Sea Glass Art

Recently, I got commissioned to create small artworks made from sea glass. The person who asked me to do this is a businesswoman and a friend. Her family owns a number of restaurants in Dumaguete but interestingly, her home is filled with so many beautiful works from local artists. These are not just paintings but different types of art a person can make.

In previous occasions, I have made a few paintings for her and my hand-painted wood slices also caught her attention. I'm so happy that my work adds beauty to someone else's home.

In this recent project, she asked for me to make tiny framed artworks from these random (but special) objects. It's something I have not done before but I was willing to give it a try. It was challenging at first and took me a while to decide on what illustrations would be suitable. One thing though, she requested that I could include birds. I did some research and found out it's quite a popular style to make art.

Sea glass, as random as they look, are very special and are made beautiful through time. What better way to preserve their beauty and giving more meaning to their unique appearance by making them into simple artworks! I had a little help from references, though, but because no two pieces are alike, you'll have to take some ideas from your own imagination!

In the end, I was able to make six artworks and I am so happy about them! I'm working on another batch and I can't wait to show you!

Word stones for Cebu Florist

My second batch of word stones were made from a friend who requested me to customize the stones. He owns a flower shop in Cebu and he thought it would be a great accessory to add to flower orders. When you give flowers to someone, you can add a short thoughtful phrase or message that (usually) comes in a card. But it doesn't have to. Instead, you can give them a piece or two of these stones which has sweet words written on them:

"i miss you"
"i luv u"
"beautiful"
"hugs"
"i'm sorry"
"hugs"
"love"

These will be placed in a nice little pouch to give to your loved one together with your flowers. It's great because it's something new and adorable which others can put on their desk, trinket dish, shelf or use as paper weight. Truly enjoyed making these and they all look very nice when put together.

See?

Painting autumn leaves

A friend recently went to South Korea where autumn leaves are falling and brought back for me these maple leaves from Nami Island! They're so pretty! I may put them in a nice frame in the future but for now I'm keeping them. So it was the perfect idea to paint them one Sunday afternoon! These are actually some of my favorite colors to use, darker shades of red, green and yellow.

My faves below would be the yellow and dark red leaves, lower left and lower center. Showing you my actual desk situation (it's not neat, I know), and the finished illustration!

Here is a video of the painting process.

My wax seal collection 2019

If there's something I never thought I'd get into, it would be wax seals. Not until I decided to try out a custom stamp. I sent my logo to be made as a stamp along with another one I designed, a simple calligraphy text. The design has a lot of others similar to it but I wanted to do my own in my handwriting.

One stamp was not cheap and I ordered two from a stamp-maker abroad, but if there's something you should know about me, I am willing to spend for something that I really want to try, just to see if I can do it. So after more than a month, my stamps arrived and hey! I was so happy to see my very own work in a wax seal!

I thought that it would be great to introduce wax seals to my small hometown who rarely use these things and bring something new to the usual invites that we see during weddings. In the years I have photographed weddings, not many couples have used them. I believe it would be due to limited or no access or having access but out of the budget. I would understand, wax seals are not cheap because they need time to make and the supplies are not cheap. But mainly, it's the time. Not a lot of people would be willing to sit and make average of 50-80 stamps for invites!

Anyway, so after a year, I have made a little collection of stamps. There are graphical designs and calligraphy ones which I designed myself. Most of them can be used in wedding invitations, thank you cards and even craft projects!

I'm so proud of this! Take a look!

{ Krafted } Wax Seal Stamps for Ina and Abed

This is a stamp I made for a wedding in Dumaguete happening this month! For this one, I started the design on pen and paper and digitized it to come up with the final design. It's a simple calligraphy style with a small heart which gives it a cute and romantic feel to it.

I sold this one as a set, so included are melting spoons and star-shaped wax beads and some tea light candles.

DIY Custom Ribbons

Guess what!? I was able to make my own packaging ribbons! I was so happy I discovered this! I used satin ribbons, alphabet rubber stamps and good quality ink pad (Ranger Ink Pad, black). The ink pad is very important because at first I tried the regular ink pad brands from the office supplies store but there is a huge difference with the alphabet imprint.

My rubber stamps are small so I opted to use 3/4 inch satin ribbons. I can use 1-inch ribbons too, but the words will still be the same size. There are cotton twill ribbons that I am looking for and there is no one selling locally. I will order that online (from abroad) and honestly cannot wait to use it on that!

Anyway, there are some limitations to this. I only have the a black ink pad so I'm only using light-colored ribbons. It still looks great though. I have a Delicata Metallic stamp pad in Silver and Gold, the latter wasn't as good, the former is a hit or miss.

So, how to use them? If you like to put gifts in boxes, it would look great to tie around them. Not just for Christmas presents. If you have a small business, you can add it to packaging small items. Aside from boxes, you can tie it around small pouches and use it to close the bag, with a custom thank you tag! Super nice and very customized!

It's surely going to make an impact to anyone who will receive it!