On the 7th Day of Christmas ...

I received a fun and whimsical partridge from Kris!! Now all I need is the pear tree

On the 6th Day of Christmas ...

I got these fabulous altered ornaments from Kathy!! I love the texture of the glass glitter on the sparkly star!

On the 5th Day of Christmas ...

I got nothing LOL It was my turn to gift my fellow swappers. I found a link to some scrap crow dolls made by Kelli Perkins earlier this fall. When she published an article in CPS on them and included a pattern I knew I had to make them. I had no real vision for them, but I decided to use some of my favorite sheer fabrics. I did a lot of layering and embroidery -- although it's not always apparent in the photos.

I hand drew the eyes and used a satin stitch to add color. I just made a bunch of eyes and hoped I made the right size. They are a little over-sized, but it gives them more character LOL These are thumbnails, but you can click on them to see the larger size.

On the 4th Day of Christmas ...

I received a delightful fabric journal from Joanne. I love the style of this little journal! It is beautifully made with a cool acetate pocket inside.

On the 3rd Day of Christmas ...

I got a fabulous pair of earrings from Darya!! She does such a beautiful job with jewelry -- I am envious of her skills.

Wreckless Heart

Here is another art journal page. I just felt like doing some fun bright colors, so I started out with one of my scrap paint papers. This is also for the weekly prompt on The Altered Heart.

Leonardo Goes Metallic

Here is a fresh look for Leonardo LOL I stamped some images on metal tape and adhered over a thin layer of light molding paste, so I'd get more dimension when I embossed the lines with a stylus.

Mona in the Bastille

This is a journal page in response to Mixed Media Monday's word prompt. I altered a picture of the Mona Lisa in a calendar journal. My first thought was to put her behind a brick wall -- but I've done a lot of molding paste brick walls already, so I wondered if I could simulate a stone wall. The thesaurus listed bastille as an alternative word for imprisonment, so thus the word Bastille.

I'm feeling a bit trapped by my workload lately -- being carless isn't helping either LOL

On the 2nd Day of Christmas ...

I got an awesome altered composition book from Chris! I've never had an alterted comp book before and I think this is so cool! I'm going to use it for my meeting note-taking at work and when it's full I'm going to go back and alter it LOL

On the 1st Day of Christmas ...

My true Diva friend gave to me ...

A beautiful handmade ornament with vintage trimmings! This was made by fellow Diva Cat. What a wonderful piece of nostalgia this is for me! It reminds me of the handmade ornaments my parents used to decorate the tree with every Christmas-- each and every one holding its own precious memeories of childhood. Thank you for the wonderful gift from the heart, Cat!!

Contrary to Popular Belief ...

I have not fallen down the rabbit hole LOL I didn't mean to abandon my blog so long. I was immersed in making my gifts for a 12-day Christmas exchange for 2 weeks and then I was appoaching burn-out.

My work schedue has also taken its toll on me. Long hours are not uncommon for me; I'm just feeling overwhelmed -- being pulled different directions -- one by my real boss and one from what I hope to be a future boss. Balancing this house of cards gets tougher every day LOL

Boy what I would not give for a cruise right now!!

Fabric Book

Here is a fabric book I have been working on for while. I'm not sure why I was compelled to use fabric -- but I was LOL

I've been in an art slump for a while and I just wanted to try something different for me -- so this book was more or less about experimenting.

Dark Souls

I've been working on this project on and off for a while. I altered a box to store loose pages in for a round robin with a dark theme. It took me a while to pinpoint amore specific theme, but I came up with Dark Souls -- I am hoping to do something with Phantom of the Opera -- and maybe one more page about another dark soul -- but we'll see LOL

I loaded a picture of the top of the box, but there are a lot more views in my webshots album. I put quite a bit of time into mixed media techniques on this.

Nerves and Fear Came Swiftly

Kind of a heavy title, but that's just the way this page worked out. This is one of my favorite ways to work -- I just haven't done it for a while. I started with a grungy looking waste paper -- this one has extra crunchy texture LOL -- but it doesn't show up very well in the main photo, so I included a more detailed close-up.

I had no idea what to put on the page, so I flipped through a magazine until an image jumped out at me. Then I cut some phrases out of an old type-written letter and put them together for my journaling.

Umbrella Girl

This is an altered picure in calendar journal. You have to ignore the black background with the word death on it LOL That is the page behind. This is the back of a page I had cut in an arch shape.

I didn't have a real concrete idea, so I just collaged on some papers over the background around the girl and blended them together with chalk inks and stamped the script. This is also my entry for Theme Thurday.

Fabric Paper Postcard

Here is a postcard I made with the fabri paper from the previous post. The color looks a little different --- more realistic here. In the previous photo I had taped the paper up to the window to show the translucency, but the color was a bit off there.

Making Fabric Paper

I found these two links when someone connected with me through a fiber arts message board.
Making Fabric Paper
Painting Fabric Paper

This was a different spin on making fabric paper than I had seen before, so I gave it a try. It mentioned you could use organza as the basic fabric and I love coming up with semi-translucent backgrunds, so that's what I started with for my base.

I sandwiched some fun fibers, scraps of lace, bits of paper, cheesecloth, and a little rock salt between the organza and tissue paper topper. I used Color Mists from Outside the Margins to color the paper.