Happy St. Patrick's Day! These are the two postcard sized decorations I did for our kitchen this month! It is fun to do one for each season! Nothing fancy just some cut out images glued on paper background that is torn and edged with ink. Top of the Mornin to Ya!!

Sample page from Claudine Hellmuth workshop

This was the result of a fun workshop I took last Saturday at Angela's Happy Stamper with Claudine Hellmuth. We got to use the Claudine Hellmuth paints, gesso and gel medium for each square. I really like using gesso as a resist with a foam stamp and then going over it with paint. (see top left) We learned to do a transfer too! It was a great class and now I have this to decorate my studio! Thanks to Debbie Reif for taking the class with me!

Wood Block Fun

These paper collages are done on 1 1/2 inch thick 12X12 blocks of wood. The directions are from Nov/Dec 2006 Somerset Studios in an article by Corey Moorigas. I did the originals 2 or 3 years ago and ended up with terrible warping and buckling of the paper. Thanks to alert artist friend Debbie I was directed to Claudine Hellmuth's wonderful blog where she instructed on how to glue paper without warping and so VOLLA!! I was so excited I had to give them to my husband right away instead of the plan of waiting until Valentine's Day. The sides have papers on them too and I used inks to age the edges. Upholstery tacks hold the ribbon in place and black tacks hold the 4X4 piece of glass over the picture which is backed with a 6X6 paper. Some of the others in the examples had feet on them so they could stand up. Very fun project and easy to make to match any decor!! Click on the picture for a close up. Love those vintage jewels!!

Button Fairies

These are some of the Button Fairies I made after our last Wednesday Altered Artist group. After putting some butterfly wings on a cute face from Lisa Vollrath's sheet I picked out buttons to go with the colors. They are simply buttons attached with wire woven from top to bottom ending with some beads and a wire curly que at the bottom. I left a loop of wire at the top for hanging or I could add a magnet.

Happy New Year!

Here is my Stylin' Lady that I made for who else but my hairstylist Mirian! She saw me cutting out things at my last appointment and said she like this so I made it into her! It was fun - the cut out image is from a Nordstrom catalog and the background was rice paper, scrapbook paper and painted watercolor block. I added scissors to her hand too. Last I added some gold ink to make it shiney!

Merry Christmas!! I am finally back to post on my blog thanks to my new digital camera I got for Christmas! My old one broke soon after I started my blog so I have lots of catching up to do! This is my most recent piece called "Paris for Nikki". I did it for my friend Gail's daughter as she wanted to decorate her room in European art after her trip to Paris. I had lots of fun gathering all the images. It is done on watercolor block paper with black gesso and Tim Holts distress crackle paint in antique linen on top of gesso. Then some fun Mackenzi Childs tissue paper was used for back ground. I added some french text that I purchased from Lisa Vollrath's site. Then, I stenciled with a cool Eiffle Tower stencil from Club Scrap. An image from a '07 Vintage Map Calendar by Cavallini (my favorite) was placed lower right and several Cavallini Ephemera Stickers where added as well. I stamped with my Cavallini Bonjour Rubber Stamps too. It was great fun to work on for a Christmas present!

Birthday Banner

Here is a Birthday Banner I made for a friends 50th birthday! I also made a Halloween one but my digital camera just broke so I will have to wait to post a picture of that one!