Houston, We Have ATCs

So I’ve been an ATC-makin’ fool lately!  This first batch is for an Artchix Studio swap called “Royal Birds.”  We had to use at least one image from a selection of their collage sheets; I chose “Bird on a Wire” because the images are the most versatile.  I also used one image on each ATC from their “Mystical” collage sheet.  Love those moons and clocks and zodiac charts and such!  The backgrounds are made with paper from a very old ledger book I found at the thrift store.

I also made 35 (count ‘em!) ATCs to trade at the Quilt Festival in Houston this week.  I’ve spent most of the day packing and am ready to go first thing tomorrow morning.  Yee-haw!  (As I imagine they say in Texas.) Houston is pretty much an all-day drive straight west from here; the weather is very similar to ours, except much drier.  So I packed some lotion and am good to go!

The Quilting Arts/Cloth Paper Scissors people will be there, sponsoring awesome classes (fingers crossed I make it into all the lottery ones!), mixed-media demos, a raffle drawing and an ATC swap.  Participants were encouraged to make 35 ATCs because this is the festival’s 35th year.  I met the challenge head-on, and while it took a few days, I got all 35 done!  I didn’t have time to photograph them all, so here’s a small sampling:

Hopefully I’ll find time to post from the show.  I went for the first time back in 2007 and it was rather overwhelming!  My camera is going to get quite a workout. 

Beware! Or…Spooky!

Halloween is fast approaching, and I recently joined two swaps on Swap-Bot in which we’re to make an appropriate hanging to display on our door during the Season of Fright.  My favorite thrift store put out the Halloween stuff last week and I was thrilled to find two words rendered in elegant script and covered in black glass glitter: “Beware” and “Spooky.”  Immediately I was inspired to use one of each in my wall hangings.

As the words look rather classy, I threw out all notions of making something like a cutesy scarecrow on a straw wreath (not that I would have seriously considered that in the first place!) and began to plan something more refined.  The first thing that came to mind was that I needed roses…roses the deep, rich color of blood.  (Bwa-ha-ha-haaaaa!)   Alas, all I could find were roses the deep, rich color of cheap wine.  But it’s cool – they were on clearance!  I also bought sheer black ribbon with a subtle sparkle and raided my stash for tiny beads (technically, “Beedz”), jewelry components and colorful gems.  I cut and painted ceiling tile for the substrate.  Love that stuff!  Not only inexpensive, but a great texture.

You may recognize these images; one previously graced the cover of a comp book for a swap in which my partner wanted a “sexy witch,” and the other is the lovely image from last October’s Mind Wide Open challenge.  Back then I used lots of molding paste, paint and a giant spider to create my challenge project.  I like this one much better.

What else is spooky? On September 11, the odometer in my 2000 Toyota Corolla reached another milestone in its long, jaded career.

 The spooky part?  I’ve washed my car a total of maybe ten times in its entire life.  (I’d rather spend the $$ on art supplies!  Besides, it rains a lot, and that’s sort of like a car wash.  Right?)  My husband is convinced that dirt is the only thing holding my car together at this point, but I know better.  I’ll still be driving it when it reaches its next big milestone. 

Before/After

So who else remembers that scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation where Clark Griswold (aka Chevy Chase) is standing in front of a mirror pretending to be a diet ad?

“Look at this, honey.  Before…” (pooches out belly) …”after” (sucks it in) …”before (pooches out) …after” (sucks it in).  A rather silly, non-relevant scene, but hilarious nonetheless.

Ahhh, good old Clark Griswold.

The latest swap I joined on Swap-Bot directs us to find a framed picture at a thrift store, remove the picture and alter it, put it back in the frame and then alter the frame.  Fun?  You bet.  I found this rather pretty 8×10 floral in beautiful condition priced at $5.

BEFORE:

I left the central image intact and added various papers, paints and stencils to the outside edges, then glued a flower to the glass.  (Because I put at least one flower on everything – I am helplessly compelled to do so!)  I didn’t want to alter the frame too intensely as it was already fairly attractive, so I merely rubbed some gold paint on the inside edges and on the scrollwork in order to tone down the red highlights.

AFTER:

I had to take about seven gazillion photos before I got one that didn’t show too much glare on the glass.  This was so much fun I may have to do it again. 

My Latest Obsession

Not long ago it was handbags – couldn’t get enough.  For the past few months, for whatever reason, I find blank journals irresistible.  The library in the city I work in has an annual book sale in the spring and fall that attracts thousands of visitors.  I normally head straight for the art books, foreign language books and mysteries, but this past spring, I discovered  a section of calendars, blank journals and photo albums.  It was exciting to find beautifully bound, high-quality journals (one filled with watercolor paper!) for two or three dollars each.  Since then, I look for them when thrift-store shopping and in the bargain bin at the book store and have amassed quite a collection.

