Home Again, Home Again, Giggidy-gig

I am back from my amazing whirlwind weekend in NJ. I had such a wonderful time and met so many talented artists and learned so much! I have a ton of pictures and will have to post them over a couple of days. The first day we did melt-art with Suze, who I have to say was my favorite part of the whole weekend.
Here she is (a bit blurry) teaching us all about melt-art.
Here is a photo of just a few of the projects we did with the melt-art pot. A crackle aging, a faux colored soldering, and poured colored utee accents with perfect-pearls.
Here is a shot of us working. The blond taking a photo is an amazing artist named Jessica who is from Canada. We had a lot of fun sitting together this weekend.
Here is a photo of three of the projects we did up close.

Here we are holding up our project boards at the end of class--we did nine little projects in all. Can you find me in the photo? It's like artist "Where's Waldo."
Later that day we were taught by Claudine. Here she is talking to us about our new fine-art products.


I have lots more pictures from my classes with Tim and of my "graduation." I will try to get everything posted in the next day or so! I am so full of ideas and new projects I want to try, I just don't know where to start. Hopefully, I'll be able to put some more "how-to's" up on my blog in the near future.
:)

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.

Bird House No. 2

Here are my photos of my second altered bird house. This one I painted using ranger's distress crackle paints. Once the paint was dry and all crackled-up, I inked it with some dark brown stazon ink. The roof tiles are made of punched paper that I edged with brown ink. The green tiles were stamped before they were punched.
Each of the children have wings that were made from a stamp that I embossed with gold.



These were a lot of fun to do--I've got one more that I think I'm going to do, not for the swap, but just for me!

Altered Bird House

Here are some photos of the first of the altered bird houses I did for the swap at the IAA. I used acrylic paint and paper, along with permanent ink. I stamped the swirls using acrylic paint and clear stamps. It was a little tricky because of the shape of the house, so I actually had to stamp with them without a block.
The roof tiles are paper that I punched out using a 1 inch punch and inked the edges of.
The butterflies are all made out of shrink-plastic. I used white shrink-plastic, stamped with Stazon black ink, and then after it was shrunk, I inked over the surface using chalk ink and embossed. The black comes right through and the color gives it a little added dimension.

Tomorrow I will try to get my photos of my other ones up.

Generosity

I've been thinking a lot about generosity lately. I am so fortunate to be surrounded by generous people. The piece pictured here is a prime example of that: the stencil was a gift from my friend Kris as was the label "hope chest", the photo came from a member of IAA, and the beads came as a gift during a mail art swap.
I made this as a gift for a friend of mine who is in the middle of working on her doctoral dissertation on Polish feminist bloggers. I find this topic incredibly fascinating since I myself am two out of three. She has been incredibly generous with me in not only discussing her work, but mine as well. Debating artist philosophy, meaning and process with me over email. I count myself blessed to have such a wonderful and giving friends. Artists and non-artists alike.

altered tin

I made this little tin the other day and just hadn't gotten around to taking a picture of it. I wanted something that I could throw in my purse to keep Advil/antihistamines in. I bought an altoids tin--it's for the "minis." I liked it because it slides open, and takes a little bit of pressure, so i figured it would be less likely to come open in my purse and dump out. I tried sanding it first...but the shape just wasn't conducive, so I spray painted it silver instead. Once it was dry, I alcohol inked it. I drilled a hole in the end for the charm (made from shrink plastic and pearl-ex), and glued a photo of one of my ATCs that I like. I punched out stars and colored them it with some gel pens and used some rub-ons for the swirls. Once it was dry, I spray-sealed it and viola--all done.

ATC Box

I just finished up this ATC box as part of my work for Retro Cafe Art Gallery. It comes in pieces that you assemble--which makes the decorating process a lot easier. I used chalk inks in purple and brown and then heat set them for the background. I over stamped with some Stazon for the swirls. The trees and leaves are all hand cut out. And the bird is shrink plastic. Each side has a tree and a bird, but I've only posted 2 sides. (sorry my pictures are so bad. I am so NOT a photographer!)

I've been hard at work on some other projects, so I'll try to be good about posting this week. I hope everyone had a happy 4th.

Some New Work

The last couple of days I've been working on some new jewelry pieces. I wanted to make a necklace for my friend Sarah who is spending th summer doing research in NY. I made this for her:

The bottom charm is actually a shrink-plastic charm made out of a ticket stamp. I glued the word onto it once it was cool and then embossed clear embossing powder on top to seal it in.

Here is a picture of the package all wrapped up and ready to go to her:
This next piece I did as part of my design team work for Retro Cafe Art Gallery. The girl is from her "Lucy" set and the mini-shrine is something she carries in her altered art supplies. I filled it with UTEE and heated it to seal in the tiny-heart. I then inked it with alcohol inks in purple and silver.
For both of the necklaces, the acrylic squares are fragments by Tim Holtz. I drilled holes in them to turn them into charms.

A necklace for my Grandmother

I finished this necklace yesterday for my Grandmother. It's a belated mother's day present. originally, I tried making her a pin, because she is the kind of person who wears pins, but I had nothing but trouble with it. Finally, I gave-up. Which is rare for me. Normally, I stick it out. Oh well.
But I came up with this instead:
The acrylic shrine tag is from Retro Cafe Art Gallery. The man in the photo is my grandfather, who passed away a few years ago. (I don't know why there are those weird spots on the charm in this picture, because in real life there aren't any.) The heart charm is shrink plastic that I embossed with pearl-ex and them stamped onto when cool.

ATC Shrine

Here are some photos of this great ATC shrine that I made as part of my design team work for Retro Cafe Art Gallery. The shrine is made out of wood that comes in a big sheet that you punch out and glue together. It can be painted or inked. I used distress crackle paints on mine.
Here is a side view--I actually made the ATC using mounting foam so that the boy looked like he was in a shadow box. But I don't think it shows very well in the pictures. You can, however, see the mounting tape in this picture.

And so that you can see the scale, here is a photo of it hanging on the wall in my studio.

ETSY

I have finally done it--I've opened an ETSY store. I don't have very much in it right now...I have a couple more pieces that are about half finished, that should be going up sometime soon. It was a lot more work than I thought it would be....mostly figuring out what to charge for shipping and all that. Here are a couple of pictures of pieces I have up for sale. One of them is the piece I showed at the end of my last post all finished in necklace form. The other is a canceled British postage stamp. It was actually difficult for me to list that one, because I wanted to keep it for myself! I am just in love with the heart cancellation mark over her crown.

I have some new journal pages done, I will try to get them posted tommrow. In the meantime, happy Wednesday everyone.

Back

Last week was a bad one for me. I got sick with the flu and then my Hubby got sick. He is actually still sick, laying upstairs in our room coughing and keeping me running for OJ and soup. It's no fun being sick....and I didn't get hardly anything done this week because of it. Most of my time was spent washing sheets and towels and spraying things obsessively with Lysol. When people get sick I turn into Adrienne Monk. I just can't help it. All that sneezing and coughing makes me yearn for a hazmat suit!
I did manage to squeeze in a little art while my hubby was napping. Here are 2 cards that I made as part of my design team work with Retro Cafe Art Gallery.

I need to get hopping and get the rest of my valentines done, but first I'm going to get on ebay and see what a hazmat suit runs. They can't be that much can they?

Birds!

We had our monthly meeting of the artistic minds and swap this last Saturday; the theme this month was birds. Here are my cards:



I used alcohol inks for the backgrounds, with playing cards as the base (which is why they're a bit shinny.) The eggs are from old text that I used a bit of distress inks on. The birds are by Retro Cafe Art Gallery--who by the way has a lovely new site up. You should go on over and take a look. If you're feeling really wiley you could click on the design team link and see a fun picture of me when I was a wee-one.

The last of my mini-book photos

I am finally getting around to posting the last of my min-book photos. This week I've been super busy trying to get the last of my stuff ready for classes the next couple of months. I made another min-book which I'll post tomorrow. It's amazing that during my "down-time" I find myself still playing catch-up. The days need to be longer. That's the only solution I can come up with.


I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Home Again

I am back from the wilds of PA and have 2 new journal pages to show for it. I used water color crayons, paper and rub-ons for both of them.


Here is what I learned from my attempt at journaling away from the studio: 1. bring more paper. 2. Water color crayons are the best! light weight and great for layering color on. 3. I should have brought more pre-distressed papers in more colors. (I'd taken some from a latin text book and used the distress inks on them for use in these 2 pages.) 4. Journaling really relieves the stress of traveling and being with family!

Tags Part 2

Here are the other three tags I made as part of my design team work for Retro Cafe Art Gallery. I used all distress products to make the tags.



Hope everyone is having a good Tuesday!

Tag, you're it!

I've been hard at work on some of my design team work for Retro Cafe Art Gallery. Check out these lovely and cute Christmas images!
I felt like making some tags, I used a bunch of the distress products by Ranger, including the new crackle paint.



I will have more to put up tommrow!

Why Save it?

Artists, I firmly believe, are natural hoarders. You know what I'm talking about. The drawers of ribbons or scraps of ephemera that we can't quite bring ourselves to throw-out. Pretty much every artist I know (except for my friend Bev) has tons of stuff. Stuff we don't use, stuff we're saving for...something. I am no exception. I have this gorgeous white rub-on that I keep pulling out of the drawer and looking at and then putting back. But today, when I pulled it out I found myself wondering--why am I saving it? So I used it on my journal page here:

The face in the picture is mine, it's a stencil I cut and made from photoshop. It's my first, but now that I've done it I want to do more. If you're interested in learning how to photoshop/cut stencils there's a great tutorial here. And if you just want to look at some beautiful stenciled work look here. You have to scroll down and see the goldfish. They are just too cute!

A cool fall day

Fall is truly here and what better way to spend a cool fall day than baking in the kitchen? I made this fresh apple crisp with cranberries, walnuts and apples that my hubby and I got at the apple orchid last weekend.

And what better to go with it than a gingerbread latte. Here is my recipe: 2 shots of espresso, 1/2 oz ginger spice syrup, 1/2 oz vanilla syrup, and steamed milk to taste. I curled up under a quilt and drank my coffee and ate my crisp--and all was right with the world.
And last but not least a picture from my journal. This page took forever to finish. I kept hating it and painting over it. Sometimes that's how it goes.

Dreamer

I am trying to get back into the habit of working in my journal again. I stopped for a variety of reasons--time, my injury and my depression--but I'm feeling the urge again. I love doing the prompts over on D'Blogala. This week, it was about using an old family photo. I picked my grandfather, who is pictured with my grandmother in this shot. I love this picture because he looks so classy and happy.
This page uses acrylic, paper, and stamps by Technique Tuesday. Sorry the resolution isn't better, my scanner hates the binding on my journal.