Wooden Spool Ornaments and an Inspirational Advent Calendar Wreath

By on 11-25-2012 in Art For The Creative Mind Yahoo Group, Digital Images + Collage, Mixed Media, Paper Dolls, Vintage

These pieces were all made for the ArtForTheCreativeMind Yahoo group. The three wooden spools had a mind of their own and my muse just went with the flow. I had originally wanted all white and light blue and glittery spools, but they told me they wanted to look a bit like French vintage. So French vintage it was. I used large beads and small as well as cord and wire for the hangers, even a pipe cleaner. Some French vintage papers helped give the ‘French’ feel to them.

wooden spool ornaments

My advent calendar wreath was another piece that grew as I made it. I knew I wanted the Matryoshka dolls to be a part of it. First the pattern had to be drawn and I chose to create that in Photoshop Elements which made it easy to create the little faces. Christmas papers were used for the outfits. Finding the right size of prints became a difficult task as many of the paper’s designs were too large. I then glued them onto black card and created 25 different inspirational words instead of numbers for each December day until Christmas. These little dolls can be removed from the wreath to be used as tags at a later date.

paper doll wreathe
paper doll wreathe

Circus Wagons …. “Come to the Circus”

By on 10-30-2012 in Art For The Creative Mind Yahoo Group, Digital Images + Collage, Mixed Media

circus wagons

This is my first 3D piece. Circus wagons made from salt boxes …. so much fun to do. I cut out the windows on each side and taped a flat card inside to make the floor. I then painted the interior black. The outside is all paper card and ribbon. Wheels are buttons which have been glued to little painted wooden pieces. These pieces were then glued to the wagon. The figures were gleaned from on line colouring pages, coloured in Photoshop Elements and then reduced to the small size I needed. There are tigers, bears and lions along with a little trapeze artist. The ringleader is trying valiently to keep control.

circus wagon

Steampunk Halloween Swap

By on 10-30-2012 in Art For The Creative Mind Yahoo Group, Digital Images + Collage, Mixed Media, Steampunk

steampunk halloween

This little 4×4 card was done for a swap with the Art For the Creative Mind Yahoo group. It joins both steampunk and Halloween styles. The background was made with twine glued to a red background. Two old skeletons are just lolling on a brick wall. The pumpkins were sketched and filled with a plaid background, then gears were added. The brick wall is from a local heritage building. Of course the old gents had to have top hats and one has part of a pair of goggles in keeping with the steampunk theme. They were fun to make and when put together that is when the old song came to mind. The skeletons were clip art which I removed part of the art to create the fellows I needed. A fun piece to create.

Owls, three of the perkiest little fellows sitting on a branch

By on 4-29-2012 in Digital Images + Collage, Embroidery, Vintage, Vintage Patterns

These owls were published in the McCall’s Needlework and Crafts 1965-66 Fall Winter magazine. Made of metal in this version, I can see them made from paper. How cute would they be painted in a border along a chair rail in a country cottage kitchen? Matching cushions on the wooden chairs would be so cute embroidered on linen.

owls

owls

I have redrawn the owl in Photoshop using layers and then filled with patterns. I then used a different sized stroke around each layer and bevelled each one differently. I then filled the background with black. He is too cute.

Owl created in Photoshop

Printing Plate Images from the Almonte Mill Museum

By on 4-29-2012 in Digital Images + Collage, Mixed Media, Original photos, Vintage

My visit to the Almonte Museum last year yielded several wonderful printing plates. I couldn’t resist using them for digital images.

Printing Plate Image

The original plates are the orange plates. I changed the image from colour to black and white and then recoloured them. Faces were left as is and I rotated the others to give a right side up print.

Printing Plate Image

These images could be used on a digital or scanned background, set into transparency to hover above the background and another image set over top of that. Lots of play with these old plates.

Printing Plate Images

You could also transfer the images to fabric to use in your fabric arts or onto paper for a little ATC.