creative

DIY Popsicle Stick Coaster

Posted on by maya

hey

I thought I’d start the week off with a bit of DIY! Many people don’t know this about me but I actually drink quite a lot of tea (I don’t know why I made that sound like it was some sort of secret, intriguing fact about me. It’s really not). Especially when I’m blogging, I like to have a cup sitting on my desk beside me while I type. That being said, I very rarely have a coaster at hand and as a result have ruined many a table (OK actually I’ve only ruined one table – my own, repeatedly, and to be honest it was already pretty ugly in the first place).

Instead of going out and buying a coaster I decided to DIY one instead.  I have to say I’m really happy with the end result; it’s colourful, trendy and unique! You can either buy a pack of popsicle sticks or use this as an excuse to buy a large pack of ice lollies, which is undoubtedly the better option ;).

Make sure to like this post if you want to see more DIYs like this one and comment down below letting me know what your favorite kind of hot drink is. Are you a coffee kind of person? A hot chocolate lover? A herbal tea drinker like me? And I know you’re probably wondering why I’m going on about hot drinks in the middle of summer but just remember that I live in Ireland and I’m currently wearing a jumper in July.

Anyway, enough rambling. I hope you all have a lovely week, now let’s get into the tutorial…

What you need

coaster 2

17 popsicle sticks (this might vary depending on how big you want your coaster to be/ the size of your popsicle sticks. I used a few small popsicle sticks for the base because I ran out of big ones, but honestly it doesn’t really matter)

Paints in the colours of your choice (my popsicle sticks were already dyed, so I just used a bit of gold paint to add some decoration)

Paintbrush

Glue gun

Steps

 

1. Paint your popsicle sticks and leave them to dry.

2. Next take 10 popsicle sticks and glue them together in pairs (see photo). These will act as the base of the coaster and give it some height.

 

3. Glue the remaining 7 popsicle sticks  on top of one of the popsicle stick pairs that you glued together before.

4. Glue the rest of the popsicle stick pairs onto the  base of the coaster.

5. Leave to dry and you’re done!

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Some Sketches

Posted on by maya

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of my artwork, so I thought today I’d share a few of my most recent sketches with you guys! I drew these with my HUION Graphics Tablet using a digital painting application called Krita. I usually do these sketches in 4 steps/layers. First I draw a quick ‘skeleton’ of my sketch in a light colour, then I fill out the skeleton in the same light colour. Next I outline the whole sketch in black and finally, I colour it in.  Let me know what you guys think in the comments below and which sketch is your favourite! If you want to see more of my drawings and paintings, check out my Artwork page.

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standing sketch 1

sad

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headphones girl

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Summer Seashell Decor

Posted on by maya

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About a month ago, I got a really exciting job making a few shell art props for the BBC TV Show Redwater which was shooting in my town. After spending weeks collecting, arranging and gluing seashells onto random objects, I’m basically a self-proclaimed Shell Craft Expert at this point.  Incidentally, I just posted a Top Summer Posts Poll  last week asking you guys to vote for what posts you wanted to see this summer and DIY Room Decor seems to be the most popular topic. And so, I thought it was the perfect time to post a few tutorials for some cute and easy shell DIYs!

Note: You’ll need to use a glue gun for these DIYs, so please be careful! The glue is extremely hot and trust me when I say, you don’t want to get burnt.

  1. Beachy Shell Frame

shell framefinal

This DIY is really simple and a great way to display all your summer photos.

What you need:

  • a plain wooden frame
  • shells of your choice
  • glue gun

Steps

  1. First arrange your shells on the frame.
  2. Once you’re happy with your design, stick the shells onto the frame using the glue gun.
  3. Leave to dry and you’re done!

2. Ocean Jar
ocean jar

OK, so maybe ocean jar isn’t the best name but to be honest I was just really tired of repeating ‘seashell’ over and over again. You can use this jar as a candle holder, a place to store your pens, or even a quirky vase. Either way, it’ll add a cool, nautical vibe to your room.

