up-cycled magazine page floral art

you know how people always say 'let me sleep on it'?
that creative solutions come to them in their dreams?
yeah.... not me. my muses come at night and KEEP me from sleeping.

at the end of the day, i climb into bed, 

nestled up with a cup of tea and a good book to read - or my phone to scroll thru.

my goal is to slow my brain down, stop the flow of thoughts and ideas, so i can fall asleep.

and every once in a while, it actually works.

most of the time, though, i see something online or read a description in a book,

and my brain starts imagining wild creations and designs.

so i haul myself out of my comfy nest of a bed, run across the hall,

go into my studio, and scribble a quick sketch or jot a note to capture the idea

before it vanishes into the ether. 

i was today years old when i finally got SMART!

i decided that i need to have a small notepad and pen on my bedside table instead.

  a quick bit of mixed media art fun resulted - and now i've got a solution i can sleep with.

continue reading to see what inspired the design!

the mixed media artwork that i created was inspired by this summer cover of Real Simple Magazine:

 i love the happy hues of the dahlias in the cover photo... 

they reminded me of a page that i had torn out of another magazine a while back,

which had similar images of dahlias on it.

(i often save magazine pages with beautiful colors, patterns, or imagery on them

for future art / craft projects. i've learned not to save whole magazines!)

black & white striped cardstock + washi tape coordinate with the black cover of the notepad.

a glue stick made quick work of adhering them, and then i was on to the embellishments: 

i cut three of the flower images off of the saved magazine page, figured out their placement,

then sketched three stems with leaves onto the paper - using a colored pencil and black felt tip pen.

the flowers were glued on top of the stems,

and the black felt tip pen was used to outline each part of the image - 

making them look more artful than printed.

as a last step, i used a pink felt tip pen to add a bit more color to the flowers.

it's all just scraps of paper and scribbles of ink - but combined, it becomes something more!

i really love how the images of 'real' flowers combine with the ink, 

and create a subtle effect of dimension!

the colors make me happy, and the size of the notebook is perfect for my bedside table.

maybe tonight i'll actually get some shuteye...

last spring, i created another art project using magazine floral images:

seed packet inspired decor