The 4th Inspirational Altered Card Deck Swap!

Summer is dwindling to a close and it's time to start coming indoors:

The garden is giving it's last, the canning is almost done (though is it ever done-done?), my four boys are back-to-school, the chill in the air is reducing time spent outside since these old bones get achy fast... 

All of which means I have TIME now, not a lot, but still *some* and it's MINE. 

Though I was sick with the 1st Back-To-School-Brought-Home-Bug the idea of wasting my *ME* time was NOT happening, so I settled down to get my cards completed for

 The 4th Inspirational Altered Card Deck Swap: http://www.carddeckswap.com

Heard about this 3 years ago and was too shy in my abilities to go for it that year...

Last year I registered but had health issues for almost the entire summer so my limited energy was spent elsewhere...

This year: 

I got it done!!!

HUZZAH!!!

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The topic this year is 'Favorite Song Lyrics'... not as easy as it sounds. 

Eventually narrowed it down to:

"See The Art in Me"

From: Art in Me by Jars of Clay

Seemed very appropriate for this AND one of my all time favorite songs!

Made Mixed Media backgrounds on 14" X 17" Strathmore Bristol.

Base layers are some of the fug-ly pattern papers I keep around for Mixed Media, printed images from my Collage collection and a few die-cut items all attached with Gloss Gel Medium.  

Top layers are Paint, Spray and Stencils. 

Once they dried a few hours, LOTS of Yummy layers...

I cut the backgrounds down to 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" 'cards' 

92 cards in total from 4 background sheets.

I made a template of a Face Silhouette with a printed image glued to some heavily waxed cardboard, a backing from a stencils package... waste-not, want-not!

Traced the stencil on each card with Broad Black Permanent Marker and colored around to make a 'Face Full of Art' on each card. 

Each one is ~completely~ unique, each it's own piece of ART.  

Then added the Lyrics on the front and my name, email, song choice on the back. 

Voila! 

90 Finished Cards 

*Only ruined 2 with my shaky hands when tracing, not bad!*

Sending the 52 required cards (plus a few extra in case she needs them...) 

AND I have some left to swap or send out in my own Happy Mail!

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9 stacks of 10 cards:

 Some of the individual cards:

 

14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #1:

 

 14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #2:

14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #3:

 

 14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #4:

 

Finished  14" X 17" Mixed Media Backgrounds drying:

erm... yes... it was QUITE messy!

 

 ***BONUS!!!***

Smeared the leftover paints in 2 of my personal Art Journals for some pretty cool backgrounds (or starts of ones...)  Waste-Not, Want-Not! *grin*

The Entire mess...

Including a page done in a Travelling Art Journal at the same time. 

Cut 'Cards':

Adding the 'Face'...

Done on the left, Stencil over a card on the right:

Adding the Lyrics:

All Done! 30 cards seen.

 Batch #1:

 All Done! 30 cards seen.

 Batch #2:

 All Done! 30 cards seen.

 Batch #3:

***Reader BONUS***

For making it aaaaaall the way to the bottom...

A Bunny Bottom!!!

Our House Bunny: Hope, was busy digging around under our Pantry Cupboards while I was gluing the Lyrics and Info on... TOO cute to not stop and take a picture of.

That is one HUGE Dust Bunny!

Meet Clara...

Clara is the wee fairy I made for the "Forming Friendships" 3D-Doll-Puppet Form Challenge" in the 'Mixed Media Art on Facebook' group. 

My partner is the fabulously talented Gary Warren Niebuhr: http://artthou-gniebuhr.blogspot.ca 

Must say when I got the pairing I was a little scared, he's just SO good! 

 

Clara was a pain... as many fairies can be... 

*I* had a vision in my head...

*SHE* and my Muse had other plans.

Her base is 2 1/2" wide and at her absolute tip-top with the base 4 1/2" high. 

 

She was made from a boppy dancing bug/flower that was solar-powered but the curtain dropped on it and knocked the butterfly off. 

This lil'boppy Butterfly had been in the Studio window bopping away along with 3 of it's compatriots for almost 2 years now, always bringing a quick grin upon seeing them jiving away no matter what else was going on. It had helped keep my spirits up through some pretty tough times the past few years and a summary execution via blind seemed so cruel... So I've held on to it in hopes that it would one day prove to be useful. This felt like the right time, the goal being to include a little bit of ourselves and in the project and all. 

So Clara was Born!

