Here’s another paper and felt collage, this time I wanted to try something new with my sewing machine so I adhered a bird onto vintage music paper and then lightly sketched a bird cage on the paper and then sewed over my pencils lines with my sewing machine, I think it turned out pretty cool and I’ll be trying this technique more often. It was a little nerve wracking knowing if I totally messed up I couldn’t fix it but I think with some more practice I can do lots more “free hand” stitching.
This recent collage of mine was very influenced by mixed media artist Catherine Moore, her mixture of every day items to make clothing and art dolls is very inspiring to me. I also used the Paper Fashions Fantasy book I gave away recently for the top of the dress and one of the hangers that comes with the book, this shows you can use the book in a very artsy way not just for cute fairytale princesses 🙂
 It’s on a 5″ x 7″ canvas board I painted brown. I made the top of the dress from inked vintage paper with a vintage button tied with hemp string, the skirt of the dress is a bird cage printed on a transparency with a red bird inside. Tied to the hanger with hemp string is a tiny tag that says “(cage ‘d”. The background is vintage music sheet and it’s embellished with a piece of vintage measuring stick and a quote on tattered fabric from Emily Dickinson that says “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the Soul”. I’m really happy with the results!
close up of the dress:
