michele made me: collage

Showing posts with label collage. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Three Bottle Junk Mail Collage

Once completed, I like to run my hands gently over the surface of a junk mail collage. Why? Why, you ask? Well, if you must know, it's because the texture of a junk mail collage is, in a word, irresistible. I would describe it as "smooth yet nubbly". I know I probably shouldn't be manhandling the thing but it cannot be helped.

Don't worry. Very soon this sweet one will be in a new home. Safely away from my groping little hands.

♥M

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Parallels: A Junk Mail Collage

Have you tried collage? Ah yes, most enjoyable... Especially if you allow a piece to emerge spontaneously out of the materials you've chosen I think.

All parts of this small collage were cut from sale flyers and the local newspaper. I used favourite bits of yellow, grey, black and white for this one. The bits were then attached "improvisationally" with Mod Podge to a piece of paper stretched and stapled onto an old unused picture frame.

I'm calling it "Parallels".

♥M

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

About The About

I have a very hard time responding to the question: "Who am I?" Saturday evening, I sat down with a pen and paper to re-write my "About" page. You'd think it would be easy for me to write about myself. I mean, I'm ME, right? This should be a cinch! I sat there for a solid hour. I wrote down a bunch of stuff and in the end I had a page full of... junk. Just a bunch of boring facts that say very little about me.

I scrapped the whole thing.

I want my "About" page to be a clear picture of me. I want it to say: THIS is Michele! THIS is who I am! BAM! Take that! Ya baby!

Know what I mean?

Problem is, I'm always changing. The Earth turns beneath my feet and I turn with it. I'm looking at my hands as I type this and I notice the skin has changed since the last time I examined them. My hands look older. The skin seems thinner, more fragile. I'm different than I was. And I know these changes are natural and inescapable. But they mean that an "About" page cannot possibly capture the essence of a living, breathing, changing creature. An "About" page will never be more than a few momentary glimpses in the life of a person.

What would you suggest a girl blogger do about it, I wonder?

♥M

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Ornament #4

The above two tree ornaments come to you courtesy of The Boy. He designed and made them on Friday, and I just had to include them in the ornament series! I'm big-time in love with them. They're so simple, beautiful, innocent. It's the kid thing. Those little fingers do magic, I tell you.

He made them from a cereal box, paint, pistachio nutshells, junkmail confetti, string, scissors and glue.

The pistachio shells, I'd painted a while back, so when it came time to decorate his trees, the shells were there for the taking. In fact, if you plan to do a collage craft like this with your kids, it's a very good idea to prepare all the decorative bits ahead of time. That way, there's no waiting and they can dig right in!

The shells need a generous amount of glue if they are to stay put. He applied a goodly blob to each before attaching them to the trees. Those little guys are there for the duration, methinks.

The confetti was punched from Christmas-flavoured junkmail, a favourite in these parts.

But who am I kidding? There was no way I was going to let him have all the fun. Nuh-huh, I just could not do it. I had to make one of my own too, right? Here's mine below.

And here's the tree-some...

I'm thinking of asking The Boy to make me a whole grove of them. Wouldn't that be great? I wonder if he'd go for it... Do you think?

♥M

Previous installments in this little ornament series: here, here and here.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Spring?... Is that You?

Junkmail Flowers on Painted Craft Paper

♥M

Other junkmail collages here and here.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Is Digicrafting a Thing?

Because if it is, that's what I've been up to the last few days.

Yep, re-designing the blog. Again.

I sorta like doing it and sorta don't. It's not something that comes naturally to me. I'm not computer savvy at all. If anything, I am computer UN-savvy. HTML is like Spanish to me. I can sorta understand it. I can say a few key words but those are the only ones I will ever truly know and use. Otherwise I'm like a chicken in a pig pen. And the last few days with the Adobe Photoshop program... Let's just say I'm lucky to still have a few clumps of hair. Like, what is with the pen tool anyway?

Note to the makers of Photoshop:

For the love of Gord, please re-name the pen tool. It works nothing like a pen so why do you call it that?... Oh I get it. This is a humorous joke to you. You all sit there in your cushy leather swivel chairs with your fancy iPads and your million Facebook friends twittering at us whilst we break our heads trying to use a pen that's not a pen. Funny. Good one.

Luckily I like the outcome. I like my new "social media icons" (All 2 of them... I'm anti-social). I'm also fond of the new little sidebar elements especially this next one.

Spent a lot of time on this version of it (and liked it) but had to reject it because it just didn't work in the context of the rest of the sidebar.

That sorta thing happens a lot with me. Yeah... I'm a trial-and-error kinda girl. There have been many many iterations of several of these blog elements to get to the final products. I guess these things take time.

One thing I do like is including my real actual crafts into the blog design. See the little green pincushion in the header? That's this pincushion I made out of toilet rolls. And you know the "Fave Crafts" and "Friends & Family" sidebar elements? I used the following junk mail collage in those.

