inspired by Jane Anne Wynn's Altered Curiosities, what i love this week is plastic 
animals! i have yet to actually create my piece, but i will probably try to make something for the Three Muses challenge this week, which is fish. so i am off to craft, i leave you with my menagerie, pictured above, and this pig on a screwdriver.
this week, i love shrines! the one above can be found at Milliande.com along with tutorials. it's a common theme amongst modern altered artists, and i have taught it as a lesson to some of my students before. but i never get tired of it. there's something nice about taking the mundane and turning it into something special just by giving it a home.
to be originally from dollar tree ( i knew there was a reason i loved it). actually, it was originally pretty hideous. it was a weird bluey purple color with a cliche snowman on the front. but it was 49 cents, so i figured i would make something out of it. and after housing miscellaneous materials for a while, then becoming 2 different incomplete and bad projects, it finally turned into this!
next i added some fake moss, the first time i've used it! and i love it. after that, i had to find a subject to be a jumping point for the rest of the project, so i chose the ceramic egg with the hole and glued it to the back of the inside. for the outside, i spray painted it copper and then used another first time material for me, spray glitter glue. i like the effect it had in some places where it bubbled up from not letting the copper dry first.
next i added the feathers to the top with hot glue, set in beads. to make it more unified, i added some glitter around the base of the feathers that matched the paint. for the inside, i added more feathers and a rubber frog to create a little more scenery, and a flower on the opposite side.
used some more text to connect it all, a chipboard frame around that, and a key that i painted copper and embellished with gold glitter. the little feet on the bottom are made from painted bottle caps, but maybe i'll go back and fashion some bird feet for it instead. i also think that i would want to have a way for it to hang on the wall as well.
my inspiration comes from Lisa Kettel's Altered Art Circus, pictured above, that i received as a 
gift from one of my friends. i mostly loved how she altered her animals, using bright colors and glitter.
then i added the background, a diamond pattern from one of my old sketchbooks, that was once going to be an alice in wonderland page, but never happened.
honesty, i was never a fan of this while i worked on it. but now, looking back through the pictures of it as i post this, i do have a much better fondness for it. i think i do like it. :)
art journals! the one above can be found at izabella's tattered letters. i've designed a few journal covers and finished one complete altered journal. i guess what i love most about these projects 
are the layers. there is no limit on how much or how little you can add to these things, and they still look amazing.
this piece was another of my first ones, and for some reason i thought that it was an excellent idea to take a picture before the glue dried, so ignore the glue spots. it is a painted background, no stamps. the i collaged on some clock parts and circuit board along with a gold part of a clock face with the word "art" inside connected to a gold chain. the i added an old belt that no longer fits to bind it all together.
this is the cover to my completed journal. it is collaged wallpaper with an octopus drawn on, ha. it also has some painted speckled on there. it is bound with a super cute sparkly pink belt that i loved. the spine is decorated with yarn, ribbon and beads and feathers, that's my favorite part.
this one was my first altered journal. it is green with collaged chinese newspaper and some drawings on the side. then i embellished it with some buttons, mirrors, letters, wire and beads.
literature pieces! this piece was inspired by a pendant i found at Agnes the Red Gallery a year or so ago, pictured above. i love the simplicity of this piece and the use of found materials.
to wrap the piece. it is all held together with a copper plate and some tie wire at the top. last, i used some brown suede cord to hang it.
bottles! i have been wanting to do a new bottle project, but the inspiration isn't coming! so i'm
re-exploring some old projects, and you get to see them too! the one above can be found at Scrapbooking.com and was the inspiration for my first altered bottle.
next i added some rebar wire (spray painted gold) and beads to the top. i also painted the stopper gold and added a clear stone in the center. next, i added a flower made from newspaper with a button as the center.
different flower cut shapes made from cardboard, coasters and newspaper. then i added some fake plants as fillers. i decorated the outside of the vase with buttons, flowers, glass shards and beads. i also added some flowers i made from scrapbook paper and felt.
bird/nest themed art. the one above can be found at Studio B along with a plethora of other bird related art.
and white lace around the edge, and i love the effect! it made it feel very homey and domestic, kind of like my altered tin about womanly duties. 
overall i feel that i created something that is very cohesive and brings together a lot of different themes; a domestic theme, which relates to the feeling of being trapped in a role, which goes to birds and freedom which is echoed by the net created by the dream catcher threads. so i was very surprised when i got to the end and found how well everything fit together. in my studio classes, my professors are always pushing us to tie things in a relate things, so i think they would be very proud of this. :)
i kind of like it broken, it goes with my "freedom and breaking out" theme. so i'm happy with it, and i am currently working on another dream catcher-esque piece, steampunk themed. :)
egg art! the first time i saw this was in Altered Curiosities while i was flipping through it at a bookstore. didn't buy it, wish i had. this project is inspired by Carla Trujillo's egg shrine, pictured above.
mache egg i found at Hobby Lobby. then i filled it with a soft steel wool pad to give the inside some texture and also to build a solid background on which to work. then i added some miscellaneous clock parts and other little metal pieces intertwined with the wool.
wrapping. i liked how the skeleton really took on some skin and muscle form as i wrapped the wire.
theme, i hope to eventually have enough pieces of quality and variety to make a show of it. but we'll see how that goes. for now it's all for fun.
here is a love piece!
creative. i wanted to use some Tim Holtz sprockets, but i only have 2 left and zero money. growing up poor has forced me to find ways around no materials and no money. what i did have was a spare sheet of rubber stamp material. so i traced my last sprockets, cut them out and
stuck them to paper clips for some makeshift stamps. i really like them! ha.
bet stamps on the top and bottom. then i used silver crayon on the green and gold on the red for some more swirls.
ears ago. these were the things that first introduced me to altered art. i loved the idea of using anything for canvas, and dominoes were what i first experimented with. my old blog had a project i did with altered dominoes, using them as covers for a small accordion book.
is also and ATC. all of the elements are scrapbook paper, the tea cup is raised. the text and black swirls are stamps, the swirls are from Michael's and the text "you're my cup of cocoa" was a birthday gift from a friend ages ago.
medium. the text "your late" i wrote out and image transferred onto it. the orange is the only part of the piece that is not collaged, it is encaustic paint. i think this piece has a kind of Alice in Wonderland feel, and that's what i was thinking when i made the text. the green lines at the top are incised and filled with encaustic paint.
his week", which will include inspiration blogs, projects and how i incorporate those idea into what i do. so what i love this week is COLLECTIONS. i found an amazing blog, Aesthetic Ouburst. she finds all these nice things so i don't have to! i have no idea how long she's been blogging, i've been looking through her site for almost 2 hours now and am still nowhere near the end of her pages. i collect a few things, and this week i am sharing my jars and bottles. this isn't nearly all of them, but these are the ones that fit on this neat little shelf i salvaged and paint
ed and they hold my craft supplies: feathers, beads, gears, chipboard, etc. i also keep a few little empty bottles on there, just for display and contrast. this is one of my favorite elements in my office, and i will be posting more pictures of the rest of the place soon. i also collect snails, just because love them. but they are no where near organized, so you don't get to see them. :)
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