Altered Art

As I was surfing through blogosphere the other day, I came across Janet Campbell's blog, Folk Art by Campbell Jane, and she had the coolest altered art on her blog using just an old paperback book page and a black marker. I was intrigued as I read about her "game". The rules are quite simple:

1. You must use an old paperback page.
2. No ripping or tearing or making holes in the page.
3. You can not have more than 7 words in one line across the page.
4. You must have more than 1 word on the entire page.
5. You must use only a black marker.
6. The art and drawings must make a little sense.

Now, drawing is not one of my forte's, but I tried it out and here's my first attempt (you may need to click on the page to see the words):



Janet posts Altered pages submitted to her on her blog every Tuesday. You definitely need to check hers out and the many she has already posted on her new blog designated purely for the love of altered art, called Altered Pages - Altered Art. You have got to try this out - its quite fun!

She also adds:
**Warning**
**This is addicting and will become your new obsession**

I can see I will be stocking up on black sharpies very soon!!!

Cherries Jubilee

I created another Cherries Jubilee fused glass pendant. I really love the looks of this and since my other two sold, I had to make a couple more....of course, one for me too! I can so see myself wearing this with my daily attire of jeans or black addidas pants and a white t-shirt! You can check out the details of this pendant here in my etsy shop.

Happy Valentine's Day

I mentioned in my previous post that I was going out to dinner with my hubby and son for my 40th bithday.....well, the hubster totally surprised me and invited my absolute best friends to join us and was I surprised! Seriously, I didn't think he would come up with something like this for me - totally unexpected and FABULOUS! I couldn't have had a better birthday! Here's a short video slide of the night, which consisted of my friend decorating the party room with "over the hill" decorations and an "over the hill survival kit" for me including Depends, baby food, prunes, denture cleaner (you get the idea!) and there was even weird balloon guy! (my friends will understand this!):

Thank you my friends and WONDERFUL hubby for the perfect night!
Cheers!

Yes, that's right kids, today's my birthday and I turn 40!!! And what better day to have it than Friday, the 13th! So, I'm feeling great about this birthday and I feel like I'm at the perfect place in my life right now doing exactly what I love to do - isn't life just FABULOUS!

So, what do I have planned for my big day you ask? I get to spend it with my son's kindergarten class, as I am their volunteer party coordinator, and get to spend the day making crafts with the kids! Seriously, what could be more fun? His teacher knew what she was doing when she asked me to coordinate all their parties this year! I absolutely love kids and making crafts...so, yeah, it will be a great time. I'm planning on making bottle cap necklaces with the kids using valentine images and even got some cool ones for the boys (robots, monsters, ninjas, etc.). Of course I took it another step further and made these fun polymer clay robot key chains for all the kids to take home with them - a little party favor, if you will. I get so excited making things with the kids and just love being around them. They all call me "Carson's Mom" when they ask me something and that always puts a smile on my face!




As for tonight, dinner with the hubby and son - crab legs galore - my favorite!

I LOVE stampin'!

I recently had a few awesome rubber stamps handmade for me by Robin of facesarefunny on etsy. I was originally looking for some robot valentine gift tags to give to my son's kindergarten class with these little polymer clay robot keychains that I made for all of them (I'll be posting those tomorrow!). I ran across these robot love note cards in Robin's shop. I had asked her if she could use these stamps to make little gift tags for the class and she told me she would actually make a pair of rubber stamps with these images so I could do as I please with them and then always have them to make more creative things! I was so thrilled! I then was browsing her shop and found these raven gift tags and fell in love with the image. I had always wanted to make a ceramic raven necklace and asked if she would mind making me a rubber stamp with her raven on it. So, I scored 3 rubber stamps from this wonderful gal and here are my creations:

Valentine gift tags:
























Ceramic Raven Pendants:



My pendants are available in my etsy shop - for more info, click here.

LOOK WHAT I WON!!!

OK....if you haven't heard of the FABULOUS artist Chandra Michaels, the creative force behind Sugarluxe - America's Sweet Art, you most definitely need to pay attention! I fell in love with Chandra's art the minute I found her blog. She has to be one of the best art divas and her style is amazing. Make sure to click on her name above and you can read her most impressive bio. In less than three years, the portfolio of Sugarluxe artwork has been adapted and distributed across the globe. Z Gallerie Stores, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Helio, MTV, Miley Cyrus, T-Mobile, CMT, Playboy, BRIDES Magazine, Bong Spirit Vodka, START Mobile, VH1, Virgin and more, have selected the work of Sugarluxe. She says, "Never a conformist, I'm fiercely independent and determined to succeed despite the odds. I work excessively long hours and have sacrificed EVERYTHING in hopes of achieving my dream. I love Las Vegas, I can’t go for one day without dill pickles and I don’t like mean people."