What you need:

  • a jar
  • small shells of your choice
  • a glue gun
  • PVA glue
  • sand
  • paint brush

Steps

  1. Mix 1 part sand and 1 part PVA glue. Paint sand-glue mixture onto the jar and leave to dry (this part gets a bit messy so have a few paper towels handy!).
  2. Once the jar is dry, stick on the shells in a mosaic-like pattern using a glue gun.

3. Seashell Bowl

shell art 5

This DIY is probably my favourite of all the pieces I made! I used a large bowl and large shells,  which means wrapping the twine around it took ages, but the end result was definitely worth it!

What you need:

  • a bowl
  • twine
  • shells of your choice
  • a glue gun

Steps

  1. Slowly wrap the twine around the outside of your bowl, gluing it down as you do so.
  2. Glue the shells around the bowl and leave to dry.

 

4. Shell Curtain

shell art 8.jpg

I feel like this shell curtain really screams ‘summertime’. I used fishing tackle to make it because it’s transparent, strong and also fits the whole ‘ocean’ theme, but you could use string instead. In this tutorial, you’ll see that you can either drill holes in the shells and tie them on to the tackle, or just tape them on. I personally tried both methods, and found that the first option looks better and is much sturdier (though it’s a little more time consuming). Lastly, instead of tying each length of tackle onto a wooden poll and hanging that up somewhere, you could also hang individual strands around your room which will look very pretty too!

What you need:

  • fishing tackle
  • shells of your choice
  • a drill / tape
  • wooden poll/ pipe

Steps

  1. Depending on how long/wide you want your curtain to be, measure out the number of lengths of fishing tackle you’ll need.
  2. Tie each length of tackle onto the poll.
  3. Carefully drill a hole at the top of each shell (OPTIONAL).
  4. Now, on a flat surface arrange your shells in the pattern you want on your curtain.
  5. Once you’re happy with your design, string the fishing tackle through each shell making sure to tie a knot below each shell to secure it in place.

OR

tape fishing tackle onto the back of each shell.

6. Now hang your curtain up wherever you like!

. . .

That’s all for today! Let me know in the comments below which DIY was your favourite :).

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DIY Spring Makeup Bag

Posted on by maya

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a sewing tutorial and this little project is perfect for springtime! Seeing as I’m extremely lazy and my bursts of artistic motivation only last a couple of hours, I made sure this DIY could be finished in an afternoon. You’ll notice that I’ve included more photos than usual, partly because I feel that having a visual guide is a huge help in sewing tutorials, and partly because I got a little carried away with my camera. Let me know what you guys think and have a great week!signature

 

 

           What you need:

  • 11 x 8 inch piece of felt
  • 12 x 9 light fabric of your choice
  • 8 inch zipper
  • pins
  • scissors
  • sewing machine/ needle and thread

Note: These are the dimensions I used for my bag, but feel free to adjust them depending on how big/small you want your bag to be!

makeup bag 5

Method

  1. Cut fabric and felt to size. Then, place the felt on top of the inside of your fabric, like in the photo below.

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2. Fold the overlapping fabric over the edges of the felt to create neat seams. Pin them in place.

bag 1bag 2

3. Using a sewing machine, or needle and thread, stitch the seams.

bag 3

bag 4

bag 6 bag 5

4. Next, use pins to attach your zipper to the fabric like I’ve done in the photos below. You can see that my zipper was slightly too big for the fabric, but don’t worry – you can just trim that off. Once your happy with the zipper’s positioning,  sew it on.

bag 9 bag 10

bag 12

6. Fold over your fabric so that your makeup bag is inside out. Make sure that both sides are aligned and stitch them together.

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6. Flip inside-out…

bag 14

bag 16

bag 17

bag 18

 

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10 Things I HATE about Traveling

Posted on by maya

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I hope you’ve all been enjoying your weekend! I’ve actually just come back from a ten-day holiday in la belle France which was a lot of fun (comment down below if you’d like me to do a post about my stay there 🙂 ). I love visiting new places, but let’s be honest… there are some things about traveling that everyone hates. So, without further ado, here’s my list of 10 things I hate about traveling. Enjoy!

