Mixed Media Monday - Giggles and Laughter

Here is my entry for the Mixed Media Monday challenge.  This week is it "Giggles and Laughter".

I looked through all my stash trying to find a picture of giggling girls.  I found this instead!  I placed the cut out image of the little girl with a pig on faded blue scrapbook paper.  It matched her dress perfectly.  I backed it onto a ledger page - which just by chance has an address in Pasadena on the bottom.  I added some pink checked ribbon around the piglet, some nice lace at the bottom and an applique bow for the little girl's hair.


Have you heard the expression  - "you can't put lipstick on a pig"?  Apparently you can! My attempts to add mascara on the other hand.... not so successful.


Please check out the mixed media site comments section to links to all the other clever artwork!

Introducing Craft Corner..!

I was delighted to see that my clever niece Erica had created her own blog - craft corner. That's her in the rapidly growing corner of the basement, she has turned into her art studio.  

For years whenever i would see my sister and her family I tried to bring a "craft project" for us to play with.  One year we did melt and pour soap with goldfish in baggies.  Another year we did mixed media collage plaques with our names.  Erica continued to grow creatively and kept coming up with new and fun ways to hone her skills. Here is a beach cake she made - complete with little teddy graham bears in bikinis.

Here is one of her miniatures - this one is a little campfire scene - complete with a bag of marshmallows. How cute is that? She included the crayon in the foreground for scale.

Here is a collage she did when she visited last November. We painted the deli paper backgrounds and then did Papaya! style collage.

Here is an altered book she did last year with a theme of PINK.

But these days - Erica's passion is creating cards. Here are some of the ones she has sent me  - but you will see on her blog that her style has grown - she is more precise. My sister blames me for creating a crafting monster!  Well, i suppose i will accept that.  The creative genes on my family apparently skipped over my sister and went to my niece. I am very proud to introduce you to Erica's blog.  I hope you'll visit often and give her encouraging comments!
Note: just wanted to add that my sister is not artistic per se - but she is an excellent chef and a brilliant piano player!

Terrie's French Themed Calendar

Continuing the Calendar Girls 2010 round robin project, here is the book i had the pleasure to work on for the month of February.

Terrie used a Van Gogh illustrated journal for her book, and decided on a French theme.  She is planning a watercolour workshop and tour later this year - so what a better way to get in the mood!

Her book had lovely romantic collaged pages - so i let my pages follow in soft blue and green tones. Someone once brought a bunch of fine art stickers to one of my classes for us to share.  So i knew i had some images that would work well with this theme.  On this page Terrie had added the blue printed paper and the Eiffel tower.  I added the small self portrait and the clipping of stone arches from a French dictionary. On the right side i added some additional paint strokes with Pitt pens and a sticker with the word for February to kick off my spreads.

My first spread had a painting with a sailboat - so i went with Le Mer as my theme. I applied some painted deli paper in blue and green tones.  I found the vintage photo of a woman renting sail boats at a park in Paris and added that.  I used splatters of white gesso to add texture and stamp Le Mer - only it should have been "la mer" since "The Sea" is apparently feminine and not masculine.  Oh well...

The next spread was blank - in that there were no illustrations on the two pages.  So i used several Degas ballerinas to create my spread. I used some printed soft blue paper, adding some french text and a quote about dance.  I added some lace, velvet ribbon and a tassle that echoes the blue skirt on the bronze sculpture.

The next spread had a Van Gogh apple orchard painting - so i went with a charming french countryside theme. One of the challenges working with these illustrated calenders is how to integrate the images to your collage.  On the right side i added some printed paper as well as a strip of stones and a strip of grass torn out of a magazine to "ground" the orchard.  At the top i used paint pens to fill in the sky.   The lady with a walking stick is from the Anthropologie catalog - and excellent source of lovely females! For a touch of whimsy i added the hungry birds and I know they are woefully out of scale - but i think that makes it fun!

On the left side i added a flap with a swirly printed scrapbook paper, that it evocative of timeworn stucco.  I added the stone arch door and the blue painted shutters i found in a book of Tuscany illustrations. You have to be careful with doors and windows so that you have something interesting on the other side! I added another out-of-scale blue bird to the top of the window.

Inside the flap you can see i continued the apple orchard with a photo of a blooming apple tree plus another Van Gogh art sticker.  I added a nice stone building to the back of my flap.

I love how the different elements all came together.  The dictionary definition for "arbre" completes the spread.