New Year Begins with Mopping Up the Old

Although technically the holidays are over .. not for me because of all that snow! I am still baking cookies for the neighbors,crafting little holiday gifts for my blogger friends (not going to show you these since it ruins the surprise), and finishing last minute things for gallery winter deliveries.After being literally snowed in for the 10 days before Christmas, our house looks and feels like a trans-Pacific plane after 16 hours of flight (if you've been on one of those - you know what I mean). So the house needs a really good top to bottom cleaning too. Here's what our car looked like for those 10 days, although the gap between top and bottom did eventually close leaving just a rounded mound. I lived in fear that if the mythical snowplow ever did arrive (which it never did on our street) that they would accidentally run into it:I am SO far behind on everything that I think I'll still be catching up in February! I'm also having to go in for some frightening medical tests and that's putting me even more behind :( For those of you placing orders, it's taking me an extra day or two for processing this month. Thank you so much for your understanding.

I also want to take this moment to say thank you to all my wonderful bloggy friends who did my the honor of sending me gifts! You are all an inspiration and a comfort to me each and every day and I am so happy and proud to be part of this wonderful community! I want to say a special thank you to Natalea, my bibliophile buddy, and Gracie, who makes the most beautiful cards and envelopes. Check out the yummy ones she sent me in this wonderful holiday package:I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and that 2009 is starting off just awesomely for you!!

Hand Tinting an Engraving -- Further Explorations

Well, I am so glad you all liked the tutorial on hand tinting an engraving! What an overwhelming response! Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments and to those who emailed me for more info!

I was so inspired by all your positive feedback that I'd thought I'd play around with the idea some more. Here is another pic from the Graphic Fairy -- which is fast becoming a daily addiction to check :) Pretty yellowed paper, but gorgeous mermaid! Love the tail on her and that wistful pose.
OK... so here is it cleaned up and tinted. You can see the tips for doing this on the prior post, "Hand Tinting an Engraving -- Marie Antoinette in Color". I used a lot of colored chalk on this one for a softer look. Chalk works really well to introduce texture when you have large blank areas of paper to cover. She also has that trademark rouge I give all my engraved women.


Next, I thought it would be fun to scan this back into the computer and see what it would look like converted back into a black and white image. This is what it would have looked like had it been printed in a newspaper and then left to age 20 years. Now it's vintage :) For those who don't know, I adore hand tinting and since I don't have a color printer (just this 20 year old cranky doorstop that reluctantly spits out black ink invoices) I probably spend more time than most perfecting hand tinting since if I want it in color, I have to colorize it :) I do have access to a scanner though, so just had to try this.

Oh, it is just lovely!!! Really rich depth of tone. Tail could have some deeper shadows, but all in all quite worthy of being an illustration to a children's story.


Well, that looked pretty cool, but what if a used some of those fancy filters that come with your computer's graphic program. You know, the ones that are fun to play with but you never really use? This is what it would look like in thick, creamy oil pastels. Oo la la!!! That is just amazingly beautiful! Barely looks anything like the original. Scroll up to the top yellow original holding this image in your mind to see how much the image has evolved.

Well, thank you so much everybody for being my inspiration to continue playing with this!

Now, I have a question for you. This further exploration has turned out so well, do you think I should maybe try to make some notecards or postcards from these images? Do you think there would be any interest?

And if I did, since I don't really do any printing, how would you turn an image like this into a postcard? The only thing I can think of is printing the image out at a copyshop and then appliquéing it onto the front of a blank card so it would be an artcard, but lots of artists make postcards so there must be a better way out there. I would love any advice on this.

In other news, school starts for my two little ones in just a week, so I can now declare my blog break officially over :) Soon they will be off to school with their little backpacks and lunch boxes. My youngest is off to kindergarten this year and it will be strange not to have him at home, but this is going to be such an exciting year for him! My eldest loves school and can't wait to show his little brother the ropes. What good brothers they are!

Hand Tinting an Engraving -- Marie Antoinette in Color

I love to hand tint and digitally color old illustrations and engravings. Especially fashion plate images. I recently was introduced to an absolutely fabulous blog of free vintage and Victorian clip art called The Graphics Fairy. This one of Marie Antoinette in a fancy dress full of bows and with ostrich plumes in her hair practically begged me to colorize it. Let's go through the steps to hand tint a black and white engraved illustration.1) Decide on your image. This is how the original Marie Antoinette image looked. Make a copy of the original image to work on. Every time you make a significant change, make a fresh copy to continue working on. You will thank yourself later if you have an artistic mistake and just need to go back one step vs. starting over from the beginning.

