The Plain Box Society

 Hello friends!  Today I'm going to share with you a collaboration that Tina Walker organized.

Everyone started off with a Plain brown box and we were instructed to decorate this box with StencilGirl® stencils.  We could use other art materials, but the only stencils we could use were StencilGirl® (is there really any other?!?!😀).  The main stencils I used were L591 Vintage Typewriter Numbers and the big one from the February 2017 Stencil Club.

After much thought of how I wanted to decorate my box, I decided I was going to create a person using the box as my "body".  I came across some deli paper sheets that I had gelli printed using stencils.  I began to rip up the deli paper into small strips and using matte medium I collaged the box with those strips.

Next I knew I wanted the box to have hinges instead of the normal closure, so I sorted through my stash of hinges and finally found some small ones.  I cut off the lid and used brads to attach the hinge to the box.

 When I was looking through all of my metal pieces I came across this piece that I believe was used in a lamp and I knew it had to be my "feet"!  I heated up my hot glue gun and slathered the metal to attach it to the bottom of the box (and boy did the metal get hot!).

 As for the body, I had recently purchased some of vintage clothes pins and figured that would be the perfect shape.  I cut out a face image and covered it with Amazing Clear Cast Resin to give it a little dimension.  After I allowed it to thoroughly cure (about 24 hours), I knew she needed a "crown" so I dug through my metal once again and found a gear.  I adhered the gear then the image to the top of my clothes pin with some E6000.  Once the glue dried, I drilled holes at an angle on the sides of the clothes pin so I could screw in some screws for arms.

 I knew she needed some clothes and I had the perfect idea!  When antique shopping I found a bag of the old school Christmas bulbs.  I picked out some blue ones and if they had the actual bulb in them I removed it.  I strung them together with wire and made her a little skirt!

The crown looked a little off and needed to stand out a little more, so I took one of the clear vintage Christmas bulbs and 2 of the blue bulbs I had removed from her skirt and glued them to the top of the clothes pin.  Perfect addition to balance out the blue skirt.  I wanted to give her some fingers so I pulled out my go-to blue resistors and wrapped a couple around each screw.  She was really coming together!

I cut a hole in the top of the box, making sure it was tight so that the clothes pin wouldn't move around too much.  I again used hot glue on the inside of the box to make sure it wouldn't wobble around.

Now she is done!  See below for the final project and a couple of close-ups.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

Visit the StencilGirl® blog post below and some of the others that participated in the collaboration!
Stencil Girl Blog

Tina Walker

Mary C. Nasser 

Josefine Fouarge 

Debi Adams 

Christy Strickler 

Mitra Pratt

Michele Kosciolek
Erin Reed
Beverley Folkard

Robyn Wood
Beth Soler

Kristie Taylor
Yvonne Yam

Through Her Eyes Challenge...

In February 2018 I drove to my Sisters' house for a visit over a long weekend.  As we always do, we went shopping at many of the great antique stores in Pennsylvania.  One of the great finds she found was a diary from 1920.  When we got back to her house she read a few of the pages and we got a glimpse of what life was like for a wealthy female in the 1920's.

She came up with the brilliant idea of sharing photos of some of the diary pages and holding a collaboration where some creative people could create a piece of art based on these pages.  I decided on creating a journal page, something that I don't do often but would like to do more of.

Please see below my journal page and some of the diary pages.

Check out some of the other projects below:
Mitra Pratt
Tina Walker

Thank you for stopping by.

Much Love ~Tracy

Bundle of Earth...

Back in July of 2017 a group of creatives participated in a 6 month collaboration of bundling together anything that struck their fancy and either burying it in the ground or hanging it.  I gathered paper, fabric, metal, string, leather and wood and buried it under some mulch in my front yard.  I also hung the same type of bundle.

In January 2018 I "chipped" the buried one out of the ground (it was quite cold outside).  After it thawed I began to take it apart.  The paper did not fair well, most of it fell apart. There were some interesting finds, some rust, some color (not sure where that came from), and some patterns from the wood veneer.  The one that I hung I didn't really get much of anything.  I took everything that was salvagable and decided to make a book out of it.  I would say that 95% of the book is made with the pieces from the bundle.  I do plan on burying another bundle sometime in the next week or two and opening it up later in the year.

Enjoy!

Here are other artists links:

Tina Walker
Mitra Pratt
Sanna Lippert

Pantone Color of the Year 2018 Challenge

When I heard about this challenge, I thought, whoa... purple.  Purple is just one of those colors I don't typically seek out when creating my art.  When I was on the hunt for different supplies that would meet the challenge I surprisingly found quite a bit that I liked.  I looked for supplies before I even had a hint of what I was going to do.  At first I thought create a book.

Then I started thinking out of the box since it was the color that was really out of the box for me.  I've been really enjoying sewing lately, so it hit me... sew a tote.  

I gathered some fabrics that where either purple of were complimentary.  The bag itself was washed canvas.  I cut out a piece of muslin and played around with laying out different pieces of fabric.  I stenciled on a few and stamped on one. I actually had a piece of vintage lace that had tiny purple sequins in it and knew I had to include it. I dyed another small pieces of lace with some gold spray to tone them down a little. The laces help tone down the entire piece a little.

I really like how it came out.  Here are some close-up shots. I hope you enjoy!

Check out the rest of the projects:

Tina Walker

Anne Marie Fowler

Lynne Erskine Forsythe

Martha DeGroat Richardson

Christy Strickler

Keri Woodall Sallee

Camille McCoy‎

Robyn Crowningshield