lastest art projects

I have been busy lately making several new items. Here's a couple. The first was inspired by this photo I took:
It was taken a year ago April. We went on a camping trip here in Southern Oregon. The day we left was sunny, but the next morning we awoke to snow. I have to explain though that we are no longer what I call "hard core campers". We do not tent camp. We have an 8 ft camper that has it's own bathroom and we can turn the heat on when it get's cold.... so I don't know if you can really call it camping but we love it! This particular trip we spent surfing the web, watching DVD's, reading, and I was doing artwork. (We still call it "camping"). Anyway the first day I took a walk and shot many pictures of flowers, bees, birds and nature in general. The next day I got the idea to do the same walk and take the same pictures with the snow. Got some great shots and have been working on a book documenting it, but that is still in progress.

I recently decided to paint a picture from my photo and this led to the following collage: I used my ripped up Reader's Digest technique for the background (see earlier post) and then made two copies of my orginal painting. The first I glued down directly and the second I cut out the bird and the branches and attached them with raised foam adhesive to give the image dimension. I then added the swirls and words on the edges using a graphite pencil (spray with fixative after this step to seal and prevent smudging). Then I glued on a birds nest bead I had made. I know this looks more like a winter project, but sometimes I end up going down a road that takes me to an unexpected place.

The next project is the card I made for my Grandmother's 89th birthday. We celebrated it last weekend and this card just popped out of my head! I made it in about an hour. I don't know about you, but I almost never beat any speed records when I am making something. The only way things go fast is if I am making a duplicate of something I have already made and usually I get bored with that, so it doesn't happen often. Here's the card:

I mentioned in an earlier post that I love Photoshop and this is why; I started this card with white cardstock and the bright pink cardstock. That's it besides my computer and printer. The drawings I had done awhile back and had the images in my computer. I made the dotted paper by using the pattern function in Photoshop. The roses were scanned into the computer already colored.. I just printed them and cut them out. For the bird I used the brush function on some blue patterned paper I had made. Again I printed and cut him out. Made the faux twill ribbon and typed the words on and cut out. Glued it all together and the last thing I took a black fine tip marker and doodled the scroll. She loved it!

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for visiting. Denise

Time does fly!

I have thought of several posts since my last but getting them from my head to the computer has been a challenge. Winter in Southern Oregon is very rainy. I mention this because taking pictures of my project indoors just doesn't work very well. Outside natural light is much better, however it can be difficult when it is wet.

Anyway, spring is arriving and hopefully that will help in getting decent pictures of my projects. Right now I will start by showing a few Christmas presents I made. (I know Christmas was 4 1/2 months ago. Sorry!)

The first was a necklace for my sister-in-law. The design was based on this necklace I had made while playing around with soldering:

I tend to wear more silver, but she loves autumn colors and they suit her so I wanted to make something simliar in goldtone. I still haven't figured out how to use solder on gold tone jewelry, so I used polymer clay to make the medallion inside the box (same as above) and I used it to make the box.

These pictures were taken indoors, after all it was a Christmas present. There is glass on the front of the pendant, so the odd angle was to avoid glare. I made bead links for the chain; one chain with smaller beads and one with larger ones. Anyway, I think she liked it.

The next present I made was for my friend and best crafting buddy, Jackie. It was a tin message board, that started as one of those cheap, (ahem... inexpensive) silver trays from one of my favorite craft sources The Dollar Store. Here's how it ended up:

After using gesso to prime the tray, I painted it with an off white. I then used Vintage Photo ink by Ranger to lend an antique feel. Once that was dry I glued the paper down. The top paper I designed from scratch in Photoshop. Love, love, love, that program!

The magnets I made from vintage photos that I found at another one of my favorite craft sources, The Salvation Army Store. I really scored when I found a whole pile for 25 cents each. Yeah!! I scanned the photos into my computer, cropped the faces and made them all a similiar size. Then I printed them so they would fit on the flat backed glass marbles. I always spray my printed images with Krylon Workable fixative or Matte finish to seal them so that when I glue them to the marbles the ink won't run. When they were dry, I did the beading around them and added magnets. I just made up the beading patterns as I went, so I really don't know how to explain the process. Don't know if I could repeat it at this point, although I did keep a prototype to look at it case I get the urge. Here are the close ups:

The heart design at the top of the board was going to be the hanging mechanism, but I found it would not hang straight. So, it became a decorative element and I used epoxy to attach a picture hanger to the back of the tray. Epoxy is my new go to product--another post on that later.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed. I have been up to several projects lately so I will try to get them posted in a more timely fashion. But for now I will leave you with the photo I took this afternoon in my back yard as proof that spring has sprung!

Happy Crafting! Denise

Dollar Store Treasures

Hello all, today I thought I would show some items that I purchased at the Dollar Store and turned into art. One is in process and one is complete. This first one is one of those little puzzles for kids where you try and get all the little metal beads to fall into the little holes. Here is a picture of what it looked like to begin with (size is probablay 2 in across):

I found that I could remove the top clear part fairly easily. Once that was done I pulled out the cardboard background. I then painted the orange base with Krylon hammered metal spray paint. This took several coats. When that was complete I created a collage using vintage paper, an old family photo of my grandfather when he was a boy, and some rusty washers. I glued that in and replaced the top and this is what it looks like now: Love these kind of projects! Of course I bought out the inventory of these little toys so now I have enough to last for a long time. I thought they would look cool incorporated into the cover of a book someday but that project is still in my head.

The other project is the one in progress. I came across these canvases at a dollar each and couldn't pass them up. I figured I could gesso them and go from there. However, I could not get the gesso (white) to completely cover the LOUD colors. (black gesso may have done it, but I was on to another idea). Here is the canvas as it was:

So, I took pages from an old book that I got at Salvation Army store and ripped them up and glued them so that the entire surface was covered. Then I aged the canvas using acrylic paints, gesso and inks to get the following look:

A great background, but now I got to figure out where I want to go with it. Some projects come easy and some just take a little mulling over. Course with me I am probably on to 6 other projects before (if) I get back to this. Showing it here though should give me incentive to finish it and post what it looks like! Enjoy!