Yay... The Sun Came Out... Yay!

Wow! I really can't believe it. We finally had two great beach days over the weekend. I spent every possible moment sitting in the sand and soaking up the sun. I even plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday. The waves were great. Ahhhhh... sweet relief.

All In Favor... Say Eye!

After stumbling across the most amazing doll artist... Black Eyed Suzie... I just had to get me a bunch of these gorgeous, colorful eyes to use for my paper clay characters. It's definitely something new for me, but I just love how real they look... Eye have to try it!

Cotton Cotton Candy...

I finally got a chance to add the cotton to my cardboard cotton candy piece. I unrolled natural cotton balls and adhered them with Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Multi-Medium. Then I created a mixture of her pink Acrylic Paint and water to spritz the cotton with. It looks really great because it has all these variegated areas. Especially the ones where it's a little heavy... it reminds me of when you had your cotton candy at the fair on a humid night, and it got all wet and sticky in some spots! Fun!

Yay... I'm Stuffed...

Yay! My Coraline Little Me doll made it into Stampington & Company's Stuffed magazine. I am excited and honored! I hope it will inspire other softie fans to make a "little me" doll of themselves. The issue... Summer 2009... will be on newstands July 1st.

If you would like to make your own Little Me doll, I have the pattern for sale in my Etsy Shop!

Mrs. Cook The 6th...

This past weekend a bunch of us crafty girls got together for another "episode" of the Tiara Chronicles. The magnificently creative Lisa Kettell showed us how to make these "Charlotte" style bottle dolls.

She fashioned the head out of Model Magic using a mold she created from a vintage doll. We attached the doll head to our bottle... I used my favorite champagne split bottle (it's a mini Cook's bottle). Then we went all out with embellishing our creations.

It was a great time sharing supplies and ideas and seeing what everyone came up with.

All the dolls turned out different... and were absolute reflections of their owners! Here they are in no particular order...
And here we are, the Tiara girls... Patti, Joan, Lisa, Linda, Suze and me!
© group photos by Patti Behan

Ladies Night Part Two...

This week was our second silkscreening ladies night at Social Animal Press in Ocean Grove. Our gracious hostess—Molly Johnson—taught us the photo exposure screen making technique this time. It is a method that allows a more detailed image, so I went with my favorite subject matter... the cupcake. The class was great fun with old friends and new... and I am getting a little more confident with my screen printing. So much so that I dared to make a couple of shirts... LOVE them!

Junkyard Ghosts...

Like these vintage cars in the photo, I'm feeling a little "beat up" this week. So much stuff on my to do list... at lunchtime and after work... and not enough me time. We definitely suffer when we put our restful time on hold. I need to get back to center...

Nesting...

Lots of nesting this weekend. The weather wasn't very cooperative... so I ended up doing a lot of house stuff. Scrubbing the upstairs deck... washing the outside of the house... weeding the side yard... sweeping the back deck. Pretty boring, but it all needed to be done. Now I have a pretty, clean couple of places to hang out when the weather does get nicer.

At least I rewarded myself with a little clothes shopping when I was done!

Tastes Like Cardboard...

I was playing around with the idea of a cardboard cutout of cotton candy... and I just love how retro it looks. my entire kitchen is done in 50's memorabilia and this fits right in. I think I'll do more with this silhouette idea... candy apples, a cupcake, double scoop ice cream... Although I really want to cover the cotton candy part with real cotton to make it more 3-D. Experimenting is fun and definitely something I need to do more of!

Enough Already!

This year April showers brought May showers that brought June showers! My goodness. I need to see the sun. Hope it comes out this weekend.

Pretty Please... With Perfect Pearls On Top...

Cupcake Number 4 I created on a square cigar box top and started with a background of different sized dots in acrylic paint. I layered several washes of color over top, which I really liked because it made them fade into the background just right. I sketched out a cupcake on a scrap of paper, colorized it with watered down acrylics, then put a layer of beeswax over top. I thought it needed something else, so I brushed the icing with Perfect Pearls Powders for a shimmery effect and added the rick-rack.

Murphy's Law... With Kitties!

Okay, so if I really WAS taking them to the vet, they'd both be hiding under the bed. But since I just washed out the Pet Taxi and left it right in the center of the living room... well... Juliet has to climb right in and Romeo has to see what it's all about! Go figure?

Bird Nestlace...

I switched it up a bit this time. I wanted to play around with some of the pieces I created in Stephanie Lee's class. I found the bird text and decided to make a nest. Originally, I had tried Spanish Moss for the nest, but found it too bulky. And then I remembered that a real bird nest had fallen out of a tree in our yard recently. So I took a piece from that... added some freshwater pearls... and added a pair of earrings recently acquired at a flea market.

Little Pink House No. 3

I got tired of working with all those square shapes! And so one night, I said... "hey, a house!" I had the perfect piece of cardboard for it too. I embellished it with some vintage children's book pages for the roof and door... then I painted with Claudine Hellmuth Studio Acrylics... Cut out a window... sanded the finish... and added some dimensional objects for interest. I found the phrase, "Who are you?" and thought it was perfect for this point in my life. The vintage photo of the baby seemed to be looking into my soul, so that one fit the bill... I finished up with some charcoal around the edges of the entire piece. Hey, this is fun!

Cotton Candy Cigar Box Top...

I was in the attic and found a bunch of cigar box lids that I had removed from some assemblages I created a while back. I saved them because I thought they'd make a cool substrate for something in the future. I quickly picked up this long, skinny one... as it screamed "cotton candy"! I gave it one coat of gesso and used acrylic paints for the sugary treat. It seemed kind of plain, so I used elements from around the edge of the lid that were still slightly visible... and incorporated them into the piece. It still needed something more... so a little hand written story about spending time at the boardwalk as a child did the trick. I think this is my favorite "art as therapy" piece thus far!

Impromptu Art Night...

I was invited to a Ladies Night art class where the project was learning to silkscreen. I could not pass up the opportunity, as I love the look and when I found out we'd be creating our own art and making our own screens... well... I had to go. So, what kind of image should I make? Cotton candy of course! I'm very happy with the results and am looking forward to incorporating this technique into future creative projects. Yay for learning!