Sunday, May 23, 2010

I've been working on making these polymer clay mosaic tiles the past few days. It's kind of addictive and I am really having fun with these. They are a little time consuming but that's okay. Here I've laid them out around a mirror to see how they might look as a frame. It's impossible to photograph a mirror without being in the picture so I laid a piece of wax paper over it.

You can use all sorts of things to imprint the clay before baking. I used a lot of the rubber stamps I have but you can also use old jewelry, tools, leaves and sticks and just about anything that comes to mind. You can use a wooden toothpick to write or draw into the clay if you don't have the right word stamp. It certainly sparks the creative juices.

After the clay has baked you can get really creative with paint. I like to use my Perfect Pearls paint powder to give them a metallic sheen. The good part about this project is that if I have a space that needs a certain size tile I can simply cut one to fit. I have also incorporated some of the beach glass chips I bought, but in the future I plan on using lots of fused glass tiles, scrabble tiles, and glass and handmade paper beads.
The weather gods are blessing us with some very rare sunshine today so I may have to get out of the house and get some.
Carpe Diem!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Lolo's Book is home!

My beautiful journal has finally made it back full circle and I couldn't be more pleased with the results!
What a bunch of talented ladies you are. I adore every spread!
I didn't see a couple of them before they arrived here so they were a total surprise to me. They look so wonderful all together!
I won't describe each one as I feel they describe themselves.
Please click to enlarge each one to savor the amazing work that went into each page.
Here they are in no particular order because I forget the path they went on :)



My own page showing my journey, both physical and spiritual, from California to Rhode Island.

Katie Jane's lovely page with a quote by Lao Tzu...
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Lynn's page showing the places she's been, complete with her smiling face in a current photo and one of her younger self.


Marianne's pages with landmarks of many of the places she's been. She included the Golden Gate Bridge in California, close to the starting point of my journey and ended up with Emma, Bliss and Sjimmie at our house in Rhode Island!
On the back of this page is this striking photo of an Egyptian woman along with a stunning piece of gold leafed papyrus from Cairo. This is also where Marianne made my pages!

Staying with an Egyptian theme, this stunning page was painted by Soulbrush.
No one does patterns like our girl!

This lovely textural page was done by Suki with a quote by John Muir.
"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
Definately a spiritual journey page.

Mim made a really fun travel collage! I think she soon found out I'm an armchair traveler :)
I live vicariously through a few of you who are always off to exotic places!

Caroline's page is a beautiful watercolor of the woods accompanied by one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken."
Please enlarge it to read it. What a lovely spread!

Finally, Lisa's page is watercolor and collage depicting a  well-traveled suitcase and great words of wisdom throughout. Please click to read it all!

Ta-Daaaaaa!!
The stunning result of 9 talents from around the world, all friends connected through art.
Thank you so much ladies. I'll treasure this forever!
xoxo