PAST POET

Winner takes all time again in one of my groups. We could chose any theme. Easy enough. I have a few Poe images on hand and decided he would look nice against a backdrop similar to the Lincoln card I did recently. The background is simply a collage of a vintage roster page, hand rusted and hand patinated paper scraps (you can get the solutions to do this at any Micheal's), and the old standbys: star printed mulberry paper, muslin and beeswax dipped text. The Poe image is from Flickr commons. The card was finished off with mica and embellished with handrusted wire along the edges.

The bit of text found its way to the card. It was not a conscious decision on my part. Read: it was sitting in the scrap heap begging to be used. At first, I was not going to use it. The last letter is clipped off. But then, Poe had an imperfect childhood, orphaned at three years old, present at his mother's death, and later taken in by wealthy foster parents. So the irregular text seemed relevant after all, representative of an incomplete life. One that clearly colored his work and poetry. Poe recognized this in himself. "From childhood's hour I have not been As others were". - Edgar Allan Poe

The card is packaged and ready to go to the recipient. Hope it makes a nice addition to her collection.

Ciao for now.

Shelly

CROWN OF THORNS

For He so loved
and thus, sacrificed.
For all,
salvation
redemption
forgiveness.

(Handcrafted of rusted wire and faux thorns made from wooden skewer tips.)





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Wishing everyone a Happy Easter
and also a Happy Passover. May you have
enjoyed your time with family and friends
this day.

Ciao for now,

Shelly

ONCE WAS

Someone moved my mojo. It's been missing for a while. Holidays, travel, work. Art and crafting took a back seat. But I think I see a hint of it returning. On my way down the hall tonight, when I should have been getting ready to turn in, I took a detour. And something developed. Grabbing a handful of paper and sitting down at the sewing machine has that effect. Admittedly, this is a total cheater piece. It is very similar to my last piece, but hey, isn't that what developing style is all about ?? Honestly, I figured if I tried a similar technique, the creative engine may fire up. Gotta try something to get back in the groove. Two hours later (mmmn . . . maybe that is a conservative estimate), "Once Was" was born.

I took a few odd pieces of joss paper and a snippet of gesso brushed Chinese text and arranged it as shown. Joss paper is readily available in Asian supermarkets. Do NOT pay those exorbitant prices for the stuff through these boutique sites. It is super, super cheap and sold by the packages in the Asian markets. So if you live near one, be adventurous. Go in and cruise the aisles. There is tons of the stuff and you should not pay more than $2.00 or $3.00 for a large package of papers. Great variety, too. Just thought I'd share that tidbit of info.

Back to business. Given the materials in hand thus far, one would think it would have worked itself into an Asian themed piece. That is the great thing about mixed media. No rules and you can mix and match until your heart is content. Like handpicking a one pound box of chocolates at Godiva. I had a scrap piece of what I though was silk material sitting around for ages. A sample I picked up at a fabric store. Nice conservative, dimensional floral pattern to it. I am not one for florals, or polka dots for that matter, but this bit of fabric had eye appeal. Matched it to the papers, did some stitching and decided to work with another Crafty Individuals contact paper transfer.

That accomplished, the piece needed some finishing touches. A scrap of vintage sheet music and pieces of deconstructed lace were added with stitching. The finished product is totally asymmetrical, but all said it balanced out nonetheless. One thing I would do over if I had the chance: the burned surfaces of the fabric flowers. Turns out it is polyester or some other synthetic, and the material didn't singe the way I'd hoped. The edges sort of melted and look a little sooty. Fortunately, I caught on to this early and used a light touch. So the piece wasn't ruined by my pyro tendencies. Live and learn. Gave some thought to backing the piece on decorative mat board or a book cover. Tried it out on various backgrounds. Nothing jumped out at me, so I left it as a stand alone piece. Completed. Mission accomplished. Mojo found.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year is off to a great and creative start !! Happy 2009 !!

Ciao for now.

Shelly

P.S. Submitted for Wednesday Stamper challenge, "Lace".

