She's a "ten"

For some time I have had a collection of number images from Inka Stamps; however, when she came out with the new image of a measuring tape I knew I had to create a background using SEVERAL of her number stamps. What better way than to incorporate a beautiful lady, Penelope, into my design.

Chef Chinese Take-out Box

I designed a Chinese take-out box to fit the images available at Inka Stamps coloring the background of the box with alcohol inks for a polished stone effect. (Click on the title as it contains a link to some of the images I used.) The box handle was made from Mizhuki cord. I found a small brass charm of a teabag to attach to the side of the box with the can of tea image. Some of the other stamps used were from Inka's sheet of Asian text images.

This is a fun little box to hold a trinket, coins or even fortune cookies.

Anniversary Card for Friends

I was rushing this afternoon to complete this card for close friends who leave tomorrow for an anniversary celebration in Cabo. The card is more pastel than appears in the photo and I hope they like it.

I'm laughing.....

My DH is my support, the person who critques my work and often comes up with good solutions for improvements.

When I showed him the two canvas pieces he said, "What the heck are these? What are you suppose to do with them?"

It's apparent he prefers my cards over collage.

It is a fun day when I can giggle and not be offended. A good laugh is hard to top.

Canvas Experiments

I signed up for a canvas collage swap for July and wanted to do some experimenting prior to making my swap items. On both canvases, I put down a coat of gesso before I started adding color. For the oriental canvas, I transferred an image from Inka Stamps using gel medium. After it had dried completely, I used a brass stencil and added the red symbol to the lower left of the canvas. Also using a brass stencil, I added the gold "happiness" calligraphy and embossed it in gold. The symbol in black at the lower right is a rubber stamp from Inka Stamps.

On the canvas, "A Different Perspective" I put down two different shades of acrylic paint before I added the transfer. However, my first transfer using gel medium was too small for the canvas and I decided to add a second transfer over the top. The second transfer was done using Omni Gel. If you look closely, you can see a women's face in the bosom area of the top transfer about where the hands appear. I love it when things go wrong and unusual effects surface.

As you can see I need more experience and will continue to experiment until I come up with my theme for the swap.

Any advice or help would be appreciated when you critique these two.

Thanks,
Carolyn

First Tulips

For one of my groups, Latest Trends in Mixed Media, we are going to do a small workshop altering photos using Angela Cartwrights's book, Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery, and our moderator asked us to take a walk around the neighborhood and shoot some photos.

Because I've been waiting a long time for the spring bulbs to bloom I had to capture some of the first ones in our yard. Luckily, I went out on Thursday, because we are back to winter with freezing temperatures and snow predicted for tonight.

My flower photos may not work well following Angela's book, Mixed Emulsions, but I had a great time with my camera. I LOVE FLOWERS!

Embellishments from left-over clay

I had some clay leftover from the bowl, previous post, so I pushed it into molds. These were a little easier than making a bowl-shaped piece and will be used for embellishments on other projects.