Wow, I am behind!

It has been so many weeks since I posted...I have been so busy selling items through Artella and participating in holiday swaps...
I made many journals for gifts this year; the ones you see here were made for my friends and for my mom.
I also wanted to put a note here to my Oh-So-Tella sisters telling them the story of their holiday gift. The pendants in the Love Swap packages evolved from single large collage of multiple materials: alcohol inks, embossing powders, pearl ex powders, rubberstamps, real feathers, decoupage adhesive, irridescent acrylics. The title is "Birds of a feather".(You can click on the pictures for a closer look at the details)


Next, I cut the collage into small squares and glued then back-to back to create a two-sided tile. I finished the edges with modeling paste and silver ink, and added a beaded cord to create a finished necklace.


They all came out fascinatingly different and have a look of Raku fired ceramic to them. I guess the idea behind the concept was that idea that we are all parts of a whole.
"Good friends are never far apart; Maybe in distance, but not in heart."
All the joys of the season to everyone!

Handcarved stamp and a new journal

My first handcarved stamp is complete! A bit crude, true...but I did it with an exacto knife since I have misplaced the carving tool I bought SPECIFICALLY for this exchange! Infuriating! After 2 weeks of searching I gave up. I feel certain I will find it within a few hours of mailing this off.
Also here is yet another altered journal for Artella...this one will be hard to part with; it has a wonderful size and weight to it, just enough heft to make it feel respected! It measures 8x8", so it opens to a nice, broad surface.

Gallery items

Been gearing up to get things into the gallery at Artellaland.com...mostly making altered/embellished journals and mirrors...here are a few that are ready to go:(the first is an altered frame with a vintage ad insert)

Altered Lunchbox

I was asked to alter a Mickey Mouse lunchbox by one of the amazing women on my retreat for a Silent Auction for her non-profit organization. I was honored to do so: here is the result.

Artella goodies

I am off to a Wildchild Art Retreat this weekend and am putting items in for a raffle. THis is the wall mirror and ATC album I made. The mirror is embellished with chiyogami papers from Ptichka and Zhenia, feathers, papers created by Jacey, glass seeds, pearlex powders, embossing powders, twinkling h20s, rubberstampings, handmade papers from Melissa, scrapbooking papers, and gel medium.

The ATC album features fibers from Khristi and Heather Jehanne (and some of the beads, too), glass seeds from Jacey, more chiyo from P and Z, mulberry papers (bought after a Target tip I think from Maralena?), rubberstamps, and more of Jacey's papers.

I always knew the Circus was a team effort!

Is it ok to call an art doll a stuffie? She is palm-sized...and stuffed. Birdlady does not mind being called a stuffie. She is a crone with the soul of a small girl still, and has been known to giggle.
I like to think she symbolizes the nest of ideas we all have in our creative storehouses waiting to "hatch". Being playful is essential to their incubation and ultimate emergence. Plus I think she is really cute.

And if I were like Oprah...

I'd have my own magazine....

Workin' on a chunky book

Page thus far...embellishement to come...

Mania

A pair of collage decos made via QDs...nothing as freeing as cut and tear and paste art!/A member of the month deco for Kathleen via DDC has a Fine Art Nudes theme, featuring a reclining Renoir nude.

For Free expression decos this month I went with "Words of the Heart" for HJ, and "Imagination" for myself...



Thanks to a book of Audobon wallpapers and an envie of fab fibers from HJ, my leaves decos make me verrrry happy.

Asian ATC Deco.
This was crafted as a Member of the Month deco for CarolCot via DDC. I thought it would be fun to have one that opened up like a gallery, with a pocket for each ATC. And since there are only 4 ATCS, maybe it will get home to her sooner! I am happy with this one!

Callavisage and AlterMyWorld's art journals

MOON and SEEDS

Inspired by the Spring 05 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors, I tried my hand at fusing tissue paper to felt using fusible web and an iron, then embellishing it with paints (watercolor and acrylic) and adding some stitching and beads. The results, "Seeds" and "moon", pleased me enough to be placed into the journals. "Moon" is in AMW's, "Seeds", in Calla's.

Oh, and the Vintage...silly me....

The little toddler girl is actually author Margaret Mead and the lady reading is her mother.

new decos

Here we have Vintage Decos via USAAD, and Native American Decos via QDs. I am pleased with the dreamcatchers; I was not sure if I could actually create them with embroidery yarn on paper, but it seems to have worked!

Chiyogami!

Zhenia sent me some delicious appetizer sized morsels of CHiyogami, a beautiful type of Japanese paper printed in delightful patterns and colors with gold accents. I used two of said pieces to create these free expression tag decos, one for Tam and one for myself, for a swap via Quality Decos.

A deco for Tam

From the deco kit she sent me!

Pages for HJ's Art Journal

This time I decided to tear myself away from my safe comforting watercolors and actually open one of the jars of acrylics I bought two months ago! I wanted to play around with creating backgrounds and textures using various wacky printing methods. I painted on and then printed bubble wrap, a feather, embossed paper and a seasponge. I also used both tulle and a perforated ribbon as a stencil, rolled grooved beads strung on a wire through paint and then across paper, and attached various things to a brayer before rolling it on paper. The "print" results were pleasing, and because of the viscosity of acrylics, have a wonderful dimensional texture to them!

Pages for K's journal

I must admit it was intimidating being the first entrant into this beautiful art journal Kelli made...but I am pleased with what I learned! I decided to play around with manipulating watercolors (In this case I used both Twinkling H20s and Winsor &Newtons) for interesting backgrounds. In some ways this almost felt like bullying, since I think of watercolors as so pure and innocent, mere water and pigment, that pushing them around with solvents and chemicals seemed harrasing. But the end result were very gratifying. On each page I tagged the samples I inserted with a/b/c stickers which coordinate with a list on the back of the tag on page two telling what techniques and materials were used. For example A, on page one(second from top)I painted a coffee filter with purple and blue wcs, then painted the leaves and flower with bleach gel. The end result looked surprisingly like a batik. The striated (D) background below it has a wood grain quality, when in fact it was a wash of blue, followed by some stripes of rubber cement, followed by a wash of purple. After dry, I rubbed the rubber cement away to reveal the blue underneath. The splotchy (B) and (F) are wet watercolors dripped with rubbing alcohol. And the butterfly (E) is brown paper stamped with a rs dipped in bleach gel.

On page 2, (top picture) the greenish envie that holds the tag and bits of collagable scraps it painted with the H20s again, and once dry, stamped with bleach gel. The surface of the tag itself was treated with the rubbing alcohol drops, then once dry, was squiggled on with rubber cement follwed by a darker wash and subsequent removel of the rubber cement. Multiple abuses of the innocent watercolors, but wild results. I really enjoyed this whole series of experiments!

An altered CD

That I made for a swap on the EC. My last post was in May? Good grief! Perhaps this will signal a new start on this art blog. It seems rather silly to pay for a site when this works so nicely...I will experiment for a bit and see if it is easy enough to use.

yes

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