So, which of these items do you think I’ll use? And what do you think I’ll do with them? Leave your thoughts in the comments below…

OK, I’ll admit it—this was sort of a setup. I’m good, but even I couldn’t make something significant from this pile of stuff. Stacy’s package provided inspiration for a previous article, so these items were sort of the leftovers, which I posted as a group intentionally so I could talk a little bit about the process of getting inspired by objects.

While these items as a group didn’t prompt me to create one big piece, they did give me several good nudges over the last couple of weeks. Here’s how:

I don’t eat any candy sweetened with sugar or aspartame, which means I don’t buy this product. I’ve always wanted to play with one of the tins, but it’s a drag to buy candy just to throw it away and save the container—not that I don’t do it regularly. I’ve never purchased one of these tins because I wasn’t sure if I could take it apart and discard the plastic portion. You all know how I feel about plastic, right? Bleh.

Armed with the tin from Stacy, and a pair of pliers, I finally got my answer. Yes, the plastic piece does pop out quite easily. Now I know firsthand, and can add this to the things I buy at the dollar store. The girls in my local group will be thrilled—they’re usually the recipients of the candy that’s been shucked from its container.

A lovely, round, metal container that’s shiny inside, and colored outside. What could be better? I have visions of little mermaid scenes already.

Let’s move on to the coasters. I’ve seen plenty of things made with these—book covers, tags, chunky book pages. I’ve tried using them myself, and found them a pitiful surface for most techniques. They’re coasters. They’re designed to suck up liquids. That means paint sinks into them and dries too quickly, glue stick doesn’t really keep things stuck to them, and they’re just generally miserable to beat into shape. Why torture myself turning these into something?

Instead, I’ll punch holes in these, and hang them on the wall with the rest of my templates—because they are great sizes and shapes for small projects. I can grab one of these and trace around it for perfect round pages, or squares with rounded corners.

Now, I know one or two of you put these two items together right way. So did I. The Rolodex cards fit perfectly into the little brown sacks. So, yes, I could have made something here—maybe a small book? Hmm, that sounds familiar….

…because I’ve already done a cute little paper bag book with cards in it. I posted it over in Decos and Small Books, in How-To Instructions, as an accordian spine book. It’s slightly larger, but still, it’s the same idea.

The second thing I thought is that I’ve been wanting to do some altered Rolodex cards. I’ve seen people swapping them—in fact, I posted some altered Rolos as Flickr Fun in the GMS blog recently. Here are some that have been posted recently:

Now, I totally love this idea, because people are always asking me what I do with altered art pieces. Altered Rolodex cards come with their answer inscribed on them—they’re really functional address cards for a Rolodex. They have a use, besides just being fun and pretty. How could I not want to swap these?

My first three Rolos, ready to swap. And there’s quite a long, ongoing swap of these running at ATCsForAll.com when I have the time to post them. Yay!

Perhaps I’ll do some nude Rolos in a plain brown wrapper—although I won’t be using the cards Stacy sent, since everyone seems to be swapping the larger, 3×5 cards. That also means I’ll have to make my own little bags from brown paper.

One last thing: the screen wire. This was sort of an obscure prompt—I’ve had a little shrine in the back of my head for over a year now. Just a tiny chair in a box, with no way out, called A Room of My Own. I have the chair, I have an assortment of boxes from which to choose, and I do have some screen for the front. This piece reminded me to drag all that back down onto my work table and do something about it. At some point, I’ll have a little shrine that looks something like this.

There you have it. An armload of inspiration for a variety of things, all from a pile of unrelated objects. Thanks, Stacy!

There were a couple of restrictions on this challenge. Participants weren’t allowed to use supplies like glitter, beads or fabrics they already had on hand, but we were allowed to use any tools and glues we owned. We were allowed to spend no more than $5 on items to augment the supplies sent to us, and were required to use at least three items from our packets. Other than that, it was open season!

So, here’s what was in my packet:

A piece of teal felt.
A few strands of raffia.
Silk flowers and leaves.
A handful of rubber bands.
A red and a pink balloon.
A lavender tulle circle
A little plastic baggie with a few beads, rhinestones, sequins, and a couple of sequin pins inside.

Any thoughts on how you’d use these to dress a doll?

