"Art is my vehicle through life; may we share the ride together." Ron Wickersham

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Quirky Collage

Ready for more quirkiness? I've finished three more collages for my magazine traveler's notebook journal. These were created with the latest free collage sheets from Joanne (craftyhodges) on YouTube for her "Five-Minute" Collage series.


Owl be There



Hop to It



Tiger Lily

I am having so much fun with these and my journal is filling up quite nicely (17 so far!).

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Easter cards

We're back from the weekend in Austin celebrating our oldest grandson's 6th birthday. Wow, he grew up fast! He had a very fun party at Chuck E Cheese with 18 of his friends from kindergarten, preschool and the neighborhood. I don't think I've been in a CEC for 25+ years and was surprised they were still around! Needless to say, it was bedlam but he was over the moon!

Birthday breakfast




Birthday boy

Star Wars theme - light saber cupcakes


Inside the ticket blaster - he caught well over 1000 tickets!


After resting from the chaos, I spent some time yesterday making some Easter cards for the grand boys and one of their friends (who seems to have adopted us).  Found a similar card on Pinterest of course and used a stamp/die set from Reverse Confetti from a few years ago for the peeps and sentiment.  It's impossible to see in the photo, but I used a perforating wheel from my sewing days to add detail to the wavy edges of the paper layers. Gotta get these in the mail soon!



Friday, March 23, 2018

Best Transfers Yet

I think I have ADD when it comes to art! I start one project, move to another and another, and don't finish anything! Actually it sometimes works to my advantage because I can move on to something else while paint is drying...

I recently discovered a new YouTuber (to me), a mixed-media artist from California named Lorri Marie Jenkins. I started binge-watching her altered book tutorials and immediately grabbed an old book to start making my own.

One of her tutorials was on transfers. I have done many transfers before and the results are iffy at best. So many factors can ruin a transfer. But, following her instructions, I made these very successful transfers on a double-page spread.




They are not perfect but about as good as any transfer could be. 

Here are some basic instructions: Cover the image three times with a coat of Mod Podge, drying fully between each layer. Paint the substrate with acrylic paint and then coat with a medium coverage of Mod Podge. Place image face down, burnish well and dry completely. Then mist the image with water and start rubbing the paper off. If there is a haze of white left once the image is dry, there is still paper pulp to remove.  Repeat as needed. I found that I could rub quite vigorously (unlike with other transfers I've done) and I had very little lift-off of the original image.

There's still more to be done to these pages, but I am happy with my transfers! And I have several other pages in the works, so will share more later.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Snippet Roll Received!


This is the snippet roll I received. Thank you Cher! This is lovely, with bits of trim, lace, silky fabrics, some decorative stitching, sequins, buttons and beading. I love the colors - burgundy, pink, cream and a taupey-green. It's about 1.5" wide and 24" long. What a great swap!

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Collage

And some more collage... I'm so enjoying doing these! Both collages were made with collage sheets, all from Mischief Circus. I just mixed and matched from several sheets and had fun combining different elements and sizes. So relaxing to fussy cut and glue!






Monday, March 12, 2018

Recent Swaps

I am participating in a few swaps this month. One is "Sew Beautiful" ATCs and the other is "Snippet Rolls." I started working on both projects while I was at my friend's house for an art retreat last weekend and finished them up last week.

For the ATC swap, we are supposed to make two fabric, lace, stitched ATCs and send them off to our two partners.  These are the two I created in similar fashion. I layered fabric, laces and ribbon over a card stock base and machine stitched. The photos are printed on sticky-backed inkjet-printable fabric. I then hand-stitched buttons and pearls on.






This is an additional piece that we are incorporating in our group this year. We are calling it "Hitchhiker Art." One person starts a small piece of art and includes it in their next swap mailing. That recipient finishes off the piece and send it on to the next person they are mailing a swap to. That third person gets to keep it.



