OK, so it’s clear I have a love of all things fairies…and Michael Jackson. So I decided it was time to combine those two loves into one artistic Fairy Art creation. It’s a nice addition to my Michael Jackson Art collection. 
Even if you’re not a Michael Jackson fan, but you love fairies, hopefully you’ll enjoy this. I love how it turned out. He truly was a magical being, living in his own Neverland. So it just seemed like a natural fit to turn MJ into a fairy.
I spent time in the studio again yesterday. I never get in there as often as I’d like, and then when I do it’s hard to get me out of there! Got some fun projects done, including this one, my little Fairy Topiary (click image to view full size), which I’ll add to my collection of Fairy Crafts.
I started with a small white, enamel bucket, about 2-1/2″ in diameter. In the bottom of that I add a piece of Styrofoam, which I cut to fit. Next I created the topiary, beginning with a reused end of a craft swab (waste not, want not, right?) that I painted green. I stuck on a small Styrofoam ball to the top of it, which I also painted green. Then I hot glued on some craft flowers until the ball was covered, and added a pink satin bow to it too. Then I stuck it into the Styrofoam in the bottom of the bucket.
Then I needed to create the fairy, which started with a vintage photo of a girl. Again I used a discarded craft swab to attach to the back of the photo, which I’d printed on cardstock. Then I used some craft picks to create her wings, which are made of pink tulle and beads. I simply taped those onto the back of the photo. Then I stuck that into the Styrofoam in the bucket as well.
To give weight to the bucket to hold everything in place, I put in glass flat marbles that you can get in any craft store. I have had these sitting around for years and had plenty of them. So I just poured in enough to go to the top of the bucket. They add a neat texture and some shimmer, which I like. They almost look like the tops of bubbles in there. Once those were in place I finished the bucket off by adding a pink satin bow to each side.
The whole thing has a sort of Shabby Chic feel to it, and a vintage touch too. I think something like this would look great as a table decoration at a bridal shower or baby shower or something. But my little fairy is going in my studio so I can see her everyday.
Since I have some other peony Flower Photos that I took the other day, I decided I’d play around and create something to add to my Digital Collages. I love flowers, and of course you know I love fairies, so I thought it would be fun to take one of my peony photos and a vintage photo and work my digital magic to create a fairy on the peony.
Click to View Full Size
I really wasn’t that thrilled with this particular peony photo all by itself. But once I added the fairy and her magic fairy dust and did a bit of editing, I fell in love with it.
I was in a fairy kind of mood when I created this new ATC the other day. But of course, I’m often in a fairy mood. LOL This one is called Laugh.
I started with a standard ATC size of illustration board and I painted it a pale pink color with acrylics. Then I used a textured rubber stamp that looks like cracked paint to create the background texture using copper ink. I found a vintage photo of a girl, and some pretty blue butterfly wings and turned my girl into a fairy, and then glued her to the board. I added another blue butterfly to the girl, along with a blue rhinestone gem here and there. And I finished it off by adding some pink satin ribbon across the top of the ATC, along with the sticker alphas to spell out LAUGH.
Amazingly, Spring is right around the corner now. Yay! And the gals over at the 3 Muses Challenge Blog have chosen “Spring” as the theme for this week’s challenge. So my Dreams of Spring Collage is my entry into that challenge.
I started with a plain piece of chipboard that I painted with a buttermilk yellow acrylic. Then I used Tim Holtz’ Tattered Rose Crackle Paint on top of that to give the base some texture, and I distressed the edges a bit with ink as well.
Since flowers and fairies are always what comes to my mind when I think of Spring, I chose a vintage photo of a fairy girl for my subject. She looks like she’s dreaming of something, with that faraway look in her eyes, so maybe it’s Spring? I added a glittery crown and rhinestone gem to her head, and an extra rhinestone gem to the sash of her dress. Then I added some white lace trim and pink satin ribbon to the bottom of the image, and embellished that with some pink stain roses. And the last step was just to add some alphas to spell out Dreams of Spring.
Time to think just a little bit toward warmer weather and summer! So I created this greeting card with a fairy and summer theme, and I’m using it for the 3 Muses Hot, Hot, Hot Challenge.
I started with some green and cream scrapbook paper with a pattern on it. That is what makes up the card itself. I just cut 2 pieces, 5×7″ in size and punched holes in the left side of both. Then I hunted for a nice image to use, and found a postcard in my stash of goodies that I’ve always loved. The image is Ophelia, from an oil on canvas painting from 1865 by Arthur Hughes. She looks so pretty collecting summer flowers and with her beautiful red hair.
Then I decided to turn her into a fairy, so I found some fairy wings with red and yellow in them. I cut a slit into the image and tucked the fairy wings inside, then I Mod Podged the image to some coordinating scrapbook paper, which also has yellows and oranges in it. I tore the edge of that paper and then glued those to the base of the card.
Next I added some alpha stickers to spell out FAIRY, and I also added a paper flower image, which looks like a nice, orange poppy. Then I accented everything with yellow and orange rhinestone gems, some in her hair, some on her clothes, some on the wings, and one on the flower. I love giving things a little bit of sparkle with gems.
I finished it off with some gold organdy ribbon tied into the holes I punched in the side of the card. I think this will make a nice birthday card for someone this summer.
One of my all time favorite artists is Maxfield Parrish. He was an oil painter known for creating quite luminous colors in his realistic works through a technique called glazing. He was also quite innovative, creating techniques that have never been successfully copied by any other artist. His work is quite brilliant, and beautiful, so if you have time, do Google him and his work. You’ve actually probably seen his work already, as many of his paintings are quite famous–though perhaps his name is not as well known as some of his paintings.
The 2 magnets I’ve created here utilize small calendar prints of two of my favorite of Parrish’s paintings: Ecstasy and Reveries. I created these as part of the 3 Muses Artist of Choice Challenge.
Ecstasy
Reveries
What I did was take one of my old Maxfield Parrish calendars and cut out two of the thumbnail images from the back cover. I made slits at the edge of each figure with an Exacto Knife, and then I inserted photo images of butterfly wings to make each of them look like a fairy. On the Reveries piece, I did add a leaf sticker and a small bit of scrapbook paper near the top edge, because I needed to fill a gap since the image was smaller than the glass bevel. But beyond that I didn’t do anything else to Parrish’s beautiful images.
The next step involves copper foil that I use in my stained glass projects on occasion, and also an unlikely copper tape that is found in hardware stores: it’s Slug & Snail Copper Tape, and its true purpose is a snail repellent of some sort. But one person’s snail repellent is another person’s craft supply, I always say.
I used the snail tape across the bag of each calendar image. I had originally planned to solder these magnets, and copper foil is needed in order to do that–but copper foil isn’t wide enough for these images, as it normally in a maximum width of 1/4″. But the snail tape is about an inch wide, and since my magnets are around 2″ wide, it worked great for covering the back of the images with just a couple of strips.
After covering the back of the images with the snail tape, I took some copper foil and a glass bevel for each image and used the foil to wrap the edges of the bevel and adhere the image to it at the same time. The nice part about this is that no glue is necessary. And just to be sure that my bevel and image would stay in place, I turned the glass over once I had all the edges wrapped and then put flat pieces of copper foil on the back near each edge, overlapping the copper snail tape, so that it would be secure.
The last step was to add a magnet and some gold organdy ribbon to the backs, which I did with some heavy duty glue. I’ll just add that I didn’t solder these pieces because once I saw the copper foil next to the coloring of the images behind the glass, I just liked the way the copper complimented the colors in the images. If I’d soldered, the copper would have become silver in color, and while I do love that look, I think the copper was a much better aesthetic choice for these pieces. And they’re going on my refrigerator, because you can never have too many pretty magnets there.
Well, the holidays are over, but winter has only just begun. So it’s really the perfect time to create a snow-themed project as I stay indoors and try to keep warm. This is my Snow Angel canvas, and I’m entering it into the White Glitter Challenge at Gingersnap Creations.
This is a mixed media project that I began with a plain, white primed canvas. I used ink pads to “paint” a blue background by rubbing the pad across the canvas, and then blending it in with a round foam dauber. I also added some silver ink accents using the same method, blending the colors together a bit as I went. Then I did some spatter painting with white acrylic paint, to create the snow effect in the background.
Next, I took a piece of textured white wallpaper scrap and cut it into a snowy ground shape for the bottom of the canvas. I Mod Podged that onto the canvas, and then added the vintage photo of my cute little snow angel baby. I also added a lavender rhinestone gem on the girl’s dress, along with white button brads to her coat.
Then I used some white glitter letters to spell out BRR, which seemed appropriate for this snowy scene. I also added white glitter to the snowy ground so that it would sparkle a bit. And I finished the whole thing off with a white paper flower.
I was feeling in a bit of a shabby chic mood the other day, so I decided to create an altered hangtag with a shabby chic flair.
This tag was plain white to begin with, so I first spritzed it with some rose Glimmer Mist to give it some color and texture. Next I found a vintage photo of a fairy girl that looked perfect for the tag…and her face reminds me of my oldest niece, Nikki, when she was a little girl. So that made it a great choice too. After I adhered that photo I added some baby blue fabric trim along the bottom of the tag, to contrast and complement the pink mist and roses. Then I added a beautiful pink paper flower to the bottom right corner, and it has a hint of glitter on it to give it some sparkle. I also added some dimensional clock element stickers. And I finished it off with some organdy and pink satin ribbon.
Love it!
Awhile back I created the first ATC I’d planned to do from a deck of playing cards. That was the 3 of Hearts ATC. So I thought it was about time I alter another card in the deck…after all, there are a lot of cards in the deck waiting to be altered! So here’s what I did.
I used a Glimmer Mist on the card itself. Wasn’t sure how that would turn out since the card’s surface is very slick, and it was starting to puddle up on me. So I decided to break out the heat gun and help speed up the dry time. When that was done, I really liked the background; it’s very fluid and freeform-looking. And up close, the card does have a nice shimmer to it now, which I like a lot. Next I added a vintage photo of a fairy girl, who has pink and purple wings. I added a coordinating butterfly image on the fairy girl, and then I added some purple daisy stickers in the empty opposite corners. I finished the ATC off by adding some pink rhinestone gems to the daisies and to the butterfly.
OK, so 2 altered playing cards down…only 50 to go!
