Vintage Ads or Labels. Mixed Media Monday. The Best Christmas Ever.

This is my entry for this week's challenge at Mixed Media Monday, which is to use vintage ads or labels in a design.

I have a wonderful Victorian ad for a brass doll bed, "The Best Holiday Present for Little Girls".  I also have a Dover CD with this charming image.  The girls in both the ad and in the clip art were holding their babies just so... With some computer alterations, some collage, foiling and embellishing, this trading card came together.  It was the best Christmas ever...

Floral Tribute. Mixed Media Monday, Earth Laughs in Flowers

This is my piece for this week's theme at Mixed Media Monday, Floral Tributes.

My tribute is to our Earth, which during this time of year, as Ralph Waldo Emerson so famously said, is laughing in flowers.

This is a 6x6 inch mixed media art quilt. The base is some of my hand dyed fabric.  I have stamped and layered vintage buttons and vintage and contemporary trims on top of the base fabric.

Personal Symbols. Mixed Media Monday. Nature Inspired Art

This is my entry for this week's challenge, Personal Symbols, at Mixed Media Monday.  This is a 6x6 inch art quilt. The base is an image of some of my handmade paper, scanned and manipulated in the computer then transferred to fabric.  I've added scraps of the original handmade paper, mica, net ribbon, a transparency with a poem, all stitched, and finally some local shells added as an embellishment. 

We were asked to reflect on the images, colors and/or themes that recur in our art.  For me it is nature, hands down.  When I look at my art, I see lots of flowers, trees, forest themes and of course the sea.  I often bring home bits and pieces of the place I have walked, be it beach or forest, to use in my art, or just to keep close (see this studio snapshot).  I feel at my best when outdoors and close to the elements, and I often use the ocean as a theme in my work.  There is a timelessness to the ocean, a sense of eternity and peace that I derive from being near it.  It helps me see myself, like ee cummings eludes to in the poem I use in this piece (see below).

In addition to images, words are also really important to me, words are powerful and evocative.  I often use them in my art, whether they can be seen by the viewer or not.

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

~ee cummings

Marie Antoinette. Mixed Media Monday.

This is my entry for this week's challenge, Marie Antoinette, at Mixed Media Monday.

Tea stained tag, stamped, rub ons, vintage button card facscimile, stitched, with vintage French ribbon, old mother of pearl buttons and vintage paper flower as embellishments.

It turns out that the challenge at Three Muses for this week is "cards", and that got me looking at my vintage button cards and I found this gorgeous, pristine button card with a Marie Antoinette-style graphic. I scanned the button card to use as the image for the tag. I sewed through all the button holes and added 3 real buttons to the image.

I also have a couple of jewelry designs available at Bumbershoot Designs inspired by and named after Marie, using very old vintage glass pearls.

One light...

And one dark...

These earrings are regular items at Bumbershoot Designs, available here. If you can't find them, just contact me and I'll help you out.

Mothers. Mama A Rainbow. Mixed Media Monday

This is my entry for this week's Mixed Media Monday theme of "mothers".  This art quilt is my attempt to capture a very special moment in my life, a unique Mother's Day present from my son Eric. We're not big on Mother's or Father's Day, we basically try to approach every day as Mother's Day and Father's Day and Children's Day. So it was a real surprise when Eric sang me this song (lyrics below) on Mother's Day a couple of years ago... I still get a bit teary every time I read these lyrics as I hear his incredibly beautiful clear boy soprano singing this song for me.  I deeply value my role as a mother to Eric and my daughter Emma, and I can't think of anything that has blessed me more in my life than the presence of three very special people, Emma, Eric, and my husband Jim.

Hand dyed fabric, ribbon, transfer of Eric's heart drawing, then stitched, photo transfer, stamping, crystal, vintage rhinestones.

Mama A Rainbow 

~Jim Nabors

What do you give to the lady who has given

All her life and love to you

What do you give to the reason you are livin'

I could window shop the world

Before I'm through

Mama, a rainbow

Mama, a sunrise

Mama, the moon to wear

That's not good enough

No not good enough

Not for Mama

Mama, a palace

Diamonds like door knobs

Mountains of gold to spare

That's not rich enough

No not rich enough

Not for Mama

Mama, a life time crowded with laughter

That's not long enough

Not half long enough

What can I give you

That I can give you

What will your present be

Mama, young and beautiful

Always young and beautiful

That's the Mama I'll always see...

