More birds!

Are you sick of all of my bird projects yet?  Well, I'm sorry.  But I'm just getting started!  I wanted nothing more than to sleep in today because I have a big day tomorrow (Sunday) and during the week I'm up pretty early.  But of course I was wide awake at 5:30am thinking of all of the projects I wanted to work on today because I declared it Craft Day.  So what did I make?  More bird projects!  In fact, I made two pieces of wall art and one table top piece that sits on a miniature easel.  

Project Number I:  Journey on the Wings of Faith!

 This is a 6"x6" in canvas.  I basically cut 1" squares and then glued them onto the canvas.  I then covered all of the squares with Mod Podge just to give it a good seal and keep the paper from tearing.  While that was drying I drew several ravens and cut them out to use as stencils.  I placed the stencil on the canvas and outlined it with black paint and then filled it with black paint.  I allowed it to dry and then took a wet paper towel and rubbed different parts of the bird to make it semi-transparent.

My last step was adding the words using stamps, paint, and alphabet stencils.  The words "wings of faith" are from the new art journaling set by Maya Road.  Didn't I say you needed that set of stamps?  :)  The heart was made with polymer clay.  This canvas sold the minute I posted it.  

Project Number II:  Hands are for shaking, not tying. 

This is a 6"x6" canvas.  I basically repeated the process with all of these pieces.  I did a lot more stamping on this one.  These words are from the song "Fell on Black Days" by Soundgarden.  This is probably one of my favorite lines ever.  The actual words are "So don't you lock up something that you wanted to see fly.  Hands are sharking, no, not tying."  Isn't that powerful?  Sometimes it's difficult to let someone go.  But if you truly love them, you want to see them soar, you want them to succeed.  And maybe they can't succeed with you...so why hold on?  Why tie their hands?  And why tie your own hands?  

I love this one so much I almost don't want to let it go.  But if it will inspire someone other than myself, then I want to see it fly!  

Project Number III:  Journey on the Wings of Faith! 

Here is another piece with the same message.  However, this is not canvas!  This is actually a 4.5" x 4.5" piece of wood.  This one will be sold with this cute little black easel so that it can be displayed on a table top , window sill, etc.  

This piece is .25" wide.  It's slender and small but still packs a punch of emotion and good feeling.  This project and project no. 2 will be available in my Etsy shop in the coming days.  Stay tuned!

I hope you enjoyed my projects.  I am really enjoying this surge of creativity!  Tomorrow I will get to explore my visual art --I haven't picked up my camera since December so I hope I'm not too rusty.  I will be working on an artistic shoot for Valentine's Day.  More details to come.  Until next time...peace, love, and wishing this day had more hours.  

Bird Love

People like me make lists for everything under the sun.  I keep a journal at the bedside, a journal in my office, a book in my purse, a book in my bag, a book at my work desk.  I can't make this stuff up.  Anyway, I am pretty good and checking my notes and my lists and sticking to them but it seems that lately I am not keeping up with my lists and I'm wasting precious time doing nothing when clearly I should be doing something.  Accccccck!  Tomorrow is the start of new week...an opportunity to exercise the use of my books once again.  I know, I should just go to bed and "let it go".  If only it were that easy.  The OCD doesn't allow me to just "let it go."  I'm now beating myself up for a wasted night.  How can people sit and read a book or watch television?  That's for the birds...I'm just not wired that way.  Speaking of birds...here are a couple of prints by yours truly.  :)

National Scrapbooking Month

May is National Scrapbooking Month.  Although I'm not a very good scrapbooker, I think I do really well with mini books and mixed media.  So why not celebrate the art of crafting and some of the women that have influenced me, motivated me and have been on the artistic journey with me for several years.  So I decided to do a little something special for a handful of friends...for Dee Dee who encouraged me to try out for the design team, for Kimmy and Genie who have been my online friends for several years and we have inspired one another and watched each other evolve in our different forms of art, for Lisa who has taken me in like a family member and shares my passion for crafting, and for Deb who is my crop buddy, retreat buddy, and basically keeps me in the know of the latest and greatest in the craft world.  Because let's face it...I'm such a busy person I don't have time to read blogs and figure out who is doing what in the scrapbook world.  Thank you, ladies! 

So what did I make for them?  I made each of them a beautiful canvas using the new Dylusions ink sprays by Dyan Reaveley.  These are the ones that I have in my arsenal...

So using her sprays, stamps and a stencil by prima I made 5 gorgeous pieces of art to send to my friends.  Here are a couple of the ones I will be mailing out this week.  To see all of them, visit my facebook art page.

Birds of a Feather

I love black birds.  You will see them as often as I can capture them in my visual art.  There is something commanding about them, something mysterious…they remind me a lot of myself.  I think people tend to judge me based on my appearance…I wear a lot of black, I enter a room with confidence, I speak eloquently and boldly –I am described as intimidating and having a commanding presence.  But once people really get to know THE REAL ME, they are pleasantly surprised at how sweet and even vulnerable I can be.