Unfortunately sometime between starting the revamp and now, my sidebar Search gadget decided to take its own life. I'm going to have to email someone... *sigh*.

But hopefully I'll soon have a blog design that I can live with (and works) for the next several months. That would be nice.

Do you do your own blog design? If you have any comments or suggestions, I'm all ears!

Now I'm off to get some air and say hello to the garden. Have a great weekend! I'll see you Monday!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Series 6: The Box Chain #4 - Ces Yeux

Happy, um, June?... Yes, strangely that's correct. Happy June!

Welcome to the fourth and possibly final installment (I never know...) of Series 6: The Box Chain!

Today's offering is a piece I'm calling "Ces Yeux" ("These Eyes" in English). Mais oui.

From a variety of recycling box papers including junk mail, newspaper, old giftwrap, used construction paper, and some old printouts, I made a slew of box chains. I then built the piece by glueing the chains (with carpenter's glue) in layers in a thrifted wooden picture frame. It took several nights of building the chains, and then playing with them on the floor, before settling on the concept for this guy. In the end, the time spent was well worth it. I'm so pleased with its subject matter, texture, and muted colours.

If you don't yet know how to make the box chains, there is a detailed picture tutorial in this previous post.

To see the rest of this series (or any other series for that matter), hop on over to the Series page, and scroll down to the bottom to "Series 6: The Box Chain". Again I wish to thank sweet Kapila for asking the question ("What would Michele do?) that got this series going in the first place.

You have a great day now. I'll be back on Friday!

Monday, May 16, 2011

Monotone Monday

It must be Monday. I'm feeling a little like this paper girl in this paper window. Under the weather. Tired. Rumpled. And with big plans to do... no thing. Except make tea. But after that, no no no thing. That's the plan. Yes, I will while away the hours resting here drinking my chamomile whilst contemplating some of the bigger questions: Why am I here? Should I paint the dining room white or a colour? How can I be a better person? And if not white, then what colour? Important life-altering questions. And then I'll sleep a little. And dream.

You want in? Join me if you like. We will most certainly feel better tomorrow. But today, rest is required.

I'll see you again soon. You take care.

Note: I made the above greeting card for a friend out of recycled brown packaging, a scrap of painted-brown newspaper, and a bit of brown paper bag.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Waiting

Waiting, Michele Pacey 2008

Entirely recycled and consisting of junk mail mod podged onto brown craft paper on a scrap wood frame. 5-1/2"x 5-1/2" in size.

Have a lovely day!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Madonna and Child

Madonna and Child, Michele Pacey 2011

Happy Friday!

This is a Madonna and Child, a painting which I created over the last several days. It is a humble little 6"x 8" (15 cm x 20 cm) piece made from things I had around: a small thrifted picture frame wrapped in brown craft paper, and "painted" with junk mail and Mod Podge.

Have yourself a great weekend, and I will see you again soon!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

One-On-One Challenge with Aunt Peaches: Gift Wrap

Hi. It's Wednesday the 5th o' January 2011.

You know what this means don't you?... Well let me tell you. THE Aunt Peaches (yes, you read that right) and I are having a little one-on-one challenge of the crafty kind! I'm so excited I may hyper-ventilate. It's okay. I've come fully equipped with a brown paper bag. Read on.

So what's the deal with the challenge, you ask? It's confoundedly simple it is. Here's what went down. We emailed back and forth. Picked a day (today). Decided on a challenge. Created a post with a link to the challenger's post, and that's it! Now all you do is check out what I made, check out what Peaches made, and Bob's your uncle, your work is done! No winners, no losers, just happy happy all around.

Note: If the niceness of it all disgusts you in some way, that's fine too. Just let me have it in the comments. It won't change anything, but at least you'll get it off your chest.

So for the challenge, we thought it might be fun to push each other to conjure up some crafting magic from all that colourful Christmas refuse, specifically gift wrap. I think it's a great idea what with the recyclingness of it all. And I love gift wrap. I'm a hoarder. Always have been. I have old Christmas gift wrap that predates the wheel pretty sure.

So let's get this show on the road why don't we?

WHAT AUNT PEACHES MADE {CLICK HERE}

WHAT MICHELE MADE {KEEP READING}

Tutorial: Childhood Charms

Every one of my three kids loves to draw. And over the years I have amassed whackloads of their works of art. I have bins full. Like 23 years worth. So for this craft, I didn't have to go far for inspiration. I chose a few of their drawings and went to town.

You will need:

Your child's drawing
An empty cereal box
Old pieces of gift wrap
Cord
Metallic acrylic paint
Gesso (or white paint)
Pencil
Tracing paper
Graphite paper
Exacto Knife
PVA (white) glue

1. Choose a simple drawing. This castle was drawn by Elle when she was six years old. She's now 23.

2. Transfer the drawing onto tracing paper, and use graphite paper to transfer it onto your cereal box card.

3. Once your drawing is on the cereal box card, fatten up the lines as shown in photo#3. You want to create a thick outline around every detail in the picture.