I had to hunt down a Barbie, and pickings were sort of slim. I found this doll, whose hair was a nice match to the teal felt. However, she came with big plastic wings that were permanently attached. My first step was to perform a wing-ectomy, which left a small hole in her back. Hmm, something I’ll have to cover later…

Starting at the top, I wrapped the doll’s hair with one of the rubber bands, and tucked the silk flowers into her new up-do. The ends were a little scruffy, so I gave her a quick trim.

The teal felt reminded me of something—the linings of my TXU Energy bill envelopes. I get two of these in the mail every month, and I love the pattern of the tiny logos on the white background. I decided to do a dress that was half envelope, and half felt. I cut the envelopes up, and created half a bodice and skirt by folding, wrapping and taping directly to the doll’s body.

The other half of the dress was made from the felt, which I just wrapped, glued, and then cut to the correct length. To show off the patterned underskirt, I folded back the front and back of the felt skirt, and decorated by scalloping and punching holes along the edges.

Barbie still looked a little bare, so I added a small jacket made from a strip of felt and a strip of envelope. I wrapped each side to create sleeves. This covered up the small hole in her back, too.

Here’s the finished doll. I added a belt made from one of the balloons and another rubber band, decorated with rhinestones and the tulle circle. I also added earrings made from some of the goodies in the little plastic bag.

I had a lot of fun with this challenge. It was a great excuse to play with a doll for a day!

Edited on 2/24 to add:

Although this challenge is set up as a competition, I’m not particularly interested in that part. In fact, I’m against art competitions in general—for me, the challenge is making something, not winning some sort of art popularity contest.

Edited on 2/26 to add:

Wow, who knew this would elicit so many fun comments? Thanks for all the interesting feedback.

To those who want me to make them outfits: dream on! I spent ten years as a professional costume designer for stage. I’ve made all the people clothes I’m going to make in this lifetime. Besides, dolls don’t mind when the only way to keep a dress on is to pin it into their backs

This just in: local art friend Livia also entered photos of her doll, which was chosen as one of the finalists. Yay, Livia!

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/star-telegram-barbie/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/mary-darling-squares/ http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/mary-darling-squares/#comments Sun, 26 Nov 2006 01:05:06 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=248 In Mary’s bag of inspiration were an assortment of square and rectangular pieces. Along with standard and mini dominos, there were 2 inch square game pieces, and some bamboo placemat pieces that have holes already drilled from end to end.

Hmm—what will I make from these?

Well, some of you said jewelry, and that’s the first thing I always think of when I see a domino. I decided to turn the smaller dominos into decoupaged pendants, and use up some of the leftover faux postage images in my scrap pile.

I placed a domino over the faux postage images, and traced the shape, then cut them out. They required a tiny bit of trimming to fit onto the face of the domino without hanging over the curved edges. I didn’t worry too much about being precise about this, since the edges of each image will be covered with paint eventually.

I scuffed up the front, back and sides of each domino with some fine sandpaper, then painted the whole thing with acrylics that roughly matched an element in each image. I didn’t paint too much on the front of the dominos, since they’ll be covered with images—just enough to color the rounded edges.

When the paint was completely dry, I applied the images to the fronts of the dominos using a bit of matte medium. A light coat of medium on the domino, then the image, then another light coat over the top and edges. I set the dominos on a piece of plastic wrap to dry, so they wouldn’t stick to my work surface.

To blend the front and sides together, I sponged a bit of metallic paint onto each domino.

To give the dominos a way to hang, I glued a flat-sided bead to the top of each one with a bit of E6000.

I wanted a bit of sparkle, so I tapped around the edges with a little bit of glitter glue, then set the dominos aside to dry overnight.

To protect the surfaces of my finished pieces, I sealed them with a little Diamond Glaze. Any clear sealer will do.

Well, so much for the small dominos. Now, what should I do with the big squares?

I love working big, and when I was presented with big dominos, I seized the opportunity to make some big, showy jewelry. These were done with rubber stamps and Sharpies, which give a bright, colorful glow to the surface of the dominos. Think of Sharpies as conveniently packaged alcohol inks—they give the same transparent color as inks in liquid or pad form, and as a plus, they have a nice pointy tip for detail work.

