HAPPY EASTER!

Today I helped Caroline put together our Easter window at the One Craft Gallery.  I bought a pack of 25 A4 coloured card for £1 and proceeded to cut out letters which were pegged onto a string to spell out - HAPPY EASTER!  The card that I didn't use was used as mats on which to place the goods - giving colour to the white display cubes.

Caroline keeps geese and they provided the eggs that she has decoupaged to add extra decoration - see pic bottom right.  We wish all our customers a HAPPY EASTER!

  

MIRROR MAKEOVER

I bought an old mirror in a junk shop.  I was attracted to the simplicity and width of the frame. I painted the frame with gesso before using matt acrylic medium to collage layers of black and white patterned paper and photocopies of  a waxed paper with text on facts about fish and chips that I had acquired, with permission, from a fish restaurant in Jersey.  For the next layer I drew the outline of fishes with a felt tip onto tissue and applied.  I then added copied word game tokens and made up linked words that all connect to eating, drinking and fish.  After this I added more tissue fish outlines, painted the edges and gave the whole frame a layer of acrylic wax to make it more durable.  It is now destined for a funky kitchen or dining area!

Close-ups of some of the detail around the mirror.

DECOUPAGE MAKEOVER

The most unprepossessing thing can get a completely new lease of life with a decoupage makeover.  It just takes time, patience and some interesting papers to make a scruffy old object into a sculptural piece - as this toy horse shows.  It was done by 12 year old Lilly Lang who did the fabulous decoupaged stool - see Sunday, October 23rd post on Funky Decoupage.

Lilly had seen a beautiful patterned horse in a gallery, which was way over her budget, so her father bought her a plastic toy horse in a car boot and she put the time and effort in to create this lovely 'art' object. She found it very fiddly to do, especially as it had moving limbs which had to be put into a set position.  Perhaps wrapping masking tape around the horse first, to immobilise it, might have made the job easier.  It sticks to plastic and creates a good surface to adhere the papers to.  The colourful papers were all carefully cut from glossy magazines.

CRAFTY COASTERS

Take one old love letter torn up and written in ink, together with some hearts punched out of painted paper, to decoupage some old drinks coasters.  The matt medium I used to glue them made the ink run, a deliberate effect as I wanted to evoke times past and distress the text. A marker was smudged to add extra details and the mats were sealed with a decoupage varnish so they can be wiped clean.

FUNKY DECOUPAGE

Recycling and upcycling has been popular for many years - people making use of things that would be otherwise thrown away.  You can find many exciting ideas on the internet and when I was looking I came across Sasha Constable who cofounded the Peace Art Project in Cambodia (PAPC) in 2003.  This started as a sculpture project turning weapons of war into artistic expressions of peace.  Now fantastic furniture is being made using guns, swords and other destroyed weapons.

A simple idea to make a piece of tatty brown furniture into something quirky, fun and a delight to have in the home, is to decoupage it.  I know decoupage has an old fashion reputation but it can take on a modern twist - such as this stool above.  Beautifully executed by Lilly Lang, who was featured with her denim bag in my previous blog - the seat is covered with cartoon characters. She loves it and it now lives in her bedroom.  I can see this girl as a mixed media artist of the future!

There are a number of great  modern decoupage papers out there now but it is more original and personal to recycle your own old maps, books, stamps, playing cards, vintage magazines, letters, music etc. - anything that can be stuck down flat over wood. Why not add your own words and doodles on top before layering on the varnish which will protect the surface from wear and tear. I am going to have a go at decoupaging some old drinks coasters.

BEST FOOT FORWARD

Occasionally it is good to do a challenge, so when fellow artist Dawn was going to give a pair of high black patent shoes to a charity shop, we thought another way of recycling them would be to make them into a piece of sculpture.  I did one shoe for her and she did one for me.  We sanded the shiny patent and put on a layer of gesso before adding layers of paper - old papers with text, tissues, napkins and letters cut out from old magazines using matt acrylic medium.  Doing the inside of the shoes was a little tricky but we were pleased with the result.  You could cover other objects in this way, old handbags, for example.

'All seeing eyes' by Helen Thompson

'Spring in your step' by Dawn Porter

Each shoe has a message.  My shoe for Dawn was for her office with messages such as: 'all seeing eyes', 'she who must be obeyed', 'top bunny and always right' and 'the boss'. While the shoe she did for me said, 'spring in your step' and 'made for walking'.