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...

Thank You Cards

These are cards I made for this month's stamp camp card swap. I used the Basic Grey Out of Print paper line, Close To My Heart card stock, a random strip of corrigated cardboard, and Micheal's/Studio G thank you stamp and floral paper clip embellishments. The larger close up photo shows the embossing of the stamp pretty well.

Where is the Sock Monkey?

Here is the sock monkey card that I made for my friend's son's 2nd birthday. It matched his gift, which I found at Big Lots--a cute game of Where is the Sock Monkey? I thought they would have fun hiding the little monkey around the house to play hide'n'seek. I printed out the sock monkey image off the internet, then I layered it onto some paper, added google eyes, and buttons. Voila! Simple. Adorable. Done! So fun to be apart of the party today as the official photographer. I got some great shots that I will post later.

June In My Vintage Room Swaps

These are the swaps I finally completed for the June Swaps I hosted in my yahoo group. I have my June Altered Tag, front and back, my Steam Punk Dad LFB, front and back, and three Mermaid ATCs. The tag and LFB images were cut out and collaged from a 1953 magazine called The Saturday Evening Post. The ads and images in it are so retro/vintage and fun to read and look at. I combined several to create the tag and LFB. The mermaids are ladies from a Lisa's Altered Art collage sheet with their legs cut off, and I use pattered paper and metallic gel pens to create their fins. Miniature seashells, key charms, pearls, jewels, and champagne glass glitter (Stampin' Up), complete the pieces.

Create-A-Critter Cricut Gift Bags & Cards

It's been awhile since I posted a new project. Here are the gift bags and matching birthday cards that I made for Jeff's niece and nephew. I used my Create-A-Critter Cricut Cartridge and the characters come out adorable. A little stamping, googly eyes and stickles bring them to life.

Mystery Mission 2011 Unveiled!

What can $15 buy nowadays? Not much. In this case, it got the adventurous ladies in my art group a bag of "stuff" to inspire them to create a masterpiece for our 2nd Annual Mixed Media Mystery Mission. What everyone turned out for our exhibition yesterday ended up being priceless works of art that reflected bits and pieces of ourselves. I was so impressed by the array of talent. And my months of scouring ebay, antique stores, and trying to think outside of the box with the things I included in their mystery supply bag was all worth it.

Above you can see photos of my completed mission project. Each photo is of a different square in the collaged shadow box. What started out as a blank unfinished pine box, ended up telling my story. If you click on the bottom photo to enlarge it, you may be able to read the excerpt I included with the box at the exhibit yesterday.

Magazine Collage and Overpainting ATCs

Step 1: Cut images, backgrounds, and words from magazines and layer onto ATC sized mat board.

Step 2: Choose portions of your image or background to coat with a thin layer of gesso. Brush on sheer enough to see the original image underneath.

Step 3: Take a fine line black marker or Sharpie to outline the image you see through the gesso layer. Leave "raw" for a textured line drawing look, or color in portions or whole image with markers or paint and Ta-Da!