Dainty little Bling

I have decided to tone things down and create some small less over the top vintage style soldered pendants. I know not everyone shares the same you can't have to much bling philosophy as I do, I don't know why..........cause to me bling is

B E A U T I F U L.

So with that in mind I came up with these little dainty mini bling. These soldered charms/pendants are the perfect size to use as a connector on a vintage style necklace or add a pretty bead and you have a sweet pendant.

I wish I could tell you the date under the glass was the real deal but I'm afraid my nose would start to grow, and I've got a honker as it is so we won't go there.

Nope this was fabricated in my studio, I found an old fountain pen and mixed up an ink concoction and went to town, pulling numbers out of the air, looks almost like the real thing.

Small charm is approximately the same size as a dime, I did use real vintage rhinestone so some of it is legit vintage.

"Little Boy Blue" This little fella is about the size of a quarter and I used one of my altered antique photo's and of course vintage rhinestone.

Another 1873 (large) charm this one was also fabricated in the studio
and is the same size as Little Boy Blue roughly the size of a quarter.

These charms have found there way into my Etsy shop, I'm working on some more wee ones and hope to have them ready to go very soon.

Until next time

Hugs Deborah

2010 ONE WORLD ONE HEART GIVEAWAY~ROMANCE

It's here and its official the ONE WORLD ONE HEART Blog giveaway is now in progress so start your engines and get ready for a wonderful ride, trust me you won't be disappointed if the numbers are anything like last years. Over 900 wonderful blogs to visit each and everyone giving away amazing gifts.

I jumped aboard this fantabulous train last year and had such a blast. so when Lisa over at

A Whimsical Bohemian

sent out word that the 2010 OWOH was coming up I knew I would have to get my ticket and join the fun. I then set out to gather up goodies for my loot bag and came up with

~Romance~

I wanted my gifts to have a feminine romantic gentile feel since the giveaway will be ending just after Valentines day FEB 15th, I searched high and low and came up with this, and the WINNER WILL TAKE IT ALL!!!!!

I have just started to experiment with incorporating my soldered bling charms into whole necklaces and this is my first attempt at doing just that. I created the soldered pendent around an old photo (altered) I took as a teenager, don't even ask how many moons ago that was cause I ain't telling, added bits and bobs of vintage/newer bling. Then went about creating a necklace using vintage faux pearls, old chain and filigree what nots and there you have it my very first over the top blingy necklace.

Necklace is apx 20 inches long with a simple hook clasp.

View of full necklace

This is another one of my creations "Under the Big Hat" A soldered pendant which measures apx 3 inches x 2 inches.
I have hung this pendant on a small piece of silk, it's just waiting for you to use as you like.

The original idea behind this OWOH event was to bring Bloggers together from around the globe and hopefully create new friendships along the way. So when I stumbled on this 1906 Friendship book I knew it had to go into the goodie pile, I mean how perfect is that!!!!!

I know the book is not in perfect shape the cover has separated from spine and it's got some wear and tear but its the sentiment behind it that counts. It is chalked full of wonderful poems and quotes pertaining to friendship and this is what this giveaway is all about making new friends.


I found this picture while on one of my treasure hunts I'm not sure how old it is but it just screams romance to me. It's so girly........ I can see it hanging in a little girls pink room.

It measures apx 6 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches and has a sticker on the back that reads A Cameo Creation. The velvet around the image is a dark burgundy and not black sorry it was a dreary day when I took my photo's.

These are such sweet tiny spoons despite the tarnish I think they are wonderful, I'm sure with a good cleaning they would shine right up. All three are marked but I think they might only be silver plate couldn't find my loop so I'm not sure exactly what they say The joys of getting old!!!!. The largest is axp 4 1/2 inches. The buttons are simple tiny vintage mother of pearl, I'm not sure why but I love these little buttons and grab them up when ever I stumble on them.

I love these ceramic tiles they are so pretty. I picked this one up in my favorite shop in my tiny village the kind of place where the stores are all in old stone buildings with worn wooden floors, and bells on the doors....So quaint I love where I live.

Tile measures 4 x 4 inches.

Well there you have it my ONE WORLD ONE HEART blog giveaway, now if this pile of goodies has grabbed your attention and you would like a chance to own this loot bag all you have to do is

Leave a comment on this post, its that simple .... My giveaway is for anyone, I will ship worldwide and if you don't have a blog just leave some contact info, email or some way I can reach you if you so happen to be the lucky winner.

I will be accepting comments until Feb 14th 12:00pm and will announce the winner on

FEB 15th.

It's free folks so don't be shy come on up and join the magic carpet ride and lets make some new friends shall we.

GOOD LUCK everyone Hugs Deborah

Free To Use~ Collage Sheets

Before I get to the Free stuff I wish to show off my Blingy Marie, I signed up for a swap in my Marie Antoinette group for a soldered pendant. We where suppose to make a pendant with images on both sides, solder and hang on a ribbon. Well lets just day I don't follow rules all to well and went out on a limb and created my version of a soldered pendant, I hope my swap partner doesn't mind my rebellious ways.

