Free-hand felting.........

I've taken a little time, this weekend, to work on some free-hand felting. I've always liked to paint and thought I'd try my hand at "felt painting". I purchased a new felting book, recently entitled "Indygo Junction's Needle Felting". It's a wonderful book and has patterns in it for different things like flowers, leaves, etc .
I decided to just do it! I love to pick out colors of wool roving; mix them together and just "paint" directly on the surface I've chosen. In this case, it is a green-felted purse. The green in the purse is a little hard to catch with this picture, but it's a fern green but on light side.
This is still a work in progress but thought I'd share what I have so far. I intend to add a small butterfly and then I will do the back in a more simpler way and add some leaves and stems to the purse strap.
Have a safe and happy Memorial Weekend everyone!
Love, Marilyn

This is a picture of a matboard collage I did for Somerset Studio for their tenth anniversary challenge. They asked for submissions with a number 10 theme and I came up with using Bo Derek as my focal point as she was in the movie "10" :)

I just found out this is going to be published in the June 2007 Gallery issue of Somerset!

I had fun with this one!

I wish everyone a really good day! Love, Marilyn

I got in a little play time today. This is an encaustic wax collage I did on a piece of matboard. The size of the matboard kind of called to me as a challenge. :)

I'm so used to doing collages on the regular sized canvases (5x7 mostly; maybe an 8 x 10 once in awhile).

I think spring is back!

Love to all, Marilyn

More "Shabby Chic"..................

I had mentioned in an earlier post that I would be sharing more of my "shabby chic" home decor with you.

The gate you see, here, was obtained at an antique show in Rhinebeck, NY a couple of years ago in the Fall. It called out to me; as if I could hear the squeeking of the gate opening up to a garden cottage. It just cries out "shabby chic"! I added the rose vine to symbolize my vision of the gate being the entry way to a beautiful garden. This gate is on wall in our fourier (gee; I hope I spelled that right) :)

The old-distressed mantle, you see here, is a real find that my husband and I discovered in an old, run-down barn that was owned by a farmer who was offering some things for sale. It was on a ride to Cooperstown that we came across this sale. I fell in love with this mantle, and we got a really great deal on it. We don't have a fireplace, in our home, so we thought it would be cool to hang this up on wall. I added the shutters inside the mantle; I had to paint them to match and distress the wood to give it that beat-up look :) The old posts that you might see, here, on each side of the mantle on floor, are ones I obtained off of Ebay! They match perfectly and the child's chair came from a little flea/market place in Saugerties, NY.

Like I've shared, part of the fun of this scavenging stuff, is to have pieces come together from different places :)

I wish you all a great weekend ahead! Anyone happen to know what happened to spring? :)

Love, Marilyn

I've been tagged :)

Hello Friends,

I've just been "tagged" by a very dear and talented friend of mine Laura McKeag-Krasinski. Laura lives in Wisconsin and we've spent some time in Florida, together, a couple of years ago at an art retreat weekend and enjoyed taking some very cool classes. Her Blog is linked on mine (Laura's Art on the Run). You will see some very cool and beautiful things she's created there :) Laura and I have been friends for the past few years; we actually connected on a Yahoo group. We still communicate and share our art and lives.

She just let me know that I've been tagged to list 7 facts about myself on my Blog. So; here goes...................................

1. I love my family
2. I love my friends
3. I love art
4. I do not like to cook
5. I love the color blue and shades of
6. I love anything vintage and shabby chic!
7. Emailing my friends is a joy

Now what do I do Laura? Do I tag someone now?

This is a page for an Art Deco I'm having fun with. The theme for this particular round is cabinet cards and we each get pages with the same image and alter them. In this particular case, the cabinet card was photocopied and the appropriate number of copies is included when receiving the book.

An Art Deco is a small handmade book and friends can engage in round robins with them. The small book allows for easier mailing and less expensive postage than altered books. Fun, huh?

I'd like to engage in more of these in future :)

A look into my world of "Shabby Chic"

I thought I'd share, with you, another part of my art world; My passions are many. One of which is the world of "shabby chic".
I love when things come together from different places (much like people we meet) and the world of shabby chic really allows me to travel around to flea markets, antique shops, garage sales, and I hate to admit this, but even curb-side throw outs :) Yes; I'm a scavenger and I love to find things to add to my shabby chic decor in my home.
These pictures are actually just the beginning and I will share more in time. I love to make shabby chic birdhouses from craft-store wooden birdhouse, distress them, paint them, add neat hardware (finds of course), stamp on them, add fabrics, etc. My favorite thing to make the bases for the birdhouses are architectural pieces that I've found in various locations. I always look for antique porch spindles, molding, whatever catches my eye to add to the birdhouses. My husband even enjoys this as he likes to put them together with his favorite tools :) I feel it's a small way that he can be involved in my art.

