10 painting projects to inspire you

Well another month has flown by and so has another monthly theme for our #funwithfolkit challenge.  When we posted our first Flora and Fauna themed project, we never expected it would be as popular as it was, getting thousands of views within the first week of being posted.  If you haven't seen it yet, why not pop over to the blog post here for a look. 

It seems that there are two camps for these challenges, those that love incorporating the themes in to their Folk It designs and those that run with it to create their own unique ideas.  However you interpret them, we love them all.  Here we have rounded up our favourites for the month of June.  

Jacky from Chloe and Kato recently rediscovered her painting mojo and created this beautiful spray of daisies and roses - inspired by her favourite mug! We have to say though, it is definitely cuter with a few ladybugs. 

Painting on fabric takes practice, painting on silk is a labour of love but Jackie from Jacbnimble Crafts has done brilliantly creating this scarf for her friend.  

Jaxs from Vintage Crafts by Jax has created these gorgeous purple plant pots using our Butterfly and Vintage Rose kits.   By using a limited colour palette she has created a beautiful set of gifts that really stand out.  

The lovely Folker from At the Painting Table has got creative to add the cutest bees to these delightful yellow roses - the perfect painting project for summer

Vanessa has found this lovely dragonfly shape to decorate for the Flora and Fauna theme.  Dot daisies, dot roses and other dot patterns, it's got it all!

Stepping away from shapes and projects, Helen has used the Flora and Fauna theme to inspire her colour choices in her practice pages...what a great idea.  

Sandra felt inspired after creating our Bee tutorial to create a different project.  Featuring a unique Dragonfly design on the lid, she added a few dot daisies and vintage lace to the box to complete it. 

These ducks are so popular at the minute with crafters.  Using a French blue base coat and our Vintage Rose kit, Nazlie from Cositas Bonitas has turned this into a real centrepiece. 

Who would have thought a Folked up owl would look so pretty! Helen from Mindful Crafts used our popular Round Brush Starter kit to decorate this owl beautifully.

Vikki discovered our stand and our kits at the Handmade Fair and she's been hooked ever since - we love the original and unique designs she has been creating with her dotting tool and this Dragonfly design worked perfectly for June's theme! 

So as we head in to July, this month in our #funwithfolkit painting challenge, we are concentrating on wreaths.  Whether they are dotty or festive, floral or not, we can't wait to see them all! 

Happy Folking! 

Our top ten creativity quotes

We love a good quote - when you haven't got the words to explain why we do what we do, when we need the right dose of motivation or when we need to bring a smile to our face, there is a quote for every occasion.  

Here, we have put together our 10 favourite quotes, about crafting, creativity and of course, painting. Of course there are so many more fab quotes out there, we have a whole board dedicated to them :)

Whether it is strolling round a gallery, painting and creating or visiting the theatre, art calls to us in a way that nothing else can. 

We love painting for the way it allows us to escape our thoughts for a while. 

Once you let yourself get creative, it becomes a way of life 

It is a cycle - when we paint we feel happier.  When we are happy, all we want to do is paint :) It's not about the project we create, it is about the process - about zoning out and getting lost in a little creativity. 

Ever been to a Craft Fair or shop and thought this? Yeah, us too ;) 

Every weekend..... 

We have priorities after all! 

There's no such thing as mess when we are being creative! 

It's not a choice...its a must!

Don't leave your paint in the bottle! Paint is made to be used...the only question is what will you create

If only! 

10 fantastic ways to paint with rainbows

 

Last month, we announced our fun new painting challenge.  Choosing a range of broad themes for our painters to have fun with each month we hoped they would inspire your journal pages and projects.  Our first month, a month filled with beautiful rainbows has not disappointed as we have been fascinated by your projects.  We were so inspired, we couldn't resist getting involved ourselves.  Here are a few gorgeous projects we have created and admired over the last month.  

Helen from Mindful Crafts has recently discovered these fantastic freestanding Lego decorations and given him a rainbow makeover.  

Our Flat Brush Cupcakes and Babushka kits teach you how to 'float' colour to create depth and dimension in your painting. Here, Carol used this technique to create a beautiful rainbow. 

One of our customers (@at_the_painting_table) transformed our Dot rose design using all the colours of the rainbow.

Jackie @jacbnimble_crafts indulged in a little dotting and we love rainbow daisies! 

We got out our liner brush and did a little practice using a muted rainbow, not as bold as the bright palette but still as pretty

Sometimes it's fun to break the rules and experiment and Rose creates beautiful projects when she does just that! You can create the most interesting and eye catching paintings when you play with colour. 

We revisited our childhood with this splatter painting and had great fun making a mess! 

Vikki @take_time_out discovered our kits at the Handmade Fair and there's been no stopping her creativity ever since.  Here she mixed rainbow dots with brush lettering while she took time out to create.

We adapted our Bluebird flowers to create something unique and the rainbow colours certainly helped us do that! 

Using floating (from our Cupcake and Babushka kits) and our Oriental Blossom kit, @at_the_painting_table used the theme literally and created this beautiful flower rainbow.  

One thing is for sure, the first monthly theme of our Painting challenge has inspired some new and exciting ideas.  Painting with rainbow colours is so fun, we doubt we have seen the last of this theme.  As we move forward to our next theme, flora and fauna, we look forward to seeing more gorgeous projects and journal pages from all you Folkers :) 

Happy Folking x  

No reciclar ... reutilizar! Crea hermosos elementos de almacenamiento con You Can Folk It!

Una cosa que tenemos en casa es muchas cajas, latas y tarros. No los recicles! En cambio, dales vida con un hermoso cambio de imagen. Esta semana, hemos estado utilizando nuestras antiguas tinas de dulce y nos hemos inspirado en las cajas de sombreros vintage para mejorar nuestro primer proyecto, solo para ti. Nos encantó el aspecto de algunas cajas de sombreros vintage que encontramos cubiertas de hermosas rosas.

Para este proyecto, necesitarás:

Un contenedor de plástico de su elección

DecoArt Chalky Finish paint (nosotros usamos 'Vintage') 

You Can Folk It Series 1 Starter kit 

Series 1 Vintage Rose add on kit 

DecoArt Americana paint in Avocado 

Flat base coating brush

La primera decisión que debe tomar es decidir qué va a decorar. Este es un gran proyecto para experimentar: pintar sobre superficies curvas es muy diferente a pintar superficies planas. Si su proyecto falla, aún puede reciclarse y no le ha costado dinero. Elegimos una tina dulce de plástico que iba a ser reciclada.


La pintura de acabado DecoArt Chalky se puede pintar directamente en la superficie, no requiere preparación. Sin embargo, una cosa que tendrá que hacer antes de comenzar a pintar es limpiar el recipiente por completo con una mezcla de vinagre y agua para eliminar las huellas dactilares grasosas. Cualquier grasa que quede en la superficie evitará que la pintura se adhiera a la superficie.

Una vez que haya decidido qué tono de pintura Chalky Finish le gustaría usar, comience a pintar la bañera con un pincel plano. Asegúrese de cubrir cada pulgada de la bañera con la pintura.

1. Una vez que la capa base de Chalky Finish se haya secado, con el dedo, la tela o el pincel viejo, aplique Rose Gold Metallic Lustre alrededor de la tapa. Consejo: si su brillo metálico se ha endurecido, ponga un poco de agua en el recipiente, vuelva a atornillar la tapa y déjela reposar durante un par de horas o durante la noche.

2. Usando los patrones, coloque rosas al azar alrededor del borde, alternando entre 1 rosa, 2 rosas y 3 racimos de rosas. Consejo: para que se vea más profesional, trace algunas de las rosas que Carol ha hecho aquí. A continuación trace el clúster más grande en el centro de su proyecto, o en este caso, la tapa. Nota: los patrones deberían imprimirse con el tamaño correcto.

A continuación, rellena las rosas con el pincel redondo del kit básico de la serie 1 como se indica en el DVD tutorial de Vintage Rose. Para este proyecto, Carol usó DecoArt Americana Naphthol Red. Sin embargo, puede crear un tono similar mezclando nuestro Tomate rojo de Serie 1 con un poco de Negro de lámpara, también del kit de Serie 1. (Para obtener más información sobre cómo mezclar colores, haga clic aquí).

3. Usando Aguacate verde del kit de la Serie 2, agregue las hojas siguiendo el tutorial del DVD Vintage Rose. Consejo: Si no tiene el kit básico de la Serie 2, puede usar el Hauser Light Green de nuestro kit de la serie 1.

Ahora tiene el patrón para trabajar, agregue sus trazos de coma para pintar sus rosas vintage, inclinando su pincel con Blanco cálido: puede ver el tutorial completo en el DVD proporcionado en nuestro kit adicional Vintage Rose.

Usando su cepillo de liner, agregue los tallos a sus hojas usando DecoArt Americana en aguacate alrededor de la tina.

Una vez que el diseño esté seco, usando blanco cálido, agregue comas usando su pincel de recubrimiento. Para finalizar, agregue un poco de "follaje de relleno". Esto ha sido creado cargando el extremo del cepillo redondo con aguacate y vertiendo el cepillo con blanco.

Deje que se seque y aplique una capa de cera Clear Creme con un cepillo redondo para proteger su hermoso y nuevo almacenamiento. Puede usarlo una vez que haya secado o pulido la cera con un paño suave y sin pelusa para crear un suave brillo en su contenedor.

Happy Folking, 

Carol xx 

The 5 must have items in our painting stash

As a painter, there is nothing worse than getting into your flow and realising you are missing something you need.  Hours can fly by when you're in the creative zone but if you aren't prepared, if you haven't got what you need to hand, it can be incredibly frustrating. This was one of the reasons we were so passionate about the contents of our Starter kits.  We wanted to provide everything you needed (with the exception of a pot of water and kitchen towel!) so that as soon as you got hold of your kit, you could enjoy that excitement and get stuck in straight away without more trips to the craft shop.

Over the years, as we have developed our skills we have found extra bits and bobs we find ourselves reaching for time and again....

1. Kitchen roll.  A rather uninspiring start to our list we know but a definite must have! Perfect for cleaning our dotting tools, mopping up any little spillages and drips as well as drying off our brushes after each wash.  As the DecoArt Americana colours are so beautiful and the consistency is specially formulated for Folk Art, we prefer not to dilute the paint for our brushstrokes.  If you aren't sure if you are loading your brush properly for those perfect comma strokes, check out this tutorial.

2. A wet palette. This is such a simple addition to your painting kit yet it makes all the difference.  There is nothing worse than wasting paints and as many of our designs don't require a large amount of paint, a wet palette is a must have.  As we head towards warmer times in the UK, we certainly notice a difference in the drying  times of our paints and so we need to do our best to prevent our paints turning in to a gloopy blob!

One of our customers used Scotch magic tape to mask off parts of this design ready for the greeting.
Photo courtesy of @at_the_painting_table

3. Scotch Magic Tape (the green one). Tape is always handy but in addition to holding down practice paper when we like to take our creativity outside, we love this tape for masking.  Although 3M do create a Scotch Removable tape (the blue one) we have found that it is not sticky enough for us.  If this magic tape is a tad sticky for our surface, pressing it once or twice on to our clothes often does the trick in removing some of the adhesive.  If you have some tape, why not try masking off a square or strip to create a clean edge in your painting?

4. Sakura Gelly Roll pen.  We have started to use these in the last few years at our events.  Although we still prefer to use our Transfer paper, when you are drawing out 300+ templates for a Grand Make or teaching a large group of painters, it can be handy to use to draw out your desired pattern.  (however, be aware this pen is obviously less forgiving than our transfer papers so wherever you leave a mark, you will need to paint over the top).  More recently, we have also used it to add writing to our projects.  From simple block lettering to fancy faux calligraphy, this white pen looks great on a dark background.

5.  Last but not least is our Drying time extender.  Featured in our Flat Brush Starter kit, we use it to help our paints blend seamlessly together to create a beautiful effect for our flat brush designs.  We also use it on our wet palettes when we are painting not just outside but as we are demonstrating at events.  Warm areas and rooms with lots of people can dry out your paints so this is great to help keep your paints workable and again, reduces paint wastage (always a good thing!)

So there you have it... our top 5 must haves for our painting kit, we hope you find it useful.  What is in your painting kit that you just couldn't live without? Leave us a comment, we'd love to know.

Happy Folking x

Our time at #SBSevent2018

What a week! Our social media has been going crazy once again following our recent attendance at Theo Paphitis' SBS event at the Birmingham ICC last week.  If you haven't heard of Theo's SBS Sunday, it is a fantastic initiative he created back in October 2010.  With the idea of supporting small businesses around the UK, he invites business owners to send him a tweet describing their business every Sunday between 5-7.30pm.  Each Monday, he chooses his favourite six and retweets them to his 500,000+ followers.

Fast forward 6 years to Oct 2016 and we were chosen as one of his favourite...our Twitter account went crazy.  From congratulations tweets to new followers, RT's to questions, we wondered what on earth was happening as our phones were pinging like crazy.  

The highlight of an SBS winners year is the free yearly networking event hosted by Ryman Stationary (one of Theo's successful businesses).  As we couldn't make it last year, we were excited to see what all the fuss was about and to have our photo taken with Theo himself.  

After a long journey from Sheffield and an interesting hour arguing with the Sat Nav (Birmingham road works are interesting to say the least!) we arrived.  There were lots of talks and presentations and many lovely people to chat to.

One of the highlights of the day for us was getting the opportunity to meet lots of lovely SBS winners in person, people we had been chatting to via Twitter for a while including the lovely Carmen from Joyful and Mellow who makes delicious alcoholic spreads.  Placed within the 'Creative' category, we also had the pleasure to chat to Kirsty from KA Graphic Design who makes fantastic cards, Sophie from the gorgeous Pip Box and Sarah (Charlotte Designs) who specialises in painting such a wide variety of stunning wall murals. Honestly, there was so much talent in one room our heads were buzzing, we wanted to talk to everyone! 

I found myself sitting next to the lovely Carmen from Joyful & Mellow, a fellow #SBS winner and #womaninbiz over on Twitter

Waiting for the event to begin, we collected our notebooks got our pens ready.  It's safe to say, listening to Theo that he has a passion for small business and helping them flourish.  The event is totally free for SBS winners and their guests thanks to sponsorship from companies like Square Up, Ryman, HP and DHL to name a few which is fantastic for small businesses. 

The main event was the fireside chat with John Roberts from ao.com. John started his business following a £1 bet that he wouldn't be able to succeed with a white goods business on the then newly introduced thing called the internet.  It was nothing short of inspiring to listen to his journey that's taken him from a small company consisting of a group of friends playing at their business to a multi million pound company thriving in an area where large brands such as Currys have dominated for so long.  

To listen to 'just a guy from Bolton' as he puts it, sit in front of the audience and be so humble and so honest about the successes but also the failures (large and small) he has faced since he began was so refreshing and inspiring.  He started where many of us did, with an idea and a bit of money and has built his company on honesty, integrity and what some in business may call 'old fashioned values'.   