4. Next use your Exacto knife to cut the thing out. Start with the small areas and work your way up to the larger areas. The final cut should be the outermost perimeter.

5. Apply a few coats of gesso or white paint to the cut-out. Let dry between coats. I applied 2 coats to my pieces.

6. Similarly, apply a few coats of metallic paint to the cut-out. Let dry between coats. I applied 3 coats.

7. Get out that beautiful gift wrap. The next step involves trial and error. Place your cut-out on a piece of gift wrap. If you like how it looks, draw out the perimeter of that section of the cut-out onto the gift wrap. If you don't like how it looks, move to another piece of gift wrap until you find one that works.

8. Cut out the piece of gift wrap for that section of cut-out.

9. Apply glue to the back of your cut-out and glue the piece of gift wrap in place. Repeat steps 7 to 9 until most of the cut-out is filled in. I've left some areas bare because I like that look. But you don't have to. Fill in the whole thing if you like! Go to town! Attach a piece of cord and hang it all, you are DONE!

Here are my (or should I say, my children's) works of art rendered in cereal box card and gift wrap!

Elle's Castle is slated as a petite wall-hanging...

This next one is a piece the boy (who's 6) drew out a few months ago. It's quite the impressionistic thing and I think I will put it on a necklace and wear it as a pendant. I'll need Michelle's expert advice on how exactly to do that if she'll oblige (I believe I need a jump rope or something like that...). Ain't it pretty? I love it!

And this larger piece will also be a wall hanging, and was designed last year by the boy for Valentine's Day. It's a love machine. And it'll be put to good use in our house. I mean, who can't use more love? Really.

And in fact, you could hang them all together in a collection like this too. There's an idea...

And those little charms from Monday's post? They will definitely be used as gift tags. Or maybe earrings. OR as tiny ornaments on a Valentine's Day tree... Wouldn't that be sweet?

And so ends my (and my children's) contribution to the One-on-One. Yippee! Now I'm off to admire the wonder of that Peachy creation... Meet you there?

I hope you have yourself a lovely day! I'll see you again soon!

P.S. Hey Peaches, did we say anywhere in those emails that we would be swapping creations? I'm pretty sure I broached that subject and the decision was AFFIRMATIVE. (Okay... We didn't say that... I'm a fibber... But can you blame a girl for trying?)

P.P.S. I'll be linking!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Boy Writer

The 5 Senses

A picture book written and created by the 6-year-old Boy (with technical assistance from Michele)
Reproduced here with permission of the author
Copyright 2010

This is a book about the 5 senses. The 5 senses are: touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing.

Touch: The sense of touch in your nerves are for you to touch so you feel things. I like the feel of things when they are clean.

Taste: For taste, you use your tongue so you could taste the food. One of my favourite things to taste is pizza! I like medium temperature pizza.

Sight: The little fat lens at the back of your eye (if you're young) lets you see really far away. If you are old, you need glasses. I like to see far away lands and ancient stuff like ancient drawings from ancient times.

Smell: To smell, signals are sent all the way to your brain. I have a very good sense of smell. I could smell something already: candy, because I just ate a piece of hard green candy.

Hearing: What makes you hear is your drum inside your ear. And when you hear something it makes a little "boom" but you can't hear it because it's inside of your ear. I do not like loud noises! When I hear a loud noise I cover my ears and I fall down!

These are the 5 senses. Thank you for coming! Bye Bye!

Ben

The End.

P.S.

This book was made today. It ranks among my most favourite projects of all time. The boy's enthusiasm is unmatched. I love every word that he wrote. And I love the way the book took shape and the process of making it with him. I love how he listened to my ideas and how he contributes so openly. I love how the book looks and feels. I love his scientific diagrams and how he's beginning to understand the way the body works. I love his focus and how much time and effort he put into it (8 hours). I loved spending this moment with him.

Today was a gift!

Here are some closeups:

The sight diagram.

The tongue.

The inside of his hand with some machine stitching.

Touch.

The title page "5" with some machine stitching.

My favourite part (which is true sometimes, btw)

Ribbon edging.

Have a lovely day!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Cat and Mouse

Wherever possible in my crafts, I like to use stuff that I have here at hand. This craft is entirely made (except for the glue, that is) from stuff that was hanging around. I love to recycle (or is it re-use?... i don't know...)!

The collage is made from about ten-ish greeting cards which I collect and hoard (hee hee hee) in a bag in my laundry room. I have hundreds of them...

The picture frame was made by Lo and the boy from an old piece of door moulding that used to frame a now demolished doorway in the basement. Once it was made, the picture frame floated around the house for months and was used as a plaything until I got my grubby little hands on it a few weeks ago. Sshh... I covered it with old tissue paper and painted it and made it thoroughly unrecognizable.

That cat is looking pretty smug, I must say. Well, you would too if you had such a fine feast hanging around just waiting to be eaten! Poor little birdies and mices...

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