More magnets

I made a few more altered business card magnets. They are fairly plain but I did learn a thing or two. Let me tell you about them ...

I learned that you really have to have a good puddle of melted UTEE (Ultra thick embossing enamel) in order to stamp into them. I also learned that an extra fine tip Sharpie marker fills in blank spots really nicely. The stamp will leave an impression in the UTEE even if the ink doesn't transfer well so you can just follow along the impression with the pen. Even though I was using a low temperature heat gun with very little fan the pearl ex powders tended to blow off this time. My piece of wood laminate that I use to heat things on is turning really pretty colors though!

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More wax collage

Today was a very good art day, things just flowed. Some days are like that and other days you just stare at a blank piece of paper/fabric/whatever. I made two beeswax collages as well as an ATC - photos of the collages follow.

I really like the one with the rose quote - it makes me think of an Impressionist painting for some reason. The background was wax with blue/green crayon melted and swirled into mud (ha ha). The next layer was a printed tissue paper - it had that French wording on it. Then I added a piece of paper lace, a vellum oval, the bird, and the saying, but it still needed something in the lower left. Remember everything is held in place by beeswax. I tried to put a silk rose on it but it didn’t like it and refused to let me stick it on there. Literally. I used two different glues and nothing held. So instead I took yellow and magenta crayons and shaved slivers off of them with a craft knife, then I took my heat gun and melted them into little puddles. I love the way it came out. Oh - I nearly forgot - all the raised areas have gold ink from running a stamp pad over them, as do all the edges, but you can't see it in the photo, darn it. The other collage is okay but kind of blah compared to the rose one. I never have a good idea of where I’m going with these things. I just take a dozen images and start playing with them - some I use and some I discard. These are for Member of the Month presents for an art group I’m in. One for April and one for May. Not saying I’m late or anything, ha ha ha.

Click the image to see a really BIG version
5x7 Canvas



5 1/2 x 7 wood base

Diane's scissor fobs

Diane recently bought my e-class on how to make scissor fobs and I think she went a bit overboard, LOL. She has made over 60 fobs - and in only two days! Now that's getting your money's worth from a class. You can make these too - my class is only $5.00 - or if you only want one then you can buy one of Diane's fobs - she is selling them for $3.50 plus shipping.
Here are two that she made. The red, white, and blue one is my favorite!

Fairy bust completed

She's done! I didn't do much embellishing - just added some leaves and flowers using the Aves Apoxie Sculpt. Here are three photos ...

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You can see the multiple layers of paint in this photo. You can also see that she has one B cup and one D cup, LOL.

Just her back ...

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Handmade Book

This is the last of the projects I made at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. It was supposed to be a book that held all the ATCs we traded in class but I doubt I will use it for that. The cover is a piece of watercolor paper that has umpteen layers of paint, stamping, and even fabric snippets on it. The end paper is another piece of watercolor paper that I painted - but with way less layers. This one only has about 5 layers. The black wiggly stuff is the Krylon Webbing Spray - that stuff is way cool! I have to buy some! I actually like the end paper better than the book cover!

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Back to the sculpt !

Finally got all the stuff put away that I dragged up to the University for the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. We never got the final project finished but we got enough done that we can finish at home. I still have to take a photo of that book.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day so I took my Paverpol and my candlestick sculpt and went outside to play. That stuff is incredibly messy! The piece is coming out wonderfully through ...

This is what I started with .. the painted base. Lots of layers and some texturizing medium to give it some 'tooth'. I didn't do such a great job of joining the body with the candlestick but the clothes will cover it. Shhhhh ....

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You won't believe it but this took me hours to do. I took a piece of a sheer blouse sleeve and ripped it up - you're supposed to use natural materials with Paverpol but you know me - I don't do things properly half the time. I thought it was a silk chiffon but I'm not so sure now. She doesn't have hair - it's just the frayed edge of the material I wound into a headdress. There's lots of threads stuck on here - probably why it took me so long - fraying the material to get hold of them. Tomorrow I will start to embellish her.

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Accordian book

... or maybe I should call today's posting 'Look - no boobs!". No drag queens, no vintage nudes. Just something fairly normal. I must be losing my touch, LOL. I think today's project has been my favorite so far. I can see lots of possibilities for these little books. They will make great gifts and they make up fast. I made this one for my Aunt Sandy ...

after all, these are all photos of her! We started by covering some sort of mat board with fabric. Then I decorated a piece of watercolor paper (for the inside) by doing a tissue paper/acrylic paint job. Folded the paper into fourths (more or less). Cut out the photos of my aunt, glued them to the watercolor paper, and colored them with inks. Added metal word art bits. Then glued it into the book and decorated the front. I used my alcohol inks to color the scrabble tiles so they matched. Maybe too well - could have used a bit of contrast. Oh well. I still like it and I'm sure my aunt will too! You need to try these. Oh - got to try a new tool called the Crop-a-dile - it punches holes and sets eyelets. Very cool - no hammering. I think I need one of them!

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I don't think I was supposed to put photos on the back of the book but I didn't realize that until it was too late.

One girl quit the class because she took a bookbinding class recently and she turned up her nose at what we are doing. She sniffed that she took the bookbinding class as “Fine Art”. Too bad - she could have just stayed and enjoyed herself and the camaraderie. It’s a nice bunch of women and our instructor is great!

Wax collage

I know I said that I'd take another photo of the queen today but I decided to add another element to it and I won't be doing that until tomorrow. Today we took the lid from the cigar box that was yesterday's project and used it as the base for a wax collage. Take a look at my lovely little project ...

... Sherry will recognize this image. I use this vintage gal a lot as I just think she is gorgeous. We learned how to make wax transfers and wax collage. To do the transfer we put melted beeswax on the lid and then laid a photocopy image face down. Then we wet cotton pads with acetone and applied it to the back of the paper. Rubbed a lot and the ink transferred to the wax. I got kind of a ghost image on mine - it was a gate. But it gave the piece a nice background. Then I added the paper elements and waxed over them to 'glue' them down. All the little embellishments were added using gel medium as a glue. I also used melted brown crayon around the edges to create a little frame of sorts. This piece was fun and it went together easily. I'm really pleased with it!

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Cigar box collage

Since I couldn't get down to any of the doll conferences this year I decided to treat myself to a class at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. I am taking Collage and Mixed Media from Brenda Milan. This is a week long class - from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm. Lots of art time! Three girls that I know are taking the class and we're sitting together and having lots of fun. Today we made a collage inside a cigar box. Learned some fun paint techniques and then we started to build our little people for inside the box. Most everyone did something family oriented - Susan made a collage of her pets, Kris made a collage of her son, Dalonna made a shrine to her grandmother, and me? I'm out in left field as usual. I made a drag queen. Tomorrow we finish it up by covering it with a piece of clear plexiglass that we will transfer words onto. I will take a better photo of this piece tomorrow. There is a lot of innuendo that you can't really see, such as a peacock in one of the window frames. Kai - Dom would appreciate this one!

Sculpting - ugh!

I am taking an on-line class that requires you to sculpt a bust. Okay - so maybe require is too harsh a word - I could use a cloth bust - but the instructions are for sculpting. The face is a mold made by Sherry Goshon. I added a back of the head and a little bit of a neck. The first one I tried didn't have a neck and I used Aves Apoxie Sculpt for the torso. It ended up in the trash. I didn't know what I was doing and the Aves dried too fast. So I switched over to polymer clay. This is what I have so far .. don't laugh!

I still need to blend the clay so it's not so lumpy. The head I'm kind of stuck with because I already baked it. I didn't know about smoothing everything. But it will be painted over so I'm not going to worry about it right now. I do believe that this sculpting stuff takes lots of practice. I don't know that I will get into it but I do have a lot more appreciation now for those who sculpt their figures! I

Leaving home

I have another round robin getting ready to start. For this one we were to create a head and torso plus a journal. The torso could have been anything - a gourd, a box, a candlestick. But I kept it safe, actually I kept it easy .. I found these parts in my body bag ....

which doesn't have much left it in now.

The journal cover is very stiff craft felt. I melted holes in it with the heat gun and some of the gold threads are sewn to (through?) the holes. There are no inner pages - everyone will have to make their own fabric pages. I bet that will just thrill some folks, LOL.

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My first magazine article !!!