My partner Terri mentioned that she does not wear ribbon so I asked if she would like a chain, yes that would be great.... so chain it is. I hate plain old plain so again I commit rule breakage and come up with a over the top blingy concoction of mixed vintage what nots and do dads. Terri let me know that this works for her, and she likes..........

My over the top blingy Marie

I was asked to join up with a flickr group that shares collage sheets.........hmmmm sounds intriguing problem is I don't know how to make collage sheets. I have started to tinker with photo shop but at the time of joining hadn't quite figured out the how to's of the making of sheets.

I'm also kind of possessive of my work and wasn't sure if I wanted to share all my hard labour with others ... see I told you very greedy and possive. Then the more I sat on it the more I came to the conclusion that I will probably never use these images again so what is the harm in sharing. So I took the leap sat down with my computer and came up with these, You are free to download these sheets and use the images in your own work. I just ask that you do not make or sell collage sheets/Cd's with my images. If you choose to use my sheets and post your work on your site/flickr a mention of my name would be greatly appreciated.

You can find the larger version of these sheets on my flickr page

This page is called altered people the images are from my personal collection of antique photo's (of course they have been altered) except for Mona Marie/
The cat image is my big kitty Binx

These images are photo's I took of various angels kicking around the house, and a few are from photo's (2 in the top left corner) I took when I was a teenager many moons ago

More altered antique photo's and my own digital photo's


Borders I made for a project, the mushroom which I Incorporated in my image (with permission) came from a wonderful generous flickr friend Jamie at Art-e-ology

These I call mutton chops and mustaches, images come from an English new paper called The Graphic dated 1881.




I do have more sheets on my flickr page, all free for the taking so come on over and take a gander. I find these fun to make, if your into creating and like what you see come back often I will be adding more to my collection on a weekly bases.

Until next time take care
Hugs Deborah

New Adventure with Bling!!!

Happy New Year Everyone I hope your holidays where filled with joy. Here in the Land Of Nod I was without my computer another crash and burn tragedy which made me one very unhappy camper. Weeks went by before I got my baby back so this meant no altered art.

All was not lost though this meant I had time to tinker around with an idea I have been playing with for about a year now. I just never seemed to find the time to get to it and without my trusted PC to distract me I now had the time to explore my idea's no excuses.

So this is what I have been wanting to do, full necklaces that I can incorporate my soldered pendants and my vintage bling.

This is my first go at it and I'm pleased how this little one turned out. I used an old photo I took when I was a teenager I won't say how many decades ago that was... altered it and soldered as much bling as I could on her, added vintage faux pearls filigree and vintage chains and VIOLA

my very first over the top blingy necklace.

I got an email the other day reminding me that the One World One Heart giveaway was drawing near (starts Jan 25th) . I participated in this fantastic giveaway last year and had so much fun so I thought to myself what a perfect time to introduce my new line of bling with the world.

So if you like what you see stay tuned because this over the top bling angle and some other hand made goodies ( I think I will make her an altered tin to go in) will be up for grabs.

I will have more updates as we get closer to the giveaway on the hows and whatnots.

Hope to see you all there

until next time

hugs Deborah

getting things done

Thank you all for coming by and leaving your caring comments it has been a bumpy last few months and your words have brought great comfort to my hubby and myself. Life seems t0 be sending me quite the collection of challenges but I'm a tough old bird and even in difficult times one can find joy if you know where to look.

For me that would be creating I loose myself in my art where things make sense and I float above the pot holes in life's bumpy road and for a moment forget my troubles.

I have been joining swap groups left and right I keep telling myself enough all ready stop making art to give away you need to work on stuff for your etsy shop, the shelves are looking kind of empty..........tomorrow I'll do that tomorrow famous last words of a true procrastinator, in the mean time here is some stuff I have been working on for swaps.

When I saw the call go out from Tumble Fish Studio

I knew I couldn't pass it up. I have admired Marsha's work since the first time I saw her art on flickr, you can imagine how excited I was when she gave me the okay to come join her swap.

The theme was Dreamer this is my piece I really enjoyed doing the computer part, I altered an antique photo in photo shop took me many hours but I think my dreamer turned out not to shabby.

Another swap I joined was hosted by a wonderful artists named Roc you can find her way cool work at What's Up Roc

this swap was called bumpy numbers. The idea behind this swap was to create 6 pages both sides with lots of texture, I love texture, numbers and we where only to use three colours. I'm hoping we where aloud different shades of those three colours because if not I'm in trouble......

I decided to use some of my own digital photo's for this swap this one is of some old license plates that I altered in photo shop

I used lots of texture paste, gesso on this one to give it lots of depth.