First off, she is having an amazing weekly give-away this month on her blog in honor of February 14th marking Sugarluxe's 4th anniversary. I was so excited about this and entered the 1st weeks give-away for this Art & Soul Tattoo Heart Dual Mirror Compact. This design was originally created for an Art & Soul Showcase to benefit the Austin Children’s Shelter, and she had never offered this design on any of her Sugarluxe Compacts before. She had made only 3 of these compacts for 3 lucky winners. And can you guess who one of the winners was???? .............ME!!!!!!!!!!!









In her shop, she offers her wonderful artwork on modern fashion accessories and gifts, along with canvas artwork prints. Here are just a few of my favorites:




























And what better way to end this post than my famous departing words: "CHEERS!"

Sweet Stella

A few posts back I had a picture of my sweet Stella (our cat) up and had a wonderful comment about her from the fabulous Christy Dekoning asking if she could paint her. Ummmm.......yeah, of course! I would not say no to an offer like that! And WOW.......check out what she did!!!!!!























You can also check out her amazing paintings in her etsy and ArtFire shops.

Thanks again Christy!!!!

Finished Pizza Clock

OK guys.......here it is!
























OK...let's review my process, shall we???


Cut-out of pizza - wet clay










Air-dried clay









Bisqued Clay (after 1st firing)










Painted Bisqued Clay












Glazed Clay (after 2nd firing)







And that, my friends, ends my lesson in Ceramics 101.
Cheers!

Bisqued and Ready for Glaze

Here is the clock after the first firing and now comes the fun part - gazing the entire piece. Its actually quite a lengthy process as you have to apply 3 coats of glaze. So, essentially, I have to "paint" this 3 times, waiting for it to dry between each coat.




I actually finished glazing the entire piece last night (around midnight - guess that means "this morning") and here it is ready to be fired for the last time. NOW.......why I always say its like Christmas when I open my kiln after the glaze firing - its because the colors of glaze shown here will be NOTHING like the actual color after the firing. So the anticipation to see the finished product is like waiting for Santa!!!

First firing

The clock is completely air dried and ready for the first firing. This is called the bisque firing where the clay is fired at the highest temperature to the point it leaves no chemically bonded water left in the clay and it makes the piece hard enough for further work, such as the glazing. After this initial firing, it will be ready to be glazed and fired again. The bisque firing takes approximately 8-10 hours to fire and then a day for the kiln to cool. We're getting closer!!!

Making Pizza

Well, a pizza clock, that is! I'm so excited about my newest custom order from a gal in Atlanta, Georgia, who requested a custom ceramic "pizza" clock for a new restaurant that her and her husband are opening up. It's called Mia's Pizza and Eats, after their 8-month-old daughter. She says, "we'll serve New York style pizza and also have a Southern style deli with BBQ chicken and sides, chicken salad, potato salad, etc. Kind of a fusion thing."

She gave me a picture to go off of, and hopefully (fingers crossed), it will turn out similar to this:


After many discussions about how I would create a similar clock like this, we are putting a twist on it and I'll be adding a swinging pendulum with a slice of pizza hanging from the bottom!

So, I thought I would blog about the process of this clock and how I am making it. This way, also, I can keep my customer up-to-date on what I'm doing!!!!



So, first off, I start with a wedge of clay:

















I then roll it out with my huge rolling pin. After getting it big enough to cut (this will be about a 9-inch pie) I then cut the circle out. I used my kiln shelf for the basis of how big I could actually make this. Since I have a rather small kiln, about 9 inches is as big as I can fit inside my kiln.



After measuring and putting a hole in the center of the clay for the clock hardware, I then scored the clay to make the actual "slices" of pizza and making the squares to go around. I'm very careful to measure everything, so I don't end up with a lop-sided pizza. I also hate to have pictures of my hands taken - all my crafting has definitely taken its toll - notice the nice scab on my finger on my right hand (from my solder gun!) and my non-existent nails!!!! I usually have band-aids on my fingers from all my glass cutting! What we artists go through! Well, its all worth it.


OK....here's where I finished up for today. After it dries to a leather hard consistency, I can clean-up around the edges and such. Then, its off to air dry completely - usually a few days.













STAY TUNED............

Happy February!

In honor of February and finally getting a new blade for my ring saw......my newest fused glass heart pendants. Just in time for Valentine's Day!!!




purple and black hearts






red and white hearts