My vision had her sitting in a very Zen like style X-legged and Om-ing away. After over a dozed re-draw, cut outs, attempts and just *urg!* she just.wasn't.happening that way... She wanted to take flight (maybe...lol). Once the decision to have her flying happened it only took 3 re-draws to get her down small enough to work on the base and 'stem'. This is where the shaky hands of my disability drives me bonkers... Usually I avoid working so small or precise but Muse had other plans.

Started by taking it apart and removing the 'leaf' portion of the mechanism then re-assemling to make sure there was still suitable movement. Then disassembling again, sanded all the outside parts (Pot and Butterfly) and painting them black. Seal sprayed that, then sponged silver over and sealed again. The wings I hand painted some veins on.

The top of the base was covered in scrunched mulberry paper rescued from a greeting card and I made the flowers from other papers on the same card. The butterfly ribbons were boy #2's idea, to "match her wings".

I wrote the poem, printed and inked it...

Reads:
Clara is a Fairy who recently earned her wings...
She has a tendency to fall and crash into things...
If you see her slip, fall to the right...
Please, give her a boost over to the left...
So she can re-start her flight!

She 'falls' right and can be re-set-up.

 Clara's front was drawn on heavy cardstock and hand-colored, glued to thick chipboard, cut out with an eXacto knife then sealed with 3 coats of spray. More cardstock was glued to the back and her backside drawn to match the front... extra care taken to match the dress fold, hair etc... hand-colored then also sealed with 3 coats of spray. 3 coats of spray?! You ask: To keep her looking 'fresh' if she should get played with often. Many lil'fingers tried her out here. Amazed at how my 4 boyz and many of their (mostly male) friends wanted to play with her. My boyz were sad to see her off... boy #3 even helped with the packing because he wanted her "extra safe on her trip". The final touch on Clara herself was a spritz of shimmery thread-yarn rescued off a scarf.

She arrived at her new home in some unpleasant weather I hear, but safe and sound!

Props to postal services on both sides of the border:

 Clara the lil'Celtic-Canadian Fairy is now a resident of the good ol'US of A. 

Meet Clara...

Two of butterfly's remaining friends... 

Still happily bopping away in the dawn light.

 

Top Views:

*gasp* Fairy Bum-age:

 The exchange... 

Received this fabulous (Not little! shhhh... He's apparently sensitive about his height...) guy from South of the Border. Thank-You to Gary!

The boyz are absolutely enamored with him and were full of so many questions about him. 

Thankfully, now I can show them Gary's write-up:

http://artthou-gniebuhr.blogspot.ca/2012/10/just-plane-old-me.html

He has taken up star residence in the cabinet with our best-est Steampunk paraphernalia. 

 

Row-Houses: ~Book of Days~ ART STORES!

*standing up, shuffling over to the podium at the front of the room, clearing throat*

Hi, My name is Sarah... I'm a Row-House Addict.

But really I'm not looking to recover anytime soon. In fact I signed up for another group within an hour of finishing these... how bad is that? lol 

Decided I had made 'home' Houses and also the Boudoir Houses so it was time for sumtin' different...

What does every BOD Sister need right.on.her.street? 

Why, a 24 hour, 7 days a week ART STORE!

This is what I'm doing with them, for now...

Building my BOD Wisteria Lane across the Studio Door Frame. 

When the 1st row is done I plan to have hubby place a piece of 1/4 round (painted white) above that row. 

The door is directly opposite my work space so every single time I look up: There they are! They never fail to make me smile. It also feels like the are guarding my sacred lil'Art-ing Space.  

Sister Guardians, I really like that. :O)

 

Started these with large Manilla Shipping Tags, set them up on the water bottle board I use for spraying. Forgot to take a picture: Spritzed them down with 6 colors of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (red, purple, blue, green, yellow and orange). Then I grabbed 6 colors of paint (red, purple, blue, green, yellow and orange) and splattered away!

However... 

The splatter was *eeeeeverywhere*!

I'll be picking lil'dots off of everything on/near the desk for the rest of eternity.

Enthusiasm: A+ 

Forethought and Prep: big fat F

Ooops!

Next I had to make a way in...

Used a Mini-Tag Punch for the Doors, so they're the same shape at the Stores. Punched a circle out for the window and added the 24/7 print out from the back. Red handles...la oh la la!

Signs are printed then inked in Pink, them framed out on Black paper.

Not  pictured here but the 'crest' at the top is the aweeeesome BOD logo one of ladies designed for us all to use, also framed out on Black Paper. 

Roofs are made with Starbucks Cup Wrappers, inked with Black Sharpie. 

24/7 Art Stores + Coffee... a must!

Stores on Parade...