I used the original antique photo for this one the first time I have ever done that, I usually scan and reprint my photo's but my computer had crashed so I had to do what I could to keep going.

Another original photo these where done in the big PC Crash, Hubby said maybe you need to learn to make art without the use of a computer, silly man those who do not understand should not speak such blasphemy.


Three pages done without a PC wow that is impressive, maybe hubby might be on to something.....NOT!!!

Poor Dorthea silly little girl finds herself in yet another bad situation.

I call this one the "Fat Cat Fairy", Binx Queen of the Universe prefers the term robust.



This page was created using my altered digital photo of a beautiful old tomb stone I found while on an outing with my daughter.

House of 4

Another one of my own digital images a simple door knob but with some magic via photo shop voilà this is actually one of my favorite pages. I like how it turned out I sealed it with wax and it made everything look 3-d.

And last but not least 2nd born


Well that is a few of my projects I have more to post but will do that anther day. My Marie altered book and my steampunk altered book will be coming home soon. I can't wait to see what everyone has done. Will post pictures when they land in the Nod.

I just started to create digital collage sheets and I'm passing them on for free so if your into altered images and antique illustrations head on over to

Land Of Nod Studio's on Flickr

and check them outI'm just learning but hey they are free for the taking. I will be adding more so keep coming back you never know what you will find.
Until next time hugs
Deborah

Another Goodbye

It has been a long hard past few months getting used to not having my mother around has taken it's tole..Now another goodbye to add to my list My hubby's Mom left us Wednesday morning at 1:30 AM.

Jean has been apart of my life since I was a young girl of 13,her house was like a second home to me. You knew there would always be someone there to welcome you in.

The past few years for Jean have not been easy she was in the latter stages of dementia and in the last few months had lost all recognition of her family which included 9 children. It turns out she also was suffering from lung cancer but due to her advanced stage of dementia and her age the cancer was left untreated.

My husband Lonney and I got the call Monday evening that she was not doing well and it was thought that she would not make it through the night. We rushed to the home and sat with her for awhile she never even knew we where there, but it brought comfort to my husband to just sit with her.

We decided to go home because things looked like they where improving and then we got the call Wednesday that she had passed in her sleep peacefully. We knew it was only a matter of time her health had been slipping for months, a positive was that all her children managed to get back home, some came from far away and to say goodbye.

In Loving Memory

Jean Burnham

1928-2009

Simplicity

********

I'm fairly new to this mixed media thing ( self taught too) and my confidence in my abilities often wavers like a flag in the wind. Gee I'm not so bad -Oh my goodness who am I kidding I suck. I know I shouldn't but I can't help compare myself with others and boy this can be tough on the ole ego at times.

I have been hanging on to Cassandra's Marie Altered book for well over 2 months way passed the alloted time. I just couldn't get passed all the amazing work everyone had done, how to I keep up with such stunning creations. I knew I would have to pull out some elaborate over the top stuff to fit in with this crowd, but I'm a simple girl and the more pressure I put on myself the more my heels kept digging in deeper until I was completely sunk.

Now I've really gone and done it I'm frozen and can't move and I'll never get my pages started, stupid confidence come back because I have work to do.

Simplicity, echos in my heart my soul knows the answer it just takes my body and mind a bit to catch up. Time to put away those ideas that I must do as others do just be myself and create what feels right for me.

So simplicity it is and once I allowed this idea to surface things started to flow and this is what I came up with

I found these illustrations in an old English news paper (1880) and as soon as I saw them I knew they would be perfect. I wanted the ladies to stand out so I just added a bit of colour only on them, I used pastels. These are the original images and using them was a bit scary if I messed up with the cutting or colouring to bad so sad there won't be any others so make this good. I usually scan and reprint my old stuff but since I wasn't doing all that fancy painting and what not with my background, and I still wanted the pages to be special. So only the originals would do. I really like how they turned out and I plan on using more of the images from the old papers for future projects.

********************

I managed to get Shelly's Steampunk pages done too, these are the images I showed in my previous post and this is how I finished them up. I've just starting using more of my own photo's in my art I'm teaching myself how to alter my images in photo shop elements still waiting for the big purchase of Photo shop cs4, must save many pennies for that one. I think the more original work I use the better, of course I do love the old antique photo's and I have fun altering them so I consider them my originals too.

I used a photo I took of a old train bridge for this page I think it makes the perfect a Time Machine.

Bob's filling station is a shot of an old building I took while on a excursion with my dear friend Karen Ciderantiques

I still have more steampunk pages to do this time its Sandy's book, I'm in the tinkering stage with my images hope to have them done soon. I'm also working on some journal pages, chunky pages and a larger piece all for group swaps. I'm trying some new products can't wait to see how they turn out. I also found the perfect book for an art journal at a second hand shop the other day. I have been wanting to start one for years I just have been to scared, but I think the time is right, I'm ready.............I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Thanks for stopping by until next time

Hugs Deborah