2) Clean it up. Remove the yellowing, fix creases, scuffs and rips, and correct discoloring.

3) Do your underpainting layer. Decide on the colors and figure out what belongs to what visually. For historical costumes, consult references if necessary to figure out what parts of the garment are related.

4) Break out the brushes and add highlights and shadows. Overpaint as many layers as necessary to get the depth of color you would like. I always prefer to finish the figure and treat the background minimally, even leaving a few bits barely tinted. I love the contrast between the bright clothing and the more subtle surroundings. I also usually give my women a touch of rouge or other make-up. This is fun to apply and helps the face, which usually has fewer engraving lines, to stand out.

And voila! You have a lovely colorized fashion plate image! This one took me about 2 hours and now is ready to be color copied and used for bookplates, journal covers, cards ..... the possibilities are endless!

I'm technically still on a bloggie break, but sometimes you just need to post :)

Beauty on the Blog Countdown: Day 2 of 3

OK.... it's the second installment of "Beauty on the Blog"! This time it's all the deluxe historical/legendary inspired paper dresses I've just sent off for "Queens & Harpies: Altered Paper Dresses with Panache".

Here's the Jane Austin dress. Love the paper the dress is made from because it has letter paraphernalia (like envelopes and pens) on it and lots of other symbols of love and marriage. Very appropriate for the themes she wrote about :) It also has a trim of buttery lace at the neck and a spray of yellow flowers at the bottom for some classic English country references.


This is "Sleeping Beauty". The copper bits are supposed to represent the twisting thorny aspects of the impenetrable hedge. But in the middle heart region there are two beautiful miniature blooming fabric rosettes. This dress also has a TON of hand-stitched beading on it to make little rose buds and leaves. "Sleeping Beauty" is also known as "Briar Rose" in the fairy tale.



This last dress I sent is "Mata Hari". It's made of glistening black with strips on the skirt cut out of maps to represent the geographic travels she did. The heavy metal belt is a nod to the elaborate eastern costumes she wore. The gold stitched-on heart represents the passion and force of her personality and her many loves.


This summer is shaping up to be so insanely busy I think I'm going to have to take a bloggie break soon. I'm trying to get my etsy shop and website stocked and make my new line of crocheted goods for the holidays as well as do summer activities with the kids, manage medical issues, tend to the garden and handle a billion other things. Next post will be my last until school starts up again. Look for it next week!

What Do Marie Antoinette's Pink Dress and My New Business Cards Have in Common?

Well ... they are both making an appearance in the new round robin I joined, Queens & Harpies: Altered Paper Dresses with Panache! Every two months we will be creating an embellished paper dress for a queen or harpy from history and then mailing them onto the next person in the round robin. At the end of the year, you get back your portfolio filled with beautiful dresses by various talented artists! If this sounds like something you would like to do, we are looking for two more participants - just let me know!! (You can check out our blog for the round robin here.)

I couldn't find a store made portfolio I liked, so I created a pocket page journal from scratch out of beautiful papers and soft yarns.And here's the inside! Marie's Antoinette's pink dress is usually snug in it's pocket on the right, but I pulled it out for this shot.
On the left is my handmade title placard for the round robin and ... my awesome new business card! This is the first professionally designed card I've ever had and I LOVE it! I wanted something really upscale, almost textural and brocade-like with my black/pink/green colors, a hint of the art nouveau style of many of my products, and lots of elegant formal black swirls. Angie at Rio Oso Designs designed my new cards and was just a pleasure to work with!

Here is the Marie Antoinette dress in more detail.



I am also having an ♥ Etsy Valentine's Special ♥ : For a sweet Valentine's treat, all etsy orders $20 and over (not including shipping) include a bonus free handmade goody! (Note: this is valid on Etsy purchases only, not my regular website boutique and expires Feb. 14.)

For more Valentine's Day celebrating, check back here for my upcoming Valentine's Day Giveaway!!

The Great Paper Dress Swap: Part II

"And the lady's wardrobe was filled with pretty dresses: satin, velvet, lace and silk. Each one a dazzling work of beauty glimmering in the candlelight ......."

OK, it's time for Part II of the Paper Dress Swap! Read Part I here.

