c h a o s[ ]#001 / 2012 / online / free

m a g a z i n e

a n g e l

t r e e f r o g

s c a r y f a i r i e s

t r e e t r e a t b a g s

t a b l e t o p d e c o r a t i o n s

I n s p i r a t i o n f r o m b a r c e l o n a

a c u r e f o r y o u r b l a n k c a n v a s

C h r i s t m a s T r e ed e c o r a t i o n st o b r i g h t e ny o u r r o o m

Including:

Shopping guides

Illustrations

Step-by-step instructions

and everything you see is

both free and printable

www.adonnathing.com

Absolutely crammed full of fun and easy tutorials.

Welcome to adonnathingThis ezine is all about me doing things and trying toconvince you that you can DO IT.

For this edition I am focused on Christmas, and end of year reflections. Next time I will have an ezine chock full of future dreams, visions and plans.

if you wish to share your art through this ezine you are welcome to submit your article. Your work will be published according to my creative commons licence (check it out on my website).

If you wish to place an advert I will consider publishing it if it is relevant to my audience.

Donna, EditorEmail: chaos@adonnathing.comcopyright

adonnathing

ALL CONTENT represents the work of Donna Louise Rodgers.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

You may use any of my work, but you must give credit. You may not reproduce, alter or reuse my work for commercial gain.

Designer: Luke RodgersPhotography: Donna Louise Rodgers, Luke Rodgers

Thanks to: My Boy

www.adonnathing.comEverything in orange is a hyperlink.That means you can just click it.

Contents

Christmas Tree Angel

Christmas Tree Bags

Table Lights and Snowflakes

Scary Fairies

A Year of Art

A cure for the blank canvas

Barcelona

Christmas Tree Frog

The End

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Christmas Tree AngelTraditionally, a Star or Angel was placed atop a tree to represent the host of angels or the Star of Bethlehem from the Nativity.

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Your Angel can represent whatever you wish because I’m going to teach you how to create something that’s unique and easy to make applying your very own style.

This project demonstrates how to create an angel with delicate wings that will glow above the christmas tree lights. You can customise the hair, decorate the dress or even add a tinsel tiara!

I urge you to have fun with this project, and try not to follow the guidelines too closely :-)

Takes 2 hrs, tops!

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mustmake

No gingerbread men?Add ginger hair then.

gloriousday & night

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£6

Jute Hessian SackingMinerva Crafts

£2

3 Pack Baby SocksGeorge

£1Irma CushionIKEA

£1.99Plain OrganzaAbakhan

Christmas Tree AngelMake the topping of your tree the talking point of your Christmas.This angel is made from a sock, a scrap of fabric and a huge portion of love.

£150 pack Cotton ThreadAmazon

50pBroderie AnglaisAbakhan

Let’s go shopping on a shoestring and then spend an hour creating this little beauty.

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Sew a ring of stitches where you want the neck and pull the thread tight to form the head.

Fold the sock to form a waist, creating a seated position, and stitch in place

Cut a 12cm circle from a piece of upholstery weight fabric using a standard CD as a template

Cut a 2cm circle from the centre of your fabric

Rip open your IKEA cushion and take out the stuffing.Grab your sock and stuff it.

Crack on!

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Pull the circle over the head of the angelFold over the upper edge of each side of the fabric to form her armsStitch down from her neck to the edge of the skirt with embroidery floss

Embellish in your own wayPerch her on top of your christmas tree

Sew her face and hair from embroidery flossStitch lace edge under her skirtSew on her wings using organza

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share your unique angelchaos@adonnathing.com

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milo is for lifenot just christmas

C H R I S T M A S T R E E B A G SStuff them with goodies, tie to your tree and watch their faces light up when they find your tiny treats

Time spent:Making Enjoying

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Stash your sweet treats. Don’t your Christmas treats deserve to be as well dressed as you are?

Pick up all those lovely Jack Wills Handbooks from the coffee table and bring them with you to the craft room.

The best bit is,It will only take you 30 seconds to make!