First, I lightly scuffed the surface of the dominos with a little fine sandpaper. They don’t really need a good sanding—in fact, sanding them too much takes the shine off.

Next, I did a little drilling. I wanted to loop some cording throug the top of one piece, so a hole straight through from back to front was required. The easiest way to do this is to line the drill bit up with one of the holes in the domino, and let it be the guide for the bit.

I also wanted to suspend one piece from its sides, so I drilled two tiny holes with a fine drill bit, to hold small screw eyes.

I planned the placement of the stamped images by lining them up on the dominos. This is sort of a do or die kind of thing—once the ink is on the dom, it’s a hassle to get it off again. A little planning is definitely worthwhile.

I work backwards when stamping dominos, placing the stamp on its back, and patting it with ink, then placing the dom onto the inked surface. There’s less sliding that way, and I have one last chance to make sure that the image is going exactly where I want it on the front side.

I stamped the dominos with Staz-On ink, which is solvent based. I don’t usually enjoy working with this ink, but I’ve found that it tends to drag into the color much less than other inks. Just for fun, I heat set it, then set the stamped pieces aside overnight to be sure the ink was completely dry.

Coloring the images is fairly straighforward. The ink slides right onto the domino, and can be moved around easily when wet. I can also be thinned with plain old rubbing alcohol, and moved around with a brush. I created some mottled backgrounds by coloring the dominos, then dotting a little alcohol on them with a cotton swab. This is a quick way to do a polished stone technique.

As I colored, if any black ink seemed to get dragged into my field, I’d just scribble onto a piece of white paper to clean the tip of the Sharpie.

When the colored dominos were completely dry, I applied a light coat of Diamond Glaze to seal them.

I haven’t used the bamboo pieces Mary sent yet. Perhaps those will appear in a future project…

During the same meeting, Livia shared a book she had made. Bascially, she’d removed the page block completely, and inserted her own pages. As I was flipping through it, I had an idea for a similar type of book, using different techniques.

First, I removed the page block. Having done this on several books since I worked on this one, I’ve learned there are two types of end paper treatments: either the end paper is folded in half and glued to the page block close to the spine, or it’s cut and stitched into the page block. This book had the second type of treatment, so I simply cut the stitching with a craft knife, and gently persuaded the cover to come away from the block. If it had been glued, I could have gently pulled the end paper away from the block before cutting, leaving the whole piece attached to the book.

The result of cutting the page block away—an empty cover. Looks kind of sad, doesn’t it?

Now, I want to split the spine of the book, to turn it into two separate covers. The quickest way to do this is to simply fold the book at the spine and crease it, then flip it open and mark along the crease. Cut with a craft knife to split the cover in two.

The spine of the book felt a little flimsy to support the binding I had in mind, so I reinforced it. I didn’t have any decent supplies for this, but I did have some black duct tape. Since this portion of the book will not be seen ever again, I decided to give in to my white trash impulse, and use the duct tape. Ideally, I would have glued a strip of leather in with some decent glue, to keep the softness and flexibility of the spine, while giving in some reinforcement.

Next, I did some work on the exterior of the book. I decided to do a verdegris patina—I thought that sort of blue-green color would look lovely with the endpapers, and the finish would bring out the embossing details on the cover. I grabbed a bottle of metal basecoat, and painted it on, and when it was dry, I splashed on a bit of Patina Green and waited. Nothing happened for a long time. Then I started seeing tiny flecks of rust. Not good. I realized that I’d painted the book with the wrong basecoat for Patina Green, and that the chemical reaction just wasn’t happening. I washed the chemicals off, and let the book dry, which left me with a plain metal basecoat again. I had two choices—dig up the right basecoat, repaint, and hope that the right chemical reaction occurred when I applied the patina, or go with the chemicals intended for this particular basecoat. Well, rust would be OK with the endpapers, too, so I went with it. (Aren’t you glad to know that sometimes I completely screw up a project?)

With my covers now rusted and dried, I prepared the spine for binding. I wanted to use a piece of vintage wood ruler, attached with either wire or twine. I trimmed the ruler to size, and marked four holes in the center of the spine flaps. I punched the holes with a plain old paper punch.

