Riveting Metal Book

Yeah --- I have internet access again LOL

I wanted to psot pics of all the completed books from a metal book swap I hosted with an amazing Guild of altered artists. I had a vision of a fun and very eclectic compilation of metal pages -- and they did the most amazing pages ever! It took me a while to think up covers that I felt would do the interior justice.

My front covers are altered copper mesh attached to old Bingo cards and I embellished them with copper pieces that were sooted, stamped, sealed, and embossed. I just love this technique and haven't done it for a long time. It has a lot of steps, but is fun if you assembly- line it and do a bunch at once. The images turn a rich brown after they have been sooted and sealed.

The back cover is torched copper that was embossed and wrapped over a chipboard cover.

Jacqueline Sullivan Classes

I don't have computer access at home right now, so I haven't been able to post as soon as I would like. I had a wonderful time taking 2 classes with Jacqueline Sullivan. It was a lot of fun and I learned some new techniques. The green collage is pretty good size, but I was determined to alter these paper-mache half-hearts. I used family photos on that piece. Hope you like them!

St Paddy's Fantasy Postcard

Aaaahhh ... it feels like a long time since I've made something LOL I'm in finals week at college, so I've been stuck behind a computer the last several days. I decided to make a postcard for a friend that works for Gothic Arches and WednesdayStamper. I usually don't scan the backs, but I loved the look of this one :)

Mad Alchemist Cabinet

I rarely ever post a picture of an unfinished piece LOL But I am breaking traditon ...

Michael de Meng brought replicas of the old fashioned printer trays with him for us to alter in this class. This is more of what I consider a collection-box type piece, which is outside my comfort zone. We did quite a bit of construction though ... more so than I have done on other pieces.

I'm a very outside-the-box type gal, so the thought of being restrained by boxes was very intimidating to start with. We did remove some sections to widen the areas though ... and I brought this huge and very ornate mirror to mount my piece on. This was one of those classic 70s ornamental mirrors ... heavy plastic ... and very brown and blase. I think I perked it up a bit though LOL

I took photos inside and could not get good light, so the top is very difficult to see. This is a collection of artifacts from Edgar Allan Poe's stories. There is an ornate P and E on the top, but it is shiny and doesn't show up in the photo due to the glare. I felt the clock in the middle could stand for the O. I have more pieces to add ... text ... some more blending and antiquing to do.

I think I will need a few more red items for the left, as it feels unbalanced to me right now and I think maybe a whitish piece toward the bottom to mirror the effect with the angel on top. It is still a work in progress.

Guess what? Mixed Media Monday has a prompt called Time -- and my piece has a clock in it --- wooo hooo!

Collage of my Parents

I finally got a photo from my brother's camera downloaded of the collage I did of my parents. I gave this to my father on Christmas Day and he passed away exactly a week later. I painted the photo using the techniques I learned in Karen Michel's class few years ago. I had some difficulties, as usually you start with a high contrast photo ... but I had to use what I could find and this was my favorite picture of them together.

I didn't do a very good job on my Moms eyes. What was funny ... my Dad said he recognized my Mom right away and wanted to know who the man in the picture was . I told him that was him ... but the funny thing is I did a better job on him and it looks just like him LOL He said he never saw them together in a photo LOL

My brother only took one photo --- grrr! So this is all I have. It is not particularly good. The little white dots are where the flash was shining on the glossy parts.

Birds of a Feather Blog Party

Welcome to my blog for the Soul Journal Birds of a Feather blog party!! I loved the unique twist of birds on Valentines Kathryn came up with!

I am going to college full-time plus working full-time, so I couldn't get as prolific as I wanted with the hearts --- and I looooove making hearts!!

Here is an older journal page I did centered around the heart -- most tend to focus on dark hearts, but this is one is definitely on the lighter side for me.

And finally my new feathered friends page for my Heart Speak Journal ... I was in a bit of tropical mood -- longing for warmer days LOL

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

Grandma Z Collage

This was a collage I did over the holidays. It's funny, because I can use a photograph for inspiration and come up with something completley unlike it LOL I used a picture of a beautiful bride out of a bride book -- but she looked like an old woman -- so I made her hair blue LOL The name popped out of nowhere that her name should be Grandma Z -- she must remind me of my Grandma Zelda on some level.

Heart Page

Admittedly, I was suppsoed to be doing my homwork -- but I felt utterly compeleled to make a journal page -- so I did LOL I was feeling guilty that my treasured Heart Speak book had been abandoned for so long, so I did a page.