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To make the base, cut out a circle from your card stock.

Die cut leaves or stamp leaf images and cut around the edges.

Arrange the leaves around your base.

When you are happy with the layout glue the leaves in place onto the base.

Let the leaves ‘fall over’ the edges and layer them up until you have the effect you want.

Position your tea light

To construct the three types of flowers

1. Roll the ‘Spellbinders Spiral Blossom One’ and secure to base

2. Stamp and cut out a flower that has petals

Use a complete flower as a base, then cut petals from the flower so you can create the three dimensional floret

3. Die cut a two part flower

Attach the two parts to each other

Arrange on your base and when happy, secure to the assemblage

Cut a spiral and glue it under the baseAllow the ‘spring’ to bounce over your decoration

Die cut the star flakes to support the spiral. I use a stapler to fix the stars in position, you just need to fiddle until you are happy, keeping it loose and bouncy.

That’s it – one gorgeous table decoration.

Table DecorationsDust off the die-cutting machine, it’s time to put those die-cuts to good use.Assemble a show-stopping decoration for your Christmas dinner table.

You will need:Either a leaf die-cut or leaf stampSmall and large snow flake die cuts or punchesCard stockTea-light

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Scary Fairies

Grab a cookbook, magazine or newspaper, and find a lively looking lady. Scan and print onto card. Machine stitch the figure to fabric. Add doodles and a thread to hang her up.

Don’t forget to sew on fabric wings!

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JanuaryBreathe new life into old images

Original art is a time consuming activity. For as many pieces of art work that I love, I throw ten times more away. So it is important to me that pleasing work is reused and reworked. My red ‘no fear’ face was something I created during a Suzi Blu course. It is, perhaps, one of my best known works. In January I printed the face onto printer paper, covered the image with matte medium, then applied it ink and gel side down onto a background card that had been created earlier. I really do think the ghostly effect of gel transfers give a collage work depth. The viewer is forced to engage with the image seeing many different interpretations of the shapes and colours.To create an interesting background for your gel transfer images:take a piece of sturdy card, apply a thin

(add some water to the paint) layer of acrylic in one colour.

LET IT DRY – go to bed for goodness sake -apply random pieces of masking tape over your first layer of paintpaint a second layer over the first in a complimentary colour LET IT DRY – properly, fully, really let it drythen remove the taperepeat as many times as you have patience for...

THEN – apply the tape and paint over it and leave the tape in place (fabulous texture) , if your paint ‘beads’ on the tape, apply gesso to the tape first, when dry, paint.

FebruaryI was reminded how much I am loved

I am blessed to have a family that know me well enough to keep me happy just by showering me with beautiful things. I really am that shallow.

I have spent many happy years with my Man. On Valentines day he chose to say ‘I love You’ by coming home with a bunch of velvet red roses with bling on!

So how do you ‘make’ people love you? Ha ha - There is no answer, but of course we ‘know’ when things are as they should be and we feel good about ourselves and others. If you are feeling unloved, start with yourself. Go look in a mirror and have a chat with yourself and see if you would fall in love with the person staring back at you...

MarchSee I practice what I preach

The image I was gogint ouse here is part of an ongoing piece of art about Me. If ever you are ‘stuck’ for inspiration take out a camera and capture yourself. Think about what pose you make. What clothes you wear. How you choose to wear your hair. Describe yourself to yourself, and then think about what you did not say. Write yourself a letter, post it. Wait for it to come back to you.

You will surprise yourself.Editors note:There is no image because my son used his ‘sub editorial‘ rights to remove images that were just too gross....

Retrospective: New Year (2012) resolutionI set out into 2012 with one main aim: To paint more often and to extend my artistic skills

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AprilI really went large with portraiture

Go big, I really mean it. Get a huge piece of paper (or a wall) and paint. It is liberating and forces you to take time and apply many layers. You and your work will literally grow. Mistakes are less visible and more easily corrected. Large work looks much more at home on your walls, tiny pieces get ‘lost’. Think of your paper as a world to be explored, an adventure to be embraced. Don’t let the vastness intimidate you, and choose a coloured paper that will be your mid tone so that you have less work to do making the composition balanced. Right now take out four of your most recent pieces of art/craft. Measure the size of them. Do you have a range of sizes? Hmmm. Are you self limiting? Or are you allowing yourself freedom and space to grow?

MayI created a journal for a Collaborative Art project

I have an artist partner who also made a journal and we swap and work in each others books. We have no rules. I cannot tell you how much your work will improve if you loosen up and ditch the rule book. Better than the art work inthe journal is the friendship that has blossomed between the two of us, the hidden pages and messages that we share as full time working mothers that do art on the side...I am always stunned by the shared sense of humour found in a group of artists no matter how daunting the project we work on.

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JuneNiall took me to our beloved France, and handed me a gift...

A Lalique figurine in a yoga position of repose, of course I couldn’t stop looking at it. It gives me joy to look at it every day. Art wise I embarked on a love affair with watercolours. I do not know of a more wonderful subject to paint than a human- being.

July How do you say a special goodbye to a friend?

Thor(A) goddess of nursing was made as a parting gift to a work collegue turned friend who descided to leave work to have time with her family. Fashioned from air dry clay I painted Thora’s flesh and knitted her attire, hand made all her bits and bobs and varnished her so she would last more than five minutes.

August Networking is a vital ingredient to success.

After one of her altered book classes I was talking with Jennie (Artistic Stamper Owner) and she leafed though my sketches. She decided to add my designs to her stamp range.

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Remember this, the bouncing journal? Now it is stuffed full of art goodness, it is vibrant, full of b movie life, it is my kind of diary.

Collaborative art will, I promise you, open up new possibilities in terms of your preconceived ideas of how art work should be. This principle can be applied to life as well. Unless you are willing to think about seeing yourself through other peoples eyes and accepting their view, you are literally half blind.

So eyes wide open sign up, join up, be part of the collabor-art collective.

September You get out what you put in.

www.collabor-art.blogspot.com

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Do you understandthe power of negative space?

You need to if your art is going to have impact.

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Suddenly I rush head long into the year end, life becomes super hectic and family tradegy cuts short my art journey, no time for classes, just a few sntached day trips and one weekend with wonderful crafty women. I had a two hour gap in the madness and drew Mail Art Girl - now a stamp. Sometimes the Ghosts and the Angels are glimpsed within the madness and let themselves be presented in our art. No matter what else happens in life, Wednesday is my non work day,

a day that I hop the virtual desks on the web. It is the midweekday that tops up my soul and keeps me wanting to create.

Need a lift?www.thestampingground.blogspot.com

November, December.Is it Christmas yet?

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A tribute to Charles Rennie MackintoshIf you don’t know what to do the blank canvas (I know you have one) that has been hanging for years in your studio... pick your favourite artist and do a homage.

£4.29Pro Arte 1/4” Prolene Plus 008 DiscountArt

£4.95Winsor & Newton Artist Stretched CanvasDiscountArt

Here’s what I used:

£13.95

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist

Pack of 4eBay

£4.49

6” Flower Stencil/MaskeBay

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Every IssueI will ask you if you want to work on a personal art project.

This issue:

I invite you to alter a book,

email me to take up the Challenge

it will change your art forever

You will be doing allthe work, this is not a class...

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BarcelonaFeatured Artist: Luke Rodgers

If you get the chance to travel, take it. Even if you can only afford 2 days, just pack your bags and go.

My holiday to Barcelona changed not only the way I design, but the way I view the world around me.

Luke

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Christmas Tree Frogs

Use up your green and red scraps of material to create this amphibious beanie baby.

There’s a place for being conventional and there’s a time for being quirky. Even the most traditional of trees will benefit from a Christmas Tree Frog resting in the branches.

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The End. The next one’s going to be massive!

Let us know what you were expecting and I’ll be sure to add it in February’s issue.

Send me images of your creations & ask to be featured.

chaos@adonnathing.com

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