Tag: Dina Wakley

Hey there, love.

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Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. It is very exciting to me because it marks the end of the awful cringe-worthy jewelry commercial season. *throws confetti and blows into a celebratory horn*

Celebrating love and good people in general? We’re all for that any day of the year. Heart shaped foods? Yes please. Over-priced/hyped/intense romance? Pass. I see people get so worked up over the material side of holidays like this – and that bums me out. Perfectly happy to just try and give shout outs to people we care about and/or to simply be reminded to say nice things more and show more appreciation always.

Also… pajamas and relaxing sounds far more appealing than crowded restaurants and over-priced roses.

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So yes, this Valentine’s Day you can find me trying not to eat chocolates or buy a heart shaped cake. Oh, and also I will crafting up a (hopefully) fantastic storm. I will try not to go to Krispy Kreme for heart shaped donuts either. C’mon will power…

My piece for 2015 Ranger Designer Challenge…



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I’ve got a confession. I’ve always wanted to do the Ranger Designer challenge. I see the amazing things people make and I always thought it’d be cool to be asked. They display these pieces (all focused on a single product/line) at their trade show booth and it is always a favorite of mine to see.

Well… last November I got the call. I then stared at a blank canvas for something silly like 2 weeks unable to bring myself to make anything even though I had a vision almost immediately of what to do.

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The focus was on Dina Wakley Media products, and I got to thinking about using just a few… and ended up using every single one except red. I sketched on this canvas. I added paper layers. metal. alllll kinds of things and initially very little color.

If you follow me on instagram (@may_flaum) you get all kinds of sneaky peeks into my happenings here.

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What intimidated (and made me determined to work on my lack of skills) me was that I really wanted to doodle. Sketching with gesso helped me formulate my plan. The use of layers worked well for me. Once I got my petals down and my many things glued down it was just time to color and play.

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I played. Then I painted and painted more.

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I even painted + cut out “color” from cardstock. Yeah, my own handwriting. Then more texture. More colors. More play.

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I was so very happy with this finished piece and I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the absolutely wild canvas I made. Thank you to Dina Wakley and the Ranger Ink crew for inviting me to take part. It truly was an honor and my pleasure to spend so many hours crafting this.

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CHA 2015: Dina Wakley for Ranger

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I adore Dina Wakley – this is no secret. I strongly recommend her books, and I love her style as an artist. What I love the most though, is that she’s making products that will allow us to feel more inspired, and more able to create great art without any drawing talent. This appeals to me greatly!

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From her sketchy girls to her scribbly birds – the six new sets of stamps released are fantastic. My personal three (that I pre-ordered already!) are the birds, flowers, and the heart with sentiment sets.

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Her new paints are three metallic colors + black which should add a lot of possibility to her existing twelve colors.

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CHA spotlight: The Crafter’s Workshop

“I’ll take one of each”

That would be me, in the Crafter’s Workshop booth. The designs this show are outstanding – they’ve really outdone themselves!! 99.9% of my stencils get made by this company – there is a reason. THEY ROCK! And I’m not just saying that because I adore both Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and Dina Wakley. Oh and Rhonda Palazzari’s designs are rockin’ my world as well. Seriously, just take a look…

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