Altered Tin Diorama

Hello everyone.

     I am participating in an online swap on Splitcoaststampers [www.splitcoaststampers.com].  The swap is titled:  Altoid Tin Diorama.  However, since I have arthritis in my hands and I'm a bit shaky anyway, I made my altered tin a little larger (maybe 3 times larger than an Altoids tin).

Here are the photos of the inside and both out sides.

This is my first attempt at altering a tin (of any size).  What do you think?

Altered Grapevine Wreath

    This is not rocket science as they say.  I try to make a wreath to put on my front door for every season of the year and for special holidays ( such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and 4th of July ).  This is the wreath I put together for Summer.  The two butterflies and the sun are wood ornaments, I think I bought them at Michaels Craft Store.  I decided to try embossing the outlines of the images with Versamark ink and black embossing powder - - - it worked out OK.  Then I colored with my Copic Markers.  Copic Markers are alcohol based and did not work well with the embossed outline.  However, I put it together anyway.

 

     I have a Fall wreath that I will put up in September.  I am thinking of making a Halloween wreath or banner to put on the front door for the week of October 27 - 31.  I don't usually decorate for Halloween but I think something fun and child-like would be nice.

My Altered Bird Feeder

     Here is what the altered bird feeder looks like after several months of growing and filling in the empty spots.

     Here are the other containers of Hens & Chicks that you could see on the other posting.  Can you tell they grow really, really fast?  They seem to grow much better in pots than they did in the ground. 

    
As you can see, some of the bowls / pots of Hens & Chicks already need to be thinned out and transplanted into other containers!

     Now to show you the most recently planted pot.  These were dug out of the ground about 10 days ago and put in this pot.  You might be able to tell how "sad" they looked.  The ground just wasn't what they wanted.

     These pots are a collection of clay saucers from under some clay pots ( the pots broke a few years ago ), some plastic hanging basket pots (I took the hanging wires off), and a couple of shallow clay or ceramic pots ( one is actually made for growing a bonsai - but I killed it unintentionally ).  The rocks are some sort of light weight volcanic rocks I bought from a local landscape place.  I used ordinary Miracle Grow potting soil from Costco.

I LOVE Hens & Chicks!

I Altered a Bird Feeder

     I had this old bird feeder that was in really bad shape - - - at least for the birds and their lunches.

     It's the type of feeder that sits on the ground for birds who like to peck stuff off the ground.  It never got much use because Linda next door ( fat, black & white cat ) just loves to chase birds - sometimes she catches them too.  The seed would sit in the feeder for weeks, get rained on and then rot or go to seed !

     I finally picked it out of the over grown grass in the back area of my back yard, cleaned it up, scrubbed the seeds out of it and planted it with Hens & Chicks succulents.  Here's what it looks like right after I planted it - I think that was back in April.

     You can also see two round pots / saucers that I planted some Hens & Chicks in.  I had to transplant all my Hens & Chicks from the other side of the front yard right up next to the sidewalk because the neighborhood children would walk into my yard and step all over them.  Poor little Hens & Chicks were not doing well.

     I'll take pictures tomorrow of what these pots and feeder look like now !  I almost have to thin the pots and make more.

Have a great day !   Sandra

Where has TIME gone?

I've lost track of TIME.  Where has it gone?  I posted last week and thought I would get a lot done on my different altered art projects, my rubber stamping projects and other household crafty stuff.

No, dusting, cleaning, laundry, mowing the grass, weeding, and all that stuff is NOT household crafty stuff.  All this stuff has to be done too but I put it off till I can't stand it anymore.  Finally had to do a load of laundry today because I ran out of clean bath towels.  My clothes washer (Maytag) has a problem ... the cold water does not want to come on consistently so sometimes it takes over an hour or more to fill the washer with water before I can wash the clothes!  It takes just as long to fill it again for the rinse cycle!  It could take up to 4 hours to do one load of laundry.  Good grief .... I should get that fixed.  The washer and dryer are from around 1986, so maybe it's time to get a tune-up ?

Anyway, I just wanted you to know I'm still working on altering things and will get some pictures up soon.

Have a great Sunday!   Sandra

What's Been Going On?

I can not believe it has been a week since my last post.  I have been busy with several crafty projects which  makes it very difficult to complete any ONE project!

Do you ever have that problem ?

