Spread in my Melange Book

This is a spread I did in my Melange Book, probably my most favorite handmade book of mine.  It was a project done in my local book arts group a while back.  Well, more than a while.  It was a very challenging project....but also loads of fun.  I never would've created this book if it hadn't been a group project, and I'm so grateful it was, because it totally motivated me to do this and get it finished.  It was a group project, but we each created our own books.  Oftentimes, I need that kind of motivation.  And also the help and support that was so generously provided by other members of our super-great local group!!!  I'm oh so fortunate and grateful that we have such a fantastic book arts/altered art group in my area, the Denver metro area, and that I've been a member for over five years.  Our group is still going strong, and I hope it always will.  And I only wish that all of you artists out there could have a group like this in your area.

The left page is a fabric page of painted muslin, with lace, ribbon, rick-rack, and buttons glued down, and frayed along the edges.  The right page has cool scrapbook paper as the background.  The lower part is a pocket of fine copper mesh, with an altered CD inserted.  I glued down four rusted bottle caps....I always love rusted found objects, that's for sure.  The fiber is eyelash yarn (at least I think that's what it's called).  

To be honest, I'm going through a difficult time in my life right now, and so making art has kind of been relegated to the back burner.  I've been in an extended art slump, which has been quite frustrating and bewildering.  But beyond that, I'm dealing with some painful family issues/realities, that have really knocked the air out of me.  Sometimes, reality really BITES as I'm sure all of you can relate to and understand.  However, I want to keep my blog current, because it's important to me to do so.  There are a lot of things in life I don't have control over, but I do have control over my blog.  And it helps me to keep it going and current, or as much as I'm able to.  I know this too, shall pass, and better days are up ahead, but for now, I'm rather down under.  So please bear with me on this.  Thank you. 

Bones -- Halloween/Autumn Collage

Ahhh yes, skeletal bones.  And a fine looking skeleton it is.  It started out lavender, the color it came in the package.  Which was cool, but not the color I needed for this piece.  So I painted it with Lumiere Gold and then rubbed black over it, then sealed it with Future Floor Finish (FFF).  Regarding the second photo, I once again played around with the fish eye lens on my photo editor just to see what it would look like.  I like the way it looks.

Let me back up a bit here.  This is an 8x10 inch piece of chip board.  I had an unopened package of multiple colors of Mulberry Papers, so I decided to finally use some.  I glued down an orange sheet with Mod Podge, and then glued down a piece of very red lace on top of  that.  I was going to go with that as my background, but I felt the lace was too red so I glued down another sheet of orange mulberry paper on top of the lace, and liked that result much better because it toned down the red lace and gave me the colors I wanted. I really like how the orange fibers in the mulberry paper show up so well.  I sealed the background with FFF also.

The orange piece is obviously a large paint chip from Lowe's.  I considered distressing it first, by sanding it and then etching in it with a sharp awl, but chose not to.  I did however brush over it thickly in all directions with gel medium in order to give it some subtle texture.  When dry, I rubbed paste brown shoe polish over it.  Well, before I textured it, I used my trusty Hot Stamps tool with my number set and burned in the numbers.  I did the same thing with my alphabet set for the word "Bones".  I do love my Hot Stamps tool, but haven't used it in quite some time.  It's one more great tool I should use more often than I do.  It works quite well on paint chips I discovered this time around.  It's always good to learn something new.

The spiders came in a package of Halloween confetti, and worked out great for this piece.  The paint chip came with the square windows in it, so it only made sense to glue the spiders there.  I had the transparent round pieces for years and never used them until now.  It's a miracle I even remembered I had them.  

The long fiber piece is an orange chenille pipe cleaner wrapped with the orange fiber specialty yarn.  Not my idea, but a great one.  This idea, and many more easy and innovative ideas for very cool embellishments are featured in Sherill Kahn's book, CREATIVE  EMBELLISHMENTS.  It's one of my favorite books ever, a must have for my own library.

The leaves were picked up off my driveway yesterday, not long after they fell off the tree.  I immediately preserved them by sealing them with gel medium on both sides, then put them in a book to flatten them out for a few hours.  I like them a lot on this piece, but am not sure if the color works well.  I would've preferred for them to be more orange, whereas they're kind of inbetween green and orange.  I don't even know what color to call them.  Maybe I'm crazy here, but it occurred to me I could paint them red/burgundy, and maybe even get crazier still and paint orange polka dots on them.  I mean hey, this is not exactly a serious art piece, right?  It already looks kinda funky, so why not expand on the funkiness with crazy painted leaves?  That thought is still tickling my fancy, but I'm a little afraid to try it....as in, what if it screws up the whole piece?  So I'd really like your opinions on this idea.  Do you like the leaves the way they are, or should I get crazy and paint them?  I'd really appreciate your input, because I still haven't made up my mind on this idea.  Thanks for any input.

Seed Flower -- Layered Nature Piece

I'm so glad I have some new art to post.  I mean very, very glad, since I haven't been making much new art in a while.  This is a small piece, a 5x5 inch art squared piece.  For a long time, that was the main format size I worked on and I was very comfortable with that.  Then I chose to start working on larger formats, which I enjoyed also.  And I must admit, it's a bit hard to come back to this smaller size, but it's a good thing, IMO, not to get too attached to any one size or format.  You know -- keep your options open, right?

