Flying bird thing.....!!!

Hello!
In between all manner of organising, plotting and planning this week (did I mention I'm the new Craft Stamper Magazine Editor?!?! squeeeeeeee!!!), I actually managed to squish in some crafting time. I made a 'thing'............ with birds on!

My rainbow birds are by Tando. I didn't do anything complicated to them, just painted with bright colours. The wing s are separate parts, so these were glued into place before I doodled and added dots...

The birds were glued to some wire that I had coiled by wrapping around a skewer. The wire was then pushed down the centre of a white painted spool. A little cut up book page 'frill' (or grass maybe?) to hide the hole!
I cut lengths of cord, and knotted it around the spool to decorate. I really love how that turned out, will be doing that again!

Some tiny stickers for the word, and it was done!
A bit mad, a bit quirky...just a 'me' thing lol!!
Have a great week,
Trish xxx

Let It Snow...

Or, bring on the weird Christmas assemblages!
Hello!
Remember back in the summer when I created an Art Doll with a glass vial for a body? No? THIS one....
Whilst I was creating her, I had an idea for something else..but I've had to wait until it was the appropriate time of the year to show you!
My snowmen......

I used the smallest three vials in the Craft Medley set to create my snowy scene...
Filled with 'snowballs' (i.e the filling from a beanbag!), with tiny dotty buttons and some printed out words..

I wrapped some red cord around the neck of the bottle to resemble a scarf..

The heads are felt balls that I created months and months ago to use as beads for another project. Felting your own beads/balls is a palaver and a half, involving lots of soapy hot water and squeezing and rolling. I would recommend doing an online search for white felt beads!!!!!
The eyes are tiny seed beads, and the nose is the pointy end of a bamboo skewer, painted orange..

I had fun with these, and they have now been kidnapped by my youngest daughter who thinks they're very cute! Which is odd...'cute' wouldn't be my number one aim when creating anything! *note to self* must be weirder......
See you soon!
Trish xxxx

Butterfly Doll

Hello!

When is an Art Doll not an Art Doll?..... um.... when it's a butterfly attached to a canvas on legs?!

My project today is a variation on a theme...yes it's a doll, but this one isn't a free standing piece by itself, it's an embellishment..

I'll show you how I made her...

The three main bits are made from clay. As I wanted holes through them, I poked a bit of wire through in the appropriate places! 

The clay then got painted and stamped a little...

The easiest way to get a detailed design on a curved surface is to use stamped tissue paper. I stamped everything, then made sure the ink was dry...

(I stamped two faces as I wasn't sure at this point which one I was going to use!)

The stamped images were then cut out and glued onto the clay using Mod Podge..

It's really useful having holes in the clay, as the wire can be pushed through again and rested on something whilst the Mod Podge dries!

Once the Mod Podge has dried, we can start to assemble the doll.

You'll need lots of craft wire for this! Cut two pieces, then thread both through the horizontal hole...

Make spirals at the ends of the wire (you can always fiddle about at the end and make these smaller or larger if you need to)

 Next, make a loop at one end of a long strand...

Thread on the large 'body'..

Thread on the 'head'

Tightly coil the remaining wire around and around the top of the head, both creating a design feature and securing the head and body of your doll...

I wrapped more wire around her neck...

Now, adding on the 'bead' at the bottom requires a bit of jewellery making technique... but really, just practice making loops and wrapping wire around things. We're not making jewellery, so it doesn't matter if it's not perfect!

Thread a bit of wire through the hole in the bead, and bend like so...

Make sure one 'tail' is a lot longer than the other at this point. Make a loop with the shorter tail, and join it onto the loop under the body...

Wrap both ends loads of times around the wire and the top of the bead. Messy is good!

Now for the wings! Stamp the Stampotique wings twice, once onto acetate, and once onto painted cardstock...

Cut out, bend the acetate then glue together....

Once the glue is dry, glue on the clay body...

Now the butterfly doll is finished, it can be attached to whatever you fancy!

