Bubble Beaded!

Marianne Colschen has been a busy, busy beader finding all kinds of fun and unique ways to incorporate our newest Iridescent Bubble Beads into her art! 

This darling notebook is small enough to tuck into a purse and stylish enough to make you want to actually write important things down in it!  Ü

BONUS!  This week one lucky customer will find this bead-i-ful beauty tucked into their order envelope!  All orders placed between Tuesday August 3rd and Saturday August 7th will be assigned a number in numerical order of receipt.  A predetermined “secret number” has already been assigned as the winner and if you happen to be “that” order number then you win!  We hope the winner will post a comment back to this page too – cause it’s always fun to hear from excited customers!

We look forward to sharing more of Marianne’s art with you all month long so keep coming back!

Hugs,

Suzanne

Oh –and go place your orders!  www.PennywiseArts.com !!

Art Is A Process

The Pennywise Yahoo community has a lot of really great swaps throughout the year.  The fat book page swaps are one of my favorite.  The current fat book theme is “See The World” using a luggage tag template that was provided.

Alert!  If you are in this swap and want to be surprised you should stop reading now.  This blog post could be interpreted as a swap spoiler and I wouldn’t want to influence you in any way.

It was easy to decide that I wanted to do something with the ocean because of all the stuff I have that I could use (and use up!) in doing it.  Plus, I just love the ocean!

As I was working on my tags I became very aware of my own personal art process:

1. I am a social artist.  I gain enthusiasm and inspiration when sharing a play day with other artists.  The afterglow of spending time with friends making art lasts for days and I love this intensely creative time.

2.  I don’t usually have a plan for how the end will look, I just ride the wave of “now” and see where it takes me. 

3. I make a big mess when doing art!

For the first part of my tag process I covered chipboard with paper from Design Originals.  Then I clear embossed part of the image with a shell stamp to give the illusion of water.  Stamp credit: Stampington and Company

Friends can be the best resource of all for ideas and inspiration.  My friend Julie came to play and shared some recycled heavy acetate with a wave shape cut from one side.  The wheels started turning and I knew I wanted to incorporate that wave into my design.

I thought about the wave on the sand square of my dollar store art (see previous post) and decided to use that technique on my tags.  I cut the acetate to match the length of the tags and then squeezed out a line of Sure Tac Glue.  I then placed shells along that line and added clear micro beads for grout on the spaces in between.  The glue will dry clear.

And that is as far as I have gotten so far.  I think I’ll continue to share my process as I experience it with these tags.  One thing is for sure, I definitely have a messy process!  Here is a picture of my table:

Hugs, Suzanne

P.S.  If you are interested in joining the 10 for 10 luggage tag swap and receiving one of my tags in trade, please contact me!  The due date is August 31st – still a whole month away!

More Dollar Store Art

The gals in our Yahoo community are really taking up the challenge and creating great art from things that cost only one dollar!  You go girls!  I love all of the ideas and inspirations!

Laura Davis was first to share and her altered dollar store book is gorgeous!

Michele Aiello Zendejas needed a thank you gift so she created these stunning notepads! 

Be sure to visit Michele’s blog to see lots more of her artwork!
http://www.atozdesigns.com/maz/

Evelyn Spikes made a special trip to the dollar store in search of things to play in our challenge and here is what she found:

I was most intrigued by the candle holder in the back and I love what Evelyn did with it!

 

 

Look close up!  The bubble beads really add a layer of dimension!  And I imagine when the candle is lit that there could be some fun light play on them as well.

The little white pails have been transformed!

A close up view shows how Evelyn added the bubble beads to this project too:

Evelyn has a very active blog with lots of her other art postings!  http://www.beyondjustblackandwhite.blogspot.com

I dug up several things that were done in the past to share as well.

 

Annette Lanker got me totally addicted to these fun frames from the dollar store!

Annette filled in the circles with a clear drying glue and added different colored (opaque) micro beads to each section.  Inside she put a sheet of O’So Sticky Tape and added a neat mosaic element to the tape before applying more coordinating micro beads:

Once upon a time a group of beadie buds took a day trip to Alaska for a shoebox party and oh what fun we had!  I wanted a special frame to commemorate that trip of a lifetime so I used Annette’s technique:

And here is another frame that I embellished for a swap I participated in:

   

All three frames were painted over with white acrylic paint that was then colored with alcohol inks.

I love to show close up pictures so you can really see the detail better.  The suns were made using alcohol ink on flat glass pebbles glued to wire that had been curled.  There is a layer of clear embossed sun stamping on the frame that is really only visible in the upper left corner of this photo:

The surf frame was embossed with O’so Sticky Powder, micro beads and fru fru flakes.  It’s my favorite of the three!

The big embossed seashells don’t show well in this photo of the sand frame but there are there.  Over that I made a thick squiggle of Sure Tac Glue (it dries clear and I love it!)  I place the shells where I wanted them and then grouted the rest of the exposed glue with micro beads.  When it was dry I went over it with a bottle of alcohol ink, squeezing the color right from the bottle over the shells and beads.  I love how many of the shells natural colors and textures still showed so well after inking them brown!

   

If you’re read this far you must be a dollar store addict and art junkie too!  Send me photos of your creations and I’ll share them here!   Email: suzanne@pennywisearts.com