The base on this is frozen pizza cardboard (FPC), which I used so often in the past, but then lately worked more on chip board.  Well, I still have a great stash of FPC, and I'm glad I do.  It works quite well for smaller pieces.  I glued down some patterned sepia wallpaper from a sample book, and then etched random lines over it with a sharp awl, then rubbed over it with paste brown shoe polish.  Then I glued down some fine lace fabric over that, and rubbed it with the shoe polish.  Then I pulled a small textured fabric piece, from another sample book, and started fraying it to produce some nice fringe.  The threads were thick and great for some more texture, so I glued some down, then glued the fringe down.

On top of that I glued down the seed fronds from my yard.  For living in metro Denver, I'm happy to find great nature items in my yard.  One wouldn't necessarily expect that, living in a big city, but I do often find great items for art just in my own yard if I take the time to go looking for them.  I encourage you out there to try that too, and see what great finds are in your yards.   Then I sealed this with Acrylic Floor Finish (AFF) from the Family Dollar store, which gives a matte/satin finish, and flicked on Aztec Gold Pearl Ex while it was still wet. 

Then I raided my rusted found object stash for the rusted washer.  Oh my, I love my RFO stash for sure.  And also my stash of old vintage keys.  I think this rusted key is very cool.  I have no idea what kind of key it is or what it might open, but the small size was just right for this piece.  The seeds for the flower are squash seeds, which I always wash and save for my art.  The other seeds are smaller seeds from cantaloupe I think.  I pretty much save all seed for my art, never knowing when I'll want to use them.

I thought this piece was done at this point, but then I spotted a piece of netted fabric on my work table, and chose to add that at the very end.  I'm not sure if it helps or hinders the piece, because sometimes I don't know when to stop.  Then again, it adds more texture, a different kind of texture, so I think I'm glad I added that piece.  At any rate, I did, so it is what it is.

As with a lot of my art, I didn't plan this out at all.  The interesting thing to me is that this piece ended up being so layered, and yet I wasn't all that aware of layering while I was making it.  I was just playing around, adding this, adding that.  When I actually THINK about layering in my art, or plan it, then I get very nervous and choke up about it.  As in fearing how much to layer, and covering things up.  Whereas if it just happens innately, and comes natural as it did in this piece, without me thinking about it....I'm so much more okay with that.  It's like I don't realize how much layering I've done until the piece is finished, and then I stand back and think wow, did I do all that layering?  Ahhh, if making art could always be innate and natural,  just playing around and having fun and not THINKING about it.  Those times are when I enjoy making art the most!!!  Do you agree with your own art?

I Am Woman (another funky artdoll)

I am woman, indeed!  It amuses me to view this piece of art I made a few years ago.  I seem to be in the mood to revisit some of my older art that was done before I started my blog, that has never been posted on it, and post it now.  Well, I admit that I haven't been posting nearly as often or consistently this year as I did last year.  In a way, I'm disappointed in myself for that, but in another way, I'm okay with that.  Life happens, it ebbs and flows, that's just the way it works.  I haven't been making a lot of new art lately, but would still like to post on my blog and keep it interesting.  Hence, for now, I'm posting some older art of mine.

Regarding this piece, I think it was one of my first ventures into using found objects in my art.  The frame was found at a yard sale, and was the kind that had no glass over the picture of flowers.  I liked that part, because I knew I could use it for art.  So I used some Paper Perfect by DecoArt painted over the picture.  It's very cool stuff, described as paint that creates the look of handmade paper.  It looks and feels like wet paper pulp in a jar.  I'm not sure if it's still manufactured or for sale, but I bought two jars at Joann's when they were on sale and being discontinued.  I still have them, and they are still good, the pulp is still moist.  That is rather surprising, and I should use them again before they dry up.  Anyway, I painted that over the picture for some interesting texture, then painted over that with acrylic paint.

The head is another painted papercast that I made.  For some reason, the expression looks rather angry and belligerent, which isn't the case with the actual mold.  I'm not sure at all why it came out looking that way, but it did.  Maybe it was the painting that gave it that look.  Or maybe gluing crystals into the eyes.  Then again, the stance, with hands on hips, adds to that impression.  It brings to my mind the anger of so-called "feminists" of the 70's, which was not my intent in this piece, but hey, I guess I'll go with that.  I find that rather comedic, and laugh about it.  This may have been a more conventional, attractive piece if I'd used an attractive face....but it is what it is.

I used rusted found objects (scavenged from my local truck stop parking lot) for the torso, arms, and legs.  And lace for the skirt, beads for the hands, and buttons for the feet.  That's a dangle earring on the front of the body.  Surrounding the woman (or rather artdoll) are pieces of a chain mail necklace and earring set found at a yard sale.  And last but not least is the poodle, Pierre, on the right lower side, a pin found in my vintage jewelry stash.  I used gold glitter glue around the edges of the picture.