I painted a canvas, stamped it with dots (Darkroom Door) and glued the doll to the front..

The doll gives a fabulous 3D look to your work..

I used painted spools as legs..

and added thick wire as a hanger. More thin craft wire was wrapped around to echo the wire elsewhere on the piece, and a cut out word added...

Phew...! Hope you like her!

Trish xxxx

'To Dream Of A Fairy' Art Doll

Hello!
Yep, me again! Bet you're getting sick of me this summer eh?!
I did warn you... Art Dolls are my favourite thing right now....so here's another one!

Art Dolls can be constructed in as many ways as your imagination can dream up, and with this one, the body is a clear glass vial. I used the largest bottle from the Craft Medley Bottle Set as the body for this one!
I added tiny scrunched up bits of text paper to the bottom of the bottle, along with a sprinkling of turquoise glitter...

I suspended a punched out heart in the bottle, easily done by gluing thread to the heart, then using a needle to thread the other end through the cork. The 'wings' are also easy to construct, I created a triple bow using waxed cord, then simply tied the bow onto the bottle neck. As it's waxed, the cord holds it shape and the loop shapes don't go all droopy!
No apologies for using another Prima Mechanicals Pendant.... these are fast becoming a must have in every project! The medium sized pendant is exactly the right size for the bottle to sit in...

The pendant is great on lots of levels, fab petal shape, very easy to colour with paint, but best of all, it has a hole in the middle! This means its a doddle to use to create the base. I used a thick strand of wire to join the disc of the base and the pendant together. One end of the wire was glued into a hole drilled in the base, the other end was threaded through the hole in the pendant, bent over at right angles and then glued. The glitter/paper layer in the bottle help to disguise the wire, but I did give everything a coat of white gesso under the bottle as well!
The legs are painted paper...

Glued onto the front of the wire holding up the bottle!
The Art Doll face is a Stampotique favourite, the crown is a Stampotique design too!

Stamped onto text paper, glued onto card then cut out. I glued a short pin onto the back of the face, then simply pushed the pin into the cork to secure!
Hope you like her, a few ideas for you to try out maybe?!

See you soon!
Trish xxx

Converse with spirits!

Hello!
A little quirky assemblage from me today!......

I found the phrase in an old book, I definitely think the hare may be looking skyward trying to find someone to talk to!
I documented the process, so you can see how it was put together.
The bright colours come from inks, India inks and Acrylic inks. Bright enough to make an impact, but translucent so the book text shows through perfectly. I watered the ink slightly, then sponged it over my pages...

I dried the page, then glued it to a bit of card. I then glued another page of a different colour to the back of the card, giving me double sided, multicoloured text!

I then drew some leaf/petal/long arch shapes on the text. Totally random, although I did make sure there were some larger than others. I doodled on them too...

I cut them out, flipped them over and doodled on the other side...

The edges need to be coloured...

Next, I stamped the hare (Crafty Individuals) onto plain text, and again onto a scrap of the yellow. I cut the crown from the yellow....

Then stuck the hare to some card to give it more stability, then cut that out too.....

Glue the yellow crown over the plain one, then once dry the hare can be stuck to the stand, which in this case is a wooden spool. I use a cube bead to do this, glue the bead to the spool...

Then the hare is glued to the flat face of the cube....

Then, I attached the petal shapes. First, glue the smallest shapes around the spool....

The larger shapes were glued in a second layer on top of the small petals..

Once done, the hare will be nearly hidden!

Start to gently roll the shapes up, I rolled them around a pencil to get them to curl nicely! Once done, the hare will once again come into view....

The need for a double sided petal becomes more obvious when they are curled, and the contrast between different colours on the same shape comes into it's own....

I had a couple of shapes left, so glued these to the base of the spool, then I added my phrase..

As a finishing touch, I tied a little black cord around the petal shapes. Not needed in a functional sense, just a final decorative touch!

I hope you like my quirky hare, I have been creating lots of assemblage recently, and I love it!
See you soon!
Trish xxx