Next, I created a template for pages. I used a piece of cardstock for this, lining it up with the endpapers of the book, and extending it out past the spine, then folding it back on itself. This created a page template with a folded tab to be tucked inside the spine. My experience with books like this one is that putting in flat pages often creates a book that flares out along the outer edge instead of laying flat. By folding pages back on themselves at the spine, creating a bit more bulk, the book will lay flatter when bound. Many paper photo albums are created using this same folding technique, allowing room for photos to be added in later without causing the book to flare open from the bulk.

Using the page template, I went in search of “pages”—papers, but also old photo folders, manila envelopes, wrapping paper folded into pockets, old dictionary pages. Whatever was laying around, and in the same general aqua/rust/manila/cream color palette was fair game. Some pages were too large for the book, and were trimmed down. Some were smaller—not every page had to be the full height and width of the book. I opened up the photo folders, and used their flaps as the spine section of the page.

Once all my pages were cut and punched according to the template, it was time to assemble the book. Since the pages were such different sizes and shapes, I needed a way to stack them and hold them in place until they were bound. I pushed four long screws through the holes in the back cover, and slid the pages down onto them. They were perfect for keeping everything aligned.

Some pages were particularly thick, like the manila envelopes and the photo folders. I wanted to give these a little more depth at the spine, so I cut strips leftover from trimming, and inserted them both on top and underneath those pages.

Last onto the screws was the front cover. When I was happy with the alignment of all the pages between the covers, I clamped everything together at the edge of the spine. This allowed me to remove the screws, leaving four clear holes from front to back for binding.

The binding for this book is really simple. I placed the vintage ruler over the holes, then wove wire down a hole, back up the next one, over the ruler, and down again.

Here’s the rusty result:

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/livia-hajovsky-book/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/kelly-parker-unrelated/ http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/kelly-parker-unrelated/#comments Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:00:11 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=246 Here’s what Kelly Parker sent me—she described it in her note as “a big pile of junk”:

Let’s see—a bingo card, some old pharmacy labels, a Rummikub tile, a washer, a button, a clever little paper box with a flip top, and two heavy metal plates wrapped with fibers (hey Kelly, what the heck are these, anyway?).

What would you make from these? One item? Two? Three? Which pieces go together, and which should be set aside for some other project?

A Woman of Numbers

This bag of stuff took a little sorting before the picture became clear. The first items I grouped together were these: the bingo card, the Rummikub tile, and the old pharmacy labels. The piece those items inspired really wouldn’t lend itself to my usual how-to article with step by step photos, because it’s mostly gluing once the pieces are chosen. Instead, I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about the development of a piece, and how I used these items as a jumping-off point.

I pulled these items into their own pile because they seemed to be related. Numbers. Science. Games. Someone who is all about numbers, both at work and play. I also liked that the items were all very straight and square. Straight lines indicate order—perhaps this is a piece about someone who is very orderly and precise? Slowly I began to walk around my workroom and assemble other items in keeping with this theme. Dominoes. A ruler. Paper printed with charts and tables. A numerical printer’s block.

When developing an assemblage, I like to tell some sort of story. Very early on, I decided this piece would be called A Woman of Numbers. I chose a very serious vintage photo of a woman from the turn of the century. Perhaps she was a doctor, or a scientist. Perhaps an accountant. Perhaps a gambler. I continued to add items to the plain wood box I chose as a container. This is what I ended up with:

The story of this woman is intentionally unclear. I’ve collected items that might have been from her life. Notice how almost all of them are square and regantular, and how they’re presented to the viewer straight on, rather than at angles? This is to visually reinforce the idea of order and regularity. There’s nothing left to chance here—whoever this woman was, she was very precise.

One more thing to notice—a technique called visual leading. Basically, you take the viewer by the hand, and lead them across the piece by ordering the visual elements in a way that leads the eye down a specific path. In this piece, the trail goes from the very large BINGO in the top left, down the stairsteps created by the postage stamps, the playing card, the printers block to the red soda cap (or across the ruler, depending on how your mind works). I’ve intentionally left the woman’s photo out of this trail, so that she is discovered only after viewing the other items.

Although placement of items in assemblage pieces often seems random, there’s usually a method to the artist’s madness—look for the story, and for the trail. Sometimes, they’ve been place there intentionally. Sometimes, they just appear on their own.

