Circus Toys

Here's a couple of new things I've added to my circus collection, along with a large squeaky clown toy I played with as a baby. (Could that have been the start of my love of the circus?)

I used the new Funny Mixies collage sheet from Alpha Stamps to make the set of puzzle blocks. I am a huge fan of vintage puzzle blocks, and often use them in my art, so it was fun to make a set of my own. You can mix and match the faces, bodies and feet on the blocks to make all sorts of crazy characters. Hey wait; is that Satan, wearing a dress?

While the four sides of the blocks each contain a body part, the tops and bottoms each have part of a single image on them. Put those together, and you get a circus scene. I used some fine grained sand paper to lightly sand all the blocks. I wanted them to look like they were well loved and played with often.

I got the red clacker a couple of years ago from a "free" table at a craft event. I was attracted to its color and well-used look, plus: free! I used a couple of fun clown images from the Reversible Clown collage sheet and gold star stickers to make it a little more fun. That clown on the left is actually smoking a cigarette.

Look at him! For shame! Obviously, I sanded him a bit, too. It would look weird to have him be all bright and shiny on such a wonderfully distressed toy.

Do you need some supplies to make your own puzzle blocks? Click here! Alpha Stamps has everything you need, from the wooden blocks to the collage sheet, to the custom wooden box they're contained in.

I can think of so many uses for blocks like this. What about personalized photo puzzles for Christmas gifts this year. Wouldn't those be sweet?

Tin of the Month Club, June

Each month this year, I'm altering a small tin and posting it. Now that it's summertime, it's time to go enjoy the outdoors. Let's go fishing! This tin is in honor of my husband, who's an avid fisherman. He tied the tiny fly that's tempting that large fish in the background.

Here are the second quarter 2015 tins together:

To see the rest of the year's tins so far, click here.

Ocean TV

What's on television tonight? Mermaids! I took this great metal tv frame from Alpha Stamps, and created a mermaid show. It includes everything a proper mermaid needs: friends, coral, pearls, sea glass, and some nice shell bikini tops. What fun they're having, playing in the waves.

I got the mermaid images from the Caribbean Blue Mermaids collage sheet. I used two of the images there to create this one full image. On the collage sheet, the girl on the left is actually from a separate image, so I cut her out and added her in. I also cut out a separate image of the girl in the foreground and adhered her on top of the corresponding image of her with foam glue dots to make her appear more dimensional.

When I got the tv, I thought the black "speaker box" was a little distracting, so I painted between the black lines with some turquoise paint, and then distressed it with ink. Here's a little picture of the speaker before. That big black square seemed just a bit too distracting to me. Painting it in helped it to fade more into the background. After all, tonight's show is all about the mermaids!

A little closer shot of those delightful frolicking sea nymphs:

Doesn't this make you long for the beach? Need supplies? Click here!