  1. Packing

Now I don’t know about you, but every single time I travel I wait until the night before my flight to pack my suitcase. And we both know that’s it’s not just a simple matter of packing my suitcase. Oh no. First I have to google the weather forecast to make sure that I’m bringing appropriate clothing, then I have to spend ages coordinating outfits because for some reason whenever I go abroad I turn into some big fashionista. After that, I have to put all my stupid little toiletries into little zip log bags and make sure I still have enough place in my  bag to bring souvenirs back with me.

  1. Security

I think it’s safe to say that I’m one of the least rebellious people in the world. I follow rules, I do my homework, I don’t even play those violent video games that my brother loves so much. So why is it that whenever I’m going through airport security I’m convinced that I’ve magically turned into a convicted criminal? Everyone else is calmly putting their electronics and shampoo on the conveyor-belt-thing and I’m over here freaking out that they’re going to find a load of explosives in my backpack.

  1. Blocked ears

There are three things that really annoy me in life; empty toothpaste tubes, mosquito bites and blocked ears. And I don’t care what people say – ‘eat chewing gum’ or ‘hold your breath’ – because as soon as that plane takes off, my ears will get blocked and I will be half deaf for the next three days.

  1. Showers

It’s my firm belief that the UN should come up with some sort of universal shower regulations because I just give up. Every time I use a new shower it takes me 5-6 working days to figure out how to turn the thing on and then another week to learn how to adjust the damn temperature.

  1. Time zones

Ah… time zones a.k.a. the reason I’m waking up at 2 a.m. every morning. But really jet lag doesn’t even bother me that much. What bother’s me is that for my entire vacation I have no clue what time of the day it is because half of my electronic devices have changed time automatically while the other half’s still 4 hours behind. And as for my watch, I would rather calculate what time it is for my entire holiday because I’m just too lazy to manually change the hour.

  1. Wi-Fi

It’s a well known scientific fact that today’s generation of living organisms need Wi-Fi to survive (and yes, nowadays plants do have laptops). So believe me when I say the struggle to connect to wi-fi in a new place is a serious one. How else can I send photos to my friends and make them jealous? I mean I could be camping in the middle of the Sahara desert and I would still be asking the camels for the Wi-Fi code.

  1. Google

You know that thing when you go abroad, look something up on the internet and discover that you can no longer read English? But then you realise that google does that annoying thing where it automatically switches to the countries google and everything’s in Mandarin Chinese? Actually, I’ve never been to China so that might not even be true, but you know what I mean!

  1. Family Road Trips

I come from a pretty big family, so any kind of travel is a bit of an ordeal. But a few years ago, my family decided to drive 15 hours from France to Italy and can I just say memories of that road trip still haunt me at night. Seriously, I have no idea how we didn’t all kill each other.

  1. Different Currencies

Despite the fact that I’ve spent a pretty high percentage of my life studying maths, I still suck at currency conversion. I went to London on a school trip one year and I still have no idea how much money I spent over there. Actually, thinking back on it every single shop keeper I met probably ripped me off and I didn’t realise it.

  1. Plane food

You know in Harry Potter 4 when they have the Triwizard Tournament and the champions have to compete in three deadly challenges? Yeah, well one of those challenges should have been who can eat the most plane food because I swear that stuff is lethal. Forget dragons, try finishing a plate of congealed stew and cold rice Harry!

…

Well, that’s it for today! Can you guys relate or am I just insanely negative? Let me know in the comments if I forgot any other irritating aspects of travel and have a great week!

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#ArtKnowItAll: Cubism

Posted on by maya

In one of the comments on my earlier #ArtKnowItAll posts, someone suggested that I feature Cubism next. I had a vague idea of the movement, associating it with abstract, geometrical art that seemed to almost resemble optical illusions. As always, I loved learning about the revolutionary art of the past… imagining the rebellious artists inventing new styles of art and defying tradition makes me slightly jealous that I missed out on all the excitement 😉 .signature

 

What is Cubism?