Day of the Dead Pendant Box

My next group of items was the cute little box with a flip-top lid, and the big silver washer. These were just asking to be hung from a cord around my neck—but first, they needed a little spiffing up.

I decided to do a little magazine collage as a background. I found blocks of bright colors: orange, yellow, lime, fuschia and aqua. I cut the pieces into narrow strips.

The strips were applied to the box with a little matte medium.

I applied a stamp from my Day of the Dead faux postage sheet to the front of the box, and set it aside to dry.

When the box was completely dry, I gave it a coat of Diamond Glaze to seal it.

While the glaze was drying, I tore three strips of fabric in colors matching my collage strips, and braided them together.

I looped the ends of the braid through the center of the washer, and wrapped them with black decorative thread.

When the box was dry, I applied a little glue to the sides of the box, and pushed the braid into it, centering the washer below the box.

I wrapped the box with a bit of black thread, and a little silver wire threaded with a few beads. This was both decorative, and a way to make sure the braid stays attached to the box while it’s being worn.

I tore a few more strips of fabric, added some fibers, and looped the whole mess through the washer to create a tassel, wrapping below the washer with a bit of black thread.

A few beads on the tassel strands, and my pendant is finished.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/kelly-parker-unrelated/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/kimberly-moore-serendipity/ http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/kimberly-moore-serendipity/#comments Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:58:22 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=245 Here’s what Kimberly sent me—lots of small pieces:

The bag contained small pieces of papers and fabrics, none larger than a quarter sheet. Also, some fibers, a few small images, and some tiny heart-shaped charms.

So, what would you make from this bag of stuff? How would you sort it into related pieces? What items are missing to complete the project you envision?

I immediately sorted the pile of scraps into three color-themed groups: white and gold, pink and black, and orange and yellow. Very often, color is what speaks to me first, and is what I use to organize when presented with lots of pieces. Once sorted, I saw three different sheets of background papers, each needing a slightly different approach.

Now, you’ve all read my article on making serendipity squares, right? I’m going to use a some variations of this technique to create full sheets of paper for later use.

Just Plain Glue

The first sheet is going to use the white and gold pieces. I augmented this pile with a piece or two from my own scrap bin, which is usually overflowing with bits from previous projects.

The pieces were all sort of square and straight. I started tearing to give some irregular edges. I also removed some layers of the thicker scraps, like the business card. I was able to just peel the printed layer off, and toss the remainder of the card. No sense adding bulk we don’t need.

Next, some gluing. I used a sheet of lightweight cover stock as a background for this, in white. Very often, I’ll choose a background paper that’s sort of color coordinated with my pieces, or that will add to the composition somehow.

I glued pieces to the background randomly with a glue stick. Sometimes they overlapped a bit. I wasn’t too worried about covering every bit of the background paper.

Now, a little stamping. I used a couple of script stamps, some brown ink, and gold embossing powder. I sort of aimed for the bare white spots of background showing through, but not too carefully.

When the embossing powder was cool, I decided the white of the background paper was still a little stark, so I toned it down with a little chalk ink, rubbing it on the paper randomly.

There was one white paper that was sort of whispy and holey—I left that to glue on last. Very often, alternating gluing and stamping works best with this technique, to give the paper a more interesting lost and found effect.

Standing back from the sheet so far, it looked a little disconnected—like a bunch of pieces glued down rather than one whole sheet of interesting paper. To help blend a bit more, I spattered a bit of white acrylic over the whole sheet. This gave it more visual interest, and helped break up any areas that were still solid.

One last addition to blend it all together: random dots of gold glitter glue. Glitter glue gets a bad rap as an art material because so many people use it badly. I like it to add just a bit of sparkle her and there.

The finished result:

Gel Medium and Paint

The next pile was pink and black, and had some ribbon in it. Glue stick won’t really do the trick here, so I decided to use some gel medium.

For this paper, I used a heavier background: watercolor paper. This was both mostly an adjustment for the wet media. Paint needs more support than glue.

The first layer of papers was from my own pile of scraps: some Chinese newspaper, and pink construction paper. I just randomly applied it into a layer of gel medium.

I didn’t have a lot of pink scraps around, so I went ahead and used a bit of paint to tone the background down. I’m a no frills sort of painter: I just squirt a bit onto the paper, and move it around with a big brush.

