Here’s a few more of the soldered pendants with vintage illustrations I’ve made recently………….

A little girl discovering a bunny, she’s on the front, the bunny’s on the back:

Two owls sitting under the moon:

A tiny bird nest and birds:

A fox in the forest:

and this one is a shadowbox with a silver bird cage charm inside with a teeny tiny blue bird in the cage:

These are all curently available in my Etsy shop.

I also have listed a smaller version (5″) of my vintage white button heart in an embroidery hoop in my shop as well.

For awhile I’ve been wanting to try something I haven’t before but I’d seen other artists do it and that’s cutting a section out of a chunky canvas and making a little box or niche inside the cut out. I was so worried I’d ruin the canvas I’d been putting it off. Finally I thought, well I’ll use a small canvas and just try, so I did and I’m thrilled with the results! I traced the shape I wanted to cut out on the back of the canvas and very carefully used an exacto knife to cut it. I then collaged the front like I normally would with vintage music paper lining up my paper with the hole and cutting that out too. I added a back to the canvas to complete the “box”, to the front I added the branch, bird, scrabble tiles and a piece of vintage wooden measuring stick and then added a nest I made out of silver wire and beads inside the niche. I will definitely be trying this again.

I recently found a couple more gorgeous vintage children’s books, one was in pretty bad shape and that makes it easier to cut it up:) They both have some wonderful illustrations that I’m turning into soldered pendants. Here’s a few I’ve made so far.

This first one I really love, the white cow is so sweet but mostly because I feel so clever with what I put on the back side:

This next one is a sweet Momma Cat and her kittens:

A birds nest and bird flying away (love this one!):

and this one is a child riding a horse under a full moon, really neat:

All these pendants are currently for sale here in my Etsy shop. And I’ll be adding even more in the next few days.

So, I love old buttons and have used some in soldered jewelry but was wanting to making something “more” with them. I remembered a piece I saw awhile ago from the great Rebbecca Sower and also some pieces I’ve seen on Etsy and I was inspired to make this piece. I had some extra burlap from another project and loads of vintage white buttons so I drew a heart onto the burlap and stitched on all the buttons filling in the heart. And since I love adding little cut out words to just about everything I added the word “love” to one of the buttons. I bought an embroidery hoop and stained it with some wood stain (I have some vintage hoops packed away some place from my cross stitch days and need to find them, they’d be great in a piece like this) and then I put the burlap in the hoop, trimmed it down and glued it to the back. I think it turned out really lovely.

Hope everyone is enjoying a happy new year so far!

I was thrilled to have some pages from my French altered book be published in the Fall ‘09 issue of Altered Arts magazine (click here to see my post about it) and now they’ve published 6 more pages from the book in the current issue of their e-magazine (issue 19) and even more will be in issue 20. Click here to visit their website, down loadable e-magazines are only $2.99 or free with any purchase.

I’m so sorry blog, I’ve really neglected you lately, please forgive me! I’ve just been really busy and after the holidays plan to buckle down and work on lots of new paper projects in January, got some new ideas brewing in my head:)

But for now I wanted to let everyone know I’m having a sale in my Etsy shop, all winter and holiday items are 30% off, there are still lots of cute things left and still time for me to get them to you before Christmas. Just visit my shop http://www.PisforPaper.etsy.com , and click the sale section. While you’re there also check out my new teddy bear section, I make teddies too, yeah that’s right I’m multi-talented !

I hope everyone has a safe and very merry holiday season!

-Heather

I can’t believe it’s already December!

I’ve been working on some soldered holiday ornaments, here’s a few made with vintage children’s illustrations. I particularly love the bunny, the back of it says “snow bunny”

isn’t this Santa illustration great? The back says “I believe in Santa Claus”:

and this one is double sided with two illustrations of little girls on a sled:

these are all currently available in my Etsy shop

Sorry, just couldn’t resist that title

Continuing my work with felt here’s a couple of holiday ornament I’ve made. They are all felt that have been blanket stitched around the edges with embroidery floss.

This first is a Snowman ornament, he’s stuffed with poly fill, I made him a broom using a wooden dowel and felt. I especially love the nose, I rolled orange felt into a cone shape and glued it on.

This next one is a felt mitten, it’s the perfect size to hold a gift card or tiny gift, use as a tag on a present or just hang on the tree.

I’ve made several different colors of mittens and snowmen in different color hats and scarves, they’ll all be available in my Etsy shop.

Here’s another paper and felt collage, this time I wanted to try something new with my sewing machine so I adhered a bird onto vintage music paper and then lightly sketched a bird cage on the paper and then sewed over my pencils lines with my sewing machine, I think it turned out pretty cool and I’ll be trying this technique more often. It was a little nerve wracking knowing if I totally messed up I couldn’t fix it but I think with some more practice I can do lots more “free hand” stitching.

I recently got a new book at the library called “Pretty Little Felts”, the author, Julie Collings had made some amazing things using felt, including some great paper and felt ornaments. I was really inspired by them and decided to put my own twist on them and give some a try myself.

I made some tiny collages, very similar to what I’ve done in the past for other projects using vintage papers as backgrounds and adding other collage images and words on top, I then sealed the paper using gel medium, I stitched a loop of ribbon to my felt shapes and then adhered the paper collages on top. I then added embellishments like crocheted flowers and vintage buttons. I’m really happy with how they turned out

This one is a favorite theme of mine, a bird:

This one is a pretty little girl I tunred into a Queen, reminds me of the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland:

these are both on sale here in my Etsy shop  right now, look for more of these coming soon:)