Hand-Made Monday

What fun, Mary Ann of Follow Your Bliss has designed a new challenge called Hand-Made Monday. Today's was a "What's Left" craft made from scraps and bits. Mary Ann has set up a blog just for Hand-Made Monday


I have lots of small blank canvas in my art studio. They looked a bit sad sitting there all blank, so I thought of a way to create Christmas gifts using my favorite medium - Mixed Medium or what we called in the olden days...Collage. I have loved collage since I was in kindergarten and we got to glue elbow macaroni on paper using elmer's glue and then we painted the pasta. Ta dah a masterpiece and it soon became my addiction. I just love material and fabric notions but I can't even sew on a button properly. So I started using glue to adhere fabric to my paintings.

This mind you, was before the birth of fiber art and many of my art friends snubbed these kinds of creations. "Not reeeeeeeeeeeal art dahling". Well, tell that to the mainstream art world today. I love what the new young generation has done to make collage explode into a brand new world defined as ART. This creative genius has redefined collage by naming it "Altered Art", "Mixed Media" and "Fiber Art".

For my Bluebird "What's Left" entry, I took a small fat canvas (gallery canvas) and painted it with a taupe/gray oil paint. Then I cut out the shape of a birdhouse using a lovely greeting card. I embellished this birdhouse, using bits of ribbons, cards, my own bluebird art printed on Xerox pearlized paper (love it), a bit of glitter and a vintage notecard with words. Then I used this wonderful aqua organza ribbon with tinsel trim instead of a frame and finished it with a bow. Yay! Better than coloring in my coloring book. I love using glitter, paper and trim to make things.


Well, I am certainly excited that Mary Ann has created this wonderful venue to inspire all of us crafty people. I know that her Hand-Made Monday group will be a wonderful addition to all the creative inspiration in blogland.

The long and winding road thru illustrating, watercolor, and oil has led me back to my first love Collage. So, the song for this post is an old Beatles favorite, which I used to listen to when I collaged pop art back in the day...so here is the song, The Long and Winding Road.