Here’s my latest collage piece inspired by Tim Gunn’s famous Project Runway quote: “Make it Work!”. The painted wooden tag in the middle has a paper dress with a tiny vintage button that’s hanging on a little wire hanger with a paper tag. I used a lot of vintage sewing items to embellish it like part of a tape measure, spool and wooden clothes pin. The background paper is vintage music sheet.
I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post. The year has hardly begun and already it’s been rough. I’ve had alot of health issues and almost two weeks ago I unexpectedly lost my Grandfather (which has been terribly hard for the whole family).
But I’ve been trying to keep busy, mostly by redoing my work space. I’m almost done, it looks so great and functions so much better than before, I feel so organized! I’ll post before and after pics soon.
In the meantime here’s a few collages I’ve made recently with the thought of Valentine’s Day and love. I took white chipboard and cut out a heart shape (aprox. 5 1/2″ square) and adhered some vintage music sheet and patterned papers that I’d whitewashed and “sponged” with painted bubble wrap. I then added German paper scrap birds, vintage text, ribbons, sewed on buttons, etc. I punched holes at the top and added eyelets and wrapped cream wire for hangers. I think they turned out really pretty, they have a very shabby chic look to them. I love the blue one so much I might even keep it for myself:) The other two are currently for sale in my Etsy Shop.
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:
