Balzer Designs

Art Journal Every Day: Rocky Terrain

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal. No need to finish anything or even like it. It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day! If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day. If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog... Read more →

ScanNCut: Custom Box File

There are new ScanNCut products from Brother! Yay! I'll be sharing some of them in two live events with Sewing Machines Plus tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday. You can see the full schedule and register (for free) to watch the events HERE. I hope to see you online! In the meantime, you've been asking for some more advanced ScanNCut tutorials, so here it is! In this video I'm going to show you how to make your own custom box file using CanvasWorkspace for Mac. Watch the video for the how-to: As I mentioned, this is a project to tackle once you're... Read more →

USPS Art Project: Melinda

I'm working fast and furiously through these USPS Art Project collaborations now! As a reminder, this is a project where two artists team up and mail each other an unfinished artwork. And then they each finish the artwork they receive. My partner Melinda sent me an embellished gelatin print and I turned it into a cover for a little pamphlet stitch art journal -- otherwise known as a single signature art journal: Here's a peek at some of the inside pages: One of the things I love about bookbinding is that you can put any kind of page into your... Read more →

USPS Art Project: Melanie

Here is my second USPS Art Project collaboration piece. This time with Melanie. Here's what I made: This is what she sent me: In essentials, all I did was cut up her work and put it back together again with the help of a ton of foam adhesive. This was a fun idea and I'd like to try it again. After all, there's plenty of stuff around here to cut up! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

Washi Tape Thank You Cards

You know what I have a lot of? Washi tape. I love it. I collect it. But I don't always use it. Until today. I found a great way to use tons of washi tape: thank you cards! In essentials: I added strips of washi tape to pieces of cardstock. I cut the phrase "thank you" from the washi taped cardstock. On some cards I used the positive. On some cards I used the negative. On some cards I used both. Positive: Negative: Both: This idea would work for other phrases and for shapes. And here's a pro tip: If... Read more →

Art Journal Every Day: A New Traveler's Notebook

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal. No need to finish anything or even like it. It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day! If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day. If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog... Read more →

Adventures in Arting Podcast: Filming Things

Today I'm bringing you a podcast in two halves. The first half was recorded right after I came home from New Jersey and filming some videos about new ScanNCut product (which was released yesterday). The second half was recorded right after I came home from recording season 9 of Make It Artsy. The podcast covers travel during COVID-19, some thoughts on filming during these odd times, and much more. Give it a listen: If you do not see the podcast player above, please click on this link. On the off chance that you've never listened to a podcast or don't... Read more →

Block Printing on Fabric via Zoom

I had such a great time teaching my live online "Block Printing on Fabric" class via Zoom last week. It was about as close as you can get to an in-person class experience, but with all of my supplies at my fingertips. A totally perfect situation. I definitely plan to teach more long format classes like that. It was a wonderful experience. I made a set of 4 blocks (aka stamps) in my demo for class: And these are the fabrics I printed during my demos in class: The two green pieces were created from the same strip of green... Read more →

USPS Art Project: Lisa

I finally tackled my collaboration with Lisa yesterday. Here is what I created using oil pastels, colored pencils, and a china marker: I worked on top of the art that Lisa sent me, letting the colors, textures, and patterns she created shine through the composition: Here's a reminder of what Lisa sent me: And below you can see the two pieces "side by side." I was obviously influenced by Jonathan W. Gemmell, who I mentioned last week. 1 collaboration down, 4 more to go! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

Collage Text

I've been playing around with little scraps of paper! Here are some text pieces made entirely from little doodled pieces of paper: I love the way they turned out. And they were super easy to make. I just doodled all over some layout bond paper (it's strong but nice and thin for collage) and cut it up into letter shapes. In some places, I added additional little paper cuts to help embellish the letters. This is the original alphabet I made when I was trying to figure out how this was going to work: I liked the idea, but I... Read more →