August 2011 Mini Book

I used this 6x6 mini album that I bought years ago at the Dollar Tree to house double page mini-spreads of all the fun things I was able to do with my family when they visited last week and the week before. It was great to see my cousin Mary and her beautiful family, my sister Elise was here for a week, my great Aunt was here for the month from CA, and my friends Ginger and Mike and my Aunt Claudia where able to join Jeff, Elise, and I for a trip to the Adirondack Museum on Blue Mountain Lake one rainy Monday. We got some icecream, did a few short hikes, relaxed and had smores by the lake and did some shopping in Speculator. I couldn't have asked for a better summer so I had to document it in this little book before the hecticness of my last grad semester and substitute teaching sets in next week.

Altered Art Collage Bottles

I've been saving, collecting, hunting, and buying doo-dads, trinkets, and bottles for awhile now. Ideas and concontions have been brewing, and I've finally pulled some together to create these art pieces. I wanted to do a Mystery Workshop with this idea for the Vintage Room gals, but I just couldn't wait to get some done to display in my bedroom on the shelf over my tv. Now I can enjoy them every night instead of staring at them as empty bottles just waiting to be transformed into a bottle of wishes, wisdom, secrets, love potion, hopes, dreams, and more...

The bottle of Wishes was my first creation. It's a small blue tinted glass bottle I picked up at an antique shop or flea market. I filled it with a half strand of silver beads, some start confetti, small blue glass pebbles (the kind for floral arrangements), a wheat penny on each side, and a small handful of handmade origami wishing stars I made from strips of old music paper. I stuffed the top closed with a spool of varigated blue thread that I was able to remove the cardboard center from and force into the opening. I glued a minature well to the top and tied some blue seam binding ribbon and tan chunky thread around the neck of the bottle. Finally, I hung a blue rhinestone clip-on earring from the ribbon, and glued on the copper word tiles to spell "wish."

The bottle of Wisdom came next. I put a few cream colored pearls and amber toned seed and bugle beads inside, along with several black and yellow feathers. I cut the Wise Old Owl image from a vintage set of animal rummy playing cards and glued it on along with some metal wings and a plastic light bulb. The stopper of the bottle is a metal drawer pull with an ivory owl pendant glued on top. I used a mix of fibers and lace around the neck of the bottle and stuck in a few black stick pins. Finally, I attached a small tag to the loop of the owl pendant to dangle and say, "Ideas & Imagination take flight" on one side, and WISDOM on the back.

The final bottle I've completed so far is a bottle of Secrets. This one doesn't have much inside because the majority of it is collaged on the outside with music paper, the stamped word "secrets" and the phrase "with a smile, and a bit of mystery" pieced together from words cut out of a book, a little girl image, pompom trim, and a plastic dog. I used vintage flowers and pearl sprays, along with a few stick pins and pink lace around the bottle neck. The stopper is another drawer pull coated in silver glass glitter (there is also a little sprinkled inside the bottle) with a pink rhinestone earring piece on top.

Ta Da! More bottled creations to come...