SEPIA SONGBIRDS AND OTHER ARTFUL THINGS...

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble,
forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath
furnished them to the shame of art."

-Izaak Walton-

Yesterday in the studio I enmeshed myself in the sweet soothing tones of sepia and songbirds. Rich creams, snowy whites, faded golds, and deep browns, twigs, feathers, and mosses were the chosen pallet for my newest artwork. I gave you a sneak peek earlier with these photos, from this...To this...To these...

Home Tweet Home!I moved from finishing up that project to making a few of these...

Ending the workday with the beginnings of another tattered collage like this one...

I have two more sepia projects up my sleeve and I hope to have one complete and the other well on its way to completion by days end.

I thought you might enjoy a few free sepia images for your art work, so feel free to save them for your personal use...(FREE IMAGE)

(FREE IMAGE)

(FREE IMAGE)

Just a reminder, today is the last day to sign up for my Sharing Spring Give Away, just click the highlighted link and leave your name in the comments section. Three winners will be posted tomorrow!

I hope each of you have a delightful day!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

GRAND OPENING: QUILL COTTAGE CURIOSITY SHOPPE...

(Banner design by Kris Hurst of Blissful Elements)

I finally got a few things finished up and listed in my new shop, Quill Cottage Curiosity Shoppe, where you will find original design handmade art pieces as well as an assortment of unique odds and ends for your crafting needs.(Cinderella's Slipper Altered Shoe Art Kit)

A curio is an object that arouse interest because it is something unusual ~ perhaps something worthy of collecting. I hope that is what you will find in my new shoppe. Feel free to browse through my few meager offerings.(Snow Bird Winter Collage)

Should you have any questions, you can contact the proprietress of this establishment, Miss Sandy, through leaving a comment or via email. My email link is on my upper side bar. Thank you all for your loving encouragement and support of my blog and my art.(3D Collage Nature Inspired Christmas Star)

Since I am new to online selling, I hope I set everything up right. I have payments set up through PayPal, which is very secure and makes ordering very easy.(Stella's Sepia Slipper Altered Shoe Art Kit)

I would sincerely love to have some feedback on the set up of the site, the items listed, and even the pricing. This is vastly different from selling at shows or in a booth and there are extra costs to factor in. I am starting with a small inventory and will add to it a little at a time. I had a grand plan of working up a whole bunch of inventory but that did not work out so well.(Carmen's Cameo Slipper Altered Shoe Art Kit)

Mostly I will be selling one~of~a~kind pieces but to get myself started I did do a few duplicates. I have several items almost finished on the work table and hope to have them listed by the end of the week as well. I'll be listing some supplies in the near future also.(Brier Rose's Dancing Slipper Altered Shoe Art Kit)

Thank you for visiting.

Blessings,

Miss Sandy

Sweet Surprises and A Few Finished Projects.....

"We cannot do great things on this earth, only small things with great love."

~Mother Teresa~(Click on any photo to enlarge for better viewing)

I am often overwhelmed and amazed at the generosity and thoughtfulness of bloggers. I recently received a couple of sweet surprises in the mail from two new blog friends, Caroline and Jodie.

Caroline, I do hope you can forgive my tardiness in posting on and thanking you for the super sweet note you sent me and the precious angel magnet you enclosed. Caroline's handwriting alone is an exquisite gift, she writes in the most beautiful script! I have a thing for beautiful handwriting.

Caroline, you will never know the depth of meaning the words you wrote inside this card mean to me. You did not know that it would arrive on a bad day and was just the encouragement I needed to hear. I have placed this card in my keepsake box and the magnet on my message board. Every time I look at it I will remember you and be glad our lives touched. Thank you for blessing me!

Jodie of Everything Vintage recently won a give away here and sent me a thank you card and enclosed a token of her appreciation. I am in mad love with her packaging! This is such a clever little box and its embellished beautifully with a velvet flower, silk leaves, a button rose, and such dreamy vintage paper!The box held a beautiful handmade book mark. The beading and cross are so sweet and I love the message "BELIEVE". Thank you so very much Jodie for your kindness. I have already put this to good use in my current read!

I do believe that I am one blessed lady not just by these two precious ladies but by everyone of you who takes time out to visit here. I probably don't say it often enough but I do appreciate each and every one of you who visits. I have formed some amazing friendships here in the land of blog and you are just the best! It is with great love that I share the small things in my life with you and the blessings I receive are great things to me.

I finally figured out how to finish off the ink cupboard I showed you in this post. I thought I had a vision of how I wanted it to come out but it just wasn't coming together like I wanted it to so I put it aside until I could figure out how to embellish it. I made these darling paper birdhouses that I thought would work but they were all wrong so I tossed them in the Ooops pile and will use them later. One of the papers got some wrinkles in it but life is way too short to worry about wrinkles! I love the quote I chose to go around the door and the little vintage key detail. The feather in the inkwell was a gift from my friend, Pam, who gave me some beautiful feathers from her collection. I think these are Emu feathers. Since it is a cupboard to hold small rubber stamps and ink pads I decided an ink theme would work and I am happy with the results.