I learned something though -- it seems I am driven to create from the bottom up -- meaning I do a base layer and that layer drives the rest of the page. I tried to do my heart and embellishments and then figure out the background, but it won't really work that way for me.

I had more plans for this, but I got such an ethereal look with the Leonardo image -- I couldn't bear to add anything else. I am also posting this for an impromptu prompt (catchy phrase LOL) on The Altered Heart -- just so people don't think I completely abandoned the site LOL I haven't done much heart work lately -- but I'll try to get back into my hearts a bit more ... especially with Valentine's looming!

Also -- this is a bot of a stretch to call it fabric art, but I layered some neat cheesecloth paper I got from my friend Nancy and stitched it on. I love this cheesecloth paper and I see all kinds of potential for it!

Unmasking ME!!

Wow -- It feels like forever since I have psoted! I've had a mountain of homework, but also got caught up in the whole self-portrait thing going around LOL I'm not one to stick with just a drawing, so mine is incorporated into my journal page. I drew my image by looking in the mirror without looking at the paper -- mostly without looking at the paper LOL I was supposed to do without lifting the pencil, but I did cheat a but and lift the pencil.

My brother didn't care for the fact that I did'nt finish the eyes, but it seemed importatnt to keep them hollow and let the background show through. I couldn't figure it out until I sectioned off my page and started journaling, but it seems to represent a mask.

I am going to call this my face book LOL Every page will have a large face -- or maybe a collection of faces -- not sure there yet. Last year I saw this supersize wooden photo album at the thrift store that looked like it was straight out of the 70s; I couldn't pass it up. I want to get a few pages done before I figure out what I want to do to the cover. This had those magnetic film pages with cardbaord inserts. I peeled all the film off and am using the cardboard pages as my bases. They are large -- almost 12X14". I meant for my faces to cover the whole page almost, but so far they are ending up a bit smaller than I anticipated -- so I improvised with all the writing. This is new for me too. Almnsot almy journaling has been in one font mor or less -- so I tried mixing up some styles here.

This is also inspired by the "Taking Flight" book. I am so loving the whole patchwork paper background thing -- although I ended up covering a lot of it up here ...

Collage Art

Wow ... I can't tell you when the last time was that I did a real collage on canvas LOL This was a stressful holiday, as my Dad was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness and not expected to make it much longer. My sister is doing in-home hospice care for him and he made it out on Christmas Eve to be with his family, but is basically an invalid for the remainder of his days.

We were all fried between his hospital stay, last-minute preparations to bring him home, and all the normal holiday rush ... so we had a couple art nights to de-stress ... and this was the third of my pieces. The first one was a painting of my parents for my Dad's xmas gift, but no one had a camera to take a photo ... so I don't have a photo of that one right now.

The background was done with scrapbook papers and paint ... Kelly Rae Roberts style. The painted face was inspired by DJ Pettitt, but I did a little different painting technique and I really like the look ... so I hope you guys do too :)

This seems to fit in with several prompts, so I am posting it on Arty Girlz, Mixed Media Monday, and Wednesday Stamper.

The photo is not particularly good, so I also scanned as much as I could squeeze on my scanner bed for a better shot of the face I painted.

Discontent at the North Pole

Well this is a little dysfunctional LOL This was inspired by one of the collage sheets from Collage Play with Crowabout. This man immediately reminded me of misfit elf Hermey from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special I used to watchwithout fail every year. I wonder if Hermey/Herbie ever found happiness LOL

I'm cheating by amending this, so I can include Wednesday Stamper LOL This week's theme is shoes. This is a bit of a stretch, but I do have a line of text about Prancer's shoes in this LOL

Also ... a bit of trivia about this piece. I started to write somnething about mrs C buying shoes for Blitzen and Prancer ... but then I started thinking about Mr Claus golfing while she was working and before you know it, I wrote that she had got blitzed instead LOL This is also another entry in my funky junk mail journal -- love that book!

Christmas Doodle Page

I was determined to get these doodle apges finishe I've been working on for while. I was really tired when I drew the first elf and I realized he was upside down the next morning LOL -- so he is now dangling from the top tangled in some Xmas lites LOL

I used souffle pens and a black gelly roll pen to do my doodling.

