I love Brandi Strickland’s work, especially the provocative combination of photography and collage that she comes up with!  Brandi only graduated from art school a few years ago, but she has managed to catch the eye of many reviewers.  Brandi says that she enjoys exploring the connection between nature and technology, and I must say I enjoy her explorations too!

Besides her etsy shop (linked above), you can also find her work on her own website, Brandi Strickland.

Images: Brandi Strickland

I’m not usually drawn to urban scenes.  I live so far out in the ‘burbs that it’s really sort of sub-suburban.  But Karen Stiehl Osborn’s Urban Landscape series just takes my breath away.

There’s a lot more to like on Karen’s site too.   I love here fabric “fragments”, her Autumn Traces series, and the series called Conversations with Myself.   Karen is one of the partners involved with the wonderful Collage Mania auctions.

Images: Karen Steihl Osborn

Naughty Secretary Club:
Think all the marketing at a craft show is already taken care of for the vendors? Think again. Jen shares some marketing tips.

Mixed Media Artist
Here’s a way to combine planning with serendipity when you paint fabrics!

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
Another of Stefanie’s Happy Bunnies-This one created using the help of the cool book: Stray Sock Sewing

The Artful Crafter
What new mom would not be delighted with this precious keepsake pendant? Eileen gives you step-by-step instructions for making it using polymer clay and decal paper.

The Impatient Crafter
Madge went on a bead buying trip to NYC! Get the scoop!

Vickie Howell
Craft Corps Stencil Kits are in! Check out Vickie’s How-To on making your own, stenciled gear. Stand up, shout loud, you’ve joined The Corps and you’re proud!

About Family Crafts
What is in your craft cupboard? What craft supplies can you not live without? Has there been a craft item that your purchased thinking it was the greatest invention of all time and then never used?

Aileen’s Musings
Aileen needs your help! She’s created another whimsical character in her curalicious series and needs a saying or quote to go with her! Post your quote or saying and enter to win a curvalicious coffee cup!

Cathie Filian
Recycle old jeans and fabric scraps into a quilted 4th of July Table Runner in under 2 hours!

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside there is Jenn Mason’s episode of Look, Learn & Create where she shows us how to make a fun matchbook card and dyed plastic tube necklace, a window-screen art journal tutorial from the new book Re-bound and a mini journal with a recycled scrapbook paper catalog, a discussion of rule breaking in logo design and a recipe for roasted chickpeas.

Crafty Princess Diaries
Cat Domination at Jewelry Bench! Where oh where can I work on jewelry, Tammy asks?

CraftyPod
Take a handful of buttons and some craft wire, and make charming button monograms to wear as jewelry.

Cross Stitch at About.com
Dinosaurs rule in the Land of the Lost and they also rule at About.com Cross Stitch. There are three of them stalking through Connie’s latest free pattern collection.

Elizabeth St Hilaire Nelson makes paper, paints it, rips it up…and then she creates fabulous collages with the tiny pieces which she mixes with found paper pieces!  My friend Shirley in Oz wrote to me about her and shared the link, and I’m so glad she did.

Besides creating these wonderful collages, Elizabeth keeps a blog, has a time lapse video of one of her collages in progress, and has also found time to compile several books featuring her finished work.

Elizabeth writes:

My technique has evolved and changed as a result of experimentation with hand-painted, hand-made, and found papers, maps, magazines, Scrabble tiles and memorabilia. I draw inspiration from potential collage materials that I come across in my day-to-day; chopstick wrappers, tea-bag tags and the kids’ homework included!

Just about a year ago, I wrote a review of Susan Stein’s Fabric Art Workshop, and recommended it highly for those who wanted a book to grow with as you learned surface design techniques.   Well, Susan has done it again!

The new book is Fabric Art Projects, and my supposition is that it is an expansion of the last book.  The description says that it teaches techniques and provides projects to use them in.  I’m thinking that perhaps it would be best to take a look at the book first if you’ve already bought the first one, but if not, this one might be a nice alternative.

I’ve not seen a copy of this book yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it!

Image: Amazon

Please join me in being very excited about this!  The Art Doll that our group, Ties That Bind, created is ready for raffling.  We’re attempting to raise as much money as possible for Ovarian Cancer research.  It seems amazing to me that it was one year ago that we started this project.  Thanks to the tireless efforts of Aileen Roberts, Jan Brown, and others, we’re already anticipating great success.

Tickets can be purchased until September 30, 2009.

Image: Ties That Bind

Over the next couple of weeks, I want to turn our focus to fabric painting. Now that it’s getting warmer, this is a wonderful activity to do, maybe on your picnic table or on a sunny porch table.

Painting your fabric in a plastic bag is a great technique to choose when you want a surprise: you never know what you’re going to end up with when you let everything swirl around together in a bag. So rip off a length of plain muslin and gather up your acrylic paints, small cups, water, and oh yeah…a gallon sized plastic bag.

Step by step instructions

You can see what I used this piece of cloth for here

Make Art Monday!

I got on a fabric kick recently, and took a couple of days to whip up some painted fabrics that I could use as backgrounds for other projects. Part of the fabric piece shown below ended up as a small beaded quilt.   For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing some fabric painting techniques with you.  To get ready, gather up some plain muslin, acrylic paints (they don’t have to be fabric paints), sponges and brushes, and some stencils or stamps.  Tomorrow, we’ll look at how to paint fabric in a plastic bag!

Over in the Mixed Media forum of WetCanvas, our friend Sonia showed us a great tutorial on using gouache as a resist for India Ink.  She works in watercolors, and the ink gave her piece a lovely “pop” that we all wanted to learn to do.

My piece didn’t turn out to be nearly so lovely, but I was intrigued by the possibilities of using ink resists from time to time.

Step by step instructions

Cindi Thayn, owner of Clay It Again sent me some images of her delightful polymer clay dolls and jewelry.  So that you have an idea of scale, the Grandpa chess player is 6″ and the baby is 4″.  Aren’t they wonderful?  Cindi writes:

I am a self-professed poly-holic. I discovered polymer clay when I ran out of wooden beads for a simple Christmas project one year. I sent the Hubster and son to the store for beads. Hubby picked out wooden beads and son picked out a sample pkg of polymer clay, and the rest as they say is history.

Since then I have made jewelry, figurines, gingerbread house, OOAK Art dolls, picture frames, Christmas decorations, trinket boxes, miniature dollhouse accessories and food, beads, etc…and I have covered everything imaginable-pens, vases, canisters, boxes, tins, jars, magnets, tubes, utensils, cans-you name it, if it holds still long enough, it’s covered and goes in the oven.
I have not found anything yet that I cannot duplicate in polymer clay-faux-gems, foods, metals, wood, fabrics, flowers, paint, textures. It is such a a versatile medium that I doubt I’ll ever run out of ideas to create.