As small business owners, it can sometimes be difficult not to compare yourself to other businesses; at their social media following, their success, their journey and think they have it made, that they are flourishing while you are taking one step forward and three back.  Listening to John it reinforced that you never know where another company is unless you own it.  As small businesses, we need to be proud of where we are, nurturing our company and moving forward.  Take time to enjoy being a small company and to build those relationships not only with your customers but with everyone.  John relayed how he still takes time to sign letters himself to customers he's replying to, how he takes time to do market research while he is socialising, and touches base with his employees.  Now I know it won't all be sunshine and roses at AO but what struck me was the commitment John still had to his customers, the commitment to stay at the grass roots level to ensure that he still understands what his customers want.  It reinforced in us that you don't need to think big to be big.  Strengthen your foundations, nurture your fan base and never forget where you came from.

Needless to say, we left the event with plenty of food for thought, new contacts and lots of ideas running through our heads.  Will we be attending next year? Absolutely.  

So if you are a small business owner and are on Twitter, do tweet about your business each Sunday.  The SBS community is supportive, fun and such a great group to be a part of.  Good luck and you never know, we might see you there in 2019.  

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10 reasons why we all should be painting

Children are encouraged at nursery and school to create - to explore their environment through play and art, using whatever medium they choose (often the messier the better!) but as we age, we often forget the importance of creativity, we find excuses to ignore our hobbies because of demands on our time or because we have told ourselves (or have been told)

we are not creative.  As we seemingly move away from art in education and as we get busier, it seems more important than ever to nurture the creativity within us all.  If we ever needed any reasons to open up our painting kits and get started, they're all here! 

1. It improves motor skills.  All the time you are holding the brush (or dotting tool!) the muscles in your fingers are exercised and strengthened - all while doing something you enjoy. 

2. It creates an outlet for emotions you may find it difficult to express verbally.  Studies of stroke patients have found that it can create more positive emotions and reduce depression. Being able to communicate through colour, pattern, brushstrokes and texture can release emotions in a healthy way. 

3. It can help boost self confidence. Learning a technique, mastering a brushstroke, finishing a project you are proud of can all lead to a sense of accomplishment and pride.  

4. It develops your levels of persistence.  When your brushstrokes aren't flowing as they should or a painting project doesn't turn out the way you would like it to, you become determined to rectify that.  As a result it not only increases your level of patience but it can help build your problem solving skills. 

5. As we imagine and think about our painting projects, plan our colour schemes and recall techniques and past projects, it can all help boost our memory and sharpen our minds.  Studies into the benefits of painting for individuals with Alzheimers have found that it can help them recall better, boost their imagination and strengthen their memories. 

6.  It lowers our stress levels.  Engaging in art gives us something to focus on other than our problems and worries and gives us the chance to engage in a spot of fun and feel good for a while.  

7. Creativity increases creativity. People often make the decision or are told that they aren't creative from a young age but just by engaging in a spot of painting strengthens everyones creative skills. Painting triggers our dopamine levels (the neurotransmitter that helps regulate our emotions and when it spikes, it creates the feeling of pleasure) and it engages both sides of the brain as it gives our brain the equivalent of an aerobic workout. 

8. It helps develop an optimistic attitude.  Every painter or artist will set themselves goals - to learn a technique, paint a design or create a specific project.  Once they reach that goal and improve their skills it increases their confidence and helps them feel more optimistic and positive of what they can create in the future.

9. You become more observant of the world around you. As you begin to paint shapes, colours and patterns you will start to search for and look for these within our surroundings. As your concentration improves thanks to your creative pastimes, you will notice the details that surround you that passed you by before. 

10. It helps us have fun. Through painting, we can laugh, learn something new and socialise with others. In addition, when we create, when we paint, we connect with others who enjoy doing the same. We share ideas, encourage others and we inspire - whether it is in person or online. There is nothing better than a creative community! 

We don't know about you but we are convinced (more than ever!) that painting is so good for our mental, physical and emotional health. If you would like to share how you feel painting has changed your life, feel free to get in touch and share your story.  

Here's to creativity! 

The You Can Folk It team xx