Minutes after I sent out the last official swap letter, I received a request to join from Sandra. Missing a swap by just minutes .... now how could I say no? Answer: I couldn't :) So Sandra became my third swap partner. Above are the dresses I sent her: A spooky spiderweb dress, a Spanish style one foofed with black lace, and a Parisian cafe dress trimmed with roses and lace.

And these are the gorgeous multimedia creations she sent me! A pink gown worthy of any belle at the ball, and a cleverly accessorized autumn dress - see the cute hat and bag?


I also received the sweetest e-mail from Erin. She was having great fun making paper dresses and could she send a dress or two to me as a hostess thank you? More dresses???? Of course! And I would *love* to reciprocate with a few dresses as my thank you to her for being such a thoughtful and generous person. Now hanging in her home are a spooky spiderweb dress (with one of the shy little web weavers making an appearance), a garden party frock with a rosy sash, and an elegant plum dinner gown with a classic pearl necklace.

And here is the swanky and stylish attire she sent me. Soooo ritzy and beautiful! I wish you all could reach out and touch these because her papers are so tactile and lush, they are more like textiles than paper.

Thank you to all my swap partners! And a big thank you to everyone who joined in the paper dress swap!! You are all awesomely talented paper artists!!

And now ... I would like to invite everyone who participated to comment on this post with a link to their dress posts. We can have a "virtual fashion show" and see everyone's lovely creations!

One last note...... I'm sure it will come as no surprise to learn that I adore historical dramas, costumes, jewelry and period decoration.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the sequel to Elizabeth comes out tomorrow! It promises to be a sumptuous feast of costumes and jewelry. I hope it's smartly written too, but that seems to be the rare case these days in film. I've gone out of my way not to read anything about it, so it will be a surprise. Hopefully, a nice one :)

The Great Paper Dress Swap: Part I

It has been such a treat to check the mail the past two weeks and see the flurry of paper dresses arriving at my home for The Paper Dress Swap! I ended up having the privilege of swapping with four fabulously talented artists and would like to share all the swapping goodness with you! This post turned out to be super loooong, so this is Part I. Part II: Coming soon!
These fashionable dresses went to Lola Enchanted. The Halloween/Autumn theme dress was a sinister creation comprised of a flocked spiderweb skirt (with little web weavers making an occasional appearance), sparkly midnight tunic, and a spider "cameo" at the neckline. The other dress was a rose themed Elizabethan style dress with the bodice laced up with red embroidery thread. I ended up making an entire walk-in closet of paper dresses, so included one extra dress for each of my partners. Here, it's a stylish purple dress with butterfly touches.
And here are the beauties she sent me. Aren't these glam?!! They are like dresses worn by starlets in the golden age of Hollywood in the 40's and 50's. Love those jeweled buckles and the faux fur trims!



These are the little beauties I sent to hang in the closet of Charming Designs. A spiderweb dress. A ballerina dress foofed with layers of pink lace. And a garden party frock, trimmed with dainty white lace, polka dots, a pink rose sash, and golden butterflies accents.

And here are the adorable dresses she sent me. Look at those wonderful flouncy layers of ribbon on the white dress! These are all sooo romantic and I can see myself dressed in any one of them at a garden cocktail party and looking smashing!

That's it for Part I. I hope you're not tired of looking at paper dresses yet, because Part II is still to come! :)

The Bloglandia Ball !!

It's time for the Bloglandia Ball! Let's put on our sparkly ball gowns and dance together under the stars and moon! Here's the lacy confection I'm wearing! Embellished with a rare blue rose and black velvet corset laces, and embroidered with sparkly blue diamonds, I feel like a fairy tale princess!

The Bloglandia ball is hosted by Be..Dream..Play and you can find links to all the fabulous dresses of the ball attendees there. Every one is a stunning beautiful work of art and fit for a queen! Come join us for the Bloglandia Ball! Friends celebrating and having a good time together - can't get any better!

And there's still time to enter the GIVEAWAY !

Thank You & Little Birds

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who stopped by to comment on my little paper dresses and the swap! You are all so fabulously sweet and such wonderful souls!! This is what I love so much about blogland - all the giving and sharing and warmth of this fabulous creative community. Thanks so much everyone! It will take me a few days to catch up on all the e-mails and comments. My two little kids started school today (pre-K and 1st grade) so its an eventful day here for the family.
For those who joined the swap, I've been thinking of how to display our fabulous swapped dresses! I've seen them strung on ribbon like a garland and on doll hangers, but I was playing around and came up with the graceful hanger above. It's a simple piece of 20 gauge craft wire where the ends are curled up into loose spirals. A length of ribbon is tied into a circle with a bow and then slipped under the spirals. The dress is attached with small clothes pins. Too cute!

