Birthday Art Doll

I have just created a new Art Doll for a dear friend's birthday. I have just recently met my new friend Lanise but I feel like I have known her all my life! She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of VA has grown children and she bleongs to my Altered Arts group. Since I began making my funky, transistor headed art dolls she has been one of my biigest cheerleaders. Her birthday also happened to fall on December 30th, a miserable time of year to have a birthday. So I decided to make her one of my special ladies. This is what evolved as I worked. I don't generally start with much of a plan , these gals just evolve on their own. Her legs are made from the rolled text of a crumbling Hebrew prayer book and bound with colored threads. Her feet are heart shaped charms. HEr wings are made from a crumbling crushed soda can that I retrieved from the street during a recent walk with the dogs, Pepper and Buddy. Her halo is a flattened Snapple bottle cap that I found in the local Target parking lot. So here she is!

First Beaded Goddess Art Doll

I have always been fascinated with beadiwork, especially that which is encrusted with beads. This interest prompted me to join a very friendly "open to newbies "art dolls Yahoo group. I had previously begun amking my own art dolls but I wanted some assistence with the beading part. This group makes lots of goddess dolls and has lots of swaps. It has been the perfect place for me to learn!

This is my first attempt. She is my Goddess for the WInter Goddess Swap and she will soon be making her home in Nitro, W.VA with Edna!

i made her form first by layering muslin with a sparkly silver mesh fabric and machine stitching all over to hold the two fabrics firmly together. Then she was stuffed and her polymer clay face was glued on. Then I just sat down with a selection of white and clear beads and started beading. It was hard to stop!!

The mother of one of my son's good friends say her and has asked me tot each her how to create a goddess doll and to teach her how to do the beadwork. Myfriends at the Whistle Stop Bead shop want me to write a curriculum for a class forcreating Goddess dolls!!

I guess that I have more teaching ahead of me!! WHOOOOO HOOOOO!!

Reaching Way Back!!

As I proceed thru all of my artistic adventures, I am amazed at how often I reach back to my earliest art experiences, to call up old skills.

As a result of the Charm swap that I participated in with my Altered Arts group, I am again using my wire jewelry skills. Our meetings are held in the work room of a wonderful rubber stamp shop in Reston , VA; Angela's Happy Stamper. We all decided to create an extra charm for Angela to thank her for letting us use her space without charging us a fee. I took on the task of creating a necklace from the charms. I chose 16 gauge copper wire that I purchased at the hardware store, got out my needle nose pliers and cutters and got to work. here are the results. We will present this piece to Angela at our group meeting tomorrow, if we can cajole her to stop by the shop while we are all there!

2 views.

We are quite sure that Angela will be thrilled! Every time that I look at all of my charms that I received from this swap and at this necklace, I am so very grateful for this incredibly talented and giving group of artists that I am lucky enough to have found!!

Althought he quality of this photo is not the best , it shows the links of the necklace that I created. I must also thank my good art friend Ruth from CA, who shared her technique for creating quick and easy links for displaying a multitude of charms!! Thank you so much Ruth ,for sharing your skills with all of us!!

Now I have to continue to make links to create a similar necklace for myself! I still have two more charm swaps that I am participating in !! One is an international swap for 25 charms and the other is a Fiber Arts Charm swap, also for 25 charms. I will post pictures as soon as the charms arrive!!!

Altered Book Spread

I have completed anopther spread for an Altered Book from the True Colors Round Robin that I am hosting. The colors for this book are Aquamarine, green with copper highlights. This is a beautiful leather bound book from an art friend who lives in Minnesota.

I started my work on this book by creating a focal piece using synthetic felt. I painted the felt piece with various colors of acrylic paint, sprinkled on embossing powder and heated the whole mess with my heat gun! After several more layers of embossing powder was added, I stamped into the hot mess with an inked stamp and allowed the whole thing to cool.

This is the result of the Tortured Felt piece. I completed this focal point by edgingit with copper paint and highlighting the word "butterfly" with a lavendar gel pen.

this is one of may favorite stamps and sentiments. It says "there's nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a Butterfly.

This is the left hand side of the finished spread.

And this is the right hand side.

Beaded Earrings

A friend asked if I could create some beaded clip style earrings for a gift for her Mother in Law. Of course I took on the job, being not quite sure how I was going to proceed. We picked out the beads and I got the clip backs and set to work. Here are the results of my first bead encrusted, embroidered bead earrings.

I am quite pleased with how these turned out ! They are about the size of a quarter, maybe a tad bigger. I think that everyone will be pleased.

Fiber Fusion Experiments

I have been playing around with fusing , melting, painting and all around fiber attatchment recently. I am participating in a Fiber Arts Charm swap on one of my Yahoo groups and I have been very inspired by seeing all of the beautiful work that people are doing. This is all very mind stretching!!! Below you wil find some pictures of starting materials followed by a progression of techniques that I applied. This was all done purely as an experiment. I tried very hard to not worry about the final product but just see what I could achieve with the materuials that I combined and how I manipulated the fibers.

This is my collection of starting materials. I painted an old piece of muslin with Lumiere acrylic paints and let it dry. The piece of pink is a torn drier sheet that I painted with pink acrylic paint. The rest is an acrylic gold mesh, foil candy wrappers, synthetic lace.

I pinned this all down onto the muslin and went crazy with stitching on the sewing machine.

I did cut the foil pieces up into slivers and used the lace to help hold everything in place before the stitching took over.

This is the back of the piece after the initial round of stitching.

This is the result following melting of synthetic fibers with my heat tool. Then I added some blue and purple acrylic paint to some of the white lace. The gold mesh melted and drew back as a result of the heat treatment. The drier sheet also responded to the heat by melting.

i am very pleased with the results of this experiment. I am pleased with all of the texture that was achieved and I will do more of this to make one inch fiber charms for my swap!!

Playing with dolls!

I mad this doll as a gift for my niece Jennifer, who is a sophomore in the art school at Carnegie Mellon University. Every art student needs a guardian for their muse! I made her wings from a smashed soda can that I had recovered from the street during a recent dog walk. The aluminum was crumbling and brittle so I peeled it aprt and forced some glue into the cracks and crevases. Then I embossed the wings with glittering glue. All of her other parts are the usual bits and pieces that I have arrainged before. This time her halo is a smooshed YooHoo bottle cap. I just loved the rust and the color! She makes quite the statment and I know that she has found a very appreciative home!!