Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Necklace

I've been playing around with casting plaster the last week or so. I wanted a large face to put on an assemblage I'm working on and thought plaster would be ideal. But in the meantime, I made a mold out of a doll hand and cast it to use on this necklace:
Once the plaster was dry (thanks in part to the magic of the microwave!) I painted it with a couple of acrylic washes, added the next and then glued it to the washer. The spikes coming out of the back are actually straight pins that I colorized using alcohol inks. The metal case for the necklace is made out of metal repair tape on top of heavy cardstock. I inked it with alcohol inks and then embossed it using some distress powder. It doesn't show very well in the photo because of the glare, but you can see a little bit of the embossing in the corner. I cut the pages and made the book, ran the ribbon (hand dyed using a combination of walnut ink and perfect pearls heat-set with an iron) through a hole that I pierced at the top and put the whole thing together.
Viola--a lovely grungy necklace. :)

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Alcohol Inks Card

It was my anniversary last weekend and I made this card using alcohol inks for my dh.
The process is really quite simple: using a non-stick craft sheet drop several colors of inks and a little bit of blending solution then push a piece of shinny card-stock onto it and lift off. Repeat until the page is covered. When I was done, I embossed the stamp (which is from Paperbag Studios) and then I dropped some blending solution on the card. That's what caused the white-ish spots. I also dropped a good amount of blending solution inside the heart to lighten it up. The swirl is chipboard that I inked with metallic green ink, heat set, stamped with stazon, heat set again, and then embossed several times with UTEE.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with more work.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Boo!

I had so much fun working on my altered bird houses for the swap that I decided to do another one. I was in the mood for Halloween so I made a "haunted" bird house. For the roof I used tyvek, which I painted with black and copper paint, and then heated it with a heat-gun. Once it was cool, I cut it into strips and glued it to the roof. I finished it off with some copper tape on the top. It was a massive pain to glue it down--and I wondered what I was thinking while I was doing it--but in the end I think it turned out great.

Here is a close-up shot of the baby fairy-witch that is sitting on the side of the house. You can see the green metal stars that I hung using some black fibers.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

News! News!

I have been a busy little bee this last week. And I have some great news!
First-up: the newest volume of Page By Page is due out on the fifteenth, featuring an article and art work by yours truly. Kira's Zine, is always a treat and I am thrilled to be a small part of it.

Second: I had a piece accepted by Altered Arts Magazine. It should be in one of the winter editions--probably around the first of the year. I'm also writing an article to go along with it.

And lastly: I had a third piece accepted by Somerset Studios for their forthcome "Art Journal" publication. It's due out in January of '09. There isn't much info about the new magazine on their site--so I'm not even sure if it's quarterly or simply a "special edition." I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my house atcs that I made for last month's swap at IAA. I've had this photo sitting on my desktop for forever and just kept forgetting to post it. I actually punched holes in my atcs and made them into a book--that turned out so cute! I just need to make a cover for it.

Now, you need to hop on over to Kira's site and pre-order her zine. I'm serious. Go now!



Are you going yet???
:)