The little birds in the picture are my most recent finds. I discovered them in a little antique shop and boy did they cry out "shabby chic". So; I put them with my birdhouses and it's like they've always been there.

I have my "SC" birdhouses displayed in our room off the kitchen. I have sold some of them, in the past, but when I make them; they are always hard to part with. But; unfortunately I have just so much room to store them.

This is just a small taste of what I have collected and made for my home. I just felt like sharing as - after all; isn't this what a Blog is supposed to be?

Have a nice day!

Adventures of the Moth Fairy :)

Recently, at Art Connection, I taught a Moth Fairy class! It was so much fun. These pics are of the Moth Fairy that I did during the class. Everyone was having a ball and I loved each and every one that was created. Everyone started with a pre-sewn moth fairy body which I sewed myself (all 18 of them) and this is a major accomplishment for me with the sewing machine :)

I know some are a bit skiddish of the Moth Fairy project. I decided to let everyone choose an image of a sweet young girl for their faces. I thought this would soften any doubts about anything creepy or scary :) I do feel this worked as everyone became quite attached to their moth fairies and some even named theirs :)

I, personally, really love working on moth fairies; they are for people who sew or don't sew. I use fabric glue, a lot, to attach embellishments; even fabric pieces. We even stamped muslin using fabric inks, and I shared a technique using Shiva Oil Paint Sticks along with rubber stamps and fabric.

I would like to thank my sweet friend, Patti Gramza, for introducing me to this wonderful art form! I find it fun, relaxing and these can also be made as gifts. One of the students, in my class,made one especially for her mom for Mother's Day!

Speaking of Mother's Day..........a very Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are moms to kids, pets or even Moth Fairies :) Love - Marilyn xxoo

A Little Humor....................

This is a picture of a birthday card for a friend of mine. I decided to go with a little humor, on this one, as my friend uses embellishments in her art - like I've never seen before! She is the Queen of Embellishments and I always love the creative ways she comes up with choosing just the right touches for her art.

I'm wishing everyone a good start to the new week. So far, the sun is shining, it's going to warm up, birds are singing, flowers are poppin'; life is good!

Love, Marilyn

The Worry Box

A friend of mine is celebrating a very significant birthday soon. I wanted to make her something special and meaningful for her celebration. She is going through a bit of a challenge, in her life, right now and I decided to make her a "worry box". I made one for myself awhile ago and it really seems to help. I am a worrier (which I even worry about) and this little box has helped me kind of prioritize my worries :) When I'm really at my "best" with worry, I make little notes on tiny pieces of paper of what my biggest worry is for the day. If it's something that I cannot control, I put the note in my "worry box" and let the box take care of it. I know this sounds silly, but it's a little exercise that seems to help me. After about a week, I open the box, take the notes out and the problem I was really sweating over, seemed to take care of itself. My hope is, this little box will help my friend.

The box is made out of an Altoid tin that I threw on the barbecue grill, last week, along with the chicken and burgers!! It really makes the tin come out funky and distressed; I love the markings when it's "done" :) I painted a black and white transparency with acrylic paints for the cover and used an image of two "sisters" or friends. I decided to use the word "true" with metal words that I dabbed with alcohol inks. Of course, I had to crown the two friends. :)

The inside of the tin is collaged and I used one of my favorite quotes - Hope is..... again, I used a metal word and I chose the words Don't Worry. I dabbed this with alcohol inks, too. The little box with the image of the pretty little girl is a matchbox that holds some significant little embellishments that should mean a lot to my friend.

So................."Don't Worry................Be Happy"!! Love, Marilyn

The "Feathered" Box................

Birds, nests, and eggs really call to me any time of the year. I love watching them and their habits especially in Spring.

This is a picture of a box that I "feathered". Recently, I came across the true definition of the word feathered. This is what I found:

v. feath.ered, feath.er.ing, feath.ers v. tr.1. to cover, dress, or decorate with or as if with feathers

This lead me to think about what we do with our art, particularly with altered art; we "feather" our subjects. :) I like to think of it in this way now.

I began "feathering" this box with Gesso (of course)-hahahaha, a gel transfer and used my stamp sheet from Green Pepper Press for stamping. This is Michelle Ward's unmounted sheet Painted Ladies. I love it and am using it a lot. I added some beeswax and then decided to create a realistic approach to the nest using some things from the outdoors. Happy Feathering my friends! Love, Marilyn