A Spot Of Tea

I saw this idea in a book by (I believe) Anna Corbin and fell in love with it. Can't remember the name of it now. DH made me a wooden box which became this little tea shrine/assemblage. Can someone explain what the difference is? If a shrine has a religious connotation, well then, so be it. I don't worship tea but I sure do love it....expecially fruity teas and Tazo. The Tazo website is great fun if you've never visited it. Here's the link. http://www.tazo.com/noflash.html
Last night, Lauren, the infamous 3 yr old, came to visit while her mommy and daddy celebrated their 7th wedding anniversary with a dinner out. Immediately, she saw the dining room table was still looking very "cwafty" after the bird book completion. There was no turning back. She had to make a bird book for her mama and daddy and one for her day care lady, Miss Hannah. She worked hard at it and punched more birds with my new bird punch than you can count. Then, when there was paste and scraps on everything (except the book) she announced that I was to take it to the post office and mail it to them (they were picking her up in a few minutes)! So I was to mail it today. Actually, I was supposed to take it last night but I explained that it was closed so the mailman could rest. Did I mention that I left the room for a split second and when I came back, she had a pile of Diamond Glaze the size of an elephant on a piece of paper?

Oh, and I got busted, too. She walked into the "cwaft" room/office/storage/junk room and said "This room has too much stuff in it". Wait a minute, girlie, who's the boss of this house.....you or me? If I want too much stuff, (which I do), then just wait till you get your own cwaft room! I hope I'm still around to point out that you've got too much stuff! Anyway, you will never be an "ahtist/cwafter" if you don't have a lot of junk around to play with. LOL

Bird Book Play Day

Charlotte and I had a play day yesterday. We both worked on bird books. Our inspiration was from the new Somerset Studio Gallery....Charlotte's was completely different and very lovely. I wish she'd "blog" so she could show off her work.
Mine is 5 x 7 illustration board....quite heavy. I covered the pages with different papers and dry brushed some of them. I was pretty unhappy to find when I filled the xyron with a new roll and ran two pages through before I realized it was laminating stuff!
$20 down the tubes. Shoot....the pages were weird and nothing wanted to stick, of course. No extra rolls so I just used soft gel medium to glue the paper to the rest. Then the fun part was embellishing with stamps, scrap, all kinds of birdies and eggs. I'm sort of hipped on birds....can you tell? Well, actually the gold finches in my yard have eaten the zinnias down to bare bones. They by-pass the seed and eat the flowers and leaves. We can't make them stop so I didn't put any gold finches in my book. Bah on them!

I just finished it up tonight and scanned all the pages. I should post a picture of my dining room table, too....I don't think the surface is visible at all. When it gets to that point, I can't find anything so I spend most of my time looking for things I need. I thought I'd clean it off tonight but I'm too pooped. Art is hard!
Remember, you can click on the pictures to enlarge. Better to see my mistakes...heh heh.

Just finished this little bird thing that has been calling my name. It fell off the closet shelf a couple of times in it's original state of navy blue, orange, yellow and red. It had drawers in it which had to go bye bye. This mother bird is resting up after laying 2 eggs that were big enough to do her in real good. Actually, she's thinking about a sitz bath. On the sides, there's a copy of a child's story about a robin. The photography is lousy....should have taken the picture in the morning light.

Transfers

I have been trying transfers for what seems like forever! Never had much success but I'm pretty excited about what I tried this morning. For what it's worth, here are the pictures of what happened. I belong to the Yahoo inkjet transfer group and have mostly just lurked trying to glean information. I have tried a lot of posted techniques with little or no success. Now I don't know if anyone who is good at transfers would think much of these, but I'm happy enough that I would attempt to put one over something that I previously was afraid I'd ruin. I followed Angela Silva's (Inkjet Transfer group) directions and used Office Depot High Gloss Premium Photo Paper, 9 mil thickness, heavy weight. There are 25 sheets and it was on sale a week or two ago for $9.99. Then I used Golden Soft Gel (Matte) on the substrate with my finger, just making a nice smooth layer. At first I used too much and it was obvious when I removed the photo paper that it was really oozing. When I printed the image onto the photo paper, I used the regular printing option (standard) and glossy photo paper setting. I have a Canon Pixma 6700. Funny thing is that the picture of the little boy actually was a black and white cabinet card. The black ink evidently turns blue when it hits the Soft Gel. Oh, and I tried the back of a spoon, a bone folder, the scissors handle and a brayer. Didn't seem to make much difference what I used. Why does a transfer always leave out someone's beak or nose? Hmmm?
Thanks to Angela for helping me make some fairly decent transfers!

Rust and Cwafts

What's this? Two posts in one day? I just wanted to share the beautiful rusted paper (so much prettier in real life!) that I learned to make from Val's blog at http://valsalteredheartjourney.blogspot.com/
It was just on regular copy paper but it almost has a parchment feel once it's rusted. To learn how to rust stuff, you will need go to her blog, scroll all the way down and then go to "older posts" and it's about half way down the page. I doubt if you'll get there very fast because she has the most delicious textured things to look at on the way! The rusted technique is wonderful and she even does fabrics. So here's to Val...the texture queen! Thanks for sharing your technique, Val.

Rusting aside for the moment, I wasn't going to bore you with this but I can't help myself. I watched my barely 3 yr. old granddaughter, Lauren, today and she said "Gammaw, I want make a cwaft (craft for those who don't know 3 yr. old talk), ....we made crafts for 2 hours and when she had made one for everybody in the family, including both grandmas, mom, dad, the daycare lady, and the cat, she said "I'm an ahtist, gamaw. Are you going to be an ahtist, too?" Just too much fun, these 3 year olds! If the truth were known, I would have been very sad if she hadn't wanted to be an "ahtist"!

Brian's Altered Book

Finally finished the altered book for my grandson's graduation gift. The pictures are on Picturetrail and here's the link. (Gosh, it's been so long since I posted, I can't even remember how to make a link!) http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=19880460&uid=8870981
He will see it Saturday night at his grad party. It's big and fat...it was a dictionary but not the one I originally intended....the ten pounder! I soon realized I couldn't deal with that one so this little less weighty one worked out fine. It took me about 2 months to complete. A description of the cover and each page is on Picturetrail.

As we have told our children many times, there are consequences for not eating your vegetables. Here is a shrine depicting what happens (eventually) when you don't eat a healthy diet. This is so NOT ME to make something like this....a far cry from vintage darlings and spring flowers and birds. Not sure what took hold of me other than I had a couple of medicine bottles that looked interesting. My friend Charlotte (who is a veritable gold mine of supplies!) came to my rescue when I said "I think I need a skeleton....where would I get one?". She (as usual) said "I have one". Not only did she have one but it fit EXACTLY inside the shrine. One leg is a itsy bitsy longer than the other (you see, other maladies occur to the human body when you don't eat your vegetables!) but he is perfectly positioned just where he needed to be. Thanks, dear Charlotte!

Who Are These People?

It was a hot day in Sacramento....3rd day of near 100 degrees but not too hot to keep me home!
Went garage sale-ing today and found a few items. One is a dictionary that is 4" thick and weighs about 10 pounds! It's going to become an altered book for my grandson's college graduation. I needed a huge book because his mom has given me so many goodies that I'll have to make a few niches to get them all in. Glad he's a big strong guy so he can lift it...LOL
Also, today I picked up two very old lovely frames with what looked like cabinet cards. When I got home, I took them apart and found two other folks inside the frames....so now I have a husband and wife plus their child and the stern mother-in-law. I'm just guessing about MIL, but I know the couple was married. The 70ish lady who sold them to me said she remembered them in her grandmother's house and thinks they were her grandmother's great-grandparents....I'm thinking mid 1850's by the dress. Anyway, you are free to take them and do with them whatever you want. Another successful garage sale day!

Sew What?

Had a lot of vintage sewing ephemera and have been wanting to do an assemblage or shrine type thing with it. Finally got busy and put it all together. I love the colors and all the little doo-dads. The lid is shown on the left. It's in a wooden box about 8 1/2" square painted an oldish blue-green. Pretty much every thing is vintage. Some of the hooks and eyes and button cards say 4 cents or 8 cents! I found that J. C. Penneys was a great source for the home seamstress. The picture on the inside of the lid is a copy of some vintage scrap advertising Clark's ONT thread. If I ever get my Etsy store (scary!), I might sell this baby although I am pretty attached to it already!
I have a 6 drawer antique spool cabinet that is one of my favorite things....teardrop pulls and glass fronts on the drawers that are backed with red. The drawers read Clark's - Spool Cotton - On White Spools - O.N.T. (our new thread) - George A. Clark - Sole Agent.
I'd like to say click on pictures for a larger view but it rarely works for me. Maybe I just don't know how to do it. Good possibility! Sorry.

Chipboard Jewelry

Charlotte and I attended a class recently where we made jewelry....I'm not a "regular" jewelry wearing person as I wear the same gold earrings every day....even sleep in them! So I'm not sure what prompted me to sign up but I'm glad I did now, as I really love the look of this and will probably wear it when I put on my "grubbies"....it's just grungy looking and fun! There isn't much to it except painting the cardboard (pounced on acrylic paint in metallic colors) and gluing & wiring on whatever little goodies you have on hand. The piece with the couple on front is actually a little book of black pages. Three of these pages have pictures of vintage children on them. Of course, they must be the couple's children!
On to my next project....it's in my head. Now to get it from there to reality!

MaryTagged Me!

That "Green Woman", Mary, tagged me....I think it's a compliment!? Ok, I'll write a few things about me that might surprise some of you....
then again...? Here's how it works, you get tagged and you list 6 things about yourself, unimportant, random,habits and quirks. Then you tag 6 people and link them at the end of your post. Then you inform them they've been tagged and on it goes.

1. I was born in 1934 but I'm only 49 years old. Amazing, isn't it?

2. I have been married since 1953 but I'm about to celebrate my first 100 years with DH....(time goes fast when you're having fun! LOL.......just kidding, Ed)

3. I have 7 sons, 19 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. (Well, jeez, since I've been married so long I should have something to show for it, right?)

4. I am still amazed by the computer and can sit forever looking at blogs, history, email, etc. (so much for walking 10,000 steps a day) I just read (online) the entire true narrative (42 chapters) of a slave woman named Harriet Jacobs. I couldn't stop reading her fascinating history, though terribly heartbreaking.

5. I'd rather play with my art stuff than clean (duh) and I like to cook because I like to eat.

6. I'm blessed beyond comprehension thanks to my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

That's it! Now to tag some unsuspecting blogger friends:

1. Jillian http://elinorscloset.blogspot.com/
2. Francine http://francines-amusings.blogspot.com/
3. Brenda http://dragonlady-1.blogspot.com/
4. Gabrielle http://parissalon.blogspot.com/
5. Danielle http://wahm922.blogspot.com/
6. Kim http://threadtales.blogspot.com/

Circles and Daisies

Here's an ATC for Altered StART mingle. The theme was Circles....hmmm. I think I could have done better with the theme but this is what came to mind. The paper is beautiful handmade, very colorful paper I picked up at a yard sale. The embellishment is foam with a sun stamp....and some gold embossing. I always wish I had made two of the mingle pieces....one to swap and one to keep, but I never do!

The daisy picture is a vintage postcard that had daisies pictured so I just embellished with pressed daisies over the printed ones and covered the entire card with beeswax. Love the salutation "Hello Girlie"! I'm thinking of sending it in the mail just like it is to see how the PO handles it. The colors are really prettier in real life.

New Collage...is it finished?

This is the first thing I've done for several days. I must have spring fever as I haven't felt like hanging out in the studio/crap room. Ooops, I mean craft room. Don't want to garden or clean or anything. Just lazy!

It was fun to work on, as this little guy reminded me so much of my youngest son, Tommy, when he was about 3. I used some gold angelina fiber on his hair.....just enough, but not too much. The piece is on heavy matt board and is 8 1/2 x 8 1/2. It hangs by the blue ribbon. I used stamping, vintage paper, crochet from a very old pillowcase and buttons. I always have a hard time trying to figure out if it's "DONE" or if it needs more. Maybe less? Well, it's finished and I'm not doing anything else to it.....so it must be "DONE"!

Our "music" mingle at Altered StART just made me think of Olivia...my dad's first cousin. She died in childbirth with her first child in the late 20's. Her name's mention was always followed with "Olivia...she died in childbirth, you know". Poor Olivia....she was an only child herself and in this photo was sitting by the piano with a piece of sheet music on her lap and a big hairbow in her hair. Her parents were well-to-do, owning a retail store in the little town of Ludell, Kansas. Her cousins, on the other hand, were not so well off, but Olivia always had nice clothes & shoes, not to mention a piano! She was perfect for this "music" mingle theme. Frances, our group mom, will receive this piece in the mingle draw.

Pansies and Cherubs

Here's a spring lottery card for Altered StART group. I used dried pansies and cherubs to bring a spring theme to mind. I love the pansies....they dry so beautifully between pages of a book and keep their color so well. Gold micro beads make curls on the cherub's hair. Beeswax covers it all.