COVENANT OF THY LOVE

Decided to take a break from holiday preparations and get my hands messy. After a few false starts, I chose to simply gesso a bunch of old dictionary pages, stick in a strip of muslin and a leftover piece of star-printed mulberry paper and fiddle around with it. Also wanted to use some of the wonderful images by Crafty Individuals that my dear friend Kate recently sent, so I tried a contact paper transfer and used a portion of it for my focal image. Got a bit heavy handed rubbing the back of the paper away. Hence, the partial image. But I wasn't going to abandon it entirely, so I motored on. Shuffled the paper arrangement a bit until I liked the way it stacked. Tried to roll it like a scroll and wrap the image around it, but that didn't look right. So I folded the left side inward and was pleased with the way the paper edges overlapped. Then I stitched an arch of sorts to bind the pages and provide a border for the transfer image. The image was sewed on and the piece began to take shape.

The sides needed something additional, something other than a little more stitching. Finally decided on a swath of sheer ivory, decorative ribbon which I stitched to the paper composition with a coordinating thread. It still needed further embellishment to balance it out. I dug through quite a few doo-dads before settling upon the small brass crosses from Ashes2Beauty. If you have not seen this selection of embellishments, check out the website. Hands down my fav. Initially, I tried hand-sewing the crosses to the whole thing, but the threads were actually a bit distracting. Just looked out of place. Ended up using red-liner tape to fasten them. Gotta love red-liner tape. Couldn't live without it.

The piece had, by then, sort of taken on a theme. Just had to find the right words to express it. As is my custom, I turned to my stash of beeswax dipped, vintage text pages and went on a word hunt. Ah . . . there it was. The fundamental meaning of Christmas parsed down into four simple words . . . "Covenant of Thy love". Didn't I just do something similar? Oh well, that's how this art stuff works. Variation on a theme.

Ordinarily, I would have considered the piece done. It looked like a sort of oversized ATC. Maybe a slightly disproportionate skinny card. But it did not FEEL finished. I have discovered that you do not dictate what will result from your artful endeavors. The art dictates itself to you. It lets you know when it looks right or wrong, needs tweaking here or there, and above all, it tells you when you are done . . . or not. Thus, a backboard or mat was needed, and something substantial, hefty. Fortunately, I'd recently stumbled upon a hoarde of old, $1.00 books at an antique store and had purchased a few to have on hand. The brown cover of one of those old books serves as the backboard for this piece. I love the splotches and the naturally distressed edges of the cover. The dark background sets off the neutral colors of the assemblage quite nicely. And, thus, it is "done". . . at least for now.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and time with their families !!

Ciao for now,

Shelly

AVOWED

Curiosity begets creativity. A recent purchase of a new product, late night restlesness and a slew of fabric scraps. Put them altogether and what do you get? A new ATC.

I've been meaning to start on Christmas themed pieces. With that intent, I grabbed one of my myriad of Madonna and Child images. Didn't want to do another gel medium transfer. Don't want to get too predictable. So I decided to try something called "Transfer Ink!", a Stewart Superior product. Bought it from Collage at Art and Soul in Portland. It is a straightforward product . . . clear liquid in a spray bottle. If not for the smell, I'd swear it was just H2O. It probably is just water with some sort of perfumey additive (scent is similar to Febreeze). Certainly need to figure it out because it is a bit pricey, as with all these boutique products, and if I can kitchen-reproduce it, you bet I will. Maybe I will just try Febreeze. But I digress . . .

To do the transfer, I used an ink-jet printed image placed face down on a piece of Japanese sketch paper. Liberally sprayed the back of the paper until the image showed through, per the instructions, and then burnished the back with a brayer (and my fingernail). This transfer gives a nice muted watercolor effect, which is an interesting change from the gel transparency method. I then randomly stitched it - along with two scraps of aged, patinated paper scraps - to a craft felt background. For finishing touches, I embellished it with pieces of fabric, pom pom ribbon, mica and beeswax dipped text. Felt an itch to stitch a little more, so I free-motioned a heart in the center and then hand-stitched (very inexpertly, I might add) a rusted wire heart to the whole piece. Christmas being right around the corner, my mind turned to the meaning of the season, the promise and purpose behind the holiday, and, alas, the title was born.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and looking forward to spending time with friends and family !!

Ciao for now.

Shelly