Cubism is an avant garde art movement that developed during the 1910s and 1920s, predominantly in Paris. This new, modern style of painting and sculpture both revolutionized European art and inspired the music, architecture and literature of the time. In fact, it is often regarded as the 20th century’s most influential art movement.

Main Features:

  • For the first time in centuries, perspective with a single viewpoint was abandoned. Instead, cubist painters used numerous and sometimes contrasting vantage points, showing objects from different angles and interweaving the background and foreground of the painting.
  • In fact, cubist artists turned away from depicting figures ‘realistically’, rejecting the idea that art should copy nature. Instead, they decided to emphasize the flat, two-demensionality of their canvases and reduce objects into geometric forms.
  • The early phase of the movement was called Analytic Cubism, characterised by the pronounced use of geometric shapes and use of monochrome colours.
  • The second phase was Synthetic Cubism, where artists experimented with ‘non-art’ materials such as newspaper.

Three Key Cubist Artists

…

  1. Pablo Picasso (1881 -1973) : Regardless of whether you’re interested in art or not, every one has heard of Picasso. The charismatic Spanish painter was a pioneer of Cubism, along with Geaorges Braque, and considered to be the most influential artist of the first half of the 20th century. He invented collage and was primarily a painter though he had an eclectic style and also worked with sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.
  2. Georges Braque (1882-1963) : After meeting Pablo Picasso, Braque went on to become another leader in the development of Cubism. He focused on depicting abstract still lifes, exploring different viewpoints, colours and textures to achieve dimension in his work.
  3. Jean Metzinger (1883 – 1956) : Though at first Metzinger was inspired by Fauvism and Impressionism, the french painter later turned to Cubism and became one of the principal theorists of the movement. In 1912, he created ‘Du Cubisme’, the first major treatise on Cubism, along with fellow french artist Albert Gleizes.

…
A revolutionary art movement

…
At first glance, Cubism may seem somewhat simplistic compared to more ‘classical’ art that strove to capture scenes completely realistically. But really, it’s just another way of representing the world around us and exploring different point of views. Plus, imagine living in a world where these abstract, geometrical paintings were virtually unheard of. Cubist artists weren’t just painters, they were innovators; inventing new styles of painting, as well as being acutely aware of and responding to current events (particularly World War I). Throughout Europe, offshoots of Cubism developed including Orphism, Futerism and Abstract Art.  And that’s only a few!

There are so, so many art movements – old and new – left to explore, comment down below or tweet me with the hashtag #ArtKnowItAll to let me know what you want to see next month.

. . .

I hope you enjoyed the third installment of my #ArtKnowItAll series. As usual, you can see my cubism-inspired artwork above, which I first sketched out in pencil and then coloured in digitally with  the aid of my graphics tablet. What do you think?

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Featured Artists

Posted on by maya

Being an aspiring artist myself, I know how hard it is to get your work noticed! So, last week I invited artists to send me their artwork for a chance to be featured on my blog. Firstly, I’d like to say a huge thank you to ALL the artists who sent in their art! I received loads of incredible submissions and narrowing them down to five pieces was really tough. However, after much debate, I finally chose five fantastic works that definitely deserve to be showcased. I also included a link to each artist’s site, so make sure to check them out!

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1

lady

Porcelain

Artwork by: Isabelle Fang (Saeriel)

blog: saerielblog.wordpress.com

I love the way Isabelle used soft pastel colours to create a delicate, porcelain-like effect for this piece. It’s really beautiful!

2

telephone

Time Machine

Photographer: Yasmeen Noelle

Facebook page:/www.facebook.com/yasmeennoellephotography/

‘Time Machine’ is a perfect example of classic black and white photography. I’d love to have this hanging up on my wall!

3

frog

Artist: Molly Flynn

Blog: www.wordpress.com/redefiningcreative

Drawing animals is really tricky, but Molly truly managed to realistically capture this vibrant little frog.

