Hi everyone! I’m really excited to announce that I’m the new stamping editor at CraftGossip.com!! I’ll be blogging almost daily on all the brand new stamps and related products, linking to cool technique videos and tutorials, on-line stamp shops, doing book reviews, etc. I just started on Monday so I’ve only got a few posts there but if you’re interested in stamping I hope you’ll book mark me and come visit me there often 🙂
http://www.stamping.craftgossip.com
-Heather
I’ve really been inspired lately by all the collages I’ve seen that are various shades of white, I love the “shabby” look of it. So I thought I’d give it a try. I white washed most of the items with gesso, sometimes adding water sometimes just straight from the bottle. First I white washed some vintage music paper and an image of a blue bird, then stamped the bird cage on transparency using white, I adhered the bird to the paper and then using my sewing machine I stitched the transparency onto the paper using different stitches. I then white washed a pair of Tim Holtz’ grungeboard wings (if you don’t know grungeboard is sort of a flexible type of chipboard, it’s very cool to work with), tied some string through a vintage button, added them to the board along with the words “spread your wings” and then added some vintage white lace across the bottom. It’s a very different look for me but I like it alot:)
I love the shape of a house as a base for a collage, it’s warm and well, so homey:) I just finished this collage on canvas board, the background on the board is layers of Tim Holtz’ crackled paint with several colors of ink rubbed over top of the paint. I cut the shape of the house and chimney from vintage book paper, I inked the edges to make it more aged looking and added a strip from a vintage tape measure as the base of the house. I cut the roof out of black cardstock that has a white core, I then sanded it to bring out some of the white and make it look more shabby. I made a copy of a lovely Victorian photograph I have and mounted it in the middle of the house using black photo corners. I had a small piece left from timming the tape measure and added it like a house number. Before I attached the roof I added some letters cut from an vintage book, small brads and sewed on a large metal key. I think a collage like this would be the perfect house warming gift for someone moving into a new home.
I belong to a Yahoo group devoted to Artchix Studio, they sell wonderful collage supplies, check them out of you are not familiar with them: http://www.artchixstudio.com . The yahoo group does a bi-monthly lottery with a theme using at least one Artchix item, the theme this time is Garden Party. Here’s my entry, an ATC. I used an image from an Artchix collage sheet, added color to the flowers with colored pencils and framed it on scalloped pink cardstock. It’s popped up on a background of patterned paper from Close To My Heart that is black, white and gray, so I colored some of the flowers the same pink color and added a paper flower with a rhinestone flower in the middle. I cut out the words “garden party” and free hand cut a crown from an old dictionary and added them to the picture. (The lotto winner gets all the art work, hope it’s me! 🙂 )
Here’s a group of Art Cards I did last week. I used my canning jar stamp and stamped it on transparency sheets and put a captured fairy underneath on the base of vintage book paper and cardstock, attaching the transparency with tiny brads. I also added an old fashioned label to the jars and stamped “found object” on the label. Simple but cute I think:)
Here’s another small altered wooden box I did using Tim Hotz’ crackle paint with a little bird collage inside and a tiny wire nest with blue bead “eggs” and vintage game pieces for feet. See the previous post for another similar box and info on how I made them:
http://www.pisforpaper.com/?p=101
inside:
front:
bottom showing feet:
Here’s a fun collage with an image of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland that I cut from a really cool old children’s pop up book I found. She’s surrounded by roses, tiny playing cards and real scrabble tiles. The background is a vintage bingo card, I added small metal eyelets to each corner that have different playing card suits. I attached red wire to the top to hang it from.
Just a quick post to say I’m participating in the Yart Sale (yard sale + art = Yart :)) on Etsy. I’ve put quite a few of my items in my sale section, the sale runs from now until Sunday June 14th.
go to:
http://www.PisforPaper.etsy.com
 and click on the “sale” section
Several years ago before I taught myself how to solder I used to make alot of jewelry with dominos, so I thought I’d try them again. Dominos are fun to work with but it’s important to remember that not all mediums will “stick” to the slick surface of a domino, some people soak them in bleach and/or sand them to give them a “tooth” to help mediums stick better but I guess I’m too lazy for that 🙂 and have never found a need to do it. I try to use permanent inks and markers such as Staz-On ink pads and Sharpie markers. Chalk ink pads work well too but need to be heat set (with a heat gun) to be more permanent. Dominos are inexpensive so it’s nice to play and experiment with them to find out what works well and what doesn’t. I also like to seal mine just to make sure all my hard work will stay for a long time since it’s something that will be used and worn. A clear spray sealant works well or any type of clear dimensional liquid (like Liquid Glass, Dimensional Magic, Crystal Lacquer, etc) works nicely too, they will give a nice shiny look over your artwork. Using permanent mediums also helps when you go to seal your domino because they will not react and possibly bleed when you apply the sealant.
Here are a few pins made with Alice in Wonderland characters, I added alphabet beads along the domino edges and large pin backs on the back of each.
Also here’s a few more art cards using small bingo cards and those same fun black alphabet beads. This time I made them with Alice, the White Rabbit and Alice dressed as the Red Queen.
I belong to a mixed media artist group on Etsy called Melange and each Wednesday we have a challenge word and everyone makes an art piece based on that word. This weeks word is “Fly”, which happens to be a favorite word of mine, I use it often in my work. I made two pieces for the challenge, both Art Cards, using some really fun small bingo cards I bought at a convention a few years ago and some cool black and white alphabet beads. Be sure to visit the Melange Team blog :Â http://melangeonetsy.blogspot.com/Â and click on the comments to visit my fellow artists blogs and see what they made for the challenge. Also please feel free to participate in the challenge yourself, you do not need to be a member, just link to your artwork in the comments section too.
my first card is a cute fairy flying a butterfly:
my other card is a bird inside a cage:
