy in it.  I cannot stress enough that this is something that you should google or go to the library and check o...

It took a while to collect enough can tabs for this frame, but it was worth the wait!  This is an idea that I cannot take credit for.  One of my college friends posted a picture of a vase that she made out of the tabs and I thought that a frame would look good too.  The frame is just basic and was 1.49 at the Goodwill.  Grey seemed like the best color to paint it to go with the can tabs.  After that, I just started hot gluing them on in rows.  The frame still needs a picture, but for right now it looks good without anything in it.  There still are some tabs left so I am going to keep collecting them and see what idea may 'POP' into my head.  Sorry, couldn't resist!  There are so many possibilities for items that you can recycle.  It is really fun to create something out of what others may throw away.  My great aunt Marcie was a creative whiz, she made the most unique things.  I still remember as a kid going to her h...

Hello all!  Today as I was checking my blog stats I got to thinking about how cool it is that I can sit in my home in Minnesota, create my art, talk about it online and people that I have never met see it.  On the other side of the world a total stranger can learn about me.  I know the Internet is nothing new and neither is blogging but when you stop to think about it, it is amazing! Yes, I have another frame today.  The idea came from a book at the library.  It was dollar store crafts or something like that.  The projects were all budget friendly and very creative.  This was a basic frame in black and I just hot glued silk leaves to it.  The effect is interesting and to add to it I made a drawing with leaf like shapes.

Some days I get up and have no idea what the blog will be about, that was today.  I went to work, came home, made dinner, checked my email and then thought about what to do.  While I was watching a movie with my husband I was looking through catalogs and trying to get some kind of inspiration.  It wasn't happening.  Finally I grabbed some paper and was going to start doodling when I came across this letterhead with a fish motif.  That was my inspiration!  After drawing a few fish it came to me, what if I drew the fish and then cut out the shape.  After it was finished, I surprised myself.  It is something that a year ago would have never came to me, but since starting this blog, some great ideas have poured out of me.  I got the frame from the Goodwill and painted it.  The saying that was in the frame originally was great so it was set aside for a future project. 

I love frames because there are so many possibilities.  Whether it's for photos or artwork or just for a display there are endless uses for them.  This is a collage frame from the Goodwill.  It was beat up a bit, so I added a new coat of paint in a bright color.  My inspiration for the pictures came from something is saw hanging in an office building.  Those designs were in black and white and were made from circle and rectangle shapes.  My designs as you can see from past work are more free flowing shapes and blobs.  I used scrapbook paper and cut the black one to fit the frame.  I traced the frame opening shapes and started doodling to come up with a look that I liked.  The final drawings were used as templates to trace onto the white paper.  Using a scissor with a fine point, I cut out the designs and mounted them on the black paper, framed it up and there you have it.  It is something that just about anyone can do and with the p...

I have a quick small project right now because I am also working on two larger designs.  The frame used for this was only a few dollars from a thrift store.  It had a tulip pattern that I didn't really like, so with a bit of paint I was able to cover it up.  I cannot find the original picture for the frame, but it had tulips carved into it and was green.  If you look close you can see bits of the tulips that are now somewhat covered up.  For the picture I just drew a cute little owl.  This is going along with my recent interest in 70's design.  Owls were a huge influence in everything from jewelry to fabric to pottery back then.  This design could transfer easily into other things.  Possibly some kind of felt project or even a cute set of note cards.  Time will tell, you never know how inspiration will hit you.

Quite a few posts ago, I painted a square frame and decided that it was fine the way it was with no picture.  As I started working with felt the other day, an idea occurred to me, I could make a small felt piece to fit the frame.  I cut out some small triangles and assembled them to look like an orange.  The frame had that as a design element and it was a fun quick little project. 

Just because something is made for a specific purpose doesn't mean that it has to be used that way.  Michael's has wooden frames in various sizes for a dollar each.  There is plenty of room for embellishment or painting, whatever you want.  I picked up a couple of these frames the other day just to see what I could do with them.  I finished one today.  The original idea changed as I painted it.  It was going to be more simple, but I just kept adding more.  There will be no photo in this frame, it will be displayed as is on a side table.

I have been working on this picture on and off for about a week or so, but after last nights post, I decided to finish it.  Collage style frames are fun to work with and are not only for photographs.  I did various mugs in different designs and sizes for this frame.  The only thing that may change is the color.  Black would bring out the drawings a bit better I think, so that might be a quick future project.  

This is a frame that I bought at the Goodwill for a few dollars.  It was never used and is very sturdy and made for a 4 x 6 picture.  Brand new, someone probably paid ten to fifteen dollars for it.  I got it a while ago and it has been sitting in my stack of projects waiting for an idea.  Finally something came to me.  With the arch of the frame, I thought a butterfly would look nice and then added the saying to the bottom.  It was a really quick project and now I can check another gift off of my Christmas list.  Present like this are always great, they are never the wrong size and everyone can use a little inspiration in their lives.