4

cow

Wander

Artist: Brian Sostrom

Website: http://www.briansostrom.com

‘Wander’ is another unique piece,  combining abstract art with a touch of detail here and there.

5

crow

Decisions

Artist: Dawn Lomako

Blog: Brushofdawn.wordpress.com

Another great piece. As soon as I saw this painting, the contrast between the dark colours and bright red immediately caught me eye!

. . .

Thanks again to everyone who submitted their art. If your artwork wasn’t featured, don’t be discouraged – there’s always a next time!

Comment down below which piece was your favourite and follow me on social media to keep up to date with Artsy Teen news, contests, posts and more 🙂

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Attention All Artists…

Posted on by maya

I know a lot of my followers are amazing art bloggers and I really want to give them a chance to showcase their talent!

So this week I’m inviting all aspiring artists to send me their latest artwork! On Monday, 28th of March 2016, I’ll post my 5 favourite pieces on Artsy Teen.

I can’t wait to see your work! All artwork will of course be credited to the artist, and if you’re a blogger I’ll include a link to your blog as well.

Before sending me your work, please read guidelines below.

 

Guidelines for submitting Artwork to Artsy Teen

  • If you are a minor, please ask your parents for permission before submitting artwork. Note: you don’t have to be a teen to submit artwork, all artists are welcome.
  • You may submit up to 3 pieces of artwork.
  • Artwork must be your original work.
  • You retain all copyrights of your work.
  • You must state in your email that you are giving me permission to post your material on Artsy Teen blog.
  • Please note that Artsy Teen is a family friendly blog and inappropriate/ explicit material will not be posted.
  • Submission of artwork does not guarantee publication. Publication will be at the discretion of Artsy Teen.
  • Please email artwork as a jpeg/png attachment to artsyteenblog@gmail.com

 

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You Know You’re An Artsy Teen When…

Posted on by maya

1. You never throw anything away because you’re convinced that “it’ll come in useful”
Admit it. There’s a box under your bed full of useless objects that you’ve been hanging onto for ten years and that you’ve NEVER used. And to be honest, you probably never will!

2. Pinterest is your kind of social media
Facebook and twitter are OK, but the day you discovered Pinterest changed your life forever. And whats more, you don’t just spend hours browsing Pinterest. Well OK, yes you do, but unlike most people, you actually make the DIYs you pin!

3. You can wield a gun better than James Bond – a glue gun that is 😉
Its no secret that a glue gun is every DIY-er’s best friend. And no wonder – there’s basically nothing that a bit of hot glue can’t fix!

4. You refer to your messy bedroom as your “artistic space”
So yeah, technically speaking you haven’t cleaned your room in six weeks and maybe you can’t see your desk underneath the pile of junk on top of it. But honestly that’s just because you’re an artist. The creative mind doesn’t like structure. Also your lazy, but that’s besides the point.

5. You’re the ‘art’ kid at school
Ever since you made that awesome poster in primary school or won that drawing competition, everyone knows you as the ‘art’ kid. You rule the art classroom and all the other students calls you the ‘Art Master’ (OK, no they don’t – but you get the idea 😉 ) .

6. You doodle on everything
Literally, its slightly worrying. Your notes, your homework journal, your hand… everything around you is just covered in ink.

7. Since you were a kid, you’ve been getting craft kits for Christmas
All artsy teens have that one cabinet in their room full of all the craft kits they’ve collected over the years. Candle making, crocheting, vase painting, DIY jewlery… seriously, we own every craft kit imaginable.

8. You get random bursts of motivation that can last anywhere from 2 minutes to 4 hours

We all have those mornings when we wake up and suddenly we’re inspired to write a novel or redecorate our entire room. Unfortunately this motivation usually doesn’t last long enough for anything really important to get accomplished.

9. You’re a problem solver
Artsy teens love a challenge. In fact, coming up with ideas to solve a problem is our idea of fun!

10. You’re unique and individual
Where’s the fun in ‘following the crowd’? You have your own sense of style, your own ideas, your own opinions and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.