I do love artdolls, and the idea of making them, but have made only a few so far.  But this theme is coming up for me lately, so perhaps my muse is trying to tell me something???  I really don't know.  I'm not always that clued in on what my muse is up to, ya know?  I guess only time will tell.  What I do know is that I love using found objects in my art, and that includes jewelry.  I have an interesting stash of old and not so old jewelry I haven't looked through in a while.  Who knows, that could be a start for inspiration.  Inspiration can be anywhere and everywhere, hiding or right out there in plain sight.  Here's to inspiration, any which way you can find it!!!

The rest of my heart postcards

Ahh yes, these are my last seven out of ten postcards, if you include the post below. I wasn't able to upload all seven photos in one post, so this is a "split post", so to speak. I've had hearts on my mind and brain for well over a month now, while making all these postcards. It was a fun swap and I love the heart theme. However, at this point I'm glad all my postcards are made and in the mail.

I won't go into detail on how I made these, for fairly obvious reasons. Suffice it to say I used a fabric background on all of them, which was my goal. On some the fabric is glued to frozen pizza cardboard (FPC), on the others I used the Mod Podge technic (explained in a previous post). They are all different, which was my plan.

Soon I'll be starting another collaborative effort with another online artist. Something I look forward to. And also working on my own fabric book, the first time ever. That is if I can get over my fear and intimidation of my new electronic Brother sewing machine. I totally love it, but am not familiar or comfortable with it yet.

The rest of my heart postcards

Read above post about these postcards.

Another heart fabric postcard

Well, I seem to be in the mode right now of making fabric heart postcards. And actually, being in the mode and mood of making art, any art, whatever it is, is a good thing in my book....since I'm just recovering from being in a dreaded art slump/funk. I love using hearts in my art, and also using fabric. I have a wonderful stash of accumulated fabrics, many of them remnants bought at thrift stores, some at yard sales. Sometimes I buy clothes at yard sales, which tend to be very very cheap, for the purpose of cutting them up to use in my art. It's rare indeed that I actually buy new fabric to use in my art, except for quilting fat quarters (always on sale) occasionally, because I love the colors and patterns.

When I make art postcards, they are always 4x6 inches, the standard size for a postcard. Or as near to that as I can get. And most times, when I work with fabric in my art, it's hard for me to resist fraying the edges, especially with postcards. I love the way frayed edges look, and also love using the threads from fraying, glued down for great texture. Which is what I did on this piece, and then rubbed the threads with lavender acrylic paint for contrast.

I used the same Mod Podge technic on this piece as on my last post, to add strength and flexibility to the fabric. It just works so well, it's almost amazing. MP is also relatively inexpensive (still, after all these years), and I always use a 40% or 50% off coupon when I buy it. The fabric I used for the two squares is the same fabric I used for the pc base. The middle piece is cut out of a window blind sample I got at Lowe's, the same as in my last posted piece. (Lowe's has a wealth of great things to use in art.) The hearts were punched out of a paint chip. Last but not least, I chose to glue down (using gel medium) two small skeleton leaves.

I do like the colors on this, and experimenting with color combinations. Although I don't think I do that often enough in my art. I don't really know much about color, so I mostly just go with what colors I think look good together.

I'm submitting this to Saturday Surprise (http://saturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/) for their challenge this week.  The theme is Sewing Basket -- using anything that can be used for sewing in our art. 

Heart postcard for a swap

I'm so HAPPY to be posting again with some more new art, after a too long dry art slump. I worked on this piece yesterday, and had fun making it. Well actually, I started on it two days ago, because it had to dry overnight. I love using hearts in my art, which I do fairly often, so signing up for this swap in one of my favorite yahoo groups was right up my alley, so to speak.

I remembered I had done a certain technic on a postcard swap a few years ago that worked out well, so I chose to revisit that technic for this postcard. I cut out a piece of muslin fabric and frayed the edges and saved the threads. Then I put it on top of a plastic bag, and painted it with lots of matte Mod Podge, basically saturated it. That's why it had to dry overnight. Then I peeled it off the plastic. This technic is quite simple, and gives the fabric some strength and stiffness, and yet is totally flexible. It almost ends up feeling like a thick piece of plastic. It totally changes the feel of the fabric, but doesn't affect the look of it.

Then I painted it with Sweetheart Blush acrylic paint, and then glued down the thread I'd saved from the fraying. I love using threads for texture, especially on fabric art. Once dry, I rubbed orange paint over them with my finger, to bring out the texture and the contrast. I used the same orange paint on the frayed edges, to frame the whole piece. The three strips on the right were cut from a window blind sample I got at Lowe's. I painted them with yellow paint first, then rubbed orange paint over them to bring out the great texture. Then used a paper punch to punch the three hearts out of a yellow paint chip. After I glued the hearts on, I used a triple tip brush to paint on the parallel lines. I love that brush, and bought it at Joann's a while back, but they no longer carry it at the Joann's I shop at. What a shame, it's a great way to paint on parallel lines. I take really good care of that brush!

The large heart was cut out of paint chip, and then I glued down printed fabric over it. The details of the pattern on the fabric don't show up very well on this scan, but it has a cool linear pattern, with just the right colors for this piece. After I glued that down, I pulled out some squash seeds I'd washed and saved, and glued those down around the heart. Then I painted them, and used the triple tip brush again to paint the lines on. I'm amazed at how those lines changed the whole look of the painted seeds. I sealed the whole piece with Future Floor Finish (FFF), which gives a glossy finish.