All that solid pink sort of made my teeth hurt, so I stamped some fern leaves over itwith black ink. I set the ink with a heat gun to keep it from smearing.

Next, I applied some scraps with gel medium. I also cut up the gingham ribbon and applied it to the paper. This takes a bit more gel medium and a little more drying time than paper.

The paler pink scraps really stood out, so I added some pale pink paint splatters to help blend them with the brighter pink background and scraps.

The finished result:

Fusible Webbing and Some Sewing

OK, one more pile: lots of fun prints in orange, yellow, and just a bit of purple. This pile had both paper and fabric in it, and a bunch of fibers and ribbons. This looked very ethnic and freeform to me, so I decided a little freeform sewing was in order.

One of my favorite ways of dealing with scraps of fabric is to use fusible webbing to hold it in place while I work with it. I used some scraps of Steam a Seam for this project: it has a bit of temporary adhesive to keep things in place while you’re working, and then can be ironed down for permanent placement.

First, I lined up all my bits and pieces on the Steam a Seam, and trimmed around them.

Next, I fused the adhesive to the papers and fabrics. I know this stuff is designed for quilting, but paper likes it just as well as fabric.

Once the Steam a Seam is fused to the pieces, the backing paper can be removed. It now has just a tiny bit of temporary adhesive to hold it in place while I’m playing with placement.

I cut papers and fabrics into random pieces, and arranged them on a sheet of bright yellow paper.

When I was happy with the placement, I anchored everything down with an iron. I could have stopped right there—the paper is perfectly usable once everything is fused down, and no further gluing is required. Simple, eh?

Now, I’ve been sewing since I was big enough to see over the top of a machine table, but my machine doesn’t get much of a workout anymore. Freeform sewing on the occasional sheet of paper is about as far as I get. I whipped the cover off the machine, and it was already threaded up with some bright yellow rayon thread, so I set it for a wide zig-zag stitch, and sewed a few random lines. Then I stitched down all the bits and pieces of fibers and ribbons. Then, just for laughs, I stitched some jute twine onto the paper.

This paper was already pretty colorful, but I couldn’t resist adding a bit more. I dotted the page with purple, green and gold glitter glue.

Here’s the finished result:

The slides can be removed from the magazine. So, board box, metal magazine, metal slides.

First, I removed all but three of the metal slides. I know some of you were hoping I’d do something that included every single slide, but straight off, I knew that wasn’t for me. The slide holders are so tight in the magazine that it made them hard to pull out, and even harder to put back in gracefully. It’s been my experience that most people, when presented with an item that doesn’t move easily, will opt not to move it, fearing that they’ll break the piece—and these slides were giving me that kind of vibe. I decided early on that I’d use just a handful of them, and figure out something that made it easy to slide them out a bit, but not require them to come out all the way. These extras are set aside for another project, which I’ll post down the road.

I worked from the outside in on this project, because the inside required a little more thought. I decided the whole box was going to be some sort of pirate themed extravaganza, so the exterior of the box became a treasure map. I simply coated the exterior of the box with gel medium, and wrapped it with a page from a large atlas, then trimmed along the edges.

The ends of the box were snipped to the corners, then the two side pieces tucked inward, and the last flap glued in place upward. Nice and neat.

I toned the whole box, inside and out, with a little brown glaze. I have a bottle of Golden glaze for this, but a bit of glazing medium and some cheap brown acrylic will do the same thing. I applied in a circular motion with a foam sponge—lots of control, and no brush strokes.

I glued three wooden game piece blocks to the bottom of the box, to give it a little weight, and an obvious base. I toned the wood with the same brown glaze. It ended up looking very much like a shipping pallet when finished.

OK, on to the slide magazine. I removed the front ID strip, acetate, and support board and set them aside to use later.

I dripped alcohol inks over all the metal surfaces, and patted them down with a little alcohol extender on felt. Sort of a modified polished stone technique, in caramel and brown to look sort of rusty.

The slide holders also got a coat of alcohol inks on both sides. Pretty much everything that was silver previously is now sort of a mottled rust color.

I cut 2×2 pieces of plexiglass, and slid them into the slide holders. These will be clear shelves inside the chest, which will make the most of the light that comes through the front and back of the piece.

