Recycled Halloween!

As many of you know I love love love to recycle and re-use items in a variety of way. By recycling I can give new life to things, you help the environment, and it cost virtually nothing. A book and its pages can be turned into a plethora of things from wall art to a wreath to a new book, rosettes, party hats, crowns, cones, etc.

For this recycled project I used left over un-painted jack-o-lanterns treat lanterns, bird foliage pick, pumpkin picks, floral wire, floral moss, book pages for the party hat and rosettes, paints, Beacon's Tinsel glitter and Kid's Choice glue.

I hand painted the pumpkins, then assembled the piece, the end result a fabulous Halloween hanging assemblage that you can create for friends/family, yourself or do with the kids!


Hope you enjoy!
Magic and Joy,
Lisa!

Come One, Come All To The Halloween Ball.........


I'd like to introduce the newest members of the Sweet Cupcake Topper Collection:

-The Halloween Follies
-The Pumpkin Kings
-Mr.Moon

Each topper is made from either clay or vintage foam balls, extra large picks, paints and embellishments. These new toppers have brought some extra magic to my studio this season. They are a bit of prim, bit of fancy and sweet, a bit dapper and regal, perhaps magical to those who believe.




I will have these toppers available tonight in my Etsy store, and some are available now at Piddlestixs!

Hope you enjoy,
Magic and Joy,
Lisa!

Altered Art Circus: Party Hats, Tussie Mussies, Cones!

In my book; Altered Art Circus, I have a few projects revolving around cones such as the Marie Antoinette Tussie Mussie and The Marie Antoinette Cone Doll Hat/Centerpiece. These projects revolve around a simple cones shape which can turn into a variety of projects such as a doll, tree topper, holiday tree, wreath, party hat, party cones, flower cones aka cornucopia's, pocket posies and tussie mussie's, candy favor cones, wizard hats, witch hats, princess hats, rosettes and more, all from one simple shape.

Creating cones is extremely easy, you can open up a cheap party hat and trace it for a template. Try tracing a large plate onto card stock or poster board, find the center, mark the point, and draw line from edge to the center point, cut that line, fold in and glue. Buy paper mache cornucopia cones already made at your craft store or just buy my book, and photocopy the template inside to your desired size and use that.

Over the year I have transformed my cone projects into a few things and incorporated my scrapbook papers and embellishments from my line into them. The following 2 photos are samples of some of the papers and parts! The first is the Candy Paper and the next some of the embellishments to accompany my papers.


Party Cones and Hats Examples:



Here is a rosette made from layers of cones:


For instructions on making cone shaped projects and for the template, photo copy the template in the back of my book: Altered Art Circus, and scout out the projects in the book. Visit my flick photo gallery for tons of extra free images and inspiration!
Magic and Joy,
Lisa1

Who loves inspiration and a giveaway?

If you want to be inspired, escape to a magical circus and enter in a giveaway, then take a stroll over to Mod Podge Rocks, where Amy Anderson has written a wonderful review on my book: Altered Art Circus, shares her favorite parts of the book, showcased some new works adapted from it and is hosting a giveaway, where one lucky winner will receive:

A copy of Altered Art Circus AND a few sheets of paper and ephemera from my scrapbook line to get you started on your own magical adventure.

Many of the projects from the book are made using various Plaid products, especially mod podge or as I spelled Modge Podge in parts of the book, lol, my lingo, hey I'm from NJ, lol.

There are easy to create projects from the book, an image gallery in the back for you to photo copy and use in your works. I remind you this book is for the fun at heart person, someone looking to escape to their own artful world and meet some friends along the away. if you are the experienced artist, this is a fun book to help you get inspired and learn some new techniques.

My fave projects from the book are:
-The Circus Carts
I began re-creating the circus carts using my handmade dolls and storybook characters in place of images. This is the box I did the demo of at CHA:

-The Carnival Toys
-Frame Book
-Fairy Bulb Wands and Jars
Here is another version of the bulb wand:

-The Traveling Bumbelina's
Here is another version of the Traveling Bumbelina's Project which uses poker chips as the base. In this project I turned the poker chips into small chairs. I'll post the project instructions on how to create the poker chip chairs this week. Also in this photo is another version of the jar fairies, which I used a wine glass instead of a glass jar.

-The Cone Doll Hats/Tussie Mussies/Centerpieces
I have begun creating Candy Cones adapted from the Tussie Mussie Project from my book. Inside you will find a template for these, which you can en-largen or shrink to make various sized cones. Turn into candy cones, flower cones, party cones or hats. Perfect for favors at a party or event, create mini ones for a garland or use in a wreath.


At CHA this past year I did a demo on the circus carts using new techniques such as my model magic dolls/characters, and vintage trimmings. I've re-created new atcs, books and wands using the original projects from it.

To enter the giveaway visit: Mod Podge Rocks
http://modpodgerocks.blogspot.com/2010/09/altered-art-circus-book-review-and.html

This week in celebration of the giveaway I will be dedicating my blog to project how-to's and new adapted projects from my book, stay tuned!
xoxo
Lisa!