My Muses

It seems like a long time since I got to do a challenge, so I decided to take a challenge break! The new GPP Street Team Crusade (no. 14) is called "Imaginary Friends". It asks the question, "Who or what is your muse?"

I think that my muses must be angels, because they turn up so often in my art. Whether they are vintage-style, cute or elegant, angels show up in many of my creations, as ornaments or wall decorations, on cards, altered books, wearables - everywhere!

Here is a children's board book that I turned into an angel altered book. The all-gold angel is on the front cover, and the all-silver angel is on the back cover. (Of course, all the inside pages have angels on them as well!) Thanks for looking! (HI Michelle!) :)

Little Bits of Special

I have enjoyed several "little bits of special" these past few days. First, I found some nice items at garage sales yesterday and today. Art books are good for inspiration, and yesterday I found two. Art text books contain images from different art eras and time periods, which I find helpful if I need to draw or create in an unfamiliar style.

One of today's great finds was a Cuisinart Mini-Prep food processor. They work great to condition polymer clay - sure beats all of that hand-kneading! Also, blending clay colors is much quicker in a processor; plus, you can stop at any time during the blending process, if you want your clay mottled or marbled.

Another item I'm looking forward to using is a "kitchen carousel", but I'm going to put it to work holding my pencils, markers and paintbrushes.

Not to mention that I picked up a copy of "Artful Blogging" at the store, a little something for my leisurely browsing pleasure!

And, saving the best for last, I received some inchies in the mail from a swap that I participated in! To top it all off, the swap hostess even included a few extra little goodies!

Since I didn't get any pictures of my garage sale goodies (a picture of a mini processor would be boring anyway), I posted a picture of some spiritual book pages. The background is blended-color tissue with words (love, hope, joy, peace, faith) stamped on it. The images are a church and an angel, surrounded by Bible verses. Well, I'd better go fill up that "artist's carousel" ;)

Red AB Pages

It's been hot, so I thought a red project would be perfect for my hot summer theme today! This is a two-page spread in a red-themed altered board book. I filled the pages with red items and pictures of red items. Red iron-on metallic thread from Kreinik spells out the words "Seeing Red", and also is swirled throughout the two-page spread.

Time Lost, Altered Book Pages

It seems like these are the "lazy days of summer" - to me, anyway! I do the things I have to do, but sometimes it's hard to get many of the other things on my list done.

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time taking apart a book of images. I cut out the pages and individual images I liked and disposed of the rest. It took a lot longer than I thought!

The picture here is a two-page spread in a rose-themed altered book. A niche is cut into the center of the left page, and it holds "real" three-dimensional silk roses in a halved container. The right page sports a large Texas-shaped puzzle piece, also yellow rose and Texas postage stamps. The embellishment on both pages is Kreinik's iron-on metallic thread.

AB Page Additions

Here is the altered book page from the other day, after a few additions. Red rick rack was added along the top. Wrapping paper heart glued to right page and outlined with red paint. These pages might be done - for now!

Altered Book Pages

Another set of altered book pages here. So far, I cut a heart-shaped hole for the face to show through, I dry-brushed red ink over the pages, and I placed a clear red heart over each "love" word. The arrow was created by placing an arrow-shaped sticky paper on the page before brushing on the ink.

The great thing about altered books is that they are finished unless you say they are. I did these pages quite a while ago, and I was finished with them at the time. Now I want to add something else - maybe some fibers and other embellishments, I'm not quite sure. One thing I know is that I don't want to cover all the "love" quotes on the left and upper right. Stay tuned and see what happens!

More Altered Art - Book Pages

These are two altered book pages I completed (in real life, the truck page is on the right). The pages are inked with a multicolor dye ink pad first. The truck is raised with sticky foam strips and has a real watch face in the back. The hand and clock are attached with brads and are both movable.

Altered Art

These are some pages from an altered book I completed. It's small-sized children's board book, all about lambs. I left the lamb pictures on, and peeled off the rest. Then I did a lamb-related theme on each set of pages. The one on the left is a "lamb as food" theme, with recipes and utensils. The other is "counting sheep", with a blue/whie sky/clouds look to it.

Altered Book Pages

When I make new arts and crafts projects that I can show to the public, I'll add them here. Also, as I find interesting techniques, products, websites or blogs, I'll share them. Here is a project I completed a while back. These are altered book pages - I inked the pages, folded and glued them to make pockets, then added tags with butterfly images.