An Archival Folder for your documents thanks to Paperbags and Cereal Boxes

Well now my desk will be more organized, all thanks to the cereal boxes and Trader joe paper bags that I keep. I've always been in favor of archival folders over the single one, because you can keep everything together in one folder, but still have categories. Plus, why buy those boring, cold plastic ones from the store, when you can do your own, and give it the look you want. So follow the instructions in the slideshow or you can see it picture by picture under photo albums. If you are wondering about the illustrations of the double deckers, it is because the paper I used to wrap my archival folder is an old map of London. I thought the double deckers would fit with the map, plus drawing random double deckers across the map makes it more interesting. See? Where in a store would you find that?


Here is the template:

Here are the steps, have fun!:

Click on the images to make them larger :)

Henna+ballpoint pen= Flute Player

I love henna.I love the body artwork that is created from it, and the beautiful color that comes out of it. Incredible that it comes from a herb whose leaves creates the red dye (Thank you mother nature, thank you ). So I always get my hand on henna to do some beautiful patterns on family and friends. Using a bit of my leftover henna  I gave it a try on watercolor paper. The experiment was not as pleasant as the tea. It was quite muddy, messy and it dried really fast. Very interesting but not regretting it. Two sites I like to visit to learn more about henna,where you can see galleries of artwork and learn about henna artists.

http://www.hennacaravan.com

http://www.hennapage.com

Tea Paint

If you though that the ecollustration of the week was done in watercolors, well I got to tell you is actually TEA!. Yes, you read that's right tea; my roommate when she moved out, left me a bag of couple teas. I'm not an avid tea drinker so I decided that instead of drinking it, I could paint with it. The result is the ecollustration of week. My usual technique involves acrylic inks, gouache and watercolor and I love using those mediums, but I want eventually to use a more green approach...natural dyes, maybe the next ecollustration will be done in coffee.

Papergift Bags

"Plastic or Paper bags?" When asked this question, and you have chosen wisely (or so I hope!), you'll gain a great material that can be recycled into many creative ideas.Plus, you are doing a good deed by being environmentally friendly (by decreasing the amount of plastic bags used). You will see how I transform a Trader Joe's paper bag into 6 cute and colorful "paper-gift bags" that I can now use to give away gift cards and/or small gifts. 
Here is the template:

And here are the directions:

PS: Click on the images to make them bigger :).