What I'm Working On

Geez ... I can't believe I haven't been back to my blog in a month LOL

1. An assemblage collage I hoped to submit to Somerset -- did not get finished LOL -- will repurpose that into something a little different now I think. I got hung up, because I envisoned crackle paste and could find not find crackle paste to save my life ... sigh ... I also couldn't find a box big enough to hold the dimension, so I kind of gave up on the idea -- so off to my UFO (UnFinished Object) pile it goes!
2. Went through a gazillion ideas for the cover of a metal book I am hosting with the Altered Guild group -- most of which weren't working for me. I finally went back to a revised Plan A. I heated and sooted copper peices, stamped into it, and applied a gazillion layers of sealer to protect the soot, and then embossed the images. I have to get the inside part done, so I weight it down ... and then add my embossed stuff --- but I am determined to get this step on the first cover done this week, so I can submit for Wednesday Stamper since they are doing a metal prompt.
3. I have various journal pages for Soul Journal and Collage Play started --- no progress there LOL
4. I've done a little collaging on mail art envies
5. I've done homework out the wazoo for college -- and am really struggling to keep up, but I am getting near the end of this term. I had big plans to get art things wrapped up over my long Thanksgiving weekend -- and I ended up doing homework almsot the whole weekend :(
6. I decided to call my Lynne Perella collage from August fit into -- because I can't find the rest of the journaling I was going to write on there LOL I took pics and they were terrible, so I will have to try and photograph again. I had sunglare last time. It's cloudy, so maybe now is the time.
7. And --- this weekend, I've been trying to get well. I caught some kind of viral infection and sleeping 14 hours a day is pretty much what I've been doing. I feel a little better today, so now I have to cram for my homework LOL

Still Kickin'

Not sure how long since I posted ... but a while I am guessing LOL This has been a tough semester at school -- perhaps I should have stuck with a part-time schedule ... but I really like my classmates and I'm trying to keep up with them so we can keep taking classes together.

One of my classes net term is a hybrid, which means one day in class and the rest is online work. Sometimes the hybrid end up being more work in the end ... but I sure hope this one doesn't LOL I miss my art time :(

This coming week is our mid-terms and I am hoping it will get a bit easier. My body is soooo fatigued :(

Halloween Doodle

This is a doodle page I did in response to a Soul Journaling prompt. I didn't set out with the intention of doing a Halloween page, but I couldn't shake the Halloween feeling with my orange background LOL I wish I could take credit for thinking up the skinny man ... but I used an image from Dover clip-art for my inspiration. My section dividers are pieces of embossed wallpaper.

The nervous prompt on Inspire Me Thursday seemed appropriate for Halloween too, so I also worked that in. This wasn't the most soulful journaling, but it was way fun ... and I needed easy after the crazy schedule I signed up for at school LOL

Junk Mail Journal

I altered a little 3-ring binder to store my junk mail journal pages. I had lots of leftover images from previous collage sheets from the Collage Play with Crowabout group, so I used those on my cover.

This is also an anything-goes entry for the Rainbow Lady's Challenge.

Sublime Junk Mail

Ha ha! I started a new journal using junk mail. I never knew what fun backgrounds they could make. I got tired of the inundation of Obama and McCain flyers and postcards in my mailbox ... so I made some into art LOL This one had some nice big words, so I sanded to distress and added a gesso wash before adding some color.

This is my entry for the week for Collage Play with Crowabout. There were some fun images to play with and I got to use one of my new Marie Antoinette stamps from CatherineMoore ... although Marie lost her head :)

This is also a color combo using brown, so it works for my Wednesday Stamper entry too. I'm a little fuzzy on what colors I combined ... Deep Turqouise and Vandyke Red Hue I think. The Vandyle red is my favorite color right now; it has a brownish tinge.

Lost And Found

This is my page for the Lost and Found Soul Journaling prompt. It is well disguised, but I used part of a drink coaster from a restaurant ... I used snippets from advertisements ... the thing at the bottom with the holes is a wrist band from an event of some kind (rubberstamping convention most likely LOL) ... acorn caps ... lots of random postage stamps ... pieces of embossed wallaper ... some kind of white paper mesh used for packing paper ... a label off of a bolt (found object LOL) ... and a few pieces of negative film strip.

My page looks pretty busy LOL But it is radically different from my others and I like that. I have not yet uncovered the true meaning of my page, but perhaps that will come in time.

Growth

Here is another page in my Heart Speak journal. I felt truly compelled to do this page ... in honor of my friends for encouraging me to do something I was terrified to do :)

Happiness

This page is pretty different for me -- not my usual style

And boy was it hard to photograph LOL

I don't what kind of dog this -- looks a bit like a Weimeraner -- that was the next dog I wanted ...