*Creative Holiday Giveaway*

I find the holidays to be an inspiring time of the year. There are so many opportunities to express your personal creativity. For me, this means trying new seasonal recipes - or creating new twists on traditional ones, finding unique gifts and wrapping them, and designing my own cards.

This year, I decided to take that inspiration and create a holiday-inspired collage pack for a giveaway. The collage pack, similar to the ones in my etsy shop, contains 30 + pieces of ephemera from plain to decorative paper scraps, ribbons, stickers and tags. Everything you need to inspire your own creativity. You can use this pack to make cards, gift tags, ACEOs, mini collages, the possibilites are endless...

So how do you win this pack of holiday goodness?

All you have to do is leave a comment about what inspires your creativity during the holidays.

I'll pick a winner from all entries received by midnight local time on Thursday, December 4 and announce the lucky person the following day on December 5.

GOOD LUCK!

Sea Glass Festival

I spent a lovely, albeit brief weekend up in Erie, PA attending the 4th Annual North American Sea Glass Festival. It was an inspiring weekend celebrating everything sea glass from lectures, vendors, collectors and a shard of the year contest.

Above is a brief selection of my own beach glass collection with pieces found mostly on the southern shores of Lake Erie and maybe a piece or 2 from Southern California beaches.

My latest beach glass pendant now for sale in my etsy shop. It is an authentic piece of brown glass found on the shores of Lake Erie then wrapped by me with silver wire.

Finally, because glass is not the only treasure you can find on the beach, here is my collection of pottery shards also found near Lake Erie.

Architecture Inspiration

I believe inspiration can be found everywhere as long as we look for. But sometimes, it finds you instead. Sorting through my images this week I started finding connections between my photography and jewelry, especially my paper bangle series.

Above is a recent image where I captured the window of a lighthouse keeper's house. I loved not only the charming tiny painted boats on the shutter, but also the colorfully painted framing and smooth texture of the wood.

Here is the bracelet I created using wood patterned paper. The appearance of the wood grain gives it a natural look even though it is coating a resin bangle.

The shot of the actual lighthouse shows the contrast of the smooth exterior surface and the rough texture of the brick framing the door and windows.

Similarly, this bangle, which I covered in brick patterned paper, gives the illusion of texture despite it's smooth texture.

Finally, here is an image I took of a winery that mimics a French stone exterior. The use of the stone to create a building that seems so many centuries older than it really is intriguing to me.

Collecting these images and reflecting on my own experience as a teacher in architecture museums, I can now see that long hind sighted road that led to my current creative inspirations.

What are your inspirations? Where did they come from?

New Beach Glass Pendants

After my initial experimentation with wire-wrapped beach glass pendants, I decided to try creating more. This time, I played with the wire a little more designing patterns on the pendant. Below, I used three simply colored pieces and then used the wire to create impact

I also worked on gluing smaller pieces of glass onto a larger beach glass stone. Then, I used very little of the wire to highlight the glass for these pendants.

Do you like? I am thinking of selling them in my etsy shop ranging in price from $20 - $30 each, including a silver chain. Would you buy one?

Chandelier Collage

Sometime last year, the friend, who commissioned these black and white collages, wanted me to do another piece that was similar but had a pop of color. She also wanted it to be a larger piece and to include an image of a chandelier.

Above is the background that I started with. I used paper from the previous 3 collages I had done for her but also added some book pages, toile patterned tissue paper and handmade papers.

Then I added the color contrast by using turquoise colored paper as a background for the chandelier image.

Finally, I used stick on jewels to decorate the chandelier and the border of the collage to give it a sparkly appearance.

Beach Glass Pendants

Oh, creating how I have missed you! Work, travel and other projects this spring have left me with little time to create art. That is why I intentionally set aside a mere 2 hours and signed up for a local beach glass wire-wrapped pendant workshop.

Below are the pendants I created in the workshop.

The first one I glued a small piece of found pottery on top of blue beach glass. I wire wrapped the entire pendant then crimped the wires in the front to make waves before twisting the wire at the top to create the bale.

The second one was a little trickier. It involved creating a springy coil from the wire then wrapping it around a piece of beach glass. I liked the shape of the beach glass, but it took lots of patience to get the coiled wire to stay wrapped around it. I finished it by wrapping more wire in a diagonal pattern and adding a little spiral to front.

LA Inspirations

I love LA! Ok, now I've said it. I think it is one of the most creative cities I have ever visited.

Here are a few things that inspired me on my recent trip there:

(Image by Me)

Above are lovely patterned pillows from the lounge at the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach. It was one of the hotels we stayed at during our trip and was so beautifully designed. I adored the soft purples and browns and the traditional patterns that were mixed with stripes.

(The Garden, Image by Jelena Rokanovic)

This is a piece from a collage artist, Jelena Rokanovic, I read an article about in LAX Magazine shortly after arriving. I love that she uses actual images and hand cuts them to create her art. There is nothing digital here.

(Image by Me)

Finally, these are some gorgeous vases with transferred imagery I spotted at the Huntington's gift shop. Unfortunately, I was shooed away after taking this image, since the shop was closing. Does anyone know who makes them?

Cultural Arts Day Projects

Over at my other blog, I posted about the Creative Power of Kids. This is the third year that I have participated in Cultural Arts Day at my nephew's school, which is also coincidentally the same elementary school I attended.

Below are the various projects I have done over the years from a bean mosaic to a tissue paper stained glass window collage to a totem pole this year. Enjoy!

(Year 1 - Bean Mosaic)

(Year 2 - Stained Glass Collage)


(Year 3 - Totem Pole)