Been remiss

I have been remiss, I haven't blogged in months.  I have been knitting, embroidering, making mixed media pieces and papercrafting, but haven't gotten around to downloading my pictures off my iPad or camera :-(

Here are the 3 jewel sisters, who live on painted canvas backgrounds. I hope you like them!

Odd shaped art

Annie ran a swap last year, where we all made 6 little pieces of art to fit plastic pockets of an odd size - hence 'odd shaped art'. Of course, once in the plastic pocket page, we realised we needed six more to go on the other side of the page...

So, here are my second set of odd shaped art. My new scanner is very clever, and as well as scanning it does this autocrop thing when you scan several things at once. Unfortunately the autocrop feature sometimes crops the bottom off things! So one or two of these have lost their bottoms....

The first is on canvas, two image transfers (one behind the heart), and a collaged photo of a sculpture, plus a friendly plastic broken heart and some Tim Holtz music tape. The word and the (cropped) dots were done with a Viva Perle pen.

This background was watercolour paper covered with tissue and painted with a dozen or so thin layers of acrylic paint - it starts to look and feel like leather. Between the last couple of coats, I scribbled with an iridescent oil pastel crayon, you can see the metallic glimmer through the paint. Then I covered almost all of it up with a Klimt image, some Tim Holtz tape, and some german scrap!

This background was made by painting cardstock generously with gesso, and stamping into it whilst wet. A quick sprinkle with salt, and a spritz with watered down Quink permanent black ink, and leave to dry. The salt dissolves a little, leaving little pitted textured areas, and the ink separates out to give patchy mottled colours. I stamped a zodiac stamp onto a paint sample, added some Tim Holtz tape and the word and dots with the Viva Perle pen.

More of the acrylic paint background, this time covered with a digital collage (all my own work), and a stamped definition.

This one is really shimmery in real life - shame the scan never captures that. Moonshadow sprays on watercolour paper, with interest added by sponging acrylic paint through a sheet of ironed angelina. I added a stamped image (Stampers Anonymous), some german scrap, and some letters.

Finally, the background to this is made by crumpling waxed paper, ironing it onto glossy cardstock, then sponging dye ink on. The wax resists the ink, and creates this lovely pattern. I've had this image for ages but never found anywhere to use it. The background colours reminded me of India, so it seemed appropriate to use it at last. I punched three flower shapes out, and backed the holes with some pearlescent pinky red card, and added some sari ribbon. Clever autocrop chopped the bottom off!

Gothic arch chunky book

I am taking part in a chunky book where the pages are shaped like gothic arches. The pages need to be grungy with a touch of metal. I've been trying to step out of my colour comfort zone (turquoise!) so chose deep red with black for the pages.

I had some textured glossy card, which I painted with about a dozen layers of fluid acrylics in deep iron oxide red and orange. This gives a lovely leathery finish. I added some black lace, an image, some german scrap, buttons and brads and a couple of words.

For the backs, I used two or three colours of colourwash sprays, then inked over a fern frond using red distress ink, to add a bit of pattern. I stamped some lines towards the right hand side, then added some black stamped and embossed butterflies. I hope they are gothic enough!

Recycling

I made a votive for a friend, using an old translucent cosmetic pot. This is a really easy project, and looks pretty! Stamp your design onto pastel coloured tissue paper, adhere to pot using gel medium, add a circle of velvet paper underneath to cover the scruffy tissue edges.

Cut decorative canvas scrap to size to fit neck edge (this covers the screwtop ridges) and adhere using gel medium. Add a trim of gold german scrap to the inside and outside rim, and it's done!

Last meander

Well, my meander pages are at an end. This has been a really fun project, which made me get my scary sewing machine out and USE it in my art. I still need to try free motion embroidery (which is what I wanted a new sewing machine for 18 months ago LOL) but at least I have dabbled a little by sewing images onto pages, and edging them with a variety of stitches.

Having said that, this page, the last one, doesn't have any sewing on it at all! Jessie sent a lovely textured page in browns and purples, and set her theme as 'vixens'. I thought the other players would probably go for vampish images, and when I looked at what I had I was a little torn between an angry looking vamp and a topless child who was clearly a vixen in training! I decided on the angry vamp, as she had something about her which really appealed to me.

I went for a really simple page design, centreing the image and covering it with a small sheet of mica, held in place with a couple of brads. I trimmed with German Scrap, which I dulled down with Treasure Gold (I seem to use it on every project these days!), and decided it didn't need another thing!


I hope Jessie likes it!