I made this little box for my friend who got married. It's a tin cigar box, which I aged with sand paper, acrylics and inks. Inside I attached altered playing cards and little bingo buttons. The letters form a word ONNI which means either happiness or luck in Finnish. Luck is needed in the game of love, but happiness is a state of mind that we all should pursue.
I've had a long brake from making ATC's, but now I'm finally back in business. This week's TMTA challenge was very much fun... I immidiately thought of James Dean. That's a man I'd like to meet! But of course, I can only do that by watching his movies.
There's a large bush of Green Mint on my balcony. It has grown enormously during the summer and it makes cute flowers too. I've infused the leaves and made many pots of delicious mint tea. I have cherry tomatoes growing too, but they look a bit stunted, so no picture of them this time.
I bought a cheap pack of cards for experimental purposes. First I tried the very easy packing tape transfer technique. Here you can find a clear tutorial on that. I used pictures of a man and a woman from an old magazine. I think newer magazines with better printing quality and paper will give better transfer results. But I like everything old and scruffy.
The old magazine paper was so thin and fragile that I couldn't scrub it all off without harming the images. Especially in the woman's face you can see some paper pulp left. But when I glued the finished transfers on the playing cards using glossy acrylic medium, it also made the images more clear.
Since I like everything to be a bit worn out, I sanded the cards to give them matte surface. Then I made them look dirty with inks and acrylic paints.
I'm knitting a scarf called Autumn Morning. Doesn't it sound poetic? And very current too, the weather is getting colder and summer is definitely over. The pattern is from Ulla. My piece in the picture doesn't look so good yet. I chose quite thin knitting needles, so the lace pattern doesn't show properly because it's so tight. I hope it'll get better after blocking when it's finished. The yarn is Gjestal Maija. Yellow is a bit untypical color choice for me, but for some reason I'm loving this ochra tone right now.
I've been meaning to try this for a while, and now I finally did. I used other adhesives too, so these weren't pure wax collages. The wax is only used on the surface and to adhere the lace. This takes some practise... the hot liquid wax solidifies very fast when spreading it with a brush. A heatgun or a quilting iron would be super useful tools to prevent the instant cooling, and the iron would make the surface nice and even.
I left the woman figures without a wax layer, so they would have more contrast and pop out from the more blurred, waxed background.
My few tools for the project: white beeswax pellets (I used double boiler to melt them) and a brush (it got ruined, from now on it's a wax brush only), the surface is a stretched 15 x 15cm canvas.
I have all kinds of old stuff stored in my drawers. "Good finds" from here and there, waiting for the right kind of project to be used in. This box was a nice find indeed, it made all these other stuff click together and give birth to a new story.
Initially this was a Ferreira box, I assume it had miniature wine bottles in it. I'm not sure exactly. I used some acrylic paste to cover the carved letters on the side of the box. Then I collaged it with book pages to give it some pattern. Finally I added many layers of brown acrylic paint, then smudged it and scraped it and tortured it until it looked distressed enough
The insect pictures are cut from an encyclopedia. I glued them on the back side of the old medical bottles. It gives an interesting 3-d effect, when you look at them trough the curved glass. The white egg shaped thing is a silk cocoon. The jaw bone propably once belonged to a mink or an ermine. I found it in a forrest years ago, all weathered and white. Actually I have the whole scull, but it's in pieces.
This is a confirmation card for a young man. It was quite difficult to come up with an idea that wasn't too religious, but not too humoristic either. So, I kind of stayed with the realistic aspects... Usually confirmation is the first big celebration in a boy's life, he maybe gets his first real suit. And then, at the latest, he is forced to learn how to tie a necktie.
I found some more video tutorials on how to make origami shirts and ties, and I really liked the way they give dimension to a card.
My friend asked me to make a card to a wedding she's attending. Only things that I know about the marrying couple is that they like the Fifties and listen to Elvis. That was enough information for me to make this card. And I had so much fun making it!
The sepia toned couple is from a 1950's magazine. Originally the man and the woman were in two different pictures, but I combined them together. The winged heart and the two little hearts are self-made embellishments. You can't really see the details in the photo, but I drew them on paper with regular markers, then applied a thick coat of Glossy Accents over them, let them dry over night and cut them out. The outcome looks like thick glossy plastic or something.
The only thing missing is Love Me Tender playing when you open the card...
One cloudy day I went to see the the great Sandcastle in Lappeenranta. This year's theme is wild west, so there are cowboys, indians, horses and other neat stuff -all made of sand, water and glue. A friend and collegue of mine was in the sculpting team, and I sure know it was a huge amount of work. It also took lots of skills and talent. You can see more pictures of the work process here.
Luckily there was one sunny day too. I spent it at the summer cottage, mostly lying on a boat and watching the clouds go by.