Regarding the colors I used, I love this color combination, it's one of my favorites. I've used it a few times in my art, but actually not that often. I was using brown so much in my art for so long, and I love it for sure, but felt I needed to get back to using more color in some of my art. Because I also love using bold color. I don't know, maybe I just go through certain phases at certain times, which never seem to be predictable.

I think it's fun to revisit certain technics that I forgot about. This is a great and simple technic, and I'm glad it came to my mind for this piece. I love the way it gives strength to lightweight fabric, and feels so different than gluing fabric to cardboard. I didn't "invent" this technic, I learned about it online, but forget the source. If I could remember, I'd include the link, but I simply don't remember.  I'd also like to say that although the Mod Podge easily penetrated to the back of this muslin piece, it doesn't penetrate the same way with all fabrics.  So if it doesn't penetrate through to the back of the piece, you may have to turn it over when it's dry and Mod Podge the backside, or Mod Podge both sides more than once, to get the strength and stiffness you want.  Basically you can play with this technic to get your own desired results.  

So that's how this piece was made, with no pain or angst or problems. Woohoo for that. Any questions??? Or suggestions??? It was so great to have fun making this piece, and I'm excited it's for a swap. I just hope the person I send it to likes it. That's always a consideration in a swap, isn't it?

Cyber Fyber Gallery Exhibition

The Cyber Fyber Gallery Exhibition is set to open in Columbia, South Carolina on January 8th, in just three days. Susan Lenz, a very generous and talented fiber artist, put this massive project together, and has been working on it for over a year. Thank you so much Susan, your hard work is appreciated. Here's a link to her blog, just click on it. http://cyberfyberexhibition.blogspot.com/ There are links on her blog to where you can view the fiber art submitted, and get other information on this fantastic show.

The fabric/fiber postcard I posted here is the one I made for this show. I swapped with Susan for one of her beautiful fabric postcards. I didn't do any sewing on this postcard, but did use lots of fabric and fiber. The background is fabric and lace I rusted myself. (Here's a link to my post on that on my blog. http://valsalteredheartjourney.blogspot.com/2008/02/these-are-photos-of-various-fabrics.html) Then I glued down tea dyed cheese cloth, rusted found objects, some cool fiber trim, and the sun charm.

This piece is a bit unconventional, compared to the vast majority of postcards submitted, 276 in total. Here's the link to where you can view all of the postcards. http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/ Many beautiful postcards were submitted, so you should take a look and feast on the eye candy and huge variety of fabric/fiber art. I think it will excite you!

There will be a People's Choice Award given for the winning postcard and the winning ATC. The postcard with the combined "most comments" and votes from the exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studio will be the winner. Consequently, comments do count and are important on that. Sooo, if you like my postcard, then please go to it and leave a comment. Here's the link again -- http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/, and my postcard is number 121, so just scroll down to it. And if you see other postcards you'd like to comment on, please do that too. I'm totally amazed and pleased at the variety of postcards submitted, it's totally awesome. I just wish I could go to the show, and see it in person.

Winter in Color and Texture

Oh my gosh, I'm so pleased with this piece and how it turned out. Actually more than pleased....I'm somewhat shocked that this came from me, and that I made it. More so knowing that it was a very easy, simple piece to make. I don't know, perhaps sometimes the simplest pieces of art can turn out the best. I've never been a big believer in "less is more" with my art, but now I'm inclined to believe that can be true in some cases.

This is a piece I made two days ago. In the span of a few hours. No pain, no angst, no false starts. And no, I didn't fly by the seat of my pants on this one. This one was planned ahead of time for entry into an art contest on a cool art website I signed up on recently. The theme of this particular contest is "Let it Snow". I looked at all the entries so far just to get an idea of what was being entered, and discovered the theme is wide open in how it can be interpreted. I was happy to learn that. So I knew I wanted to enter this online contest, and just sat back and let some ideas percolate in my mind for a few days until I had an idea I could start with.

I thought well, I should have some white in this piece, but it doesn't have to be all white or only white. It mainly has to evoke the idea of winter in some way. Then I thought, what evokes winter but bare trees? Trees with no leaves on them. So I cut some twigs off a tree in my yard. Then I thought I should paint them white. Regarding the background, I thought of using caulk, since it's white to start with, and I wanted lots of texture on this piece. (Well like duh....when do I not want lots of texture in my art?)

I always get excited when I use caulk in my art. It's one of my favorite media to use. So I spread wonderful caulk over this 5x7 inch piece with abandon. The base here is chip board. I used a vintage butter knife (with no serrations) to spread the caulk to get the kind of texture I wanted. That was easy enough and only took a few minutes to accomplish. The hard part was waiting for the caulk to dry, which I helped along with my hair dryer. I waited a few hours, and then proceeded.

Then I thought about painting it, and the colors I wanted to use. My first thought was using blue (acrylic) paint, because to me, blue is a winter color. Then it occurred to me to dilute the paint with water, to make it thin enough to run over the textured caulk in a totally random manner. It was fun to watch it run down this piece, to see the effect of randomness. I liked the way it looked with just the blue and white at that point. I had some cheese cloth dyed blue, so I glued that over the piece on which the twigs are glued. After I glued down the cheese cloth, I painted Matte Mod Podge on and sprinkled with very, very fine purple glitter. I wanted even more texture on the base piece, so I glued down some white and blue synthetic fibers I had. They were in a package I had bought a long time ago, and totally forgot about, but happened upon for this piece.

