Danielle Calabro

I am calling this my successful fail, this was my first attempt at using a couple of new tools. It was a fail because it did not turn out how I would have liked but successful because I learned some valuable lessons in the process. Lesson #1: The Pen holder for the Silhouette Cameo: I took a chance on this tool, I was not sure if it would work in the new machine, all the videos on you tube had shown the older machine. After using the Sketch pens made for the machine, which I am not a big fan of because my last card I made the ink skipped. I wanted to make sure the ink would not skip again so I figured I would test out a couple of pens in the holder. What I found was the shape of the pen makes a difference. I love my micron pens but I find they did not fit as well as the Copic multiliners, the Copic pens are fatter near the tip so it was a snug fit and did not slip. The Micron are thinner near the tip and it slipped from the holder. Here is the test sheet I did with a few different ...

In between everyday life and learning to use the Silhouette I have still been doodling away. Usually watching Destination America, I am a sucker for ghost stories, on occasion they will have a real scary one that freaks me out a little but what can I say, that is my go to channel.  When I am not sure what I want to draw I will plop down on the couch, grab a blanket and a pillow to put on my lap with my sketch book and pens in hand along with my favorite channel. Sometimes I start and erase 4 or 5 times, other times I know exactly what I want to do. Here is a small collection of 3 couch sessions. Of course if I have something important to work on I will be at either my computer desk or art desk. I am curious to know who else has a go to place when you are just trying to stay creative? Do you have background noise like a radio or TV? What are some of the things you create when you doodle?

I know as a woman that tough times are just that, tough times. You can either let them take over you or you can fight through them. Me, I would rather fight through them. We have a young lady at another branch (my 9-5 job), that has fallen on some tough times and I know that sometimes its nice to see that people do still care. I do not know her personally but I know the feeling, I am sure all of us do. I thought it would be nice to give her a card but not just any card, one that was just for her, apparently she loves high heels. This also pushed me to figure out how the hell do I get my artwork to cut out on cards. This is what I started with, sketched out and traced with pen: Easy enough, so here is the tough part, how do I get it to cut so it doesn't just leave an outline of a high heel in the middle of the card? I started first thing in the morning but with life I had to stop a couple of times, take the kids to the park, get lunch and do some grocery shopping. Once we g...

A couple of weeks ago I had a friend invite me to the "Stamp and Scrapbook" expo. At first I said no because I don't really do much with stamps or scrapbooking but after thinking about I figured I could take the kids and get them out of the house. My daughter loves to make little things out of paper so I figured it would give her some ideas. Well, I was kind of right, I found this little beauty at the expo and I absolute love it. This is a Silhouette Cameo cutter, the little blue box you see sitting in front of it was a sheet of watercolor paper that I had done a background on and could figure out what to do with it so I threw it on the cutting mat to see if this machine would cut it and as you can see, it did a fine job. the flowers are a stamp that I received in a mystery box at the expo. Since then I have been going to town cutting vinyl and the possibilities are almost endless, here are a few things I have done with the machine:  This is a box I m...