I printed a vintage pirate girl image, and trimmed it down to fit the front opening, using the old ID strip as a guide. Over the image, I stamped a little text.

The image was put back into the front of the magazine, with a cardboard support strip tucked behind, and the original sheet of acetate over the top. The acetate was just a little bit yellowed, which worked nicely to tone down the very vivid colors of the print.

I decided to wrap the front with some fibers, and add some keys, but I really didn’t want to interfere with what I had planned for the interior. My solution was to poke a hole in one side of the magazine with an awl, and run my fibers through the hole. They’re barely noticable inside the box this way.

I was very easy to fill this box with goodies, because each shelf slides out. The bottom shelf got some rolled up papers and maps, the middle one has three glass bottles filled with various strange substances, and the top shelf got a shell supporting a gaudy rhinestone brooch I pulled off a shirt a bought last year.

The exterior seemed to need just a little more attention. I cast a skull using a sugar skull mold and some air dry clay, painted it up and wrapped a piece of cloth around it as a head scarf. The skull, an old coin, and some old chicken bones were arranged on the top of the box.

The finished treasure chest:

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/carolyn-brady-chest/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/lazzelle-parker-atcs/ http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/lazzelle-parker-atcs/#comments Sun, 07 May 2006 04:20:26 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=242 Middle school art teacher Lazzelle Parker sent me a little box of goodies, including these wonderful pieces of painted paper. I used a few of these in my previous article, but I had quite a few of them left. I just had to find out about them, and think of something fun to make from them.

In emailing with Lazelle, I learned the origin of these pieces. She told me that at clean-up time, her students love to fold their cardstock paint palettes, which often have quite a bit of paint left on them, and put them on the drying rack with their paintings. Without knowing it, her students are making a form of monoprint, and creating some incredible background papers. (More about monoprinting can be found in the how-to section of the site.)

The first thing that came to mind when I saw these papers was artist trading cards. Each piece was just large enough to cut two cards, with very little waste.

I just squared off each piece with my paper trimmer, and cut two 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inch cards from each one. There was a little bit of waste, which allowed me to sort of trim off whichever edge was least interesting.

These ATCs look pretty great all by themselves, don’t they? The colors are really wonderful. My goal is just to do a little accenting, without covering up too much of the backgrounds.

I did some really minimal rubber stamping with black dye ink, and stamps from Ink & the Dog and Stamp Camp. I planned my stamping to cover any flaws, like paint that had flaked off, or islands of white paper without any color on them.

A few buttons and some glue, and I have a really wonderful set of ATCs.

I’ve been looking at my own waste paint differently since these cards arrived. Now, I’m smooshing a piece of cardstock into the extra paint at the end of every painting session. I’m also keeping an extra piece of cardstock next to me to clean off my brushes. Next time I want to do a quick set of ATCs, I’ll be that much farther ahead.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/lazzelle-parker-atcs/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/lazzelle-parker-shrine/ http://gomakesomething.com/challenges/52bags/lazzelle-parker-shrine/#comments Sun, 26 Mar 2006 04:17:57 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=241 Lazelle is a middle school art teacher, and she sent me goodies from her smock pockets and desk drawer. There were all sorts of arty things—enough to fill a small box. With this many items, a little sorting was in order, just to give me a clear direction. Sometimes, too many things just clutter up the decision making process. After making piles all over my work table, I decided that the best way to sort was by color. My first pile was red, yellow and orange, and contained almost-empty paint pans, pieces of crayons and wrappers, tissue paper (which was really packing material—but hey, anything in the box is fair game), colored pencils, and a fabulous piece of cardstock that looked like it had been monoprinted. (More about monoprinting is coming soon, thanks to Lazzelle’s inspiration.)

At the same time I put my piles in order, I hit a half off wood sale at Hobby Lobby. In amongst their new spring wood offerings were narrow boxes with lids, and I bought an armload in various sizes, thinking they’d make lovely shrines. I decided to try a couple of them out with Lazzelle’s goodies.

First, I basecoated the box in a color taken from the monoprinted piece. In this case, it was a beautiful vivid yellow. Pine boxes tend to suck paint like crazy. Some people choose to do a light sealer over the wood before painting, but I tend to just do two coats of cheap paint, and let some of the wood grain and texture show through. I set the box aside to dry completely while I worked on other things.