That's the Mama with love from me

What can I give you

What will your present be

Mama, young and beautiful

Always young and beautiful

That's the Mama I'll always see...

That's the Mama with - love - from - me...

I Feel Pretty. Mixed Media Monday

This is my entry for this week's challenge at Mixed Media Monday, "I Feel Pretty".  I've been working on this button bracelet for some time, and the color palette seemed to fit the challenge, so I was inspired to finish it!  It features many vintage items, including glass pearls, buttons and beads, plus a touch of contemporary tiny peach moonstone beads interspersed thoughout.  A mix of eras (1940's to contemporary) and a mix of materials (glass, plastic, metal).

Lots and lots of pretty...

Update May 1, 2020: Now available at Bumbershoot Designs, you will find this bracelet here.

Look What I Found. Mixed Media Monday

Oh my. All you have to do is go to Bumbershoot Supplies to see "what I found" :)

But for this week's Mixed Media Monday challenge, I focused on one of the most special places in the world to me, the ocean. We are blessed  in Seattle to be very close to water everywhere, including salt water in the form of Puget Sound. And the Pacific Ocean is not too far away.

This is a 6x6 inch art quilt using my hand dyed cloth as a base and featuring some of the treasures I have collected in my trips to the beach.

One of my favorite poets, ee cummings, captures my feelings about the sea so well:

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Hello Dolly. Mixed Media Monday

These are my pieces for this week's challenge of Hello Dolly, on Mixed Media Monday.  We watch A LOT of old movies and I knew I wanted to focus on the movie "Hello Dolly".  There are some wonderful hats in that movie. I love vintage hats, and I wanted to incorporate vintage hats into my piece somehow.

Then I remembered the set of 4 ink sketches I purchased at a local antique store...

The sketches were on heavy watercolor paper, pretty much already ATC size.  Not all have hats, but I thought you'd like to see them all, and I encourage you to enlarge them, the facial detail is so lovely.

I embellished them simply, with the goal of enhancing and extending, but keeping true to the spirit of the original artist and his or her subjects.

Vintage Children. Mixed Media Monday

There must be some strange synergy going on.  Some time ago, I chose a Monday in Seattle photo featuring vintage children (who happen to be all "in a row", the theme for this week's Think Monday - Think ATC). Last Friday's Art Creations Friday challenge featured an image with 2 vintage children, I invite you to see my piece here.  And the theme for Mixed Media Monday this week - you guessed it - "vintage children". 

For this ATC, I've used molding paste to obtain the background texture and movement, with painting and foiling over top. The figures, vintage woman and girl, are a sticker of a Mary Cassatt painting that I trimmed. 

Party Animals. Mixed Media Monday

This 6x6 inch quilt square is for the Mixed Media Monday theme "party animals".  I live in Seattle, on the Puget Sound and quite near the San Juan Islands, around which reside well studied pods of orcas. They migrate every year, returning to the Puget Sound and it is a cause for celebrating this life rhythm. I took a holiday with my daughter to try to see them return.  We did not see them, I guess they were on holiday for the day too.  We did, however, see otters and porpoises within a dozen feet of us at our whale watching spot.  And at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, we saw video of the orcas playing and splashing, surely looking like they were having a party, celebrating their return home.

This quilt square is made of silk, embellished with silk ribbon, vintage sequins and vintage seed beads.  It is stamped with letter stamps and stamped orcas were fused to the surface. The  beautiful orca stamp is a design by the Haida artist Paul White.

Not Just Black and White. Mixed Media Monday

This ATC was made for the Mixed Media Monday theme of "not just black and white".  It celebrates the return of spring to the Pacific Northwest, where the black limbs of the trees are now covered in blossoms. Painted, foiled, stamped, with vintage dictionary paper (definition: spring) and some tiny ruby vintage glass flower cabochons.

Enchanted. Mixed Media Monday

My first ever posting for the challenge blog, Mixed Media Monday. The challenge was "enchanted". This is a 6x6 inch art quilt, with sun printed cloth, bits of bark and twigs collected on my walks through Seattle's Discovery Park, with vintage sequins, beads and glass pearls and a bit of stamping and foiling. To me, the forest is an enchanted place. The inspiration for this piece was my imagining of the forest in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and my daughter's performance in that play.