My Thank You's for Today

Thank you, Yoga Today for finally making me feel like Down Dog was a resting pose (I don't know why the rest of the session was so unpleasant that I actually felt that way, but guess I need whatever that was.)

Thank you Belly Stock for giving me an excuse to make jewelry:

And thank you, Dr. Mikao Usui for sharing Reiki with us!

Mermaids

I made these in response to the Art Chix mermaid blog challenge. I LOVE mermaids! I even did a mermaid belly dance performance dedicated to Angelo (we are both water signs. :)

This one is a hanging ATC (scanned a little crooked ;P ) using their Glamour Girls collage sheet and mail call transparency sheet. I placed the transparency over some scrap paper. I drew the fin onto some scrap paper and the shell transparency is by K & Company. If you zoom in, you can see the bubbles I made with paper glaze. I now really love paper glaze! (I used Aleene's).

This one is another hanging ATC using the Saucy Showgirls and Mail Call collage sheets. I drew on and cut the fin from the vintage buttons background (available in the Beautiful Garland kit and separately). I used iridescent glitter glue to make the bubbles on this one.

This one is an 8" x 10" piece using their Beachy Paper Dolls. I drew on and cut out the mermaid tail from the vintage buttons background (available in the Beautiful Garland kit and separately). I added mica sprayed wax paper to top and bottom, gold stamped circles for bubbles, gold machine stitching around edges, stamped "Sea Princess" on card stock and outlined with burnt orange metallic marker, added vintage buttons to bottom, edges inked with Ranger Distress ink (Vintage Photo) and added Distress Stickles in gold to details in dress, as jewelry and for shell crown.

Cleo- La Belle Epoque

This is an Artist Trading Card I made using an image of Cleo, a French ballerina famous for her beauty. (I got this image from Art Chix's La Belle Epoque collage sheet.) I looked up some info on Cleo (linked above) and was surprised to find out she was connected with the Impressionists movement. Not surprised that they would ask her to model so often, but because I'm currently listening to an audio book called "Luncheon of the Boating Party" (the famous Renot painting- he was an Impressionist painter.) Hmm... very interesting what we run into at the same time...

The background for this ATC is a phone book page. I sponged on a few different colors of pigment ink with a cosmetic sponge, used a cardboard ginger ale carton as a circle stencil with more pigment ink, glued it to an Art Chix pre-cut water color paper ATC form and tore around the edges to have the background fit to size. No cutting! :)

I glued the image down and added mica sprayed cheese cloth, silver ribbon, rhinestones, a rhinestone brad and a star punched from a tea bag package. After I ran an ink pad around the edges, I was done!

A few more Art Pieces

I'm trying to shift gears and get myself to start on Pennsic projects. I have started some things for Angelo, but need to really get those finished so I can rest a little easier. In a few minutes, I'll continue on one of those projects while Angelo naps in the car and my husband continues his monster project, which takes up monstrous amounts of time, but I'm sure it will be nice to have once it's finished. Sometimes, I wish we just took normal vacations that didn't require months of sewing and constructing and at least a month or more to recover from and do laundry. But, it will be fun, I'm sure...

In the mean time, I'm going to procrastinate just a little more and show you some more art pieces.

All of these were cards for friends. The stamped images are by StampFrancisco.

This next one is a card I made for my brother, also an artist. Focal image by Art Chix Studio.

I made all of these several months ago, so I'm "catching up" from a long time ago. :)

Father's Day Gifts

This one was for my Dad. The man in the picture is my Paw Paw Ray. I don't know how old he was in this picture, but I'm so fascinated by pictures of my grandparents when they were young. I know they're out there. I've seen them. But this is the only one I own. So I'm really hoping that I get to have more in the future. Paw Paw Ray died when I was in the 10th grade and making this collage was a really wonderful way to spend time with him again. When I was thinking of what I remembered of him and what I would represent in this piece, the things that stood out the most were that he always wore a button up shirt (thus the buttons), when he got his brand new plaid hat, it was a huge deal (I knew I'd be able to use that plaid vellum for something when I got it, just didn't know what. That was a few years ago.), and that he was a large, sturdy man who didn't say much (Strong Silent Type). Oh, and the bottle cap was from a beer his grandson drank. LOL! :)

