last of my halloween atc's

I really like the backs of things... I enjoy when the back of somthing is just as inspring as the front... maybe its because I think in jewelry teams were there is no front or back?

"night goblin" has resin covered papers sewn onto a copper frame with fibers in between the layers.



"girls love to cook" has painted paper towels and cheese cloth, transpensey, machine sewn onto felt with black tulle.



"midnight blue sky" turpentine paper, painted cheese cloth, felt and book text with transiency machine stiched.

best package ever !

My supper best friend from high school, Deborah (class of 84)! Is a talented bead artist and she sent me a wonderful box of jewelry inspiration from her wonderfully creative store bella luna beads in East Dundee, IL


but she did not stop there she spoiled me even more with this lovely bracelet that she made just for me!!! ... Thanks Deborah, I love it all!!! now lets see if I can remember how to make jewelry :)

Halloween ATC's, resin papers and my messy desk :)

I have made some resin papers from a 300 year Talmud book that is falling apart, the pages had started to crumble, but once they are coated they are so wonderful! I would play with them right now but my desk ... well as you can see I don't have an inch to work on ... its so bad that I had to make the trash can table outside :) despite the mess, I did make these witch atc's for a Halloween swap.







I used envirotex lite on the papers
you can get this at dick blick

its a two part resin all you do is mix it one part to one part .
where gloves, do it out side on top of a plastic trash bag and use one of those foam brushes that you can toss out after. its take 12+ hours to dry and if you do a sheet of paper like I did you will need to coat both sides (you can do both sides at the same time) then you leave it on the trash bag for 12 hours...

it will not come off the bag until it has complete dried, so you can not cheat and try to rush it, it does make the paper some what translucent and in the case of my paper which was 100+ years old and it almost looks like stain glass. it is all so shiny... it makes the paper more like a plastic so you can use it in alot of diffrent ways... I have been sewing over it and its seams to hold up well.
Susan lenart kazmer has a article in this months summerset about resin papers that is really great!

Famico

Teal and Black 4x4's




these made me think of my Great Grandmother Famico, she would always have on her little pill box hat and her black wool coat :)

I used painted backround with fibers, cloth and machine stiching.

Witch ATC's

my halloween ATC's, 10 in all, they have a front and back to them.

mother earth necklace

I went to a bead show this weekend with my girlfriend Nancy and was inspired to make this necklace for her... its the first piece of jewelry that I have made in a very long time... Many shades of golden and green pearls with red and green garnets, tourmaline and peridot warped on to a golden chain with a bay leaf dipped in gold as the centerpiece.

paint and pen journal

This is a work in progress, I just want to play with only paint and in pen in this journal... I spent the day at Zinnia's with Kelly Kilmer she is such a great teacher, she was able to free me up so I can at long last mindlessly write in a journal! (This has been a block that I have been working on for over a year now, so I am extremely grateful!) We panted all the papers then we ripped them and sewed them up into the little journal, then we just played and learned a lot of fun stuff!

woman of straw

I was cleaning up my studio after doing my fabric book page and I was thinking about how I was going to do some halloween ATC's , so I took up some scraps from my table and came up with this, fiber atc stiched onto a aged copper frame... inspired by Susan lenart kazmer article in this months summerset, I want to try to do the resin papers that she talks about in her article, I have it all ready to try ... but resin is truly a messy thing and its was just so easy to use the fabric! But for the halloween ATC's I will do the resin :) I really am a lazy artist... I need to start to push myself a little more and use more of my jewelry skills in my mixed media... I guess its just that I came to mixed media as a place to get away from my jewelry so I never wanted to mix them ... but now that I no longer do jewelry as a profession, maybe now its time from me to do it as fun again :)

golden harmony

I just did these for a fabric 5x5 book page RR for Frieda her theme was gold the pages look more gold in person... I painted muslin gold then stamped gold flowers on top there is a lot of machine stitching on the back round the front of the page has golden coins with twigs on top of golden paper toweling wish a gold ribbon and gold fiber on top of golden stamped organza with beads trapped between the layers so they float around.



on the back I used organza and stamped on the image of a boy and a girl with some word text in the background floating between the organza and the muslin are beads and some book text from a Japanese English Dictionary that says gold there is some gold paper toweling a little sick with golden wire warped around a gold pearl with a charm that says harmony.

how cool is this!? thanks for the fun site Catherine !

back to school!

what happened to my babys! Sarah is starting the 10th grade and Brian 7th! its so amazing how fast the grow! I always take a first day of school pic but this morning went a little wacky and I almost for got! but as we ran out the door at 7:15 I rembered and took this fast shoot from the computer :)





after I drooped off the kids I was so happy to put my artfest cheek in the mail! I cant wait to see what classes I get! this will be my first time going so I am very excited!

This Little ATC is a transpencey on on coffee stained muslin with fiber and pearls.



this week has been wild getting the kids ready for school on Tuesday! I miss art... but soon things will be back to normal :) we are now off for a end of summer long weekend :)