Best of Valentine’s day projects links

Unless you’ve been stucked on an island (without internet access, for that matters!), you probably realized that there are a tons of Valentine’s day projects popping on the blogosphere, lately.

As I was browsing through my blog reader, I thought I’d share some of my favorite projects with you.
It’s good for karma, they say.

Crafts

• Stamped love message on a wooden spool from Paper N Stich
• How to make a simple V-Day sachet . by Diane of Craftypod.
• Last minute Valentine’s day cards from Ready, set, craft!
• Crocheted hearts tutorial from Between the line.
• Magazine hearts garland by Tricia of Oh So Crafty
• How to make your own Valentine (Plush boyfriend/girlfriend) by Erika Kern for Craftstylish

Cooking

• Valentine Treat! by Pam from Gingerbread Snowflakes.
• Flax Brittle Valentines Hearts by Dot for Dollar Store Crafts
• “Toad” ally cool Pencip Pops by Cindy from Skip to my Lou
• Dark Chocolate and Strawberry Cake Ball from Indie House.
• Vanilla cut-out cookies from world-famous Craftzine.

Free downloads & printables

• “Code monkey” Valentine’s day card from Dot of Dabbled.org
• Free calendar wallpaper download-February 2010 fom Happy Doodle Land.
• Hedgehog Love Papercut Template from Cindy for PaperCrave
• Swap-bot Valentines’s cards template (Cute chiuaua design!) from Swap-bot.
• Mice Cupcake Toppers by Suzie & Heidi of Make Something Happy

Thanks to all the amazing crafters/cookers/designers who share their projects with us. Without this community, Valentine’s day surely wouldn’t be as fun!   

ArtRage: inexpensive and easy software drawing

One of my teacher in graphic design once showed us a very interesting drawing software: Artrage.

It has a very user-friendly interface (Kids can use it!) and it is very inexpensive compared to the other drawing softwares around. (20$US for Artrage 2, 40$US for Artrage 3 and 80$US for Artrage Studio Pro).

If you’d like to try it out, there’s a free demo right here, it will last you 30 days.

I yet have to figure out all the amazing things that can be done with it, but so far I really like it’s fun features.
I even did my inking with Artrage 2 for this poster:

Mama mia! Italian restaurant poster!

I’ve cropped the poster so you could focus on the drawing instead of the other part of the poster that’s been done with Photoshop.

I just got the new Artrage Studio Pro and can’t wait to try it more seriously as they have a new tool especially made for inking.

I found that Artrage 2 is great if you’re planning on doing more sketches or painted-style drawing, but I did have some trouble using it’s inking tools to get a clearer drawing. I was happy to find out that they improved this very important function.

Take note that this is a drawing software and it will be best used for this kind of work.
If you’d like to get a photo editing software (Such as photoshop) to make, say, blog banners. I recommend you use a software more like Gimp, Picasa or even Picnik.

Let me know if you try it out and what you think about it.
Happy drawing!

IPod touch art

One of the greatest thing that  revolutionned the way we make art theses day is technology. Better known as: computers.

If, like me, you’re in  your late twenties, you certainly remember the first time you did a drawing on the computer. You probably also remember the first time you got your first hacked version of Photoshop, but that’s another story…

Right now, I’d like to talk about what “technology” brought us in the last year: IPod touch art! You can also make this on an IPhone, as well.

Now, I don’t own one (yet!), but I’ve been checking out theses little pieces of art floating around Flickr, lately. Here are some of them:

From John Bavaro.

I love the texture and shapes in this one. Love me some, Budda! (Which, for some odd reason, reminds me of this part of a funny documentary made by Réal Béland, a Quebec comedian. Watch if you have some free time. :-p)

From Robert Dawson.

I could totally see myself draw people in a cafe with this gadjet.
(I can hear my mom saying:”Isn’t what you’ve been doing for years with a sketchpad and a pen?” :-p)

From Toubab.

I really like the movement, lines and colors of this one. Simple, yet, very eye-catching. 

From Suzi54241

I adore Suzi’s work. She’s a retired artist and you can defenetely see that she has many years of drawing behind her. Check out the website she has with other fingerpainters. She also reccomends us to take a look at Fingerpainted.it.

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Have you tried this before? If so, how did you like it? If  not, would you consider getting an Ipod touch just for this special feature? Share your thoughts!

Worth-a-click blogs

I’d like to post more drawings, comics and the such but I don’t have access to my drawing table most of the time, unfortunately. I  need to find a way to organize my time a little differently. :-/
Any suggestions on how you bloggers work this out?

In the meanwhile, here are some inspiring blogs you should visit:

Over at Dabbled, you’ll find tons of crafty tutorials and ressources. This blog have been around for quite awhile but I just recently discovered it.

The name says it all, it’s the graphic fairy! Lots of vintage images for your personnal creations. It makes me want to take a look at thoses old books again.

I’ve known Nati’s work for a few years, now. She is an italian illustrator and I stumbled on her work when I was in my Anne Rice frenzy. :-p She had done some great illustrations of the novel’s characters. Now, she’s working on her own work and it’s always an inspiration. Do, check it out!

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If you’d like me to do a tiny review of your blog via this serie, just let me know via the contact form.
If I like what I read and see, there’s very good chances I’ll write about it.