MIA not really

Hi everyone, just popping in to say I am around but been kind of busy. As I look at the calendar I am realizing that fall is approaching faster than I want, which only means winter, so I have been busy pulling out paint books and magazines for ornament ideas for my craft shows. I will also be doing some key chains and scrabble tiles and maybe a few domino pendants if time permits. Hubs has been busy the last couple days cutting out for me and I have been prepping the wood ready to paint and also some gourds.
So in case you are wondering what I have been up to I am around just not blogging much.
I will be showing my bird canvases and some mail art I recently received from a couple swaps but that may be done over the weekend. Also been playing with images in Gimp and learning all about image manipulation etc. So much fun.
Weather is still hot hot hot during the day but cools right off at night. Today while driving to town I noticed some leaves are starting to change colour, this means fall. Where did the summer go?
Take care, no pics today but I will post again soon.
Lesley

Dress Form Tutorial

I have played with Air Dry Clay a bit and I decided to try making a dress form for an altered canvas. As you will see, it is simple, quick and very alterable. You can make them any size if you have an editing program on your computer and you will have the ability to make your own instead of searching forever online on how to make them. I have found tutorials that you can pay for the instructions but if you are frugal like me, you could spend the money on something else.

So after doing a few of my own I am going to show you how to make a dress form, here is what you do.....

First of all go to Mirkwood Designs and get your free template, look for the dress form, you may have to scroll down the page a bit.

Edit in a program to the desired size you want to make...then print it off and cut it out. You only need one, but, if you want to make a few sizes then print and cut out.

Gather these supplies: rolling pin or brayer, wax paper, cutting board, air dry clay ( I got mine at the dollar store and I recommend using white), sharp craft knife and pattern, see link above.

 Take out some clay and place it on your wax paper. Air dry clay is very moist when you first take it out so you can do one of two things, if you have time you can leave it out for a bit, maybe half hour or so and let the air get at it, it won't dry out immediately or you can use it right away, just remember if you do that, then it sticks to itself  and won't give you much play if you want to lift it at any stage. Also you can dust it with a bit of cornstarch or talcum powder before applying the paper pattern, only do this if you use it straight out of the bag. Ok now onto the next step.

 Fold the wax paper over  the clay and roll it out. I did this because I don't have a craft only rolling pin and I have no idea what the air dry clay may contain and I didn't want to contaminate food with any foreign chemicals. Roll out the clay to about 1/8 thickness, you could do this with your hands if you want, it really doesn't have to be rolled out but if you want to make more than one torso then more is better and even thickness.

 Remove the top layer of wax paper and now place your pattern with talc or cornstarch on it over a section of the clay. Start cutting around the pattern and pulling the clay away as you cut. Remember if it is really sticky it doesn't co operate and if you pull it too much you may distort the shape of your torso, be patient. you may end up balling it up a few times and starting over. It really is worth it in the end, you will see.

 Ok you have one cut ,now cut a second torso, and, remember to have the pattern right side up as you did for the first torso, you want them to match when you place one on top of the other.

 Now roll 2 small balls of clay and remember if you place them on fresh clay on the bottom piece they will stick so if you need to make any placement to see the size of the bust then place it on your paper template. I tell you all this because I learned as I went along and I don't want to cause you frustration. You will be happy I told you things so you know it could happen. If the bust looks too large then just take a bit off one ball and see if you are happy then size the other one to match.

If you are happy with the bust line now you can place the 2 rolled balls of clay in the area I have shown in the picture below.

 Now take your second piece of clay and carefully place it over top of the bottom torso and the bust. You may have to stretch the top piece to fit but with practise it will work. You can see below that there are some uneven edges but you can do one of two things, trim it now while the clay is still damp and then mold with your fingers or you can wait and cut it with either a craft knife or scissors after the torso has completely dried out.

 I have done both below, trimmed and molded with my finger to smooth edges. You don' t have to be perfect. If you are done and happy, make more and let them sit out to dry. I usually leave mine out to dry on wax paper over night. It doesn't take that long but I tend to have more than one thing on the go.

And here is what I created with my air dry torso. You can paint air dry clay, you can modge it or use gel medium. I used a tan with white mix and just slip slapped the paint on the torso then modged some fabric I had. Click on the canvas to view a larger image. I just love how this turned out. The one thing about air dry clay I like is it is very light.

 Here is a close up of just the torso.

 And below a shabby flower I recently made using Tim's Tattered Florals die.

I hope you give this a try. Let me know how you did. Did you like this? Was I helpful?

Please if you make a torso and blog about it direct people to my blog for the tutorial. I am not charging any money for this, all I ask that you give me credit for it.

Thanks for dropping by and I can't wait to show you some birds of note.

TTFN, Lesley ♥

The Summer of Colour ends.....

It has been an incredibly fun and challenging time over at Kristin's blog. Kristin has challenged many of us to use colours in our artwork that we enjoy, find challenging, and, make us think outside the box at times.

I am not that computer savvy to figure out how to embed a slide show into my post, so here is a view of the the projects I completed for this challenge.

May I thank Kristin, blogger friends old and new for visiting me, encouraging me, and, leaving lovely comments even if I felt it wasn't my best effort....like orange. LOL

BLUE

 GREEN

 BROWN

 ORANGE

 PINK

 PURPLE

 RED

 YELLOW

(These are not in the order of the weeks that were chosen, )

Thank you for stopping by.



Summer of Colour-Orange

This is the final colour for the challenge Summer of Colour. Most weeks have been relatively easy but I found Orange was my most challenging.

Since I started off making cards then veered off and made a few other things, I decided I would end with a card. This card is not exactly what I would call my best but I decided after many attempts with orange this was going to be it.

Kristin has hosted a wonderful challenge for us and I am so grateful for new blog friends and not so new who have visited me and left lovely comments. I could not visit everyone's blog every week but I did attempt to visit new ones each week.

So here is my orange entry, again, it is not one of my better but I did attempt a face. I have been practising  faces on and off all summer as a new venture in my muse.

Thanks for dropping by and hope you had a wonderful challenge as I have had.



I have been given the honor of...

Bella of the Week over at Bella Creations.

I am a participant in the group called Début des Techniques Graphique, hosted by Heather Hudson who has introduced us to the Gimp program. If you recall my post with the ballerina on a canvas which was a challenge piece to use the ballerina on a piece of artwork. The original picture had a different background and I made a music background and touched up the ballerina in Gimp then did the rest of the artwork.

To say the least I was very surprised to find that I won the title of Bella of the week.

Thanks so much, I am so surprised.

There are so many very talented women over there, click on the link here if you are interested in joining. I encourage you to do so. A great place to learn, share and be inspired.

Still working on Summer of Colour-Orange and having fun with it.

Til next time, thanks for dropping by.

~♥~