Zettis!

I just recently discovered what Zetiology is. Zetti (aka Zettiology) is a folk art style originated by Teesha and Tracy Moore. There's no real definition but there are some common characteristics such as static faces, striped legs, shapes for bodies, bright colors, found images, objects and papers, and lots of pointy hats.

I've seen it around, but didn't actually know the name. There are tons of examples out there, and Flickr has a great group.

Anyway, I ordered myself some collages from Tumble Fish Studio to get started with. Marsha has a great etsy shop, and I bought two collages for the faces, arms and legs.. Then I tailored these gals around two things: 1. Stampington has a call out for the color chartreuse, and 2. my next page for the altered book swap over at Paper Digital Arts, with the prompt "on the fly." (As you can see, I don't take prompts too literally).

Let me know what you think:
#1

The bee body and wings are from the Graphics Fairy. The wings are coated with Diamond Glaze, which made them lift and curl in a very cool way. Glitter is from Martha Stewart.

#2. she still needs a quote.

The body is also from Tumble Fish. The butterfly image is from the internet. The aqua glitter is Stickles, and the pink is German glass glitter.

So, which should I submit, if I submit at all? Think they'd like it?

Addendum: So, I added the quote "Where can you fly"? to the bottom of Blondie. The brown ink from the twigs bled through the white ink (I have been having this problem all along). So I decided to add a spray of matte acrylic clear coat.  IT SMEARED!! CR@P. Now I have to wait to see if it can be fixed, or scrapped. DARN IT.

Glittered Hearts

Are available at our etsy site, Twigs & Feathers. I also have small aqua hearts and small silver hearts coming...

Let me know if you want any.

Hugs- Lee

Star and Hearts and Glitter

Making your own embellishments is pretty fun, albeit time consuming and messy!! Be prepared to get sticky fingers, and glitter everywhere.

You'll need:
chipboard - I use recyled cereal boxes because the chipboard is thin but sturdy
glitter- I have coarse German glass glitter ins silver, and fine glass glitter in silver and shell
glue- Elmer's is fine, I use Alene's ClearGo Tacky Glue
paint- I like to paint the chipboard the same color as the glitter I'm using
punches

Paint the chipboard, let dry.

Punch out shapes.

Coat in glue. Dip in glitter. Place on waxed paper to dry.Voila!

The starts on the left are the fine glitter. Up to now I've been partial to the coarse glitter... now I might have to change my mind!

If you look very closely, you can see the silver paint under the edges on the pink hearts. This is why you might want to paint your chipboard with a coordinating color.
 
The stars I've made have shown up here:
 

Enjoy.

Re-using Old Books - Make Your Own Pages

Ok, this really isn't an old book... but if I had gone to a thrift store, it would have been.

Anyway, I'm part of an altered book swap over at Paper Digital Arts, and one of the required elements for the pages is a super-sturdy substrate. Now, I often recycle paperboard in my art, but Kim wanted us to use something heavier.

I went to the arts and crafts store- nothing. Turns out you can buy chipboard letters and shapes, but plain 8x11 pages- not so much.

So I headed over to a discount store and picked up this:

I wish I could blur out the title and words- but I have NO idea how to do that on my simple little Picasa program.

Now, I looked for something close to the 5x7 size I needed, and this was pretty close. To cut it down, I marked the top page with a straight edge and cut through with a box cutter (BE CAREFUL). The edge isn't perfect, but it will be on the bound side, so no biggie. I kept the binding of the original book intact, and now have a cool little, narrow book leftover to play with.

Next, I sanded the gloss off. This does get messy, as the paper dust is colored.

Then I put a couple of coats of white acrylic paint. I did the first set with gesso, then paint, and I can't really say it made much a difference. To keep it from warping when you paint, put a X on the back side with paint. Now, if you want these pure white, it's going to probably take about 3 coats. Mine, I don't care so much, because I'll be covering over it anyway. Do the back side too, but you won't need to do the X, because you've already painted the front side.

As you can see, I left the upper right corner rounded. It doesn't matter to me if it's different, and you can't even tell here.

BTW, this cardboard is HEAVY. You can't sew through it. So, if you think you're going to sew on your page, make sure you are working on a separate piece of paper, which you can glue down when you're all finished.


So, hope this helps. What have you made lately??
hugs- Lee

Somerset Layout

So, as I mentioned previously, here is the art chosen to be in the latest issue of Somerset Apprentice vol 4. It was a 2-pager, but they only picked one. sigh.

I can tell you that it's really quite amazing to see my art work blown up to such a big size. My heart stopped for a minute!

My title choice was Bound By Blood, which is very appropriate for the subject. I mean, it's about a vampire and is splattered in "blood"!! But the Editors changed it. Oh well. Marilyn's album was made out of an old 45 record album, which coincidentally, so was mine! Her's still had the covers intact, but I had to make new ones for mine.

 

This is Marilyn Healey's spread- they chose two of her pages.

Somerset Apprentice is set up as a how-to magazine, so I followed Marilyn's example and came up with these two beauties:

The little girl will go to my swap partner over at Paper Digital Arts, as she more closely fits this month's theme of "roses." The little boy will stay with me (he's not quite finished, anyway). Both images are from PaperWhimsy.

Next post, I'll show more detail of the "kids" and how I did them. Enjoy!