Have fun with collages

 

The Kindred Spirit Yahoo group has a beautiful RR, and the themes are wonderful.

Little angel: I made mine with lots of fabrics and sewing.

 

Lynn’s theme is vintage Paris, with a dreamy lady remembering her wonderful time there.

For the back page, I made a digital collage, with images of Paris coming out of her head, and a quote saying: I want all of Paris.

This next theme is “Time for Love”. The other artists had magnificent steampunk clocks. Truly beautiful work. So, being French, I took a different take on the theme and dressed my little girl in a French maid outfit. The quote says: “It’s time for love, honey…” There is a little cupid waiting with his arrow strung.

For the back page, I made a digital collage of a dreamy lady, remembering days past in an old mansion. The quote says: “There’s always time for love, isn’t there?”

This last one’s theme is “quotes”. Just that day, I found this great quote on Deviant Scrap:

I made another one of my ladies with the big head piece. I seem to be quite fascinated with them.

The back page has one of my favorite image, and the quote is: “Never give up, never give up, never give up!”

The Medieval Lace Book RR

 

The next Medieval Lace book I was working in was Karen. Her theme is John Waterhouse’s heroines. Here are the front and back covers of the spread.

By pure coincidence I used a large piece of lace on the left side of the page, that perfectly matches the lace Karen used for the last page of her book. It will look like it was meant to be. Which of course, it was…

This is the inside left page, showing Courtly Love.

The right page is built around an image of a young lady kneeling in front of her knight in shining armor. The two pages are built on top of a beautiful piece of dyed lace, which has completely disappeared under all the embellishments. l-))

On the right page are several layers of doilies, with some chiffon to frame the image, and some guipure lace. The top trim is metal hearts and under the purple velvet is upholstery trim.

I never realized how very dark Waterhouse images are. It was a challenge to keep the page light.

 

I added a vintage brooch that I had in my collection, with beautiful stones that echo the colors on the page.

It seems I haven’t posted the previous pages I had done for Teri in NYC. So here they are. Her theme is Horses and Armors.

On the left page, I used a picture of a horse that actually comes from a carousel. I loved the colors. I tracked down, with a lot of help from my friend Deb who is also in this RR, a horse blanket pin. Then I aged it.

On the right, I printed some horse equipment terms in French, like Haslebarde, Bride (which is the bridle), Henaut, the helmet, Joult, (Joust), Harnais, (harness), Destrier (a form of horse) Cheval (horse) and Palefroi (a farm horse)

For the right page, I used a reporduction of the Black Prince riding armor. It was such a beautiful image. I used a belt which I had cut up and painted, to look like a bridle.

 

I have to admit, it is quite a superb round robin that we’re having, and the books are really turning magnificent. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful group of talented artists.

Fabric lace pages

What do you do in Palm Springs when there is a huge sand storm?

Yeah, closing the windows would be an option. I’ll be sure to do that next time… Duh!

Next, unless you want to sand blast the paint on your car, you stay home and you make fabric lace pages. I did have much fun. They turned out soooo romantic. They are based on heavy upholstery fabric, and there is a little hanger at the back. Or they can be used as the basis for a book or journal cover.

 

The images are printed on fabric, and surrounded with gorgeous laces from my vintage collection, a few vintage buttons, and some paper and fabric flowers.

On each of my pieces, there is also a piece of vintage jewelry.

Of course, I stay within the Paris theme, with some French text printed on fabric, and a Paris tag.

I like this one particularly, it is so soft and feminine.

These compositions measure 6.5 x 9.

 

I also made some smaller fabric collages, on a tag. These measure approximately 3x5.

These little guys are available for sale individually in my Etsy store. The fabric collages are there too.

Last Vintage Lace Book Page

This Round Robin journal is now going home to Elena, and it was my privilege to be the last one to work in it.

Her theme was vintage Paris.

I made the design on the back pages on my new embroidery machine. Gotta love it. I also added a crown and the letter “E” for Elena, because she’s our queen friend, who organizes lots of wonderful Round Robins.

Her book cover was mainly black and white, so I followed the theme.

On the left page, I printed images of Paris on fabric, and decorated them with a beautiful white flower from Beads and Buttons in Portland, and a sweet little white bird inside of a black rose. For the background, I used this wonderful black and white Paris map fabric that I had. It all got covered with tons of lace, of course.

For the right page, I had this wonderful furry and feathery black nest with precious stones in it. It guided the design for the rest of the page. I used a large piece of lace that covers both pages. It has these large white flowers on it, which seemed to continue the theme.

 

Here is a view of both pages together. I trimmed the top of the page with black and white gingham, very French. The bottoms silver and black trim comes from the collar of a jacket a girlfriend just gave me. It comes from Italy, and has tons of silver beads. Not easy to wear outside of Italy, even if you live in Palm Springs! It was perfect to finish the pages.

A new website

After thinking long and hard about it, I’ve decided to pull my jewelry from Etsy and post it on a dedicated website.

Why?

Etsy is a great site for artists and to post our work for sale, but it has a big disadvantage: it doesn’t allow the artist to set up categories, so your work gets all mixed together, if you, like me, happen to have various fields of work.

I will be holding a huge sale on my jewelry before it goes from Etsy. 20% all the jewelry. That’s a pretty good deal.

So if my dear followers have noticed I’ve been MIA (at least one did, yeah, thank you Liz), it’s because I’ve been nose down designing my own website. It’s almost live. Waiting for the server to access the new name, and I will release it all: the new name, the sale on Etsy, everything.

Here is a preview of what it MAY look like.

The software is a big learning curve, but the biggest time consumer is to get very clear and detailed photos, which of course is one would want when looking at jewelry.

Thank you for the feedback that you like the pictures better on a black background. I agree. So I’m converting all my pics to black. Another item on the list.

Oh, and I will give away one of my bracelets when I launch the website to someone who leaves a comment. That’s something you really don’t want to miss. Stay tuned.

I’ve seen the light!

No, I havent’ found religion. Bu I have taken a class to learn how to photograph my jewelry properly. And oh, what a difference. And most of it has to do with the light! Duh!

I haven’t even bought a fancy light set up, I’m using the wonderful natural light in my house here in Palm Springs! Yeah, another bonus of living here, this wonderful light makes for wonderful photos.

Nest, I need to unearth  my tripod, for which I haven’t had much use in the recent months. But it’s here somewhere, and it will help getting even more crisp photos.

In the meantime,  you be the judge. My jewelry has never looked so good on the screen! With a bit of light adjustment in Photoshop and voila. I’m posting Before and After photos, those are always fun!

Wow, what a difference! Here’s the next one. I really love the colors on this bracelet, and I just couldn’t capture them before.

 

I do like the black background.

But look at these colors. It’s a beaded embroidery cuff, with a gorgeous blue agate in the middle, seed beads, lochrosen, silver beads and pearls.

Now doesn’t this make your mouth water? Yes, it takes thousands of beads to make one bracelet. It takes me about 3 full days to complete one.

And the latest bead free form peyote. In this type of design, there is no support for the beading, one just weaves and adds at the fancy decides.

I was in the mood for another chromatic design, in the view of Goth or Steampunk. This necklace is beaded with Toho Treasures. They’re called Treasures because of how much they cost, I think. They are the flatter square looking beads. I used a simple black velvet button for the closure. There are black pearls, black Swaroski crystals, some bugles beads of various sizes. It is quite spectacular on.

It would have been so difficult to photograph properly, you can imagine, black on black, without this new instruction. Yeah, Jim Lawson. Great course.

 

Peyote beaded bracelet

In this new bracelet, I’m exploring a new stitch, called flat peyote. I’ve added metal copper beads on the edge to give it a ruffled look, which I like a lot. This is not bead embroidery for a change, but rather bead weaving.
To make it more steampunk, I put a clock face in the middle but I feel it really needs more. I’m thinking of adding pearls inside the clock face, or maybe around it.

Here is a close up of the watch face, and the ruffled edge with the metal beads.
I made another cuff in woven beads and peyote stitch, in green and shimmering glass beads. The edges are ruffled too, because I used beads that were slightly larger than the base one. They are so fun to make. Because of its colors, I call this one Sea foam”
I’m also working on a large neck piece, back to bead embroidery. I think that remains my main love. I’m combining a lot of my favorite colors, as well as new beads I bought at the Tucson bead show. And of course, watch faces here too. Can you notice a theme? Steampunk!!!!


 
I used a large black agate for the cabochon, which I captured with a peyote stitch. I did the same with the large clock face and the steampunk metal button. For the rest, I'm using 15/0 seed beads, and small black bugles. It does take a long time to cover all this space with 15/0!!!

Lace purses and a winner

Today is the 28th. Sorta crept up on me. Still, it’s the 28th, and the day to announce the winner of the blog giveaway.
This is so fun! This little lovely will go to a new home today!

I also wanted to tell you about the new lace purses I’ve been making. Now these could be a serious addiction…
This one has already found a new home, and just went on a cruise. There's something missing in that picture: oh, yeah, it's me, I"m not on that cruise. :-((

This one is a small canvas bag with a zipper. I have used doilies and two pieces of very old from my collection. I’ve added a pearl necklace for that little something extra:

This next one is larger, built on a base of cream man-made leather. You can see the detail of colored ribbon binding, with a small chain and a key.

It has a large flap, and you can see the laces under the flap, with a few vintage buttons.

This next one is a large hobo bag, or carpet bag, which I made from scratch, using upholstery fabric and trims.

This is a little drawstring bag, made with hand painted doilies and a fabric flower. The back is decorated with doilies, vintage laces and a small earring.

The little white one is the very first one I ever made. I was really happy with how it came out, obviously, so I made a few more…

But hey, enough talk about purses. Let’s talk about a winner.

And the winner is….
drum roll…
Kadee Willow of Kadee Willow blog. Congratulations Kadee.
Make sure to go visit Kadee’s blog and check out her beautiful photography.