I liked it, but felt it needed another color, and purple is one of my favorite colors. I also felt it needed more white, but chose to use metallic platinum instead, and also metallic purple. I diluted those with glaze, and once again let them run down the piece. With the fibers on there, the diluted paint ran even more randomly. Then I glued on the twig piece, and outlined it with permanent blue marker. And voila, it was done and finished.

A part of me started thinking maybe I could add something more, but my muse adamantly put her foot down, and said NO, this piece is done!!! I had to agree with her, because I wanted this piece to be simple and organic. And I felt adding anything more would be too much, and ruin the organic effect. And I'm so glad I listened to my muse, and didn't argue. I'm not always that cooperative with my muse.

I haven't used caulk in my art for quite a while, and now I realize I've missed using it. It provides such fantastic texture, and is so easy to use, and what makes it even better is how cheap and accessible it is!!!

So in closing, I'm VERY happy with how this piece turned out, it's like how I pictured it in my mind when I started. And believe me, not much of my art turns out how I envision it when I start. Which is fine and okay, different approaches at different times to different pieces of art is okay, it's the "artist's way" I believe. For most of my art, I have no plans and fly by the seat of my pants. But sometimes, I settle down with a plan, and actually make it happen. I like making art both ways, and don't necessarily think one way is better than the other.

As an addendum here, I'm submitting this piece to the Mixed Media Monday (MMM) challenge. Here's the link. http://mixedmediamonday.wordpress.com/

Oh my gosh, I've been remiss.

Gee, I cannot believe that I haven't posted on my blog in three weeks, and I feel bad about that. Good grief, this is the first time this has happened. I don't quite know what to say, except that time got away from me and I haven't made any new art lately to post. Nothing major or bad happened in my life, I just took some time off from making art. So for now, I'm posting these art pieces, that I made a while back and never posted on my blog, except for being in the slide show on the side. The first two were for swaps, and are no longer in my personal collection. Which is a good thing, because my personal collection of my own art is getting quite large. Thankfully most of them are small pieces so I still have space for them.

Hopefully, soon enough, I'll be posting new art. And hopefully, I won't go this long between posts again.

Needle Felted postcard

I'm switching things up a bit here, as in not posting a collage. This is something I made, gee, over a month ago. And I wasn't happy with it. Well, I was fine with it, except for using an orange paint pen to outline and make marks on the hearts. That was the last thing I did back then, and felt like it ruined the piece. Which really frustrated me, since I liked it until I did that, and went too far. So it sat in my work room/studio all this time, because I didn't like it and didn't know how to "fix" it, and didn't want to post it on my blog.

Then today, in a bored state of mind, I picked it up and thought gee, I think I'll sand these hearts, punched out of paint samples. And then rub brown shoe polish over them, and see if that improves this piece. So I did that, and liked the result. Then I did the same to the small squares, and liked that too.

I know in the scan, the outlining of the hearts looks pink, but no, on the piece it's a light orange. I find that the true color quality in scans can leave a lot to be desired, at least on my printer. So anyway, I like the result now much better than it was before, and am willing to post this piece.

The main feature of this piece is the needle felting onto a piece of cotton fabric. This is my second real art piece, using the needle felting. And I love how that part turned out. It took a while to fashion a heart out of the yarn, but I stuck with it and was able to make a heart. I really enjoy doing the needle felting, but haven't done any since I finished this piece. I need to get back to felting soon, or maybe not. There are simply too many choices and options in what kind of art to make....and I tend to get overwhelmed by that. Nothing new there.

Feathered Carpet Ride (and you might get a chuckle out of this story)

I actually did some needle felting on a real art piece here, instead of just playing around with the felting. And I love my Clover needle felting tool, and the brush mat, and doing flat needle felting. These are some tools I'm very happy I bought, with no regrets. I highly recommend them, especially for artists who love using fabric and fibers.

I made this piece for an online challenge in one of my yahoo groups. The group is The Latest Trends in Mixed Media Arts and now has 617 members. It's a great group, and this was my first time signing up for this challenge. The challenge is the monthly Art Partner challenge, where Inka (of Inka Stamps) sends out an envelope to the ten people signed up for the challenge. The envelope includes one of her unmounted stamps, a piece of cardstock, and an embellishment. Those in the challenge must use these items in their art piece and then upload it to the photo folder on the group site. Then at the end of the month a winner is picked, and the artist sends the art to Inka in return for a $10 gift certificate for her stamps, and she posts the art to her gallery.

Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I got confused when she sent a piece of Ghirardelli chocolate in the envelope. And made the incorrect assumption that it was meant to be an embellishment on the art piece. Yes, I thought it seemed a bit strange as an embellishment, and wasn't thrilled about having to use it on my art piece, but just figured those were the rules. So I worked on this piece a few hours last Sunday, and completed it, all except for using the candy. And I was very happy with it, and balked at gluing the candy on. I didn't WANT to include the candy on this piece, I didn't think it belonged there.

