ATC Book Bee Shrine

I have a friend who is a beekeeper. We did a swap together and she asked me to make her a bee shrine. This ATC Book Box is the perfect size! I got some fun papers and some bee charms and set to work. I love using stripey papers on the sides because it reminds me of pages of a book.

When you open it up, this is what you see. The honeycomb pattern was made using a Tim Holtz stencil and some ink. I made a faux front for the inside niche, and added a large Victorian bee charm that was given a copper patina.

Here's what you would find if you were to remove the faux front: I painted the interior a metallic copper color for reflectivity, and added a battery operated tea light. The cardboard pieces you see along the walls are for support, so that when you add the wall, it will have a nice place to sit.

Look how cool it looks in the dark! It's fun using light as one of the "supplies" for projects.

The ATC Book Box comes with some tags, so I embellished them a bit and added them in for my friend to use later for gift tags. Love that beehive stamp! I also used it on the spine of the box.

As always, most of my supplies, including the beehive stamp and the ATC Book Box, came from Alpha Stamps. For a supply list and links to purchase, click here.

Online Class Adventure with Kathie Vezzani

One of the greatest things about going to the Art Is You retreat (art camp) last fall was making new friends, and one of my favorite new friends from camp is Kathie Vezzani. We seemed to just click. She is very talented, and lots of fun to be with. It's probably good we don't live closer to each other; I think we could get into trouble together.

Kathie is getting ready to teach an online class through Jeanne Oliver, entitled Plaster and Wax 101 {illuminated portraits from within}. I'm not a painter, and have little or no experience with Plaster or Wax, but Kathie has assured me that the "101" in the title means that she will be explaining everything so that even a beginner like me will have good results.

Isn't her work amazing? I'm excited about learning something new. Here's a description of the class:

Plaster is a luscious, absorbent surface that begs to be scraped, carved, sanded and painted. Kathie Vezzani will take you on a journey to paint your own masterpiece. She will go over the basics of painting a face, show you how to paint a “pretty face, “ then using her own style, show you that you don’t have to paint realistic faces that conform to the rules.
When finished, she will show you how to apply layers of encaustic medium to make your painting seem illuminated from within, adding oil paint to soften the edges or add splashes of color. This two week course will be full of painting, plaster and encaustic (pigments mixed with hot wax) creating!  Wax is the perfect compliment to any mixed media, oil or acrylic painting you are already skilled in.

Registration for the class is now open, and if you sign up by May 1st, the fee is only $29. It's a two week class, and is open for a year. Join Jeanne on her blog because she is giving away encaustic supplies and Kathie Vezzani is giving away an original encaustic painting if you register. Wow, how exciting is that? To read more and/or register click here.

I hope that someday soon, I'll have some beautiful paintings to show off on my blog. I can't wait for the class to start.

Luck of the Irish: A Leprechaun

I did a swap with a friend on Craftster, and one thing she said she'd really like is something Irish.  I saw she had some cute leprechauns posted on Pinterest, and thought it would be fun to try and make her one. I am not a clay person, but I had some paper clay and really wanted to give it a shot. I know a lot of people use foil as the bases for clay things, but for the shape of this guy, I used a plastic Easter egg. The egg was a nice smooth surface to work on. If I were to do it again, I'd glue it shut before working with it, because for a while there, it was popping open and that was a bit frustrating, to say the least.

So here he is, with his lovely egg-shaped figure. I used inks to age him and glaze to make him shiny.

 

My daughter found the rusty shamrock years ago. It's the perfect thing for him to hold, and really helped me deal with the question of what to do with his arms.

Because he was formed over an egg, he didn't sit well at all, until I gave him a bit of a bum.

Here's a closeup of his freckly face.

A Litte Foolery

Craftster.org is always a fun place to be on April 1st. This year we celebrated April Fool's by going a little nutty. All the moderators made project involving nuts. There was an exfoliating soap, some votive candles made of peanut shells, lovely jewelry, and much more. Here's my project, entitled "Nutterflies Are Free".

Lovely butterflies in a desktop display, with a hopeful caterpillar crawling nearby. The plaque on the front reads, "reality has limits, imagination is boundless". Perfect, don't you think?

Here's a closeup of my "masterpiece".

Such fun!