Paper Work + New Etsy Items!

Hey all!!

I can't believe a week has gone by already.. Where does the time go? I kept on meaning to post but life/work gets in the way and before you know it a week has passed by without a peep out of me!

I have a list as long as my arm of things to do. Some studio and shop work, some blog work and some applications and other paper work. While studio/shop work is the easier "work" to get stuck into (it's always easy to do the creative stuff), the "paper work" stuff is piling up and up. So I am using this crappy head cold I have caught as an excuse to stay at home today and get as much "paper work" done as I can. I am beginning to think that I might need to start taking a day every week to just focus on "paper work" stuff. I call it "paper work" because I can't think of a better umbrella term for it but by that I mean blog stuff, applications, technical stuff, managing my online presence, Etsy stuff etc. 

Anyway, I'll keep you all up to date on that. I'll see how it goes.

In other news, as I said I have been busy lately. I am in the process of designing a few new items for my Etsy shop. Some are still in the early stages and aren't quite ready to be listed in the shop but I am excited to announce that I have listed new printed greeting cards!! 

buy now

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When I received these from the printers yesterday, I was absolutely thrilled at how they turned out. I feel like I could just reach out and touch all the different pieces. They are blank on the inside and come with a brown envelope as well which I think is pretty funky and cool. 

With Christmas coming up I thought it was about time to add a few gift items to the shop so keep an eye out because I will soon be adding more greeting cards and plenty of other pretty little things!! Exciting times :)

I expect this cards to fly out of the shop so get yours asap!!

Take care

Ciara

xoxo

Playing with New Products

Hi everyone! How has your Wednesday been?
Today one of my most favourite things happened - Art supplies that I ordered online arrived :) Happy mail!

I ordered a small package from Art from the Heart of 2 ink sprays and 1 dabber paint from Ranger + 2 stencils by The Crafter's Workshop.

I chose 'Sailboat Blue' and ' Red Pepper' ink sprays and 'Sunshine Yellow' in the paint dabber to add to my collection. I try to purchase 1 or 2 of each a week so that I eventually have the entire collection. Also, I have been looking for a doily stencil for a while but couldn't find one anywhere. I finally found this one on Art from the Heart and although it's not exactly the type I was looking for, it is still cool. I bought the Chicken Wire as I didn't have it and have been wanting to get it for a while now.

Whenever I get new products, I have to test them out on a scrap piece of paper before I use them for real on a project or whatever. Does anyone else do this? I dunno, I think it would be weird to just go straight into  using it in my work without testing it out first.

What do you think? Have you ever seen a more vibrant red in your life?! I love it! Isn't it funny how out of all the different shades + hues they carry on that website I still managed to go for the three primary colours? I didn't do that purposefully, I actually only noticed it now as I have them all laid out together. Funny.

I had to test out the stencils aswell of course. They look great, I'm really happy I bought them. The thing I love about these type of stencils is that, if you get them wet enough, you can actually use them as a kind of stamp aswell, so you then get the reverse image. It's like two for the price of one!

This isn't really a great example of that because I wasn't trying too hard to get that effect, I was just cleaning off my stencil + since there is no sense in wasting perfectly good paint, I used it to stamp the reverse image. However, if I had wanted to + had paid it a little more attention, I would have probably achieved a much clearer image. Either way, I think it looks great :)

*Note on cleaning stencils* I use baby wipes to clean my stencils but today I noticed while wiping the doily stencil that you really need to be very gentle how you wipe them because the cloth can get caught in the cut-out part and pull them out of shape (does that make sense?) Just a little warning I thought I'd pass on to my fellow artists ;)

So, that's a little of what I got up to today. I hope you enjoyed reading! Let me know what new art supplies you purchased/received lately, I'd love to hear all about it.

I hope you all had a creative day!

Take care

Ciara

xoxo

Inspiration Tags available on Etsy!

Hi everyone!

I have some exciting news to share with you all, my Inspiration Tags that I was telling you all about in this post are now available to purchase in my Etsy shop Ciara McGuire Designs. Yay!!! Colour + creative prettiness for everyone!!!!

When you purchase these tags you will receive a package of 5 different + unique Inspiration Tags that are doubled sided. You will not necessarily receive any of the tags that are shown in the listed photo but this is because every tag is totally original + no one will get the same tag as anyone else. Woohoo! 

I have to say I am pretty excited about these Inspriation Tags because the possibilities with them are endless. You can use them in your own artwork (as long as you follow my Angel Policy which will be sent to you in your package), you can use them in your art journal, you could use them to decorate gifts or as bookmarks! Or you can just display them as mini works of art because it is important for me to stress that these tags are completely original, these are not prints or copies. 

I originally created these tags as inspiration for myself, testing out some products using new techniques on a smaller scale, so they of course can be a prompt for your own artwork too! 

To purchase a bundle of Inspiration Tags, head over to my shop Ciara McGuire Designs now! 

I hope you are having a creative, inspired day!

Ciara

xoxo

New Goodies + {Inspiration} Tags

Hi everyone!

I got some new goodies at the weekend (if you read this post you will see why I needed to treat myself) and I have been playing with them, experimenting + generally getting down and messy with at my art desk, trying to conjure up some inspiration and you know what, it worked ;)

I tested out my new products using some luggage tags that I had in my stash + I wasn't really thinking too much about what I was doing, I was just concentrating on trying out the paints, stencils etc and seeing what I could create on a small scale. Who new that scaling down could help so much? Something about only having a limited amount of space + using only a limited amount of products (because, as I said, I was just testing out my new stuff) forced me to think outside the box but in such an easy + natural way.
And now, I am really excited about these tags, so much so that I think I will be taking some time to explore this creative process more + you never know, you may even see them in my Etsy shop in the near future.

Inspiration Tags - who knew?!

The lesson I learned from this simple, creative play has to be that when you seemingly limit yourself, you can in effect open up a whole new world!! There is nothing better than that feeling of pure excitement + inspiration that you get in your tummy, kind of like butterflies, when you know you are on the cusp of something, your not quite sure what, but you know that if you manage to unlock it, it will be truly amazing. It could even be life changing. Why not?

If you are interested to know about any of the products or the techniques I used while making these tags please feel free to get in contact by leaving a comment or by email ciaramcguireart@gmail.com 

You can also follow me on various social networks which you will find the links to on the left hand side on the blog.

I hope you are having a beautiful + creative day!

Ciara

xoxo