Junque on a Chain!

Wow, it's been almost a month since my last post!  I've been trying to get motivated to work in the studio but it's been slow going.  I've been working on a new line of jewelry for this summer's art market and I believe I'm going to call it "Junque on a Chain".  Junque on a Chain comes in different themes and no two will ever be the same.  Here's a look at "Paris Junque on a Chain".......

These necklaces are truly mixed media.  These pieces are created with any, some, or all of the following:  handstamped metal, metal charms, glass beads, acrylic beads, shrink plastic, leather, hardware, gears and just about anything that you can drill a hole in to hang!  The bead-ball necklace is thicker than the smaller ones which allows the charms to lay separately and not all clump together, consequently it hangs nicely.    My friend Tracey and I worked together on her "Steampunk Junque on a Chain" necklace, if you want to eyeball it hop on over to her blog by clicking here.

I'll be putting new Junque on a Chain necklaces later this week into the Honey Girl Studio Shop.

Smacking Metal and Egg Decorating

 Sunny but very cold today = stay inside and gaze outside and smack the crap out of metal.  I'm working on my new line of jewelry for this summer so I made a few metal stamped charms today.

I also made a few Shrink Film charms too......

and working on some leather flower charms......

                                           and embossed charms.........

This is a collage I created this afternoon while Skyping 2 hours with my friend Tracey.  She was working on a giant Easter egg.  Ethyl loved to color eggs and planned her egg-cellent masterpieces months in advance of Easter!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Spring Birdies!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Today was the first day around here that it seemed like "spring" as it was 60 degrees with sunny skies.  I almost forgot what the sun looked like!  I made these little birds back in February while dreaming of warmer weather and melting snow.  I didn't take picture of them until today.

The little critters flew right into my dwarf ornamental pines!

 I stamped plain muslin material with Staz-On Ink then cut this guy out and sewed him up!

These two birdies were deep in conversation....."Tweet?"

Well you know there is always one "difficult" one in the group!

Here's to warmer, sunny days!

 

Lavender Boy

Hi digital artist friends! This is a little gift for you just in time to use in your spring projects.  For personal use only, not to be copied and resold.

Have fun with him and you make something send me a link, I'd love to see it!

A Garden of Petals and Metals

Well I don't know about you, but I really have to do something to urge springtime on so I'm getting ready to start some veggie plants from seeds inside.  The planting of the seeds got me thinking about gardening which in turn inspired me to do this collage.

Hortence loved her unique garden of petals and metals!  I created this digital collage from elements by Finecrafted at Deviant Scrap.

It's a steampunk style take on a traditional Victorian garden.  You know how those Edwardians were, pretty uptight? Well not Hortence, her metal petals were all the rage.  She trimmed her flowers with tin snips!  My crafting sista, Tracey at Glitterbug Studios is going to be really surprised when she sees this one!  Check out her Feb 27th post where she interprets "Fly Me To the Moon" steampunk style!

B is for Bird (in English that is)

"B" is for "bird" and "M" is for the metal tape I created this piece with.  I like the worn industrial look that metal tape gives this piece.

This is the completed piece, it was created on an 8" by 8" piece of canvas board.  It truly is a mixed media piece, here are the materials used on it:  canvas board, chipboard, glass tile, metal key, metal brads, wooden yard stick, metal watch gears, glass bead, leather heart, metal watch face, metal tape, glue, book text, ink, rubber stamp, 8 oz. of Arizona Green Tea, a piece of celery with fetal cheese on it (the last two items are optional, it's what I ate while making this piece!)

 

 The bird, crown and scrolls were cut from chipboard, glued down and then taped over with the metal tape.

I created this embellishment buy cutting an old yard stick, stamping on it, swiping over it with distress ink and then covering a chipboard book plate with metal tape and then distressing it.  I added the metal piece at the top with 2 metal brads.

A small glass tile backed with a mini collage.....

 This embellishment is a leather heart stamped over with script text with a tiny distressed green leather leaf tied to it.  An old metal watch face was vintaged-up with mushroom alcohol ink and a sanded green metal brad.

How about that cool old rhinestone earring? That would kill the old lobes!  Looks like something Great Aunt Millie would have worn!  I think it looks better as an embellishment.

So you are probably wondering how I distressed this metal tape to give it that "beat-up" look.  It was pretty simple and also personally rewarding to me as I got some frustrations out on it.  After I covered the entire piece with the metal tape I took my Tim Holtz hammer with the nubby end and pounded he crap out of the metal tape (that's what gave it the round indentations), if you don't have one of these hammers then you can use the rounded stylus end of a paint brush, tip of a marker cap or basically any thing that will make an indentation.....just experiment, you really can't screw it up!  Next I used a tracing wheel to make the dotted line indentations and my fingernail to make the random straight indentations here and there, then I chewed on a corner....not really, I was just seeing if you were paying attention.  To get the blackened areas, using a black copic marker, I colored the entire piece (I did 1/4 at a time), making sure to really get around the raised areas, then I took a piece of fine steel wool and sanded off as much of the black as I liked leaving most of it around the raised areas to give them definition.  Lastly, I glued on all of the embellishments and glued a hanger onto the back of the piece.

Hey, let me know if you've used metal tape in a project or if you plan to in the future!