And my muse, Bonita, threw a fit, and was screaming at me, "You CAN'T be serious about adding this candy to this piece!!!" So we argued back and forth, but I won. And so, grumbling under my breath, I reluctantly glued the candy on. And then uploaded it to the folder. And shortly thereafter, found out from a post on the group by Inka that the candy was to eat, not to use as an embellishment for the art. So then I laughed about it, realizing how clueless I'd been, and felt very silly indeed that my piece of candy was now part of my art. Furthermore, it was posted in the folder for all to see my silly mistake. And would be the only piece in that folder with the candy on it. A testament to my cluelessness!

So, that's the story behind this. If I thought I could remove the candy without ruining the piece, I might try. But I'm afraid to risk it now. I used a piece of cool fabric gelled to pizza cardboard as the background. Then cut out a smaller piece of the fabric, and needle felted around the edges to make a frame for the stamped image. I stamped it onto a paint sample, cut it out, used a rounded corner punch, and glued it down. Oh right, I painted the vintage lace with Lumiere Sunset Gold and glued that down first. The swirl clip is glued over another paint sample. And the very last thing I did was glue on the darn candy!

I had fun with the needle felting, and of course had to finish that part before I could glue down the fabric. I really had to plan out the steps on this piece due to the felting, since I couldn't felt through cardboard. The felting itself was very easy and quick, and I used mohair yarn unraveled from a sweater.

Now I have four different sweaters bought at yard sales for the yarn, and perhaps my next project will be to dye some of the yarn with Kool-Aid, so I can have various colors. Some friends on another yahoo group are doing this very thing, and it's working well for them. I think it would also work for silk or wool roving. If I do this dying project, I'll post about it.

Oh, and one last thing. Right now I'm trying to rust a bunch of safety pins in a container outside. I'm not sure if they'll rust though, because some safety pins are treated so they won't rust. I bought these at the Dollar Tree, so I'm hoping the cheapo safety pins will rust. Will let you know on that, once I know. But hey, wouldn't rusted safety pins be cool to use in art? Yes indeed, I think so!

More experiments with needle felting

Soooo, what have I been doing??? I've been playing with my new needle felting tools. And these pieces are what I've produced. Again, keep in mind here, I'm a total newbie to this medium, so I'm just playing around and having fun. In the first photo, I used yarn for rug punching on a piece of fabric. It looks better up close than in the photo. In the second photo, I used yarn unraveled from a cotton sweater, felted on a piece of muslin. I like the way this turned out.

The third photo is a scan of the back of the first photo. And the fourth photo is of wool yarn unraveled from a sweater. It rather looks like a rug, and I'm thinking someone could actually make a rug with this technic, although it would take hours and hours to complete a decent sized rug. Right now, I seem to be into using unraveled yarn from sweaters. Well, I'm new to this technic, and just playing around for now, and using what I have on hand.

In fact, I bought the sweater for this fourth piece at a yard sale yesterday. And then today, went back to the same yard sale to buy two more sweaters at half price, for 25 cents each. I haven't unraveled the yarn from those yet. And when you unravel yarn from a knitted sweater, it ends up being all kinked up. And I'm wondering, if I wash the yarn in the washing machine, if it will come out straight, like regular yarn? Does anyone know if that works? I do have some specialty yarns for my art, but don't want to use those yet, until I get more proficient at this technic.

It does seem to be rather addictive though, and I can see me getting a lot of good use out of these new felting tools!!! And that is a good thing.

My first attempt at needle felting

Well, this isn't much to brag about, but then again, it is my first try at this. I bid on a Clover felting needle tool on ebay and won it, and it arrived today. So I've been playing with it, and this is what I ended up with. I debated about felting the threads on top of the yarn, (that resulted from fraying the edges of the fabric), and thought oh well, might as well try. Once I started on that, I was committed, since I couldn't pull them out. Now I'm not so sure I like the threads on top, I think I liked it better with just the yarn. Darn!

No problem, this was basically a "practice piece". I may or may not use it in a fabric book I'll be working on in the near future. The yarn was unraveled from a sweater a few years ago, and was very kinked up, due to that. So I just layed it down randomly on the fabric. I also bought the large brush mat that is supposed to be used with this tool, and I'm glad I did, because it works great to keep the fabric in place while felting. Someone on a yahoo group posted that a piece of dense foam works with this tool, and it probably does, but I'm happy with the brush mat. And very, very happy with this needle tool.

It is so user friendly and easy to use, I was felting with it right away. I like the fact that mere yarn can be felted, as well as wool roving. And with this piece I was even able to felt the threads from the fabric, but that was more difficult and took longer than felting the yarn. Yes indeed, I'm very happy I purchased this nifty little tool. No regrets there. I highly recommend it.

If you post a comment, please weigh in on what you think of the threads on top. Do you like it that way, or think it would look better with just the yarn? If I had it to do over again, I would've stopped with the yarn and not felted the threads on top.

