Glitz-Oh!Girl

A Birthday Card Bottle....'Notable Contents Enclosed'

I made this for a friend's upcoming birthday - just part of a little gift...an 'altered' capsule bottle...

I had a lot of fun with this- easy to make, using imagery from just two collage sheets.This one  and  this one!  The music is real 19th century piano music - the paper is so nicely aged already.

More Digi-Dolls!

Today was a day to make a few French romantic digi-dolls - so Marie was the name for the day ;^). Each doll is based on a craft stick.
 
Once again I used digital print-outs from sheets from Ten Two Studios. 
Here, here, here and here.
I also printed out the butterfly wings from the Butterfly CD Collection.

'Digi-Dolls'

As many of your know, I am on the design team of Ten Two Studios.
Tonight I was in the mood to create some little dolls....so I grabbed my large craft sticks,   and then my digital printouts (laser copies work best for paper and color quality) of these, these, and these.  I just started cutting, gluing and before I knew it, these three little 'digi-dolls' were ready to fly!

AB Birthday page Swap..

My 4"W X 6"H altered book page remembering dear Altered Books Group friend Vera Lucia Emerim, who passed away last year.  She was so very, VERY sweet, talented and thoughtful.
I miss her lovely spirit.
The image is from here.  The stamped message at the bottom is from PostModern Design stamps. Napkin and tissue background, enhanced with Color Mists.

Altered Books - my fond art passion

I am participating in a round robin of altered books- this book's theme is Fairy Tales...the owner wanted us to use images of her daughters as the fairies...this is my spread:

The fairy costumes are these from Ten Two Studios.  The backgrounds are floral pattern napkins.

AsianAmerican play- Kimono card

I created this gift card using  a kimono pattern from Ten Two Studios' Monthly Muse issue from Dec., 2007, (Anything Asian), as well as a torso and limbs from the Tropical Garden paper dolls.

The  'chop' is supposed to represent "Tranquility". The black/white sideways Chinese newspaper text is from a grocery ad of a Chinese American newspaper.

Fabulous Giveway opportunity....

from Ten Two Studios!    It's the 4th anniversary of Ten Two Studios....Don't miss out on the chance to win $400 in collage goodies!
For a limited time - July 1-5!

Summer Solstice in the Northern hemisphere....

Summer is here!  (This is a repeat, but one of my fave journal pages.)

A Book cover- subject to revision...

I am hosting an altered book swap on the Yahoo AB Group I help moderate.  This is the cover I'm thinking of using, pending number of pages, and whether my muse decides it's good enough, or not, as the case may be.
anyway - for starters.....
                                                 Back of Cover       Front of Cover

The actual book will be 6" tall and 4" wide. (the spine I've put in here is digitally designed...the binding of the book may be entirely different) (and so may the covers!lol) But.. I wanted to post it anyway....

Ramping up the flowers.....

My Dh and I had a wheelchair ramp built so my (almost 97 y/o) mom could more easily access our house..she uses a walker and could no longer make it up our 8" steps....

What's an artist to do with a rather bland ramp?? Collage and paint it.. :^)) Using the wonderfully colorful flower faux postage from Ten Two Studios...plus a few images from the orange collage set, I affixed them to the wooden ramp with matte medium. I then painted them into a vine motif with acrylic paints.  Eventually, the vine will 'meet up' with the vine already painted in our breezeway.

(Click images to Enlarge.)

Altered Book Round Robin - #2 - Egypt

I'm enjoying this book journey - it's been awhile since I've participated in an altered book 'round robin', whereby we send books around and create in each book, eventually getting our own books back.  This second book is Jo-Ann's 'Egypt' book, and here are my efforts.
 I used print-outs from a Dover publication CD Rom travel poster book of prints I have, a copy of an original 'Louxor' travel label that I have in my collection, junk mail text (in this case  text from an insurance ad), a playing card from a deck of cards my sister-in-law gave me (from Egypt!), rubber stamps, Seven Gypsies(TM) 'word tape',  masking tape, acrylic paint, Golden's glass bead gel, acrylic adhesives, and some art paper for a page background, and for the pop-up 'pyramid'.  (Click images to enlarge)

Bloomin' May!