I will be sending out e-mails with swap partners on Thursday, Sept. 6th . If you do NOT receive an e-mail from me by Friday morning, Sept. 7th, please e-mail me right away at the address in the sidebar. If you haven't joined the swap yet and would like to, there's still time! Just leave a comment on the prior post. We have quite a few international participants and while the dresses will be small enough to fit in a large envelope, if you are uncomfortable shipping internationally for any reason, please e-mail me privately.

And look what's been cooking in the studio! Where do you dry birds-on-a-stick? Why in the pages of one's unabridged dictionary, of course! I had a hand full of toothpicks with wet paint birds and realized I didn't have a block of styrofoam to set them in. Looked around desperately for a few moments, then happened to look down and see the dictionary ... perfect! My two boys and I have been diligently watching some sky blue eggs in a robin's nest hatch into cute little fledglings, so I have baby birds on the brain :)
And here my little painted baby birds are all grown up as earrings and ready to fly away :)

It's a Paper Dress Swap!

I saw some paper dresses a few days ago and, seriously, could not stop thinking about them. I .... NEEDED to make some paper dresses! LOL! Only problem being that as a jewelry artist, I had no pretty papers to cut up, no glitter, no embellishments, nada. My first thought was to use what I had on hand and form dresses from twisted wire. Let's just say those didn't work out so well. I did learn how to make little wire hangers though! So, instead of working on one of the infinite number of things I needed to accomplish this week .... I was making an emergency trip to the craft store and spending the wee hours of the morning creating dresses!


I went with a "garden party" theme and drew freehand some dress shapes and then used those shapes as templates to make a few similar dresses so I try out different decorations/embellishments. And I found a use for that deep rose dimensional metallic paper!



These are so fun, so pretty and so quick to whip up. How about a paper dress swap? I would just love to host one! I'm thinking: each person would create two dresses to swap with a partner. One would need to be an autumn or Halloween dress. The other one is designer's choice - completely up to you! The size of the finished dresses would be no larger that what could fit in a 6x9 envelope so mailing costs would be low and international players could play. Materials and embellishments limited only by the imagination, but paper should be a major component. Signups would close on September 5th with partners assigned the next day. Dresses would need to be mailed out by October 7th.

If you're interested please make sure to include your e-mail address in your post. And if you'd like to help spread the word about the swap, I'd be really grateful! The more participants, the merrier! Here's a banner if you would like one:


9/07 BLOG UPDATE: OK, SWAP IS NOW CLOSED! JOIN US NEXT TIME!

Swapping Fun: Part II

And here are the other two cards for the Vintage Button Card Swap! Yes .. I used the same French Queen twice, but it was such a great, rich image. It was fun to alter and add to them in different ways.



For those of you who asked, the Beaded Fabric Hairpins are now at the shop! I'll add the Flower Fabric Hairpins and the Kitties handforged wire earrings next. Bird Nest Necklace news: Finally, my supplies for the bird nests are arriving this week! I have several back orders to fill and then I'll put them up at the shop.

In other news, I am SO excited to join the 2007 Bead Journal Project! I sent off my e-mail entry to join today, just one day before the deadline, so I hope I make it in! I really wanted to give it some serious thought and make sure I could make the year long time commitment. I've always wanted to experiment more with bead embroidery and I think the fusion of journal work and beading is going to be just heaven. There is so much energy around this creative project and so many talented artists! I know this will be a wonderful artistic journey and I am excited to have the opportunity to learn from such wonderful artists and share in return.

Swapping Fun

I'm participating in the Vintage Button Card swap over at Speckled Egg. I hadn't worked in the paper arts for a while (except for making Japanese paper earrings) and I had a really great time designing these. Thanks to Heather for hosting such a wonderful swap! Here are two of the cards complete with their buttons. I'll post the other two soon.


I also recently found out that Kaari Meng, of French General, is publishing a new book this fall ... and it's on jewelry!! I loved her first book and can't wait to order this new one. I already have it on my wish list at Amazon. I wish it was going to be out this summer, but I'll try to wait gracefully :)