I love you and miss you Paw Paw! My Dad really enjoyed this collage and now has it sitting where he can see it most of the day. :)

This one was for my husband. The picture is just darling. I can't believe I actually was able to capture such a sweet moment. I took the picture right on my work surface, so the background is pretty messy and busy, but hopefully you can pick out the canvas from the wax paper. The paper at the top is machine stitched, the "love", heart and bottle cap background pieces were cut with my Cricut (love that!!!!) and the faux wax seal was from a friends' wedding invitation. Knew that would come in handy. :) The heart and you charms were a Michael's find I couldn't resist.

Art catch up

There's so much to catch up on, I'm not going to try to do it all in one post. :)

First, in bellydance arts news, I hosted the incredible Jill Parker here in Morgantown, June 12th and 13th. OMG! Wow! I'm still blown away a month later!!!! She is my biggest bellydance influence by far and I am just amazed every single time I have the honor to learn from and spend time with her. Last year around the same time (early June) I attended an immersion with her in D.C. and could write a book about how profound the experience was. This year, having her at my house and getting to spend more time with her- I just don't have the words. Maybe you can guess. :)

Moving quickly on to mixed media arts- I was chosen to be in the Art Chix top 10 of the month gallery again!!! Hooray!!! I'm so excited!!!!http://www.artchixstudio.com/shop/gallery_top10.html If you scroll down and see this,

then you've found my piece! :)

Why has Blogger decided everything needs to be underlined again? And why can't I figure out how to change it? :-P

I taught a collage workshop arranged and organized by Kali ! It was my first collage workshop! I'm very excited to have been able to do it and we had so much fun!!! We're planning another around Christmas time in Charleston, WV. I find it pretty interesting that I was still teaching primarily bellydancers, just a different form of creative expression. :)

I'll post what I've finished from that workshop as soon as I get some pics/scans. :)

For now, since I have these pics on my computer already, I'm going to post a few things I made beforehand. These are Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) I made in response to Art Chix's "recycled tea packaging" blog challenge. All focal images are from Art Chix.

Background is an insert from inside the box, sponged with ink and glued to Art Chix pre-cut watercolor ATC base.. The sheer teal material at the bottom is a tea bag (emptied, rinsed and dried) that I inked and sprayed with an iridescent mica spray. Collage image: Fairy Post sticker sheet

This one I did once the challenge was expanded to include food packaging. I had been saving the cookie bags from Angelo's Starbuck's treats and used one in this background. Crumpled the bag, opened, ran a Distress (Ranger) inkpad over it and glued to Art Chix pre-cut watercolor ATC base. Sheer material is tea bag and the star was punched from the packaging that held the tea bag. Image from "My Precious Pet".

This background is also "cookie bag" glued to Art Chix pre-cut watercolor ATC base., sheer teal material= tea bag. Stars the other side of the tea bag packaging. Art Chix images: "Back in Black" and "Flights of Fancy".

Oh, the mermaid! :) I stamped the mermaid image onto tea bag and colored with colored pencils. I glued some of the images from Art Chix "Beachy Paper Dolls" directly to the pre-cut watercolor ATC base which I scribbled with multiple colors of watercolor crayons and went over with a very damp brush, then attached the mermaid on tea bag material, then added the starfish. I kind of think the layering makes it look like the scene is more like what you see underwater, because some of it isn't as clear. I (and Eric) thought the fibers I put around the edge looked like seaweed. It was between this and some sparkly stuff. I don't often ask for Eric's input on these projects (mostly, I'm not sure he's all that interested. Very supported, but I don't know about interested. ;) , but he mirrored what I was thinking, so that was that. :)

Notice that nothing's underlined anymore. I didn't do that. Anyone else driven batty by Blogger like this? Is it just me? *shrug*

OK, I'm going to leave the rest for a few other posts. :)