I am busy making a grapevine wreath for my front door.  The theme will be Summer but by middle of August it should be called  Late Summer !  I have 3 small unfinished wooden birdhouses, lots of fabric / silk flowers from the craft store, and some wooden ornaments ( two are butterflies and one is a sun ) that I'm going to paint and emboss the black outline around the images . . . . at least that is my plan !

I haven't given up on the bathroom vanity set.  I just thought about it some more and I don't want to just put any type of papers or decoration on it.  I'd like it to coordinate with the bedroom decor.  Now that is my problem.  I am starting the process of redecorating the bedroom.  The walls are really depressing me ( dark colors ), the curtains don't match the wall color and are very old, the bed duvet needs replacing . . . and on it goes.  I think I have a plan in mind and I am looking for the right cheerful fabric to make the curtains, duvet cover, pillow covers, and maybe even re-cover the rocking chair cushions.  So, altering the vanity set is taking longer than I thought.

Thanks for checking in with me!  Till next time . . .  Sandra

Bathroom Vanity Set Being Altered and Beautified!

Here are some photos of the bathroom set I was talking about earlier.  As you can see, it is a rather bright marbleized green - doesn't look natural and doesn't look pretty ( to me ).  I've roughed up the tissue box with sandpaper and started to paint it white with Gesso.  The tissue box is plastic so it wasn't difficult to scratch into it.  The soap bottle and the toothbrush holder are ceramic / glass and I could not rough it up, I just painted Gesso over it.  I plan to decoupage papers on all the items so I hope it will stick to the ceramic / glass.

I will show you the results in a few days.

Anyone who has any suggestions about getting things to stick to the ceramic items, I'd be happy to know.  There's nothing worse that having your artistic works fall apart, especially ones that are supposed to be used on a daily basis.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Sandra~

A Mini Book I Made

I don't know if you would consider this to be altered art.  I made it from scratch...chipboard, Bind-it-all, papers, embellishments, etc.  I also entered it in our local county fair and won first place ( got a blue ribbon ) !

It just occurred to me ..... this is my blog and I can put anything I want to on it.  Wow!  What an epiphany.  I suddenly I can feel the freedom of doing what I like and showing it off to everyone!  Yippie!!

Late Night Sunday

Well, I don't have any examples for you today.  I don't have any idea what has happened to my Sunday but it is almost over ( 10:35 PM ) and I feel like I haven't accomplished any crafting!

Maybe that's not quite true.  I found an old bathroom caddy set in the garage

( toothbrush holder, kleenex holder, and soap / lotion pump bottle ).  They are an ugly green color and, if they were pretty, I could use these in my bathroom since my soap bottle cracked.

I will post pictures tomorrow of what they look like "in the raw."  I started to paint them with Gesso then stopped because I wanted to take pictures first.  

Stay tuned!

~Sandra~

Altered Mousetraps

Well, I thought I would post the photos of the mousetraps on the This & That page but I can't figure it out yet.  So here they are on the Home page.

So, what do you think of them?  They have magnets on the back so you can put them on your refrigerator and put a small notepad under the spring bar at the bottom.  I actually made four of these but I forgot to take photos of the other two.  Same general theme and colors.

Altered Mousetraps

Do you have mice in your house?  In your garage?  In your barn?  Or in the garden or fields around you?  You don't?  Great!  I found mouse droppings in my garage over the winter and I bought a package of traps.  You know the kind, the old fashioned ones that snap closed as soon as the mouse takes the cheese off the little hook.  Well, I put out two of those with peanut butter (I'd been told they really like peanut butter).  I checked back in a couple of days...the peanut butter was GONE! and there were no mice.  This went on for a month or so.  I even changed over to a more high tech, modern mouse trap.  It didn't work either.  I had the garage door open one day and the neighbor's cat, Linda, went in my garage for a while....no more mice!

I really love that cat!

So, I had some (UNUSED) left over traps of the old fashioned design.  Check out what I did with those crazy things on the This & That page.  Then tell me what you think.

Anything Can Be Altered

Today is the first day of my new blog --- ANYTHING CAN BE ALTERED.

 I wanted to start this blog because I love playing with all sorts of materials (paints & inks; papers; lace, fabrics & ribbons; hardware & wire; empty boxes & containers; old or recycled items; etc.).

 I've been looking at a lot of blogs recently and there is a ton of different ideas and examples of altered art made by just your average person (in addition to the professionals).

My examples will not be perfect, as a matter of fact, I may show you some miserable failures (at least in my eyes).  I welcome honest feedback and any suggestions about how to improve a particular piece of art.

Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you again!  

~Sandra~