This tag's background was started by Roxanne and sent to me last month in a swap. It is very grungy with many textures of copper, silver and a blueish metallic. I completed it by adding a butterfly and quote stamped on a Distress Oxide background and a few strips of washi tape. I added clear Wink of Stella to both the butterfly and the words and then Glossy Accents to the black markings of the butterfly. I added a messy "nest" of copper metallic thread behind the butterfly and a pen nib for its body. I sent it on to the final recipient who is also receiving the second ATC above. I hope she likes it!


This is the snippet roll I created. (If you don't know what that is, google it or check all the You Tube videos showing beautiful rolls. It is basically a base fabric or ribbon covered with bits and pieces - snippets - of lace, fabric, ribbons and lots of embellishments such as charms, buttons, beads etc.) This is about 24" long and 2" wide. I used a vintage floral drapery fabric as the base and went to town adding lots of bits. This is a great project to use up some of the tiny pieces we hoarders save! It was hard to get the entire piece in the photo but, hopefully, you can get an idea of what this looks like.




These snippet rolls can be rolled around a ribbon spool or a wooden thread spool or hung with a ribbon. Or you can leave it as is and cut it up to use in other projects.  I did not have an appropriate-sized wooden spool but I did have a heavy cardboard tube from a spool of metallic thread that was perfect. I covered it with vintage music paper and then glued on a "tab" of scrap fabric and pinned the end of the snippet roll to it. This was it isn't permanently attached in case the recipient doesn't want to keep it rolled this way. I threaded pink seam binding ribbon through the tube, rolled up the snippet and tied the ribbon in a pretty bow to keep it intact.





I can't wait to receive my ATCs and snippet roll in return. It's fun to see how other people interpret the theme and to receive other artists' work.


Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Two Quirky Collages

Here are two more quirky collages. Yesterday, Joann (craftyhodges on You Tube) posted another quick and easy collage along with a free collage sheet. (You can see the short video and get the collage here if you'd like.)

This is the collage - almost identical to hers - that I made. For changes, I used a different patterned paper for the background and added a paper strip border along the top edge and a doodled border along the other edges. I also added a Tim Holtz "small talk" sticker. 

Flower Princess (or Frida)



I made this collage last week, totally original from magazine images and paper strips.  I used a face and separate eyes from magazine ads and legs/feet and hands/arms from a catalog. The body is a pear and the skirt is a funky lampshade, both magazine images. The bottom part of the hat is a pendant lamp and the top part is cut from a Marimekko-patterned vase, both also from magazines. The flower at the bottom is also part of that same vase. The borders are just strips cut from scrap papers.




As you can see, just about anything can be used to create a quirky image! It's fun looking through magazines to find images that might morph into other images.



Monday, March 5, 2018

Embroidering

The past few months I have been embroidering some holiday felt ornaments. It started when my two art friends and I had our monthly art date in early Feb. and we decided to do some Valentine hearts for little wire trees we all have. We were inspired by Vicki Chrisman (my online friend and fellow crafter) and her felt hearts. You can see some of hers here.

These were the ones I made. We die cut the felt layers from various dies and then used simple embroidery stitches and buttons to embellish them. I have a few more cut out but ran out of time before Valentine's Day. Next year...




Then we decided to continue on for Easter ornaments. We used dies for the egg shapes and scallop circles (sheep) but hand-drew and hand-cut the other shapes. I added a combination of embroidered flowers, vintage paper flowers and felt flowers and buttons to embellish these.



They all looked super cute on the tree for each holiday.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

February Art Marks - Done!

It's March 1 and the February Art Marks Challenge is officially finished. And, I am done! It was a fun challenge but I have to admit I was running out of marks to make! Looking back on these pages, I think I like circles and dashes as well as black and white!


Days 22/23
Prompts: less; invent






Days 24/25
Prompts: build; root





Days 26/27
Prompts: replenish; rest





Day 28/back cover
Prompt: joy



Now that this project is finished, I will be looking for something else to work on. But in the meantime, I will be spending the weekend with a few of my artsy friends making art and enjoying our friendships!