Between working on the never ending pond project and doing some DIY in preparation for having some work done on our house I managed to squeeze in a few storage solutions for my studio space. I found a tin cone, wicker stationary holder, and a wooded spice rack at a flea market a while back and finally had time to jazz them up a bit.I used a little paint to highlight the tin relief designs. I tied it to a shelf bracket with a satin ribbon and now have a handy scissor holder within easy reach while crafting. The spice rack got a new coat of white paint, you can see a peek of it beside the scissor holder. It now holds glitter, glue, and a few other assorted things. I'll show you later in a bigger reveal.The wicker stationary holder and a book holder that I forgot to stick in the before photograph both got a fresh coat of Spring Green spray paint. I used the stationary holder to hold a case of drawing pencils, oil pastels, chalk pastels, and as scrap tag storage.These colorful ready to embellish tags are made from scrap card stock left over from other projects. Sometimes a scrap is not large enough to use but too large to throw away so I turn them into various size tags. You can do this using various punches but I use a tag stencil to trace them and cut them out with a scissor. I bind color families together using twine and a large button, tying the loose ends in a bow. This keeps the tags tidy. I placed them on a shelf above my work surface where I have them handy.This little book stand has been with me for quite some time and its icky gray~green color had to go! I often use this book stand to hold various art books when learning a new technique or for visual inspiration. When not in use I wanted it to look inspiring all on its own so I gave it a couple of collage "pages" as well as covering the lip that holds the pages open. I love the happy green color, well, I just love green period! I hope you found a little inspiration here. Next week I will have another Q&A where I will share some tips on preserving vintage ephemera (paper), and address a few other questions. I also hope to have a new tutorial up for you. I just got a vintage book on making paper flowers and they are so fun and fantastic that I just have to share!

Oh, and before I forget, Dawn at The Feathered Nest is having a huge 1/2 price sale on her tutorials, only $5.00 each!!! The sale ends on July 7th EST time. I purchased her Nest Assemblage and Nature Journal tutorials and they are totally awesome. The photo illustrated step-by-step instructions are clear and concise. You even get a bonus of images to use in the projects! There are ten wonderful projects for you to choose from, just visit here at Lessons from The Nest.

This will be a four day weekend for our family so I will not post again until Tuesday. Handy Hubby assures me that this will be THE WEEKEND that ends the pond project, we will see. I hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July!

Blessings,

Miss Sandy

A Peek At The Work Table.....

"Never before have I just stuffed something away in the back cupboard of my brain because it was just a crazy concept."

~Greg Kinnear~

I have dearly missed being cloistered in my creative space and it looks like I will be in here for at least a week. (Insert fist pumping "YES!" here) Besides finishing up my current project, I have a wedding gift, two graduation gifts, three give away prizes, and a scrapbook to pump out in the next week, YIKES! Being gone most of the week last week has put me a little behind but I feel up to the challenge.

I have been steadily working on reorganizing, culling, and labeling (the DYMO people are lovin' me right now!) all my creative supplies for four long months now. I am hoping in the near future to have a big reveal of my artful space. Until then, I will share with you my current work~in~progress project on the work table, a little jewel being turned into a mini storage cupboard. I pickup up this wooden jewelry box at a tag sale for $5.00. When I saw it I had this crazy concept that it could become an ink cupboard. It was in excellent shape but I did not dig the design on the drawers. The paint was in great shape so I left the cream base and gold details as they were. I cleaned and disassembled the piece, covering the sides and back with ledger paper and a torn dictionary page using matte gel medium. The drawer fronts were given the same treatment. I planned the torn pages in such a way as to have a little botanical graphic on each section for added detail. I am still playing with some design elements to collage on the sides and back as well as thinking of adding some heavy metal elements for added charm and character. I am not sure these knobs will stay, they to may be replaced. I want a special art piece for the glass covered door so I am still experimenting with that too.
My newly labeled ink pads will stack perfectly in the door section for easy access and identification. My favorite brands being Stampabilities and Distress Ink, both of which you can find at Hobby Lobby.
Would you like a peek in the drawers? Drawer #1 holds a few mini ink pads and my two favorite colors of embossing powder, gold and copper by Ranger, also found at Hobby Lobby.Drawers #2, 3, & 4 hold various sets of alphabet stamps as well as my "to & from" and "Handmade By" stamps.
I wanted some stylish storage with handy access for these frequently used supplies without the hassle of digging for them and this little jewelery cupboard fits the bill perfectly! I'll share the finished project soon. I hope you all have a delightful day.

Blessings,
Miss Sandy