Victoria -- Lady of Lace

I don't normally title my art works, but I'm going to try to do that more often. Anyway, I have had "lace on the brain" for a few weeks now, even to the crazy point of dreaming about it. Good grief, can you believe that? Because I can't. The reason I've been so obsessed with lace lately is because in our local (Denver metro) book arts group, we have an upcoming project to make a lace book cover for a fabric book we'll be making in the future. Our talented and fearless leader, Karen Campbell http://karensaltereddreamz.blogspot.com/ ), came up with the idea after she was inspired by a gorgeous lace book cover made by Val Orner. I wish I could give you a link to it, but I don't have one right now, and am trying to find out if she has a blog. If I get a link, I'll post it. Anyway, her lace book cover is beautiful and inspiring, and now our book arts group is going to do that project soon.

So that's why I've had "lace on the brain", and why I went ahead and made this art piece. I wanted to experiment with lace, and get a head start in preparation for our group project. I worked on this for two days, and this is what I created. I'm happy with it, but it was much harder than I anticipated. I mostly had difficulty, and much frustration, figuring out how to arrange the lace on this piece. It just didn't seem like I had that many options, and the ones I tried I wasn't happy with. At least until I came up with this composition, and once I did, I was ready to go with it and felt relieved.

The lace used on this piece is the more dimensional cotton lace. I painted each piece of lace before I glued it down, and I used Liquitex Gel Medium for that, which I had to re-apply a few times to make the pieces glue down. After they were glued down and dry, I sealed the whole piece with Future Floor Finish (FFF), and then sprinkled fine purple, pink, and yellow glitter all over the piece. So, I learned that FFF can be used as an adhesive for glitter. After the FFF dried, I sealed again with FFF, to make sure the glitter would stay put.

The glitter doesn't show up that well in the digital photo, (except as white spots), but up close it looks very cool on this piece. I love the look of glitter, but only on certain art works, when it's appropriate, and works, to use glitter. The other thing about using the fine glitter is that I tend to get it all over everywhere and everything, even when I try to avoid that.

As you can see, I used two lavender buttons on this piece, and tied yellow thread, that I frayed off some yellow fabric, through them. And Victoria.....is a paper cast I made a few years ago, from a brass mold I got on ebay. (Hmmm, I'm wondering where in the world I put that mold?) I also wrapped a pink chenille stem with some neat purple yarn, cut in two pieces, and glued that down. I got that idea from Sherill Kahn, in her fantastic book, Creative Embellishments, published last year. She has other ideas I want to try also, and I highly recommend her book.

I'm glad I got to play with the lace, and experiment with it. I've been haphazardly collecting lace fabric and trims for several years, but I wasn't sure exactly what I had or how much I had until I took an inventory the other night. I didn't have them stored in one place, but many places, and now I have all my lace together. I've used lace in some of my art, but I don't use it often. Now, I'm thinking I should use it more often, in different ways.

And also, I hope I don't continue to dream about lace. That was pretty weird!

As far as the rest of you reading this, do you collect lace fabric and trims, and if so, how do you use it in your art? I'd be interested to know.

Fabric Postcard

Yes, this is actually made out of fabric, although it doesn't really appear that way. Here is how I made it. This was made by taking a 4x6 inch piece of muslin fabric, Mod Podging (matte) it to a piece of plastic bag, then spreading MP on the front and gluing down various fabric pieces. Such as ribbon, pieces of fluffy yarn, pieces of jean pants seam, and fibers from fraying fabric. The one thing that is not fabric is the piece of veggie mesh, the mesh bags veggies come in. Then I Mod Podged over all of the front again, let that dry, then painted it with acrylic paints. I used purple, violet, light blue, and citrus green. I sealed it with Future Floor Finish, which gives it a nice glossy finish and makes the colors pop. Then I peeled the whole postcard away from the piece of plastic. No other base was used for this, other than the muslin fabric. So gluing it to the plastic bag seemed to make the difference, and increase the strength of the fabric, as opposed to brushing Modge Podge on the fabric alone.

I would love to say this is a recent piece of art, but I can't say that. No, this was a postcard I made for a technic swap last year, and is no longer in my possession. I feel kind of bad for posting "old art" as opposed to new creations, but my goal is to keep my blog updated and fresh, with new posts. Ideally new posts twice a week, at minimum once a week, and I'm rather upset with myself that it's been over two weeks now since I posted some art. So even though this isn't new art, it's art that all or most of you haven't seen before, so it's new to you.

I did actually get some new art done just yesterday, a piece I really like and am happy with, but I haven't had time to take a digital picture of it yet, and it's too dimensional to scan on my computer. And the batteries for my digital camera need to be recharged, so I can't take a picture of it now, today. And yet I feel compelled to post on my blog, since it's been a while, so I chose to post this art piece. Hope you don't mind it's not a new art piece, but chances are, it's something you haven't seen before.

Ahhh, I feel better already! Just getting a new post on my blog, and being honest about my situation. Hopefully I'll get a picture taken of my new art soon, and get that posted within a week.

Using paper casts in art

This is a spread I did in my first Altered Book, back in the spring of 2004. The main reason I'm posting it now is because I'm entering a blog give-away on GPP Network Street Team, having to do with paper casts in art, and so I need to post this piece on my blog. And also because I haven't been making much new art lately, due to increased work days and hours. I did create a spread in the AB of a friend from my local book arts group this week, but I haven't taken a digital picture of it yet, so I can't post that. And I haven't been posting much on my blog lately, so I figure at least posting something is better than not posting at all.

