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Archive for the ‘altered art’ Category

Still in Fairy Tale Land

Posted in altered art, ephemera, inspiration, vintage toy, tagged , , , , , on August 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

This week I’m visiting with Little Red Riding Hood courtesy of Agence Eureka. If you are not familiar with that totally awesome blog you should click the link and check it out. It is emphera heaven!

chaperon2.0

chaperon1.0

This particular entry is a Toy Theatre. How cool is that?

chaperon3.0

And here is a diagram showing how to put it together. You’ll need some cardboard to make the box that serves as a surround, cereal or cracker boxes will work. Use a wire or a bamboo skewer as a handle for the figures. Or pipe cleaners or whatever else you have handy. Remember the important thing is to Have Some Fun!

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Spending some time with Hansel and Gretel

Posted in altered art, book, doll house, ephemera, illustration, puppet, vintage toy, tagged , , , , on July 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been thinking about fairy tales a lot lately. No real reason, just something about the hot weather I guess.

Maybe it’s the heat that makes me long for cool breezes off the lake, in the shade of big, big trees. Which leads me to Hansel and Gretel. I mean, who hasn’t wanted a secret little get-away cottage in the deep dark forest? Especially one made of food.

Hansel and Gretel House

So this one is also a paper model. With an oven. Which you could use to make s’mores or a roast turkey or some cookies to make a matching wishing well. Bonus, it has a weirdo looking paper doll Gretel with some spare clothes.

Hansel and Gretel outside the Witch's House

This house has a gingerbread rooster roof ornament, pretzels trim and almond cookie quoins on the corner of the house. Plus a twisty tree and that not quite a fence of pretzels and almond cookies.

Hansel Gretel - Voodoo gingerbread house

Similar to the last one this house has voodoo face cookies, people cookies, a bunny cookie and check out the snake in the lower right left. As in your other right.

hansel-and-gretel - anton pieck

I love the curvy organic-ness of this house by Anton Pieck, I really like his illustration style — you should do a google image search of him.

Hansel and Gretel puppet book

This puppet book with a house of real cookies and candy is kinda jokey but I still like it.

vegetable house

And lastly, this is not a Hansel and Gretel house but maybe you could think of it as a green healthy alternative.

 

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New Hermes Printable Bags

Posted in accessory, altered art, ephemera, tagged , on June 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

For those of you who missed out on the Hermes Kelly bag printables (no longer available); take heart. Hermes has issued a new collection of printables.

Hermes clutch bag printables

Really adorable! Five fun designs and a blank for you to decorate yourself. I wanted to wait until I had printed out a few and played with them but a nasty headache has intervened.

So go here and download your own copies — now! Past history indicates that these won’t be available for very long so go download the files today even if you know you won’t be able to play with them for a while. Hint: click on “I want it” to get a window with the pdf file then save it to your computer; repeat for each bag design you like.

If you really want a Kelly bag; try this blog post. Coquette has kindly put a blank template with assembly instructions of the Kelly on her blog.

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Art Raven for Charity

Posted in altered art, tagged , , on September 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

Yes, I adopted this raven. No really, this is my contribution for a local art charity event “Art the Flock Up!”. All the embellished ravens will be on display in downtown Adrian both inside and outside of community buildings throughout the month of October. They will then be auctioned off on October 28 at a reception and poetry event celebrating the works of Edgar Allen Poe at 6:30 p.m. at the Adrian Public Library. The money raised will go to support the LCVA and Lenawee Reads.

I was in the library a few weeks ago and I saw this crazy bird dressed like John Belushi as a Bee sitting on top of one of the short bookcases in the lobby area. There was a sign that said “Adopt a Raven” and “In the Spirit of Poe”. Curiosity won, I asked a librarian “What’s the deal with the bird?”. A tenner later I was strolling out with my very own blank raven, OK, my very own blank crow decoy.

I decided to do mine up as, well, Raven. It just seemed like too good an opportunity to do some native american art to pass up. I modified some northwest coast clip art images and made stenciled fabric appliqués which I then glued in place. I used freezer paper stencils to apply white paint to orangey-red fabric. The stylized hands on the wings were fiddley to glue on but I’m pleased with the final effect.

This face mask/moon disk will no doubt get used again, I really like the way the stencil turned out. I had some fun with this and can’t wait to see what other people did with their birds. If you’re in the Adrian area please stop by the reception and join the fun!

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My Chair for “Chair-ity”

Posted in altered art, tagged on August 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This year is the first time I’m participating in a local arts fundraiser. The 3rd Annual Chair-ity Auction is a fun event that will be taking place during the Art-A-Licious Festival in Adrian, Michigan (September 17 & 18). The money raised will be used to benefit the Art-A-Licious Festival and the Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee Art Program. Local artists are asked to “create constructed, altered, and/or embellished chairs”; you can use your own chair or use one of those provided. Here’s the chair I chose:

It’s an older wooden chair that came out of one of the city offices (there’s a little metal plaque on the underside of the seat). What drew me to it was the incongruity of the straight forward no-nonsense slatted back and dished seat combined with those rather odd curved arms and turned arm supports and front legs. This was a chair that screamed out “I want to be Silly!”.

So I obliged:

I’m calling it Motley. What with the Jester colors I chose to paint it, I couldn’t very well call it much of anything else. The dominant color is the dark purple of the back, back legs and larger portions of the turned areas. The green is so very nearly neon that I’m glad I chose a darker rose and an almost school bus yellow as the other bright colors. The seat and stretcher bars I painted a dark blue to add balance and a bit of (strictly tongue in cheek) gravitas.

A side note on the names paint manufacturers give to colors. I used a national brand of acrylic craft paint on this project and if you can believe it they called this particular green: Apple Orchard. Apple Orchard, mind you, Apple Orchard; where is the hypothetical orchard this color came from? The Altered States of Drugachusetts*??

*Yes, I’ll admit it. I’m a huge Mr. Show fan and will watch very nearly anything (even if it’s otherwise rather sucky) if David Cross is in it.

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