Read and Repeat: how to hobby

This is my second installment in my series How To Hobby, dedicated to one of my friends who always says she wants more hobbies. So I decided to do a series covering all of my extensive and random hobbies with the hope of one of them catching her fancy. Check out my first post in this series!

Welcome back to my favorite non-book series here on my blog! This week I want to share a really fun watercolor-esque technique I've learned that I use to make almost all of the postcards I send out to friends.

Originally I was going to do a MASSIVE post on watercoloring in general but I decided to break it into two: this one is more watercolor-inspired, and the next one will be more traditional watercolor.

The final product is on the left! It is a super easy but still cool looking way to make artwork/thank you cards/postcards/whatever you want.

What you'll need:

markers of any sort

pen of any sort

plastic ziplock bag (generic will not work)

haha jk of course a generic ziplock bag will work

#Generic4Life

water spritzer (not necessary, but helpful)
and some paper

Pick out two (or more) colors to use in your card. I used Tombrow brush markers because I had a long lasting love of bullet journaling but really Crayola markers would work really well.
With no precision, draw several large patches of color with your markers. I tend to keep the colors separate because I want to keep my markers clean but it doesn't really matter.
Don't worry if the colors don't look very vibrant-- just scribble some color onto the ziplock bag
Now you want to sprinkle some water over the ziplock bag. This can be achieved with a brief, diffuse spray of a water bottle BUT if you don't have one (I have one that I use to teach my cat that defacing the furniture with his claws is not acceptable) you don't need one. Use a cup of water and a brush-- or your fingers-- to flick water onto the ziplock bag.

here's the trick: too much water and your paper will pill (small lumps everywhere; not the end of the world) too little water and the colors won't blend well

Place your paper on top of the bag and run your hand over the paper to distribute the color. Flip the paper over, peel off the ziplock bag and you're done!

Et voila!

That's it! Now you should have a loose blended tie-die/watercolor background to write your message on. If there are pools of water on your paper you might want to blot them off. I'm impatient so I dried the paper off with a heat gun (just a super powered hair dryer) and then wrote on my message.

Here's another card I made using this technique-- this one is a bit fancier because I used an pen full of embossing ink to draw the little graduation hat/champagne and then put some embossing powder over it and used a heat gun to get those raised edges.

Have I inspired you to use what you probably have laying around to make some fun art?? If so, I have a couple of cool sites that you should check out.

Little Coffee Fox primarily talks about artistic bullet journaling but I find that she is great for overall artistic inspiration!

The Frugal Crafter

This is a YouTube channel by an artist and I just love all of her videos! She is fun, the techniques are approachable, and she has inspired me a lot.

Let me know if you try this technique! Tag me on Instagram, leave a comment here, send out some smoke signals-- anything to get my attention. :)

Hello and welcome to the start of a new series on my blog-- How To Hobby!

I have been accused by my friends of doing all the hobbies and it is true, I have dabbled in many things from watercolor to bread making. And something I love doing almost as much as my varied hobbies is trying to convince everyone to join in on the fun.

This week I thought I would kick off the series by talking about my newest found hobby: embroidery. (I am also a self-proclaimed 90-year old lady who reads her local newspaper each morning and enjoys things like embroidery)

I can't even remember what was going through my head when, last December, I decided embroidery was going to be my next project. I had seen my grandmother embroider before but I don't know what sparked that sudden desire to try it myself. A picture on Pinterest? An instagram post? Whatever it was I came to the quick decision that I wanted to learn how to embroidery.

Let's get into it!

Of course you are going to need some thread. Walmart (if it has a sewing section) sells DMC thread by the color-- that's the high quality stuff. I wanted to start out with a large selection of different colors, so I bought a box of cheap 'friendship bracelet' thread from Joann's.

And of course you are going to need a needle and an embroidery hoop-- both are sold for a couple dollars at Walmart. For fabric I buy the one dollar fabric squares from Walmart. They come in a variety of colors and it is enough fabric for several projects. (and it's cheap!)

I started out with this kit that came with everything you need: a hoop, needle, thread, and a piece of fabric with a pattern printed on it. The kit also came with a small handout explaining how to do the variety of stitches the pattern called for.

I changed the words because the original pattern had weird words ;)

What I love about embroidery is that straight away you can make pretty things. There isn't a steep learning curve-- if all you can do is push a needle in and out of fabric then BAM you can at least make something. The more time you put in, the more stitches you learn, and the more intricate the results can be.

The bird on the left is one of the first things I freehanded aftering finishing the kit. Almost every stitch is a basic in-out straight stitch and I rather like how it turned out (the rest of the piece isn't as fabulous but hey, I'm still learning).

Embroidery is great to do while listening to audiobooks-- I don't listen to many of them but I am more motivated to listen if I have something else to do.

Now if you are looking for a craft to do while watching TV, this is not it-- embroidery requires too much attention to be trying to watch something else (the only craft I can really do while also watching TV is knitting).

This piece that I freehanded was inspired by a Victor Hugo quote my friend sent me : Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight on a limb too slight feels it give way beneath her, and yet sings, sings knowing she has wings.

This is a super small piece (made on a mini hoop I got for a dollar at Walmart)-- it took an hour or less to complete and required no fancy stitching. Orion is my favorite constellation and I love how this turned out-- I'm planning on doing a couple more constellation to hang on my walls.

If I have convinced you to give embroidery a try, here are some super helpful blogs to check out!

Pumora-- this is an amazing blog full of resources on different stitches, materials, how to start, etc. She is also very active on Instagram
Cozy Blue-- Along with having a blog, this lady runs a really cool monthly pattern program. For just ten dollars a month she'll send you fabric (with the pattern already printed) and the thread you need to complete the project. It's something I've been thinking of signing up for. She is also very active on Instagram.

Whew! That's it for me. I hope you found this post a tad bit inspiring or helpful. Stay tuned for the next installment of this series (whenever that might occur) because heaven knows I have enough hobbies to fill ten posts.

What about you? Have you ever tried embroidery?