Our 'Spirit' garden refuge (a 32-year process of me (along with the goddess of creation) converting a barren backyard to what it is today) seems to want to burst forth for Spring in a BIG way in May.  Wisteria, Korean lilac (the topiary), bearded iris, poppies...roses ready to burst out of their buds....it's all happening right now....and our little laburnum tree out front is just as eager to show off her beauty!  Enjoy!

SECRETS......

This is my book of 'Secrets', for an altered book round robin in which I'm participating.
I chose a 1915 book called 'Under Sealed Orders' - it seemed right for secrets!

The book covers are covered in fabric, and outlined with self-sticking aluminum tape, which I embossed with my embossing wheel, and painted with alcohol ink.  The 'window' is the book title, which lifts up to view a part of the interior. I also added chipboard letters in a black/white motif, which spell 'Secret', and outlined them with mini holeless beads glued on with Uhu's Twist 'N' Glue. The key on the ribbon opens --- nothing.  (After the book returns home, I'll add a closure, but wanted to make it as easy as possible for the artists to work in the book, without a bulky fastener.)

This interior front has an envelope made from some of my handmade paper..and holds tags with some instructions for the participants.

After a sign-in page (which is simple fabric), I created two spreads.  This first one is full of humor- (the tag in the secret envelope (tag not shown) is humor for the artists to enjoy. :)) I painted the black/white tissue with a variety of alcohol inks, added my colorful paper envelope (which has a Velcro-type closure), and taped a ribbon down the book's seam. 

This second spread is  'found text', outlined with black marker; the pages are painted with acrylic paint.  All of the pages I worked on are actually 2 or three pages glued together with gel medium - for strength and to resist water wrinkling from wet paints.  As the book is old, the paper is not the greatest in durability.  but the binding is sewn, so gluing pages together has helped a lot.

(CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE AND READ THE TEXT)

Dainty Domino Earrings...

I made these extremely light-weight earrings to go with domino necklace  I made earlier.  They are from Ten Two Studios's  dainty dominos and these images sized to match!                                                       

 

Front                                             Back 

Earth: Our Mother - Caregiver - Lifesaving Home

a fish update

Here's my saltwater reef as of a couple days ago.....(click images to enlarge)
and here:

(believe it or not, I'm in the midst of a treatment method for reducing nitrates and phosphorous in this reef - by dosing the reef with vodka! lol- now mind you, this is a125 gal. tank- and it gets .8cc per day...if you think I'm joking, here's the article.

SUMMERtime.....and the livin' is easy......

Matchboxes, a folding row house book,  matchbox shrine images, and colorful acrylic paints.....such fun I had putting these all together for this summertime homage. (and here I am, barely into spring).  I simply love the things I can whip up with Ten Two Studios 'stuff'.

Here's the reverse side: (I glued the matchboxes into the niches by inserting them, and then from the reverse side, drizzling my UHU Twist 'n' Glue adhesive around the niche edges...the adhesive dried in place, thereby adhering the boxes to the row houses.

and one more..

...hint...I adore hands and flowers....

magic eye

Do you like to 'see' the magic eye images as much as I do???  I've been hooked on these for years- I found a site with freebie downloads...
here's one...
 Have fun!

Nature's Art --- and don't forget Earth Hour

I worked in the yard for about an hour this morning...we're supposed to get more rain by nightfall.  Since much of my art life has been spent helping Creation's creation (ie - getting my hands in the dirt!), here are some early spring photos of Nature's handiwork...(this is our back yard, which is about 70'W X 45'Deep.)
A Christmas helebore, which blooms from December until nearly May!
This is a view from under our huge 'umbrella'-pruned apple tree (nearly 100 years old, by our arborist's estimation!)--looking from south to north
This statue I have named Nimue (from the Arthurian legend)- and she is graced by our wisteria, now setting out a zillion buds! (I hope we don't get a hard freeze- or they'll get nipped!)
...and here are some of our goldfish and koi, just beginning to stir these past 2 weeks, from a long winter 'metabolism slow-down' (they don't truly hibernate) - the water is now nearly 60 degreesF, and yesterday was their first day of hand-fed food since last Fall.  Our 'Weeping Crabapple' tree is reflected in the water- it is only just beginning to set out small leaves and flower buds.