I’ve created this Creation of Beauty Hang Tag for the Words of Wisdom challenge over at the Gingersnap Creations blog. The challenge is to utilize some favorite words of wisdom (profound, funny, or otherwise) in a creation.
For this Hang Tag I’ve once again utilized a combination of both paper goods, ephemera, and digital touches to create this Altered Art piece. I love the vintage photo of the girl…she’s so lovely. And she is perfect for the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson too, don’t you think?
I just thought I’d share something today since, for some reason, I was thinking about the ocean. I love the ocean…love beaches and almost any place near the water. So each year on our anniversary weekend for the past few years, the Hubs and I go someplace that is by the water, and preferably with a beach. We live fairly close to Lake Michigan and Lake Erie, so our destinations frequently end up being in a town by one of those lakes. And each time we go, I collect sand, shells, and other little natural objects as sort of souvenirs. When we get home, I choose a Mason Jar or some other bottle to put my sand and other beach goodies in, and I label them on the bottom with the town we went to and which year. They’ve become my collection of “Sands of Time in a Bottle.”
I have 4 of these Glass Bottles and Jars full of beach memories so far. They sit on my kitchen window sill, so that I can see them everyday, and in my own way, I’m close to the beach. I would have had 5 of these, except one year we got rained out on our beach day and I couldn’t collect anything to bring home. But that’s OK.
There’s always next year.
I’ve recently opened my Art Chick Studio Graphics online store. I am selling primarily website graphics, but I have other graphics too and will be adding more. Since I work for DIYeStores.com, my designs cater to those clients, but they can also be used for any other web host. I can do custom designs as well, and can do blog headers and such, and will be adding Etsy Banners and other designs.
Just click on the image above to hop on over and visit the Art Chick Studio Graphics store. And shoot me an email if you have any questions. I’d love to create something for you!
I created another piece of Michael Jackson Art for My Digital Sketchbook. It’s an ode to the magic of Billie Jean.
This piece features Michael performing Billie Jean during the Thriller era, with his trademark fedora, sequin jacket, and white glove. I still remember seeing him perform this on the Motown special so many years ago…when he moonwalked on TV for the very first time. It really was magic. And I remember the first time I saw his Billie Jean short film too. Always the showman. Always the music legend.
I was creating this piece for my Mom, whom we found out has cancer. Initially I created it with just the flower, but then decided to add a little magic, and the fairy and turn it into a digital collage. When I’d finished all that I realized that it would also just happen to work with the Gingersnap Creations blog color challenge, Soft Yellows and White. So I decided to enter it into that challenge.
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Yellow roses have special meaning in our family, as does the phrase, “Never Apart in Heart.” We sign our emails, letters, and cards with NAIH as a reminder that no matter how far apart we may be, we are always together in heart. So even though I can’t physically be with my mom right now, I am with her, always. And thankfully, doing anything creative helps to keep my mind off of difficult things. So this art is for you, Mom.
I Love You.
Always.
NAIH
Time for another challenge at the Gingersnap Creations blog…this time it’s a supply challenge and we had to use RIBBON somewhere in our creations. So this Timeless Beauty ATC is my creation for that challenge.
This Altered Art style ATC is a mixed media piece, combining paper, ephemera, ribbon, a vintage photo, and digital graphic elements. It definitely has a sort of timeless feel to it, don’t you think?
These creations were inspired by the DANCE challenge at the Collage Obsession blog for this week, and they’re now a part of my ever-growing collection of Michael Jackson Art. If I hear or read the word, “Dance,” Michael is usually the first thing that comes to my mind. So he was an obvious choice for my subject matter for this great challenge.
Click to See Full Image
Click to See Full Image
Blood on the Dance Floor is one of my favorite MJ songs, and one of my favorite of his short films. There’s just something about it I love, musically and visually, so I love when I can incorporate it into my digital art too.
My husband got me the new Paint Shop Pro software for Christmas, and I finally just got to start playing around with it. I had an older version on my laptop, so I am already familiar with the basics of PSP (though I am by no means a pro). I haven’t gotten to explore the new version in depth, but I wanted to take it for a test drive. So I decided that my granddaughter, Destiny is always the perfect subject. I had lots of fun turning her into a fairy, and then putting my new little fairy into two different surroundings. These digital collages are the results.
I love my little Destiny fairy in a jar. The photo I used is from last Easter. I need to play around with some newer photos. 
But I loved in that dress, so I figured I’d just use it again for experimenting in PSP. I sure had fun!
I haven’t been participating in too many art challenges lately so I decided it is time to get my creative juices flowing again. This week’s challenge at Collage Obsession couldn’t have come at a better time. The theme for this week is a Song Lyric…so I chose one of my Michael Jackson favorites, Smooth Criminal and created a digital collage around it.
Michael Jackson defined the word “Epic” where pop music and music videos are concerned, in my opinion. He blazed a trail and set the standard in what once was a very boring visual medium. And Smooth Criminal is a perfect example of his epic creative genius. It is MJ, and the Bad era, at its visual best. It not only showcased a great song, but it told a story, as all of Michael’s short films did. I never get tired of watching it…and my grandson now loves to watch it with me. He especially likes the MJ anti-gravity “lean.” Such an epic MJ moment.
And so the legend lives on.
This is yet another Christmas gift I made this year (OK, well it’s last year now). This is a paper collage piece that I made for my mom using a vintage photo of her and my great grandmother.
This is made mostly with scrapbook paper and stickers, but I used a clear acrylic clock stamp as well, along with a brad for the center of the clock image. And when it was finished I framed it in a black frame for Mom. Just another little special photo memory captured in time.