But is it enough?  Hmmm…not yet!  I still get a thrill when I find a great journal at a great price.

So I joined a couple of altered journal swaps recently – it’s time to start getting these things out of my studio…and making room for more! 

My first swap partner loves “retro housewife” images, so it was easy to design for her.  (Can you guess what her name is?)

And my second partner loves roosters.

Two down…a couple dozen to go!

New Compositions

This time of year, school composition books are cheap and plentiful, and they’re so much fun to decorate.  I recently finished one for a Halloween challenge. 

My favorite contests are those in which the entrants are limited in some way, as to the materials, theme, etc.  In the Halloween challenge, we could make anything we wanted, but had to incorporate a Jack o’ Lantern, a page from a book, the date Oct. 31 and the shape of a star.  I had actually forgotten about the “star” requirement until my comp book was done.  After an initial, ”Awwww, man!” at the prospect of starting over, it occurred to me I could fix it simply by replacing the smallest of the layered flowers in the corner with a star.  Voila!

I didn’t make the second book for any particular reason except that I love the image of the lady, who actually very strongly resembles a former colleague who left work a few months ago to have a baby. 

The original image already had the wings, but I added a crown because I thought she needed it.  Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that I think everyone needs a crown lately.  I have lots of crown stamps, stickers and rub-ons and use them whenever humanly possible.  Or not humanly, given that I just put crowns on a couple of horses.  This was for a swap called “altered anything,” in which we send an object to our partner, who alters it and sends it on to her partner.  I sent my partner a cigar box; she will alter it and send it to someone else.  My partner sent me this horse-themed switchplate, which I will send to the person I sent the cigar box to.  Eventually, the person who sent me the switchplate will send me something she has altered that she got from someone else.  (It’s far less complicated than I’ve explained, I’m sure.)

It would have been convenient to just cover the entire switchplate and start from scratch, but I think my partner would have sent a plain one if she expected it to be as easy as that!  So I did what any reasonable person would do when faced with the task of altering a picture of horses: gave them wings and crowns.

Also, they are now standing in a field of glittery poppies.

(Wicked Witch of the West: “Poppies.  Poppies will make you sleep…”)

I think we could all use a rest after seeing those “fairy princess” horses, don’t you?

Tag Party

While perusing my back issues of Somerset Life recently, I came across an article in which manila shipping tags had been tea-dyed, wrapped with lace and ribbons and enhanced with metal charms and chandelier crystals.  Ooooooh, pretty!  I had a few tags left over from a previous project, so I made a tea bath (note: loaf pans are the perfect size in which to dunk manila shipping tags) and pulled out the few charms I have, which happen to be mostly birds.

My initial idea was to use trims of bright color and design, but tea-dying the tags had given them a decidedly vintage feel, so I ended up using a palette of soft peach, pale orange, brown, cream and black.  The tags sat in my studio for awhile, feeling lonely and unfinished, until I found a Scrabble game at the thrift store.  After putting the letter tiles in my “alphabets” drawer, I realized the board itself would make a great substrate.  So I cut it in half and painted the back, which is a deep maroon color, with three coats of gesso.  Interestingly, the gesso never did completely obscure the underlying color, but the pale pink happened to work well with the tag colors.  So I overlaid a brown-inked stencil, edged the board with deco tape and glued on the tags.  The final touches were beaded trim and vintage seam binding for a hanger.

Don’t you love the shabby chic bird door knocker?  I found it at Hobby Lobby last year and just had to have it.  Dude warned me it would cover the peephole, but I don’t answer the door anyway, unless I’m expecting UPS or Fed-Ex with a package of books or art supplies. 

There’s a new group on Swap-Bot called “Altered Art,” and one of their first swaps is for altered tags.  Quite a coincidence, since I had just finished the bird wall hanging when the swap was announced.  This time I colored the tag with chalk instead of tea, but the rest of it went pretty much as the others had – a bird charm, ribbons and trims.  Now I’m in the market for more bird charms!

I have to tell the story of the blue sheet music.  It’s from a gigantic book by Reader’s Digest called The Easy Way to Play 100 Unforgettable Hits, which I found at the thrift store.  (According to the premise of this book, having the notes printed in various colors will somehow make it easier for the pianist to read music.)  So as I was walking around the store with this behemoth of a book, the clerk called out, “What have you found there, an atlas?”  Enthusiastically, I told her it was sheet music, which I love to tear out of books and use in my artwork, for backgrounds or embellishments, etc.  It was only when she started looking rather alarmed that I realized she had only asked to be polite and wasn’t prepared to hear the fate I had planned for the hapless book.  Oh, well – I’ve seen weirder types than me in that store, so she should be used to it. 

