Hearts a Million

Remember the heart swap i did last month and wrote about HERE? Well here is what my friend D did with her's.  She not only applied all the hearts we swappes to the painted and textured background, she also searched around the house for OTHER  hears to hang from the bottom.  So pretty.  (sorry for the fuzzy photo!)

Check out the contrast with my light background heart.

And check out our art pal in the Pacific Northwest who posted a picture of the goodies we shipped to her after the swap HERE.

Altered Book: The Odditorium

We continue to do our monthly swap in these cute little spiral bound calendars.  This month i had the pleasure of working in K's book, entitled The ODDitorium.  We were asked to create colourful pages with equally colourful characters.  Love the trim detail on her spine.

I always wanted to try this - with my love of birds and vintage ephemera.  I used a magazine image of a garden for the background, sanding slightly to make it more aged and soft.  The girls were copied from a vintage cabinet card.  a few details were added to their dresses with blue pens.  These girls didn't have those lovely large hair bows you often see in victorian times, so a bit of vintage seam binding ribbon is soft pink was added.

For this spread i flipped through a decorating magazine looking for inspiration.  I found the elephant in a mattress ad, and the birdbath was actually a high end carved stone bathroom sink.  I added them together with a flock of small birds.  I used a similar garden image for the background and added a few flower stickers for colour.  The water splashes are blue ink and glossy accents to give them some depth.

The sign in page offered us small cards to decorate.  I added a bird and vintage postage stamp and signed the back.  Our hostess D cannot stop exclaiming how much she is LOVING these little books!  They are really developing a fun personality and are quick to alter due to their size.  As there are 6 of us in this round robin swap, we will each get the books to work on twice during the year.  By December the books are fat and full of shared art!

Block Head Dolls Play Date

We spent saturday afternoon crafting art dolls out of blocks of wood.  Our inspiration came from some similar dolls i saw online on Teresa Mcfayden's whimsical blog HERE.  I read that she got the idea from Laura Robberts blog HERE.  You can see Laura's video and even sign up for a workshop to learn how to make your own.

You can start with any old wooden blocks or shapes. I had some 1 1/2 inch childs blocks so i used those.  I stacked three together using tacky glue and painted them with white gesso.  My friend Z gave me some Jenga blocks she bought at a garage sale.  Her husband cut some into thirds to make the heads.

 The process is kind of varied but for me followed this sequence.  Cover the blocks with paper.  Add tissue napkins with gell medium to add layers.  The faces were cut from vintage photos (copies) and Anthro catalogs.  Join head with wire, a dowel, or screw eyes.  Add small nails with beads for hair and arms. 

Many of the samples i saw online showed faces with underlying or overlying text.  Since image transfer is iffy, i decided to try a technique i learned about years ago but never tried until now.  Buy a small box of roller papers and the beauty supply store.  (you know the kind you use with a home permanent?)  Use a blank ink pad, like StazOn and stamp text on the thin paper.  Then glue it onto your face with gel medium.  It literally disappears!

 For this little Jenga doll i used paper beads we made HERE.  I always thought they were kind of icky and looked like larvae and never wanted to use them for anything.  For for legs on this quirky doll i think they are PERFECT!  She isn't quite finished.  Still needs more details - hair, hat, arms, whatever.  The "you will be taught to fly" quote was cut from a napkin.

 This gal has screw eyes to join her head to body and some wire legs wrapped with paper clay.  I will paint the clay as soon as it dries completely.

 Here is a work in progress from D.  Love the tacks used for hair on this expressive face. Like her use of small spools to hold the doll upright.  (mine will probably hang on a hook)

 D made her block doll reversable - here it has a complely different look and mood.

 K's work in progress features many metal elements including a clock face and some wooden spool legs.

K also worked on this architectural creature which will have copper tassels for limbs.

 Here is a doll from Z - in progress.  She chose the zebra print to echo the edginess of the biker chick face.  A studded collar was a perfect addition.  The image in the background is our inspiration from Teresa's blog.

 Z is also creating a doll with her grandaughter's face.  Love the cute dotted sparkly dress with the velvet trim belt.

 Another work in progress from K.  As you can see just about anything goes and those butterfly wings will be really impressive on this doll!

Another piece by K - where she is using larger wooden blocks and a wooden ball for the head.  Love the lace cap contrasted with the metal elements.

As you see just about anything goes and we had so much fun creating our block head dolls!

Another successful play date!

Mega Heart Swap

Last month i saw a pretty heart sampler on Rebecca Sower's blog you can see HERE.  I shared it with my artsy friends and we all agreed we would like to try it.  We started with the instructions to create two different styles of hearts, 6 of each.  One to keep and 5 to swap.  Well, we all went crazy creating hearts and did not stop until we had each made over 50!

This is how it played out....

First Z layed out all her hearts on the table - we eached picked one or two of each type.  There were fabric, and paper machier, and cute paint chip hearts with love-y dove-y paint chip names like Karen's Kiss!

Here are the 7 i picked for myself.  She did some embossing of metal packaging - love the limonata heart!

