It's Those Ornaments Again

Last Christmas (or was it the Christmas before that?), I was fascinated by small "collage sandwiches"...two pieces or glass: either microscope slides or a couple of the sizes offered by Ranger and Tim Holtz...with small vignettes that we now call 'inchies, twinchies and moo's'...or a rough approximation...the 'sandwich filling' told a story, a theme or a moment in time &/or imagination. These later grew into the Laura B that I posted below, and a series of other 'sandwich people'.

This year, spurred on by Sue Shotwell, I began a new appreciation for the silhouette. I have begun to see the woods around me, full of winter tree branch and bird silhouettes, as rich food for my artistic soul. The devil is in the details, as they say: I found it was a little more difficult than I had anticipated, in that tiny silhouettes are not all that easy to find for this application. I had no difficulty with the Christmas sheet music background, as old discarded hymnals abound in thrift stores. I looked at diecut images from a few of the cartridges available on the market, rubber stamps in silhouette, and, finally, hand punches. That still gave me only a limited number of options, so it was a choice whether to go with what I had, or spend studio time tracking down these pesky sized images...laziness and high fuel cost (and the cold!) made me use what I had on hand. (I have roughly a year until I need them again next Christmas!...Plenty of time in January and February for cyber wandering and searching!).

These, then, are two different types...one, retro with a hand punched pine tree: I embossed the rubber stamp, then, as I was melting the pseudo-soldered sides, managed to remelt the embossing powder...now on the inside of the sandwich. The other, with handmade fusion paper (by me!) and another tree from a hand punch. I finished it all off with a blurry and full of light reflections series of photographs...arrrrgggghhhh....

So, with full apologies for technique, etc, here goes...at least I am sticking to my resolution to continue to blog!!! (Patty, I ache for your proficiency on so many levels!!!)

Bowing to Pressure

Sometimes New Year's Resolutions are left from one year to another: that's where I am here on December 1st...Blame it on Barack Obama. Our next president is organizing a government, prioritizing the needs of a nation and still has time to be a parent...surely I can exercise some modicum of coherence by keeping up with a blog! My good friend Patty (at http://bitze.wordpress.com/) whose blog is wonderful beyond belief and who keeps up with art and blogging, has urged me (nicely) to get my act together and begin anew to post some of my creations. I yield and will accomplish my first do-able goal: minimum of one posting each month...if I can't do that, I am a sorry example.

So, I first post some of my examples of Inchie Ornaments. Patty was the perpetrater: she discovered the template on a website by Shelley Rae (?)and then set off a world-wide phenomenon! Be sure to go to her blog, look at her absolutely stunning examples and follow the links to Margaret in Zurich, Switzerland and Gia in Rome...my, my, my. Absolutely marvelous!

That being said, here are 3 that I have done...keeping in mind that these tiny canvases bring out the 'all thumbs' aspect. Balance, scale and tiny tabs for gluing...all a challenge for moi...have empathy! I have a couple of more irons in the fire, Christmas ornament-wise, but will await whether or not I have achieved the desired goal: a successful posting of text and photos...Welcome and wish me well! Here goes...