ad libitum

PAPER ANGELS

I love angels and angel images. 'Tis the Season to think about angels; so, I made several paper angels. My angels have a variety of faces that I have drawn, faces from family photos, and faces from clip art. Their gowns are made from painted and gelli-printed deli paper. Their wings are painted water color paper with a stencil pattern (some gold paint, some silver paint). I have made some into a garland and I will deck my halls with others. (It probably won't surprise people who know me that I made more angels than I have photographed here.)

 

 

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS

I've been working on Christmas images...

ANGEL TAGS

It's time to be working on Christmas projects. I have always had a love of angels and I have a fondness for Christmas ornaments and tags; so I combined them to make some angel ornaments/tags. The angels are about 3 inches high. The wings are made of a textured holographic gold paper; the dresses are made of scrapbook paper with a Christmas music theme; the faces are drawings that I did over a year ago (I scanned my drawings of ladies and made a collage sheet of their heads - I believe in scanning anything that I might find useful later); the halos are a piece of Christmas scrapbook paper that I sprayed with Aileen Roberts' Platinum Pearl and Gold Color Mists ; it's hard to tell from this scan, but the haolos have a beautiful shimmer to them. 

EARLY HALLOWEEN

I'm working on making some Halloween cards to send out as random acts of art. The skeletons come from photos I took at the Halloween store (th background on the one with three skeletons is a dark cemetery - hard to tell from the scan. The background on the two skeletons card is one of my attempts to photograph a full moon. The googley eyes seemed like a necessary addition. The red sparkley eyes gleam more menacing than the scan shows. The vintage image was strong by itself, so all I added was glitter to the fairy wings.

The tag was made from an altered photo I made at ArtUnraveled. I tried to make the antique doll look very spooky. The little witch (click on her to enlarge the image) is from fabric images I made in a past Halloween.

I also was in a Halloween matchbox swap. I forgot to take a photo of my box and the included giftee before I gave it to Britt. As it happens, she also forgot to phtoo graph the box she made for me and the giftees. Missing from the scan are the necklace and ring she made (already in my jewelry box and I'm too lazy to fetch them right now). The image on the matchbosx is one of those cardsw that changes it's image as you move it (the man turns into a werewolf).

LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT ANGEL

I'm still looking  for/working on an angel image for my Christmas cards. These are the two (well, actually, they're both from the same photo) I worked on today.

 

CHRISTMAS PURSES AND SOME ANGELS

I have become obsessed with reverse applique and Christmas fabric. This has resulted in making purses (one for me:not reverse applique; one for my  younger daughter: reverse applique; and one that I sold: mostly reverse applique.

This is the purse I made for myself. There are two zippered pouches on the inside. On this side, there are two pockets. On the left edge, you can sort of see the pocket for my cell phone.

There's zippered pocket on this side. On the left is a big, ong pocket for a water bottle or my foldy-cane.

This is the purse I made for my daughter.

And, the purse I sold. It has a zippered pouch on the outside and pockets on the inside.

I also have had some time for playing in photoshop. I'm involved in a prayer flag project and I decided that angels would be good prayer messengers. I love angel statues and am happy to have a nice collection of photos I've taken (always on the look-out for more). I have to admit, I'm rather pleased with my results. I may decide to use them for my Christmas cards.

WINTER IS COMING, AND MORE REVERSE APPLIQUE

I'm pretty sure our delightful Indian Summer is gone and we're headed for gray, dreary November weather into winter. Yesterday, I went to South Haven with a friend and took some pictures of the empty docks. I think the photo below captures the feeling of the month.

 

So, I've been keeping myself busy inside (a mug of hot cider by my side) sewing. I'm still making Christmas pennants (you can never have too many banners), mostly using reverse applique.

And, I made a Christmas present using reverse applique and two more of my embossed metal birds. I sewed it all onto heavy water color paper.

Here's a close up.

I'm also involved in a calendar project with my local Altered Sisters group. I have the months of January and September. My pages are below. Both of them are photos I took (the bird was in a tree in my backyard last winter; the pencils were photographed in a workshop I took) and have Photoshopped.

 

REVERSE APPLIQUE ( AND SOME BIRDS)

I have been busy with a few projects and some real life tasks (don't ask me how long it took me to set the car clock after the time change) and have been remiss in blogging. Sorry.

I decided it was time to revisit metal embossing (a technique I learned years ago at Artiscape with Ten Seconds Studio) and make some birds.

 I wanted to put these birds in some art quilts I am planning.

I sewed them to some fabric backed by heavy interfacing.

My next project was inspired by Beryl Taylor's new "Layer by Layer" DVD. I am particularly taken by her use of reverse applique. I love the texture involved in this technique. I am going to use it often. The two projects I am currently working on with it are a black and white art quilt/wall hanging and some Christmas banners (another banner swap; I love the idea of a series of seasonal wall banners; thank you, Kathy).

I'm still embellishing the art quilt, but I'm near finishing it. Below are some pictures. As you can see, I put my metallic birds in it.

 

 

Next project: Christmas banners. Instead of the squares demonstrated on the DVD, I just sewed 6 layers of Christmas fabric together to cut up into pennants.

 

I have the letter W for my banners in this swap. I free-handed the letters, just cutting them out of some green felt and then I added some glitter to sparklw them up for the holidays. None of them are the same; but I think they're all discernable Ws.

 

CATCHING UP ON ART PROJECTS

After traveling and holidaying and retreating and trying to deal with real life, I managed to get in a little art time to finish up some commitments.

I was in a 12 Days of Christmas ornament swap and was assigned  Day 7:Seven Swans a Swimming. I used a photo of swans that I took in Hawaii a few years ago. I printed it out forward and reversed (for front and back) and gave it a fringe and a sequined ribbon hanger. I wanted something a little different than the usual white swan image. These measure about 4 inches across and 2 1/2 inches high.

 

I am also involved in a gift exchange, which I better get in the mail by Thursday. I used some heart and star bezels that are rustic looking. I filled them with resin (mixed with beads and glitter) and put a word in each one. The Resin Gods are whimsical and I did not have total success with all of my efforts. I poked a hole so that each could have a dangle (I used my new little twisty doo-hickey that cuts through metal and I love it).  I made jump rings - one for the dangles and one to use as a bale (bail?). I am currently deciding on whether to use a chain, ribbon or cord.

At Kari's bash/retreat, she showed us a method for making polymer snowmen on canvas. I added a felt scarf and head band to mine to give him some personality.

It's not that I'm all caught up yet, but I think I'm making some headway. I currently have a batch of chex mix in the oven and I have my recipes out for my cookie party next week. I will make Annie a batch of chocolate chip meringues tonight for her birthday tomorrow. Then I can check out my To Do list...

EARLY HALLOWEEN

I'm not going to be home on Halloween (I'm going to be in Egypt...I love saying that...I'm going to be in Egypt!!!!). So, yesterday, I made some Halloween postcards to send out and today I tried combining some drawings and Photoshop for a Halloween image. It's not very sophisticated, but it was fun.