An American in Paris Altered Book

This is an altered book I've been working on for a week now. There are all kinds of goodies tucked into it, protruding out from the edges. I wanted it to have the feel of a carelessly thrown together scrapbook of an American traveling in Paris in the 1920s. I used a lot of vintage scrapbook papers from the Tim Holtz collection. I also incorporated a few of my own digital collages and I threw in some textiles just for fun.Each individual page is glued together to the one in front and back of it with the papers secured between them so the book lies flat. You could hang it or just leave it open on a table.
How cool would it be to go back in time to the 1920s and really be that "American in Paris"?This book will be posted on Ebay this weekend so check back if you're interested in it for the link!

Winner!

The winner of the One World One Heart event is.......... Joanne from the Vintage Dragonfly blog.

Congrats Joanne! Thanks to all of the people who visited, left comments and became followers! It was a fun time.

:-) Melissa

The Secret Garden

With all of the seed catalogues I've been getting the past two months, I've been dreaming about flower and veggie gardening. One of my favorite children's books is The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett. Inspired by the book I created this altered book which can be hung on the wall.
The image of the girl is public domain which I colorized as well the door image. I cut a niche in the book about 4.5 by 5 inches and started to build my secret garden.

The leaves and branch are hand cut from book text painted with twinkling H2O paints then embellished with glitter.

I love the little fox looking up at her. There was a brief mention of a fox in The Secret Garden book.Here it is hanging on the wall......it's not crooked, my camera angle was crooked or should I say, I was crooked when I took the picture.
The book I altered was a Readers Digest condensed book. They work great because they are thick and you can get a nice deep niche.

Well, I'm off to alter another book!

One World One Heart Giveaway!

Hey Kids! It's here....the One World One Heart Blogging event! My name is Melissa and I'm a speech-language pathologist by day and a mixed media artist by nights and weekends. I've been creating things as long as I can remember. My mom is pretty crafty so I guess that's where I got my need to sew, glue, cut and tear apart things! My husband is great because he understands this need to sew, glue, cut and tear apart stuff! Life is good when I'm sewing, glueing, cutting and tearing apart stuff!

This is my give away for the event. It measures about 7 inches high and is truly a mixed media piece with a little bit of everything incorporated into it.....stamping, Photoshopping, collage, stitching. So to have a chance to win it (the drawing is on Feb 15th). Just leave a comment!

I don't know why but in January and Feb., every year, I like to do some handsewing and stitiching. It seems like I'm forever hunting for a needle. I use to stick them in the hem of my curtains (my mom told me that my gram did the same thing!) but after seeing so many cute needle books on different blogs (here's a stunning one that Shelly O made), I was inspired. Mine are pretty simple compared to others. They are about 5 inches tall and 7 inches wide when opened out with 3 felt pages to keep the needles in.

I really like this dark charcoal grey with the red and aqua.....really pops!
The inside.....
Ok, now this little bugger I'm quite smitten with! It's .......wait for it.......................................

an owlPad!!!! LOL!!!! It's a sleeve I made out of felt for my iPad. If you have one you know how slippery those little devils can be to old. I actually have a hard case for it but I also needed a sleeve for it too.

I put a big pocket on the front to keep the charging cord in. I also lined the top flap. I have to tell you, I love my iPad. If you have one, you know what I'm talking about. I've become one of those Apple converts!
Alrighty then....saved the best for last. Yesterday afternoon I was Skyping with Tracy and her daughter was making eclairs so she gave me the recipe and this was the result. Pure puffy, sweet heaven!
Thanks for stopping by and stay warm!

Frigid January Crafting

Since January has been extremely frigid, I've been staying inside and crafting. Too cold to snowshoe or even walk outside for a short distance. Today is was 11 degrees with a windchill of zero! Yes, I said zero. This cold is really starting to give me "SD"....snow depression!

This piece is entitle "Serendipitiy". I've always liked the sound of that word. It's defined as "the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. Sometimes when I'm making art I stumble upon a bit of serendipity also known as happy little accidents in my case!

This piece is truly a mixed-media pieces as I created the fairy with Photoshop, hand sewed and embroidered the heart, and stamped and glued the heart background. It's going to be my giveaway for the One World One Heart blog hop in February.

I did some green crafting on this baby. This was the box that my Flip camera came in. It was such a well made and sturdy box that I saved it to use later. The recess made a perfect little recess to collage in. I created the girl in Photoshop. The elements used were from Tangie Baxter's collection at Scrapbook Graphics.

Ahhhh, she looks so sad. She probably didn't get a Valentine from the one person she really wanted one from!

Ok, so the last thing I'm showing today is a new spin on the traditional snowman. I got old German book text in a swap last year I participated in and tucked it away using pieces here and there. I came across it the other day and glued it onto a round piece of 1/8 inch bass wood. Painted on the face with acrylic paint and glued decorative paper for the hat. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I'd like to make more snowmen with different languages. If anybody has French, Italian, German or any other languages of old book text I'd like to trade you some decorative papers for it!

Hey if you're looking for some interesting music, try Pink Martini. It's sort of a 1030s Gypsy Jazz meets old school Cuban dance club.

Stay warm!

Mr. Chocolate

Still "Frittering", extreme "Twittering".

Four words per sentence.

Just for January.

It's driving me crazy!

Mr. Chocolate.

Ready for the close-up!

Say "cheese".

He's going to Jacque.

Life is like a.......

You know the rest.

Kindness matters, right?

Smiles-

Melissa