Creative distraction

Sometimes I see an idea...and it just gets stuck in my head...it intrigues me and stimulates my curiosity...how can I take that inspiration and tweak it...giving it my own twist...and I really won't rest until I give it a shot...









Such was the case with the lovely glass bottles that Kate of Full Circle Studio created for the Artist Collective Sale held last weekend...

Kate used her own collage images on the bottles...the same flavor of images that grace her switchplate covers, her tea towels and her paperweights...a distinctive vintage vibe with a modern interpretation...

Lately I had been playing with vintage bottles (as seen here...) and had a couple of bottles left...I gave myself an afternoon to experiment...

First I printed out some of my graphic images onto drafting transfer paper...this is what I had available in the studio...since I used my inkjet printer for color copies, the ink smeared when I began to adhere the transfer to the bottle...even waiting for the ink to dry overnight did not totally set the image...
so onto plan B...and now the creative distraction is on its second day...but I am determined to figure this out!

I turned to my stash of printed paper napkins...separating the 3-ply napkins and using only the top printed ply, I thought this sheet would be thin enough to lay smoothly on the bottle...

A coating of Elmer's glue was painted on the front face of the bottle...

and then the single ply sheet of the napkin was gently laid on top...
being ever so careful to smooth out the air bubbles without tearing the paper...

After the bottle was completely dry, I wiped off the excess dried glue and then very lightly sanded the paper napkin area to make it as smooth as possible...

and then I sealed the paper layer with a coat of wax...
















Let me interject here...an earlier post talked about my favorite tools...
my favorite supplies - by far and away - are Elmer's glue and Johnson's paste wax

I like using Elmer's because it has a long drying time...which gives me a little bit more latitude in working to position an image in just the right position...but the downside to Elmer's is that it is water-based...and any moisture will activate the glue to become sticky...this is where the Johnson's paste wax comes in...using a layer of wax seals the surface and makes it impenetrable to moisture...and the plus side is the slight sheen on the surface that results from buffing the wax...

and yes...I buy my Elmer's by the gallon...










Back to the bottles...if you're keeping track...my afternoon of distraction is now on day three...the surface of the bottles are glued and waxed...all I do is add a few snippets of ribbon, string or wire...and the bottles are complete...

I like how the paper napkin ended being so translucent...this is the front of the egg bottle...

and this is the view from the back of the bottle...
with the image on the front showing through...

















Each bottle has its own extra touch...the egg bottle has a feather tied on the neck...the French bottle has a red glass heart...and a postage stamp that I added before I waxed the surface...

The fern bottle has a handmade tag...my recent love of metal paper fasteners led me to snip off the end of one fastener, sanding the edges smooth...trimming a fortune cookie slip to size...gluing it inside the recessed area of the fastener...and adding a metal ball chain to dangle the tag from the bottle's neck...

Distraction over...curiosity sated...back to work at hand...

Linking up to Funky Junk Interiors Party Junk...more distractions over there!

Holiday Cheer #3 Giveaway

With just a week away from Christmas, today I unveil my third Holiday Cheer Giveaway...but not before I announce the winner of the collage ornament from Giveaway #2...again, chosen at random by the Southern Man, a retired judge (just to make it official)...

And the winner is...

Emilou

Congrats Emilou - I'll email you to get your snail mail address so I can send this ornament to you pronto!

But wait...for all the others...you have another chance...

As the days wind down, I find myself making notes/lists/ideas for the new year ahead...and jotting down a few reminders of the year past...
















I like to have a way to keep track of such thoughts...and so my giveaway today includes one of my "memories" folders to stash random pieces of paper...and two mini art journals to record quick notes...

The "memories" folder includes a vintage key and an altered card, all wrapped around an old letter folio...

 





























while the two mini journals have covers of my original artwork with 16 pages of vintage ephemera to record your slightest whims...

I always carry a little journal in my bag...I can never remember anything - I need to write it down!

Once again, all you need to do is leave a comment...with your email address if it isn't enabled with your blogger profile...and if you're not a blogger - just leave your email as part of your comment...the deadline this time is a little shorter since christmas approaches...comment by midnight Sunday December 23...
winner announced on Monday December 24...

Easy as 1 - 2 - 3

Its time for another Easy 1-2-3 project (see previous 1-2-3 projects here , here, and here  and one more here...) projects where I take common materials and end up with a simple upcycled design.














One:
Cork rounds from the garden department at Lowe's...meant to be used under a plant pot so that there's no water ring left behind...one side is cork to absorb the water drips and the other side is some sort of composite material...the odd colored square is where the UPC code sticker was...it will be covered up so no matter...because I'll be flipping them over to use as coasters so the cork side protects the tabletop.

Two:
Paper scraps from the top of my work table...often times, I don't want to over think a project...just use what's at hand...for the mini-collages I created for the composite side of the coasters, I used whatever scraps I had immediately available...most likely leftover from art collages I have been working on...

Two & one-half:
After I composed a mini-collage on each coaster, glued all the paper into place, waited until it was dry, sanded the edges and the surface, it was ready for two coats of polyurethane...I wanted to make sure that the surface could stand up to heavy duty happy hour use!

Did you know that you should never shake a can of polyurethane or varnish?  Shaking will trap air bubbles in the mixture that will be transferred to the surface and will dry in place, giving a bumpy texture to your work... always stir gently, making sure that you mix in the bottom sediment well.









Three:
In no time, I had a set of six coasters...ready to protect tabletops and add a little interest under one's drink...

I added a strip of adhesive copper tape to the outer edge of one coaster...just for a little extra shine...

Linking up to Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Nite Special...always plenty of inspiration...as easy as 1 (click) - 2 (browse) - 3 (inspired!)

Paper + glue = inspiration

I spent two days last week turning two boring doors that looked like this...














into doors that looked like this...

My friend Ted Watson, who owns two wonderful shops in Seattle, asked me to transform these doors at his Watson Kennedy Fine Home store located in downtown Seattle.

It was a vintage montage, piecing together a type of paper quilt if you can imagine...using pages from turn of the century encyclopedias, well-worn novels, insights from old journals and other ephemera that spoke of an era and topics of long ago...all of it the original pages...no copies here!

Spending time in such a palace of inspiration was delightful...

birds are a constant love for me...




























green harkens the beauty of spring...

I spied my collage coffee table (covered with pages from famous novels)
along with my typewriter notecards tweaked especially for Ted...



Bailey, the shop dog, keeps a close eye on all activity...as one enjoys a cup of French tea...

If you're in the neighborhood, stop in to see the doors...and to experience the wonderful sights, sounds and smells of this exquisite shop.

And if you're interested in transforming your own wall, door, tabletop, or any other type of surface, just email me and I'll be happy to take care of that for you!

Love thru the mail

Valentine's Day always brings back memories of school days...when you bought those funny colored paper valentines and handed them out at school...sometimes sticking your notes inside  pink decorated boxes...little individual "mail boxes" that were made in art class the week prior...










I've continued to send valentines through the years...the unexpected delivery of a piece of actual mail that is neither bill nor advertisement is a pleasant surprise.  To distract myself from two weeks of computer woes, I broke out glue, paint and paper and went to work...I made 8 valentines and sent them in the mail to friends near and far...

All of these were made with corrugated cardboard as the base...my new favorite substrate...later in the week, I'll share some of my construction techniques...but for now, enjoy this visual valentine for you...

And you count there are only 7 valentines posted here...number 8 is for the Southern Man...I didn't want to spoil his surprise...

Embracing color

While in the midst of christmas decorating about a month ago, I decided that it was time to rearrange the furniture and spruce things up a bit...my big stack of 20+ suitcases moved from the front entry to the dining room, a table from the Southern Man's office came downstairs to behind the sofa, lamps were swapped out, pillows exchanged...but through it all, the slipcovers on the sofa and the overstuffed chair were looking a little ragged...

I bought my sofa and chair from Ballard Designs over 15 years ago...I remember at the time that more than one person thought I was a little crazy to be ordering major furniture from a mail-order catalog without actually seeing it/sitting in it before I bought.  But I had fabric samples and detailed measurements with line drawings sent to me beforehand so I felt confident in my purchase...and I have been very happy with my sofa and chair ever since...they both are still in great shape...but the slipcovers were faded and becoming threadbare in places.  Well, of course everyone was having a major sale on the monday after thanksgiving...and sure enough so was Ballard Designs...so I ordered new slipcovers...I decided that I would stick with a solid color but didn't want anything as boring as khaki or sand (and off-white was out of the question if I didn't want to wash the covers every week!) so butter was the choice...it sounded so rich and creamy...with a click of the mouse, it was done!

A week later, covers arrive...I take them out of the box and put them on the furniture...I hesitate...the Southern Man comments that it looks more margarine or oleo than butter...

an aside...
I grew up in Wisconsin in the 1960's...Wisconsin, being "America's Dairyland", only sold butter in the grocery stores at that time...people would travel to Illinois to buy margarine (which was and continues to remain, much cheaper in cost than butter).  It was called oleo back then...people brought it back in their trunks and sold it to friends and neighbors...it was white and came with a packet of yellow dye that you could mix in to make it look like butter...but it was pretty easy to tell the difference...so needless to say, commenting that the new color of the slipcovers looked like margarine was not a good thing...

Now for those of you who know me, you know I am not a color hound...my attire is usually a pair of blue jeans and a gray top...every hue, tone and shade of gray I have in sleeveless cotton tees to tweedy wool wraps.  If the color choices for the slipcovers would have listed "pewter" or "slate", I would have been set...

But rather than return them, I decided to live outside my comfort zone...I realize that this is small potatoes, but its a start.  To complement the color of the sofa and tie in the other colors in the room, I decided to enhance a small rusty iron side table I had...it was a simple iron stand with a plain, brown, waterstained wood insert...here's the progress of the table top from start to end...

First layer - pages from an old french history volume...during the bookbinding process, the pages weren't trimmed so I was able to remove a set of untrimmed pages, unfold them and lay them down as the first layer, using my standard formula of Elmer's glue and water...

the second layer is a decorative paper napkin...I separated the three-ply napkin and only used the top single ply so the type from the first layer would show through...

the third layer is a page from an old french book about birds and their nests; this chapter page illustration is finely detailed and placed in the center of the collage design.

After the third layer, I felt that something more was needed...a bit more patterned tissue and a postage stamp was added...then the entire surface was sanded smooth and finished with two coats of polyurethane and one coat of paste wax...

here's the side table in the living room...moving around the margarine colored pillows helps to break up the mass of yellow dominating the room...

As you can see, at least one family member is enjoying the new sofa...maybe because its his color...

linking up to Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm...with the new year underway, there is no shortage of thrifty energy here!

The sum greater than its parts, #4

Going headlong into the holiday...still working on projects that use what I have at hand for inspiration and materials.  I wanted to create some original art that could be a gift...or an ornament...or both!


I had these paper napkins that I picked up at a summer yard sale...the napkins had a bird on the front - birds always catch my eye...when I looked at the package more closely, I saw that the design was by Gwen Frostic...I love Gwen Frostic...she was an artist from Michigan who was known for her woodcut designs and her inspirational books...she was very big among the camp counselor crowd I hung out with in the seventies...her look is very iconic and even Martha wrote about her designs in the March 2005 issue.  How fitting that I should honor her with a collage piece...




I had a half dozen of these mini canvas frames...they had letter designs on the front...a coat of white paint obliterated all...I glued the paper napkin with the bird image onto the front of the frame using my gloss medium method described here...

You can also see the old gummed label at the bottom edge...it was the same bright red tone as the cardinal...it was the perfect highlight...after I typed in a single word...

I have an old Royal typewriter just for designs like this...there is nothing like the old ink from an old typewriter to give that authentic vintage vibe...

I carefully placed the label so that the type would be centered...since the labels were so small, it took a few attempts to get it right...

After I was done with the front, it was time to finish the back of the frame...they were pretty ugly looking on the back...a square of vintage map with that perfect touch of red would be ideal...


















Then there were the sides of the canvas...something more was needed...I recently bought a couple of rolls of that fabulous Cavallini paper tape...with the numbers and letters on it...but this project is about using what I already have...and wouldn't the vintage original cloth tape be better than the imitation paper variety...
I thought so...

Once everything was dry and all the edges sanded smooth, I waxed each mini-collage and tacked the cloth tape around the perimeter of the canvas...and this project was done...

the backside of the collage...love the colors of the map complimenting the colors of the bird...the red ribbon hanger (a single length of red satin ribbon held in place with a trimmers tack) was attached afterward...I remembered that if these are to be ornaments, they need a hanger!

 peace, joy, cheer, wish, hope...I think that sums up the season just fine...

Linking up to Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors...ornaments are the feature this week...