what's UP in the studio- Easter Goodies.........

I have done almost NOTHING this week!  Monday started out great, I got one project finished and another well on it's way, but as the day progressed, I began to feel worse and worse.  And that night, I woke up with a fever and a sore throat like I've never had.....anyway, I spent the entire week being sick and sorry, and TRYING to get work done.  But for me, when I try to paint and I'm not feeling well, it's like I can't SEE properly or something, anyway, everything I tried to do had to be redone, and then redone again.  Finally today I woke after seven hours of sleep feeling relatively human.  I think I might even be able to manage a little work before the kids get up.....

For now, let me show you the one project I managed to get done this week- an Easter banner.  I've been wanting to make a banner for a while now, but just never got around to it.  Then a couple of weeks ago, my blog friend Elizabeth from Altered Book Lover posted a tutorial on how to make a banner with hand embellished papers.  Elizabeth is amazing- she always shares the most creative ways to make art and has lots of Altered Art goodies on her site; I always feel like I'm in the candy shop when I'm at her blog- never know what I'll find, but it's always a delicious treat. This tutorial was a five day challenge she had set for her Yahoo group and she shared images of their results. One of the participants, Linda Manning did an Easter banner which I loved, so much I wanted to make my own. Actually Linda's blog, The Art Sook is gorgeous too, a great find even without the banner.....

So with no more digression, here's MY take on the Easter banner:

For my papers, I veered from the project a bit in that I used antique music sheets which I painted with a thin layer of white acrylics and collaged scraps of doilies leftover from Valentine's Day.  I glued these to card stock for exra stability and color.  Then I just went to all the blogs with free vintage images until I found six that I liked, cropped them down and glued those suckers on.  The lettering started as a brassy gold to which I added a layer of white glitter to try for the look of that 1940's glitter, it looks a LOT better in real life- my camera just didn't capture the effect in this case!  Hey Elizabeth, does this count as bricolage  even though I used my printer?  Everything else was stuff I had readily on hand....

So there you have it, my Easter banner (which I LOVE) my one completed project of the week!  Go check out Elizabeth and Linda's blogs, I guarantee you'll enjoy the experience!

Oh just as a caveat for anyone who clicks on the image to see it better, ignore the view of our back garden which is a WIP progress at this time- we don't ordinarily decorate with garbage cans.....my husband cut down a Mulberry tree last week and is slooowly clearing the debris and then we also built a new raised bed for our veggies and cutting garden which is waiting to be filled with pretties.