art

Wood Tray with Folding Legs

/ Sarah Collins / 2 Comments

Have you ever gone into a store and saw something and thought, “I could finish that item! If I did, my sister would love it”? That is exactly what happened to me earlier this year when I was strolling through Hobby Lobby.

Wood Tray with Folding Left finished by Sarah

The first step was to purchase the Wood Tray. If took me several trips to Hobby Lobby before I decided that I would work on this project. Next, I sanded all sides of the tray including the legs. Originally, I was going to stain the tray a traditional color. As I was looking through my collection of stain, I found Worn Navy by Rust-oleum. Perfect! My sister likes greens, blues, and teals. I painted the bottom of the tray with primer and stained the rest of the wood with Worn Navy. After it was dry, I placed a light coat of varnish over the stained area.

My original idea was to create a mosaic on the bottom of the tray with just leaves. I already had some leaves cut and baked which I made from Sculpey Clay, but I decided to add some flowers too. I used Sculpey Polymer Clay to make the flower petals and additional leaves. After everything was prepared and laid out, and even though it had a nice gradient, I decided it was too plain. I drew a tangle on every leaf, petal, and circle using acrylic paint pens. Each petal and leaf were glued to the bottom. Mint Puff Paint was used as the grout. I sprinkled three colors of glitter over the grout before it dried.

I seal all my work with polyacrylic before applying the resin. Sealing the piece helps to reduce the number of bubbles in the resins. My flavor resin to use is made by Art Resin. Their resin calculator is very useful.

I could of stop there and it would have been beautiful, but no I had to paint flowers on the outside edge and vines and leaves on the legs. I used acrylic paint pens. I like color, so the flowers were painted different colors.

After the painting was completed, I put a few more coats of polyurethane on the tray (sanding between each coat). You would think I was done. No! I was concerned that if it was stored, the legs would open at an inopportune time, hitting someone and causing an ouchy. Another trip to Hobby Lobby and I purchase belt buckles and ribbon and put my limited sewing techniques to work and made two straps. Again, they were a bit plain, so I used Puff Paint to paint flowers on the straps.

Christmas Tree with Flowers

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

Merry Christmas! To celebrate I created a Christmas Tree with Flowers that is available for coloring. You may download the coloring page from this link Coloring Pages.

After the coloring page was completed. I decided it would be fun to recreate the tree in Tinkercad as a 3d Design. You may view, copy, change the 3D Design by using this link Christmas Tree with Flowers. If you have any question, please leave them in the comments.

Made with Tinkercad
Up close view of Christmas Tree with Flowers

Museum of World Treasures

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The Museum of World Treasure is located in Wichita, Kansas. It contain artifacts from ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt. Their military exhibits dates from the Civil War to the fall of the Berlin Wall. As you enter the museum, T-Rex Ivan welcomes you.

Head up the stairs you are greeted by a suit of armour.

One of my goals when I visit a museum is to capture patterns, and ancient pottery works contains the most interesting designs. Along with rock formations.

The military exhibit contained the normal items you see at most exhibits, but it did have original letters written from that period of time. By today’s standards, these handwriting is a work of art. So, I wonder if the kids today did not know what the U.S. Constitution says, because the can no longer read it.

In a corner, where most people would miss seeing the display, are two tapestries. These were the most beautiful items on display at the museum.

Flower in Boxes Coloring Page

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Its finally here! 18 months later and I have added a new drawing to my Coloring Page . It is available for anyone to download and color. It was so much fun to create and color this drawing. I think I will need to create more drawings. I already have an idea for the next one. This drawing was created and colored using Corel Draw.

Here are a few examples how I colored the drawing. Be creative, color them to you desires. Mostly, have fun.

Wichita Art Museum

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The Wichita Art Museum exhibits work honoring women artists, pre-Columbian artifacts, glass works, and other sculptures and paintings. I found Kay Sekimachi’s Leaf Bowl a fascinating work of art.

The artist of the glass painting did a remarkable job capturing the light reflections.

The museum had some beautiful glass works.

One of the most interesting items in the museum was the history of the Corning Glass Works. Most of us have use Corning dishes. They made the first light bulb for Thomas Edison.

The blown glass exhibit featuring Richard Marquis was entertaining. His glass work was unique, humorous and creative.

Finally, the sculpture titled “Bed” by Lloyd Glasson was amazing.

Plain on the Outside

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I purchased this box unfinished from Hobby Lobby. I had no idea how I would use it, but it serve for several years as a stand for my other projects while they dried. It about 24″ long and 5″ wide, so it was great for sitting items on allowing air to flow underneath.

My goal this year is to complete my unfinished projects. While I was staining my desk, this too got stained. Instead of painting the box, I decided to create a mosaic from polymer clay on the inside of the box. I left the outside of the box plain with a high gloss polyurethane coating.

4″ Wood Squares

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I purchased some wood squares from Michael’s. I was going to create fluid art on them and make coasters. I have multiple sets of fluid art coasters so I decided to sand and stain the squares while I was staining my desk. I used acrylic paint markers for the designs and sealed the squares with gloss polycrylic.

I am not sure what to do with these. I may still make coasters out of them. Coaster work better if they are sealed with resin. Which is still possible, because resin work better when the surface is sealed.

Flower Box

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Over the summer, I decided to stain and paint some of the wood items that was in my to do pile. I purchased the box from Walmart. It was stained with Minwax Red Mahoney. I sprayed the entire box with Minwax Polyurethane because if I made a mistake on painting the box, the paint would not soaked into the wood and I could wipe the paint off before it dried. I painted the box using chalk paint.

I did not paint the inside of the box. It was stained and sealed using polyurethane.

Tangles of Tangles

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This drawing was done on 16″x20″ watercolor art board using Faber Castell watercolor pens and Pigma Mircon Pens. I tested several other pens and these did the best on this drawing. Several of the tangles I learned from Zentangles and tangles site. A few I created myself.