King Crow

Whenever there’s a swap on Swap-Bot to alter a composition book, I simply can’t resist joining. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Comp books are easy to decorate and useful to boot.

My partner in this swap likes “weird” art and can’t stand cutesy pink stuff. (Okay, I respect that, though I can’t pretend to understand it.) She has a creative husband, which I think would be really cool – that is, unless he were to start trying to infiltrate my stash; then we’d have to have words. Also, I would be devastated if my husband’s art were nicer than mine.  Fortunately, his creativity is in the area of designing things to build from wood.  He’s quite good at it, but it’s always strictly utilitarian stuff, so I have no fear of competition in the area of painting, gluing, stamping, embellishing and the like.

Anyway, my swap partner’s husband amuses her endlessly by naming each of his pieces, “But, is it art?”  Hopefully she’ll like this comp book I decorated for her. I tried to be weird, and it’s definitely not my usual style, but you’ll notice I couldn’t help sneaking in a flower and some bling. (Okay, to be honest, quite a bit of bling.)

What’s Done is Done

Sure, it’s a weird title, but I couldn’t resist the homage to “LOST” (I’m totally addicted to that crazy show, though I try not to let it seep into my everyday life).

So what’s done?  The round robin hosted by lovely Lisa the Librarian over at Simple Journeys, in which each of us sent around a board book to be arted up by the others.  I finished the last spread in the last book last night (and I can’t end this sentence without typing “last” one more time, simply because it’s close to “LOST,” which have I mentioned I’m addicted to?) and so at last it’s time to “close the book” on this “chapter” in….okay, I’ll stop.

Anyway, the theme of this (last) book is “what a wonderful world” (ha! now that song is in your head) and we were to do a spread on what we considered the most beautiful place in the world.  Fortunately it was not required that you choose a place you’ve actually visited.  My grandfather took up world travel after he retired, and Japan was his favorite destination.  He always talked about how beautiful it was, and the photographs I’ve seen are breathtaking.  It’s on my “bucket list” to visit Japan some day (though admittedly that possibility may be as unlikely as some of the other entries on that list, i.e. “Get cuddly with Naveen Andrews” and “Win the lottery so you can buy the entire inventory at Dick Blick“).

The background was done by rubbing chalk on dried gesso (a favorite technique).  I learned how to fold a kimono here, in case you want to make one for your next page about Japan. 

Queen of Bling

I belong to a group on Swap-Bot called “Need…the Preciousssss,” which you may recognize as the catchphrase of  Gollum from Lord of the Rings, who is our beloved mascot.  Like Gollum,  members of the group are irresistibly drawn to treasure; in our case, stuff like squished bottle caps, rusted bits of metal, old paper ephemera and ”alterable” thrift store junk.  Everything has potential, after all, whether to save the Shire from evil forces or just to adorn a pretty necklace.

In the group’s latest swap, we’re to decorate a Queen from a deck of playing cards to represent what we’re the “queen” of when it comes to our favorite collection of treasures.  At first I couldn’t decide whether I was the Queen of Glitter or the Queen of Bling, but then I decided that glitter falls into the “bling” category, as does anything sparkly (my favorite kind of stuff)!

When I was looking through my collection of random playing cards, I found most of a deck of “Fancy Feast” cat breed cards that I’d gotten for free a few years ago as a bonus for buying something cat-related (can’t remember what off-hand).  There were only two queens left in the deck, which was perfect, since I had to make one card each for two partners.    And the subject of the cards makes my “royal title” more accurate: I’m also the Queen of cat hair, at least one of which manages to sneak under the tape of every swap package I send out!

Finally found a use for these awesome crown brads I bought last year. 

I Have a Fairy Name!

Check out the sidebar (under the calendar) – you can discover your fairy name, too!  I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.  I’m not completely thrilled with mine, Bramble Icefly, but you have to admit it’s unique.

I belong to a group that loves fairies over on Swap-Bot and in their latest swap, you’re to create something for your partner based on their “fairy name.”  I’m not real sure I’m going to join this one, considering how bizarre my fairy name is, but I did join a group swap for fairy bookmarks recently.  The background is stamped with Versamark and then rubbed with chalk, and the image of two fairies reading is a bookplate stamp I’ve had for a bazillion years, which I embossed on metallic copper paper.