Next my hearts were strewn on the table and everyone could choose one of each type.  There were dominoes, resin paper, mini collages with faces, plaster, flash cards and so much more.

Here are more i made with vintage trading stamps, and old envelopes with european stamps.

Queen of hearts, glitter hearts on dominoes and some handmade paper.

Seriously - we could not stop!  There are weathered copper mesh and vintage wallpaper with mini wooden birds. 

 WHOA!  Here are all the hearts K brought to swap with us.  We went around the table taking turns choosing.  It was absolutly like kids in a candy store - just look at those luscious hearts!

 Here are some of D's hearts.  She did some sewing on bubble wrap with googly eyes, copper backed faces, layered playing cards and some compass spinner hearts.

 Here's a closeup!

Here is more from D - colourful collage with faux stitching, saints with beads dangling.

Here is another look at K's clay hearts.

 Here are some of the beautiful hearts that L sent us from Washington state!  collages, beeswax, stitching, buttons - so much fun!

 Here are some of S's hearts for swapping.  The dark ones are lace and beautiful in person.  She had silver foil aned embellished copper.

 More of S's hearts - assorted textures and colours.

 Here are the hearts from S which i picked out.

Here are all the hearts we will be sending to our art buddy in Port Townsend!

Here is how all my swapped hearts look layed out on the canvas i prepared at home.  I attached most of them with tacky glue and some with 3d glue dots.

D is waiting for her canvas to dry - and went with a dark background.

S is creating a small book for all her hearts - she'll had phrases to each page.

Z is creating a frame and wire structure to hang her hearts and some family photos.

So K was the only one with a finished project for me to photograph.  She created a richly hued canvas background and chose to use only the hearts with pink and copper-y colours.  How beautiful!

Thanks again to Rebecca Sower for the original inspiration!

Altered Calendar Swap - Once Upon a Time

 For the month of March i had the pleasure of working in K's book - a fairy tale of sorts, where you continue a story she began about a special little girl, her fairy godmother, and a wicked landlady.  Meant to serve as a "do it yourself" story book to read to her grandaughter, we were to add fanciful pages that tell a story, but don't limit the imagination of the viewer.  I started  with a picturesque cottage and covered it in rose stickers.  i added a litte poem that i cut up and rearranged.  The background was from an Anthropologie catalog.

 For my next spread i created a room with sunny windows covered in lavish green floral "drapes" where the girls could curl up on the tufted couch and read all day long from the piles of books.

 My third spread features one of those pictures you tear out of a magazine, or see online and just love looking at.  this pretty damsel will portray the evil landlady Esmerelda in the story.  The model was originally centered on the page, so i had to splice the image background on the left.  A few dabs of green marker tie it together.

The sign in tag is a little card where you can write your version of the story, but is not required reading to enjoy this delightful and whimsical book.

As has become our custom, we often bring goodies to share with the ladies in our play date group.  here are some textured papers and ribbons we each got to take home.

Paper Clay Chicks

This past weekend my husband and i went to Scottsdale Arizona for a baseball spring training weekend with another couple.  While the guys saw a game on Saturday, Z and i took a paper clay workshop with the delightful Jenny Hernadez of the Polka Dot Pixie.  The class took place at a charming and very well organized craft store in Chandler, AZ called CraftFusion.    

Forgot to take a picture of the armature base - but it was two foam balls with wire feet.  Jenny prepared them in advance so we would have enough drying time, so we could paint.  Our job was to take thin layers of paper clay and smooth it over the foam balls.  Then make a face shape with cheeks and a beak.  We added a cracked shell base and little feather-y wings. 

My chick had dots on the shell which i poked with a skewer, but painted dots would have worked just as well.  After painting we gave it a coat of clear finish spray.

We were also given a little paper box to paint inside and out.  I used a pretty blue.

Here is a side view of my chick showing his (her?) silly profile!

Here he is part way through the painting with cheeks, dots, beak and legs painted in lively spring colours.

Next it was time to add some antiquing.  Some watered down paint was used to "glaze" the box and the chick.

Here is Jenny's sample bird.  How adorable!  We had a choice of a box for a base or the simple wodden disc. You can see how the crevices take on the antiquing and give it a much more substantial and "artsy" look.

This bird was done by one of my fellow students, Kristy.  Love the dots on her hat and the glittery silver pipe cleaner trim.

This pretty bird was done by my friend Z.  She is going to look for a little straw hat for her!  Won't that be darling!  She looks like she is in the middle of of song!!

This chick was done by another student, Suzie.  She had taken classes with Jenny before, always a ringing endorsement for a teacher to have repeat students.  The birds get propped up against a cup or bottle while they dry.

Since Suzie was a little speed demon, she had time to make a SECOND creature.  This will be a bunny when the pink ears and belly are added.  Love those wide feet!

Once again - my finished bird.  I added pompom trim to his little striped hat and some ribbons and lace (frippery you might call it) to the base.  We LOVED taking this workshop with Jenny and would highly recommend that you take a class with her if you are ever in the AZ area.  She also travels to teach and sell her creations.  In Northern California please check her out at Petaluma's Halloween and Vine arts and craft show.