I decided to line the interior of the box with some of the monoprinted piece. I’m not big on measuring things like this, because no matter how careful I am, I always get the size wrong. Instead, I just placed the piece on top of the open box, and marked the size of the piece I’d need. I cut this with a paper cutter to make a straight, clean cut.

I glued the piece in with gluestick. Don’t be shy with the glue when working on a wood surface. It takes a liberal application to get paper to stick permanently.

I had enough of the monoprint left to do a piece on the front of the box. It looked a little bland against the yellow cover by itself, so I used a piece of red tissue to create a narrow border around the piece, then glued the whole thing to the front using plenty of gluestick.

I loved the little empty paint pans for size and shape. I cleaned them up, and then added a little color back to them with watercolors.

Once the watercolors set up, I glued them to the cover of the shrine.

I sealed the box inside and out with some Diamond Glaze. This is a quick way to give anything a glossy surface, and adds a layer of protection to a piece that will probably be handled a bit. On the front cover, I just painted glaze over the papers and around the paint pans.

When the glaze dried, I started gluing things inside. I wandered around my workroom and picked up a few things that were in the right color palette—a red block, and a bottle I could fill with red glitter glue—and added them to the pencils, crayons and paint pans I already had. Everything was glued in with E6000.

I didn’t want to do too much on the inside front cover, since the interior of the shrine was already so busy. I simply printed out the words red, yellow and orange on white cardstock, cut them up and attached them with three tiny clothespins Lazzelle included in her package.

Here’s the finished result of the red, orange and yellow pile:

What happens if the pile of goodies is another color combination—say, black, white and grey?

I decided to do a similar shrine in a slightly smaller box, and started off the same way: painting the box, cutting up the monoprint to line the box and decorate the cover.

The cover of this shrine was slightly different: three blocks from the monoprint frame three items from my pile.

Here’s the finished result of my black, white and grey pile:

• Brightly colored foil teabag wrappers. I’ve played with paper teabag wrappers in the past, and much as I’d like to turn them into little pockets, they’re often not strong enough. These foil ones seemed a little more substantial.
• Change wrappers. I thought some of these might make interesting background papers when combined with plain brown craft paper.
• Coin holders. I like anything round, and anything clear. These offered a little round plastic window just asking to have something tucked behind it.

I’m not big on card making, but these items seemed to be ideal for working on a smaller scale. Often I find it difficult to scale down my normally large work to create a decent card, so starting with smaller pieces that interested me was a big help.

For the first two cards, I used white cardstock for the base. I simply cut a sheet in half, and then folded the two pieces in half to create the basic card.

For the raspberry card, I covered the front face of the white card with some rose printed tissue, and trimmed around the edges. Instant matching background!

To create a little pocket from the teabag wrapper, all I had to do was tear the front of the wrapper down a little bit. Pockets always seem to work better when the front is just a little lower than the back. It makes whatever tucks into them slide a little easier.

I grabbed some paint sample chips, which seemed to coordinate well with the bright colors of the wrappers, and cut a tag from one. Rather than cutting on the straight, I made my first cut diagonally.

I glued the pocket down to the front of the card at an angle. I did this with the tag tucked inside the pocket for better positioning. Don’t glue down the pocket, then tuck the tag inside—it will generally not result in ideal placement.

A little ribbon and stamping on the tag, and this card was complete.

For the chamomile card, I used a large yellow paint chip as the front face of the card. I cut it on an angle, then erased the remaining printing. This technique is also discussed in the article I mentioned above.

One of the coin holders turned into a tag tucked into the teabag wrapper pocket. I glued two dried daisies to a piece of clear acetate, then glued the coin holder over it. This way, the background of the card could show through the window, behind the daisies. I stamped over the front of the holder with a little dye ink. DO NOT use a heat gun to dry these—the little window is plastic, and melts very easily.

I tucked the window tag into the pocket, glued it to the card front, and glued the whole thing to the white cardstock card base.

The orange card was made from a brown paper bag folded in half. I glued a paint chip to one side of the front. The tag tucked into the pocket is a manilla tag, trimmed down and covered with one of the change wrappers, then mounted on some solid cardstock to create an orange border around the outer edge.

Here are my finished cards: