More, more, more in my Etsy shop, including handmade items by me

I added a couple of my Marie Antoinette figures to my Etsy shop, and lots more vintage goodness! Check it out.

Snow Doesn't Cancel On-Line Classes

I completed this "Rodeo Girl" Wednesday night. She's one of Suzi Blu's on-line classes. I signed up for the 'continuing education,' so I have the videos for Marie Antoinette, Rodeo Girl and Day of the Dead. It was only $35 for these three projects in one class, and well worth it, even if I hadn't made anything, just to watch Suzi's entertaining videos.


My Rodeo Girl is 16" x 21", the same size as my Marie, and I think I will hang them together. I found these great, deep frames, very reasonably priced at Utrecht's, which accommodate deep canvasses.


Speaking of deep, I have been snowed in since last Friday, with the exception of a little time on Tuesday. We are at 46" and counting, and that's no exaggeration. It's getting a little old. Thankfully, there's been no loss of power. I think my wireless laptop is the only thing keeping me sane.


My Rodeo Girl didn't quite keep me sane because, as usual, I can't stop touching it. I have a very bad habit of not knowing when to quit. I messed up her face about five times, and kept having to repaint it. At some point I resorted to finger-painting to try to get more control, and all that usually results in is a mess.


I even brushed beeswax over the whole thing, per the class, which is not only normally the finishing touch but generally prevents any further work because you can't paint over the beeswax. But, ta-da! I discovered my Lyra gel crayons go on nicely and smoothly over the wax, and you can easily wipe them off for a sheer effect. So I did. Then I didn't like it. Then I did it some more. Story of my life. But I like it now. I glued a little cowboy hat on her skully balloon and a little star 'badge' on her vest. Coordinates well with my Marie to which I glued a Juicy Couture perfume bow and charm.


By the way, I did something weird with this painting. Normally, one would paint the background first and then, per Suzi, collage it with bits of paper, molding paste, glitter, etc. Well, I decided I wanted to draw my girl on first, which I did, because I needed her to tilt a certain way to coordinate with the Marie since I want to hang them together.


Just to make things difficult for myself, I guess, I then painted her in, first with watercolor crayons. Then I had to collage the background around her and paint around her, and at that point, I painted over her first draft, this time with acrylic paints. Made it harder, but interesting. And with nearly four feet of snow outside, one needs interesting!

Marie is back! And so is Jack!

I completed this large canvas last night, after viewing the videos for Suzi Blu's "Petit Marie" class on-line. I signed up for a trifecta: Marie, Rodeo Girl and Day of the Dead. I just love Suzi's style. The canvas is 16" x 20", covered with acrylic paint and bits of papers collaged about. I used vintage French text, an old ledger page, some wrapping paper, rubber stamped images and scrapbook paper.

There are several layers of papers, paints, matte medium, molding paste and gesso, as well as glitter and beeswax. It's Suzi's special recipe. Lastly, I applied a hot pink box with a "couture" charm that my daughter was smart enough to save me from her Juicy Couture perfume box. Isn't it great when family members start saving you "trash" as potential collage materials? It means they "get it."

I'm not all that pleased with my Marie. Her body might have turned out better than expected, but she sort of has one bulbous eye and the roses in the background are sort of large and random. Plus, she's having a bad hair day, just like me. The beauty of it all is, since layers rule the day, I can always add more. And, the wax can just be melted with my heat gun and moved around. Come to think of it, I think I will.

And I can hardly wait until Sunday night for the return of '24' on Fox with Kiefer Sutherland. Can you even imagine him married to Julia Roberts? Thank goodness they stopped that train wreck. But I digress. Jack is back, after appearing on Letterman the other night in a dress no less, and the pre-season reviews are very positive. So, I can't wait to tune in for two hours Sunday and Monday night. Too bad Marie A didn't have a 'Jack' to protect her better. Lord Fersen seems to have made an attempt. Such is the stuff of history, not fairy tales.

Score! Birthday! Ebay! Etsy! Junking! Swaps!

September went out like a lamb, which was merciful, considering a certain number birthday--or perhaps other of life's diversions--has caused my blood pressure to rise into the danger zone. A little week-long break from blogging, Flickr, Hotmail, Etsy, Ebay, swaps, groups, and virtually everything else didn't necessarily help the BP but it did show me I really missed blogging.

I like my virtual record of art I've made, received, stuff I've done, read, etc., and although I don't post to my Blythe blog or my writing blog as often as this one, I do like to upload my photos to Flickr as soon as I take them, and organize them accordingly.

The books above, an old Alice in Wonderland, barely hanging together, and a fashion compendium with 1,000 pictures, were both found in antiques shops in North Webster, IN for $3.00 each. They're going to come in handy for altered art.

And thanks to some help from Maggie on Etsy, my Avon Small World re-collection of the eight 1970s figures is essentially complete, sans a few boxes.

The blue charm bracelet is the finished version of the charm bracelet I blogged about starting here. It traveled around the world, literally, to California, Pennsylvania, Norway and more, before making its way back to me in the Marie Antoinette Mail Art round robin charm bracelet swap.

And last but not least, the crazy assortment of goodies photo includes an Alice doll, some doll heads, a pink beaded jewelry box from Pier 1, some old Bailey's Irish Cream cups, a pretty pink rose necklace, a little lavender crescent-shaped dish, a reproduction apothecary bottle, an old tin robot and the finished version of my Zettiology skinny book, from a swap on Flickr, blogged about here. These treasures arrived via various means and reasons but all helped to make my birthday week and month special. More on the finished Zetti book soon. It's an explosion of art and color.

Meanwhile, many of the vintage books and treasures, bottles and doll heads came from one of the most wonderful places on earth: Green Oak Antiques in Rochester, IN. These three buildings are 10,000 ft2 (that's right, ten thousand) of furniture, junk, garden wire, salvage, cottage, victorian, primitive, jewelry and more.

Owner Ann Burton Wootten Furnivall and I had some great chats in person and via email about altered art, steampunk jewelry, favorite sites and more. She has some great sites: her blog Magpie Cottage, Gypsy Market on Etsy and the shop site, Green Oak Antiques.

I highly recommend a drive to Rochester from wherever you are. Out-of-state visitors are very common. You'll need several hours and probably a truck. They are open 10-5 every day but Thursday.

The Making of A Marie

Here is an approximate 22" Marie Antoinette dress form I made for a swap with Stephanie Watt. I covered two paper boxes and attached them together and then attached a paper mache dress form which I had covered with tissue paper, lace, sheet music, tulle, ribbon and to which I lashed a decorative feather corset-style. I've been saving this feather I got from Dale McLain for almost two years! Some of the luxurious beaded trims came from Hobby Lobby.

For the absent head I used a white porcelain rose drawer pull, with part of an old earring and green micro beads. The skirt is made from a rose-print fabric wrapped in irridescent chiffon and trimmed with several different laces and velvet ribbon. There is no sewing anywhere on the form. Can't wait to see the peach form I am getting in exchange!

You can see more of my Marie Antoinette dress forms in my Flickr set here.

Heirloom tomatoes and fresh cut flowers= farmers market and fall festival

It's a different kind of art-mother nature's to be exact-that makes up my 400th blog post today. The fresh-cut flowers and produce took my breath away today, a sunny Saturday in Syracuse, where I was summoned impromptu to a festival by my daughter. You would have thought it was the first time she had ever seen altered art, snatching up a huge wooden Notre Dame sign and another "Welcome to the Lake" sign, both made of paper mache letters on old doors or shutters.

The heirloom tomatoes taste like candy and are almost as sweet as the whoopie pies we both bought- she got chocolate and I got oatmeal. My little 26-year-old even bought a bag of Amish noodles, although she insists she doesn't know how to prepare them. She must have missed my lesson on boiling water.

There was a lot of great jewelry, photography, beads, ceramic tiles and other art, which I managed to avoid, but Wawasee Antiques drew me in and sent me out later with two tiny Kewpie dolls, a couple of old medical tins and two old chandelier prisms.

Besides finishing up the round robin charm bracelet swap in the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group, I have fat book pages coming due in my new Alice in Wonderland Mad Tea Party Mail Art group, and a Halloween-time Marie-theme treat bag/supply swap due next month in the Marie group. I have one coming to me from Amanda and I send one to Rebecca.

Marie Antoinette Mail Art Book and ATCs

The results of lots of hard work by a lot of artists have paid off and come to fruition with the latest fat book by the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group, a private, juried group of 75 artists, of which I am proud to be one.

Rhonda Thomas hosted this lovely 4" x 4" book of all original art by 17 artists, who each made 17 pages, so that everyone would have a finished book. I am treasuring mine. You can see some of the pages above. Mine is the Marie with removeable masquerade mask. More about my hand-painted pages here.

The six artist trading cards are from the same group, a swap in which each person used rubber stamps to create Marie-related images. Other ATC swaps in the MAMA group have included "Marie cuties" and "Big Hair Maries." Still waiting for the spoils of that one to arrive.

I am presently in a charm bracelet round robin with that group: sending bracelets along to eight other people, adding charms as they arrive in my mail. Can't wait to get my finished bracelet back!

And I am also making a Marie torso for Terri Gordon as part of the Marie Halloween swaps going on. I already received my torso from Tristan Robin Blakeman. More about that here. One of my torsos is above as well as my charm bracelet.

Look at all this good STUFF!

So much mail, so little time! Let me try to describe the who, what, when, where, why and how of all this fabulousness, from the top down.

The torso extraordinaire is from Tristan Robin Blakeman in the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group Dress Form Swap. The artist trading cards are from the same group, the Little Marie Cuties swap. I blogged about my submissions here.

The Fasteeth is a treasure from Etsy which I am saving, along with the sprinkler head, Jello mold, insulator, flower frog, knobs and more, for something special. I'll know it when I make it.

The doilies, the miscellaneous below the doilies and the tins all came from my IRL art friend Constanza who is paring down her altered art supplies on Etsy also, having moved into a smaller place. Check out her wonderful offerings of supplies and also finished artwork, like the "Under the Elm Tree" piece in the bottom photo.

In the next to last photo are some treasures I found at Green Oak Antiques, in Rochester, IN. Less than an hour from my home and 31 years in existence, and I had never been there. What's wrong with this scenario?

Marie Mail Art Project...off in the mail

My Marie Antoinette starter charm bracelet heads off to California tomorrow, complete with a sign-in book for the guest artists to take and leave a Moo card in the envelope pocket pages. There will be eight artists in our Marie Antoinette Mail Art group's charm bracelet sub-group besides myself who will add charms to my bracelet in this round robin swap. Eventually the finished bracelet will make its way back to my wrist, fuller for the experience. Can hardly wait to see it!

Big Hair is Always Good

Just some crazy big-haired Marie Antoinette artist trading cards I made Sunday for a swap in the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group. Marie was well-known for trend-setting and elaborate hats and poufs were at the top of her list. She is said to have worn a replica of a ship on her head and live nature settings; I wonder if she ever had a fish, a bee skep, bird's nest, fruit salad or sea shells on her head?