I'm thrilled with what Doll Crafter and Costuming did with my step-by-step article on altering a porcelain doll. They make me look good, LOL. This is pretty exciting for me. I've been on pins-and-needles waiting for this to come out. This little clock would make an awesome present for a little gir's room or even your own sewing studio. It's really easy to make - and there are five pages of directions and photos! If you make one please take a photo and send it to me. I'd love to see it!

Here's my own photo of the doll .. before and after ....
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Oh yeah, it is the September 2006 issue. Buy yours now, LOL.

Another Bendi babe

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I haunt the aisles of the craft stores looking for clearance items. This week I found some "trim and project color-changing special effect finish" Dimensions decor paint from Dutch Boy called Chameleon on sale - 8 oz for $1.00. Of course I had to buy it! Of course I had to try it out IMMEDIATELY! Here's what I did with it ....

First off - this isn't a nice little acrylic paint. I don't know what Amorphous Silica is but the jar has a huge CAUTION notice on it about ventilation. I really need to get a respirator, sigh. This color is called Teal Sky and it is supposed to shift from teal through purple to a near black. The instructions said it works best on curved surfaces and over a black base coat. I decided a Bendi doll (blank doll form) had enough curves so I pulled out a big one from my Bendi bag (yes, I have lots of these on hand). I painted it black (mixed regular acrylic paint with some Jo Sonya textile medium). Then I painted a light coat of the Chameleon over it - this was full strength as the instructions said not to dilute it. It went on white and when it dry it looks either purple or a very dark grey. I don't seem to get the shifts of color in between the two. But it's still a really, really neat effect - essentially a two-color doll depending on how the light hits it. If you look carefully at the arms you can see the 'hands' are a different color than the legs.

I also used this doll to try out some Aves Expoxy Sculpt. I haven't used it before - just the generic epoxy from the hardware store. This stuff was nice and odorless - at least compared to the stinky Marine Epoxy. That's what the vines, leaves, and berries are made of.

I used a Sherry Goshon mold for the face - but totally changed it. Wound fibers around the arms, decoupaged the torso and stuck buttons on it, used holeless beads here and there. Guess that's about it. The Bendi's are great for trying new techniques.

UPDATE: I took her to doll club and under the bright lights there you could see the color shifts really easily - it shifted all through the spectrum like it was supposed to. Guess my basement studio is too dark, LOL

You can click the photo to enlarge it.

A round robin comes home!

My Paper Dollz round robin made it back home yesterday - I was SOOO happy. I always worry that these things will get lost in the mail. After all look what happened to Bella Donna - she was lost at sea for a couple of months on her way to Israel. This little project didn't travel as far though. We had to decorate a paper blank and also do journal pages. Here's what everyone did ...

The first one out of the gate is from Helen G - she used a 3D head on hers - neat idea!

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This is from Sherry Dawn - don't you love the extra little kimono?

This is from Cherie - sorry about the glare - lots of glitz on this one!

Thanks to everyone who was in the project! We are probably going to send our RR paper doll project around to a new bunch of artists later this fall.

Just for fun (2)

Thought I'd share some of my very first dolls with you .... put your mouse over a face and see what happens!

Getting frustrated

I haven't been doing much this week. My big dog had surgery so I've been keeping an eye on her. It's limited my time in the studio.

So I have this embroidery machine - one of those sewing/embroidery deals. I don't know why I bought it because I knew that I'd never use it. But we talk ourselves into these things. So since I hardly use it I always seems to have problems - haven't learned all the little tricks or something. Yesterday I decided to make a design to put on a t-shirt for my daughter. I did a couple of designs in the software and I'm happy with them. So I thought I would stitch them out on an old t-shirt for practice. The first time I stitched the frog the thread kept breaking. I kept rethreading it and it would sew some more and then stop. I finally tried to lift the hoop to see what was up and somehow it had sewn the throat plate to the t-shirt. WHAT? I had to take the plate off the machine and cut the t-shirt off of it. Okay - try again. I rehooped and it worked okay. So I have the design with the frog. Then I decided to stitch out the design with the lizard. This time the thread broke about every 30 stitches and it made a mess on the front and a bigger mess on the back. By now I was very frustrated - I had changed threads, changed needles, changed stabilizers - I tried everything I could think of but it made no difference. Finally I stopped the machine - took the work out and ripped it out - literally - I ripped it right off the darn t-shirt! Made me feel better though, tee hee. Can you see the big hole on the lower right?