March 14th, 2010
In an effort to keep myself busy these last few weeks (after the loss of our sweet dog Jesse) I’ve been making loads of soldered pendants. I have this wonderful vintage dictionary with lots of fantastic illustrations and had been wanting to make some soldered pendants with them but was unsure what I wanted on the back side. I’ve been seeing alot of cool art lately using vintage flash cards and a light bulb went off in my head to make these pendants look a bit like an old fashioned flash card, so the front has the illustration and the back of each contains a letter and text cut from the dictionary and other vintage books that say ” C is for cat”, etc. I thought a black patina added to the solder framed them nicely and made them look more vintage-y. I’ve done some “mundane” one’s like the cat, squirrel and birds but also some really cool funky one’s like wombat, narwhal, squid and anteater, these unusual ones are my favorites! I am slowing adding them to my Etsy shop and I also have more illustrations to go through, if there is an animal (like a goat or elephant?) you’d like please feel free to ask me, maybe I have it and I’d be happy to make a pendant for you.
Group shot:
C is for Cat:
S is for Skunk:
N is for Nightingale:
S is for Squid:
R is for Rook:
S is for Squirrel (front):
(back):
check out my Etsy shop by clicking here to see more of these.
Posted in Collage Jewelry, Uncategorized | No Comments »
March 14th, 2010
I’m so sorry it’s been a month since my last post, February was a tough month for my husband and me, our sweet girl Jesse passed away and it’s been really hard. We miss you sweetie!
Posted in Announcements and Acknowledgments, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
February 12th, 2010
One of the great old children’s books I got recently was in really bad shape, pages torn, falling apart and crumbling but it wasn’t surprising considering the book was dated 1918, it’s almost 100 years old! It has some simply gorgeous illustrations in it, lots of cute animals reading books and fairies in flowers, they are simply lovely! Here are a few soldered pendants I’ve made with some of the illustrations.
An adorable frog on a lily pad reading:
A trio of birds reading / singing:
A sweet bunny rabbit reading, I love the little bird perched on the top of the book:
a dandy black crow all dressed up and strutting around (I added a black patina to the solder on this one):
a dapper fairy sitting in a morning glory (this one is going to my mom for her birthday, she loves fairies and is a world class gardener)
front:
back:
Tags: antique, birds, black, book, books, bunny, children's, collage, crow, frog, illustrations, jewelry, pendants, reading, soldered, vintage
Posted in Collage Jewelry | 3 Comments »
February 9th, 2010
I recently got some adorable stamps from The Greeting Tree, they are really cute versions of characters from Alice in Wonderland and I thought they were the perfect size for art cards (2 1/2″ x 3 1/2″). Each character was stamped on white cardstock with black staz-on ink and colored using colored pencils and orderless mineral spirits for blending. I cut each out and added them to layers of vintage book paper and cardstocks. Plus I added a stamped embellishment to each, Alice got glittery mushrooms, the Mad Hatter got a glossy tea cup and the White Rabbit got a clock with movable clock hands (from Tim Holtz). I also ran a very thin strip of white core cardstock (from Close To My Heart) through my label maker and sanded them to make each card a name label.
Tags: ACEO, alice, art cards, ATC, colored pencils, lewis carroll, mad hatter, odorless mineral spirits, white rabbit, wonderland
Posted in ATC | 1 Comment »
February 4th, 2010
Here’s a few more of the soldered pendants with vintage illustrations I’ve made recently………….
A little girl discovering a bunny, she’s on the front, the bunny’s on the back:
Two owls sitting under the moon:
A tiny bird nest and birds:
A fox in the forest:
and this one is a shadowbox with a silver bird cage charm inside with a teeny tiny blue bird in the cage:
These are all curently available in my Etsy shop.
I also have listed a smaller version (5″) of my vintage white button heart in an embroidery hoop in my shop as well.
Tags: , bird, bunny, cage, collage, forest, fox, girl, illustrations, jewelry, nest, owls, pendants, soldered, vintage
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January 24th, 2010
For awhile I’ve been wanting to try something I haven’t before but I’d seen other artists do it and that’s cutting a section out of a chunky canvas and making a little box or niche inside the cut out. I was so worried I’d ruin the canvas I’d been putting it off. Finally I thought, well I’ll use a small canvas and just try, so I did and I’m thrilled with the results! I traced the shape I wanted to cut out on the back of the canvas and very carefully used an exacto knife to cut it. I then collaged the front like I normally would with vintage music paper lining up my paper with the hole and cutting that out too. I added a back to the canvas to complete the “box”, to the front I added the branch, bird, scrabble tiles and a piece of vintage wooden measuring stick and then added a nest I made out of silver wire and beads inside the niche. I will definitely be trying this again.
Tags: 3D, assemblage, bird, blue, canvas, collage, cut out, music, nest, niche, sheet, wire
Posted in 3D and Assemblage, Collages on Canvas, Hanging Collage, Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 21st, 2010
I recently found a couple more gorgeous vintage children’s books, one was in pretty bad shape and that makes it easier to cut it up:) They both have some wonderful illustrations that I’m turning into soldered pendants. Here’s a few I’ve made so far.
This first one I really love, the white cow is so sweet but mostly because I feel so clever with what I put on the back side:
This next one is a sweet Momma Cat and her kittens:
A birds nest and bird flying away (love this one!):
and this one is a child riding a horse under a full moon, really neat:
All these pendants are currently for sale here in my Etsy shop. And I’ll be adding even more in the next few days.
Tags: bird, book, cat, collage, cow, flowers, glass, horse, illustration, jewelry, kittens, mixed media, nest, page, paper, pendant, ride, soldered, vintage
Posted in Collage Jewelry, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
January 19th, 2010
So, I love old buttons and have used some in soldered jewelry but was wanting to making something “more” with them. I remembered a piece I saw awhile ago from the great Rebbecca Sower and also some pieces I’ve seen on Etsy and I was inspired to make this piece. I had some extra burlap from another project and loads of vintage white buttons so I drew a heart onto the burlap and stitched on all the buttons filling in the heart. And since I love adding little cut out words to just about everything I added the word “love” to one of the buttons. I bought an embroidery hoop and stained it with some wood stain (I have some vintage hoops packed away some place from my cross stitch days and need to find them, they’d be great in a piece like this) and then I put the burlap in the hoop, trimmed it down and glued it to the back. I think it turned out really lovely.
Tags: burlap, buttons, embroidery hoop, heart, love, sewn, stitched, vintage
Posted in 3D and Assemblage, Hanging Collage, Misc. Collage | 2 Comments »
January 5th, 2010
Hope everyone is enjoying a happy new year so far!
I was thrilled to have some pages from my French altered book be published in the Fall ’09 issue of Altered Arts magazine (click here to see my post about it) and now they’ve published 6 more pages from the book in the current issue of their e-magazine (issue 19) and even more will be in issue 20. Click here to visit their website, down loadable e-magazines are only $2.99 or free with any purchase.
Posted in Announcements and Acknowledgments | 2 Comments »
December 18th, 2009
I’m so sorry blog, I’ve really neglected you lately, please forgive me! I’ve just been really busy and after the holidays plan to buckle down and work on lots of new paper projects in January, got some new ideas brewing in my head:)
But for now I wanted to let everyone know I’m having a sale in my Etsy shop, all winter and holiday items are 30% off, there are still lots of cute things left and still time for me to get them to you before Christmas. Just visit my shop http://www.PisforPaper.etsy.com , and click the sale section. While you’re there also check out my new teddy bear section, I make teddies too, yeah that’s right I’m multi-talented ! 😉
I hope everyone has a safe and very merry holiday season!
-Heather
Tags: holiday, sale
Posted in Announcements and Acknowledgments | No Comments »