Thank you, Michelle Ward, for your great tutorial on paper casts on your blog, and for the give-away you are having. You have a great blog! I didn't know about it until recently, when an art friend pointed me to it. I'm so glad she did.

Okay, so now a bit about this particular piece. I was a total "newbie" to altered books and altered art, when I made this. However, I like it -- although my art today is different and not what it was four years ago. And that's a good thing, because hopefully, as artists, we are constantly learning and growing, right?

On this piece, I used a sheet of my handmade paper that I made on the left page. I used purple copy paper and coffee filters for this handmade paper. I made the paper pulp in a blender, and didn't blend it very long, so the white coffee filters would show up in the paper sheet. I used the border of a woven table place mat, and yarn unraveled from a sweater, on that page also, along with a button and some flowers cut from a necklace.

On the right page, the main background is a piece of sheer fabric from a fabric sample book, and of course the painted strips of corrugated cardboard. Those are more buttons at the bottom of the page. The women's faces are the paper casts, painted with metallic purple paint. I lucked out and found the plaster mold for these at a thrift store. I've never seen another mold like it, and I really like these faces.

So that's how I made this piece, a conglomeration of "things" I had on hand. I still have the plaster mold, as well as two others I bought that day, and I'm thinking maybe I should get busy and make some more paper casts. I have lots of different molds, some I've never used. Most are the plastic candy molds, but I also have some flexible molds for polymer clay, and some terra cotta cookie molds. And I have lots of unmounted stamps that would work for paper casting, as shown on the blog mentioned above.

I wouldn't say this piece ranks in the best art I've ever done, I know it doesn't, but I think it's not bad for when I was a total newbie to altered art. And it does speak well to using what I had on hand when I made this piece. And lately, I've been thinking about using paper pulp in my art, or at least experimenting with that. I haven't made handmade paper in years, mostly because I still have piles of it left over from several major marathon paper-making sessions I did years ago. I haven't used my handmade paper much in my art, and I think I need to do that too.

So in closing, if this post encourages any of you to make handmade paper or paper casts, that's great. I hope it does. I know it has caused me to reconsider using them more in my own art. Whether or not that actually happens, I'll let you know.

Another heart postcard

Yes, another one. Well, the dimension is 4 x 6 inches, which is the size of a postcard, so I'm just calling them postcards. On this one, the hearts on the left and the strip in the middle are cut out of rusted fabric. The threads are what came from fraying the fabric strip. I find that I like using the threads almost as much as using the fabric. As you can see, that's cheese cloth on the right side. I used that technic again of cutting or punching shapes out of cardboard, gluing them down, then gluing down crumpled/uncrumpled tissue paper over them. In this case, I used tan tissue paper. Then on the right side, I glued down the cheese cloth over the tissue paper.

This cheese cloth was tea dyed, so it was sepia color, but I chose to paint it with Moccasin Brown, and then rubbed Burnt Sienna over the heart and circles with my finger to get some contrast there. I added the buttons last, and like them on there. Up to that point, I felt it wasn't finished, it needed something more, but was having a hard time deciding what. I tried a few other things that didn't seem to work, so then I raided my button stash. Fortunately, I had some buttons the right colors.

This is most likely going to be for a personal swap. I haven't decided for sure yet, but I think so.

A fabric postcard for myself

I say this is for myself, meaning it 's not for a swap or trade. Most of the art I've done in the past year, regarding 5x5s and postcards, has been for swaps. Which is great, because then I get wonderful art from other artists, which I love getting. But sometimes it's nice just to make art and keep it for myself. I feel some of my best art was done for swaps, and I must confess that sometimes it's difficult to part with my favorite artworks.

The fabric I used here for the background is batik-like, and one I love. I found a remnant at a thrift store and was drawn to it, so I snapped it up for $1.50, half price that day. I got at least a yard or more, I haven't measured it. That's enough to be useful for a lot of art. The hearts are cut out of my "rusted fabric" (scroll down for samples below).

I love, love, love rusted fabric, or rusted anything. As you can see, I glued on three rusted found objects, scavenged from the parking lot of my local truck stop. I cut out strips of paper from National Geographic magazine, from pages that would make a good background, and glued them down on the fabric first. Then I tea dyed cheese cloth, and glued that down over the strips of paper.

Then I glued down the hearts and the rusted found objects. I frayed the edges of the fabric, and used those threads on the piece also. The more I work with fabric and fibers in art, the more I love them. The base to this piece is frozen pizza cardboard, which I use often for postcards, 5x5s, and ATCs.

One thing I don't like about how the photo came out though, is how the cheese cloth looks more white than sepia. Because it is sepia, due to tea dying it. Although I wish I'd left it in the tea dye longer to make it darker. As a matter of fact, I have more cheese cloth tea dying right now, that I plan to leave in the tea for several days, to see how dark it will dye. The cheese cloth on this piece was soaked in the tea for only a few hours,

Another option for me is to dye some cheese cloth in walnut ink, which I think I'll try too. That should come out a lot darker than tea dying. I have walnut ink crystals, that I can use for that purpose. Hmmm, I might just do that after I post this to my blog.