I adore Emily Dickinson’s poetry. This collage was inspired by one of her most famous quotes. It’s on a 5″ x 7″ canvas board. The main images are of a bird cage and womans silhouette with a bird sitting on top of the cage. I embellished it with vintage measuring tape, a flower I made from muslin and a vintage button and a fountain pen nib.
Melting wax that is. I decided I hadn’t played with bees wax for awhile so I got my little crock pot out and played around with it the other day. I made some more captured fairy in a jar art cards, like I did in the past, dipping the collaged jars into the bees wax, they always turn out cute. I also did a bird collage I’m really happy with. I started with a wooden tag and collaged vintage music sheet and images of a bird and egg and the word “fly” cut from a vintage book. Then I took a brush and covered the tag with the melted wax. One of the cool things about wax is it can be remelted. So in a couple spots were it was too thick and cloudy I used my heat tool and melted it a bit to thin it out. You can also use a mini iron to melt the wax as well. I then added some game pieces that spell “egg” and faux grass for a nest. I covered a 5 x 7 canvas board in vintage dictionary paper, mounted the tag in the middle on cardstock and then added a few vintage buttons.
Here’s a couple of my fairy art cards:
doesn’t he look shocked to be captured?:
and this is my bird and egg collage:
When I was little and asked my parents what something meant they always told me to “go look it up”, i.e in the dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. It’s not that they didn’t want to help me, they wanted me to learn to use the books and find the answers for myself. Maybe that’s why I now love old dictionaries? I remember mine was red, with little cut out half circles on the pages where the letters where, funny how things like that stick with you.
Here’s a few soldered pendants made with illustrations from a wonderful vintage dictionary from the early 20’s. I added black patina to all the soldering and the backs of the pieces are their definitions.
a really cool raven:
a fat little toad ( I just love him!):
and a lovely bird in flight:
I just can’t seem to stop making things with birds 🙂 Here are a couple of new mixed media necklaces I made last week.
I enjoyed making my Alice in Wonderland Domino charms so much I used a larger domino, inked it blue and stamped a really cool flying bird on it and then soldered around the edges, adding two sets of jump rings to the top to hang from the ball chain. I also adhered a glass rhinestone to the front for a little added bling:
I also made this necklace with a pretty silver bird charm and a tiny soldered word charm that says “fly away” on vintage music paper, also on a ball chain:
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.
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:)
Here’s some more of my new collaged and soldered pendants.
I really love these first two, they are tiny collages done on vintage French book paper, I added lots of brown ink to age them even more, stamped postage cancellation marks and a tiny stamped vintage looking label and added numbers to them so they looked like old specimen labels. One features a bird, the other a butterfly:
here’s another fairy with an attitude, she’s got a bored look on her face and I added the word “whatever”, cut from a vintage dictionary:
and lastly something a little different for me, a tiny paper piecing of a house and a tree, I cut and punched them out of cardstock and patterned papers, the background is vintage French book paper. I also added a small metal key to the bottom:
I’ve really been inspired lately by all the collages I’ve seen that are various shades of white, I love the “shabby” look of it. So I thought I’d give it a try. I white washed most of the items with gesso, sometimes adding water sometimes just straight from the bottle. First I white washed some vintage music paper and an image of a blue bird, then stamped the bird cage on transparency using white, I adhered the bird to the paper and then using my sewing machine I stitched the transparency onto the paper using different stitches. I then white washed a pair of Tim Holtz’ grungeboard wings (if you don’t know grungeboard is sort of a flexible type of chipboard, it’s very cool to work with), tied some string through a vintage button, added them to the board along with the words “spread your wings” and then added some vintage white lace across the bottom. It’s a very different look for me but I like it alot:)
