Altered Stiletto & Mouse Adventure

New altered Stiletto for the ArtFest gallery, the theme is birds so lots of bright feathers. This shoe was made in memory of my sweet friend Sherri, many of the materials for this shoe were ones that were also used during the last retreat she hosted at her Sparrow's Nest Studio. Body of shoe was covered in altered paper towels and sprinkling of glitter. Heel was painted and then a random application of some Jones Tones foil.

In another shoe related story The Vermin (aka the Cats) have outdone themselves again in the mouse department.

We were sitting watching TV on Sunday and I had not seen the cats in the living room for a bit which usually means they are up to something so I went to find them. They were in the bedroom staring very intently into my closet at my shoes. The back door had been open and they had that "we have something cornered" look in their eyes. After shooing them out of the bedroom against bitter protest and shutting the door I looked around in the closet really good and could not see anything..... and then noticed that one of my brand new 3 inch heels had suddenly grown a long skinny tail. There was a BIG fat mouse tucked into the shoe, the shoe is a peep toe so his little face was peaking out the toe and his tail was hanging over the heel. I picked up the shoe VERY carefully because I did not want him to bolt and then be wandering the house for eternity.  Managed to get mouse, shoe and myself out to the back yard and let him go. I am sure he was pretty traumatized, what with being trapped in that leather prison with two cats breathing down his neck. We think Apollo caught him, and so I guess we have to stop calling Apollo "The Big Marshmallow" and start calling him the "Mighty Hunter".




Ice Queen Art Shoe

The latest shoe is finally done, as usual I started out with one idea (all white) and it morphed into something else, but I am pretty pleased with the result. The curved shapes were made by tracing portions of a french curve, lots of detail work involved with gluing on the silver trim. Plaid's new product, Extreme Glitter and then some Stickles gave the white accents and the blue body that extra sparkle I wanted. Rebuilding the heel's once they are cut off takes some time, you have to balance the shoe just right upside down and they glue on a few elements at a time, let them dry and then do some more. E-6000 is the best glue for non-porous items, once it's dry it's very sturdy. This one will be added to the items for sale on Etsy.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow, my best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season, whatever your faith happens to be. Our holly tree is in full glory right now, it's the only tree we have in the back yard and during the summer I mostly curse it. You really can't get anything to grow underneath it and trying to clean up or garden around it means risking getting lots of sharp holly leaves jammed into your person, but it completely redeems itself this time of year.

I made a quick trip to Jo-Ann's today to get some fabric and check out all the Christmas stuff that is always on sale and came across this great little addition to my holiday village for next year.....and it was 70% off! Now all I need is a Michael's one and I will have the beginnings of a Craft Store Village.

Altered Art Shoe for Stiletto's on Parade

It's that time of year again, the Stiletto's On Parade altered shoe contest at  12th Street Shoes in Bellingham, is just around the corner. I dropped my shoe of today, and the contestants go on display at the Solstice Walkabout in Fairhaven on June 18th. The public can vote for their favorite shoe on the 18th and the shoes will be on display that weekend also....and in a shameless act of self-promotion I am hoping you vote for mine! This years entry (did I mention I won the People's Choice award last year...again with the self-promotion!) is called Deep Sea. The shoe is covered in specialty paper, texture was added to the toe and heel with DAP Tub & Tile Caulk and painted with acrylic paint. The inside was painted and spritzed with glitter, 'cause you can n.e.v.e.r have too much glitter, same with the painted caulk. Gold bead trim, blue fabric trim and some glass pebbles finished off the embellishing. The final touch was a little green octopus, or squid sitting on the toe with rhinestones for eyes.

12 Street Shoes is located at 1204 Harris Street in Bellingham, their motto is Shoes, You Can Never Have Enough...too true. Some persons of the male gender don't process this information correctly, boys, shoes are simply jewelry for our feet, 'nuff said.

FX pictures

Have not posted in a while, there are some projects that are being worked on but not quite done yet. In the meantime I am having a complete love affair with my new Droid smartphone, I found the FX Camera App on the Droid Market and downloaded it. Very cool, here are some pictures taken just a minute ago.

This is my Hosta that is coming up in the shade garden, picture taken with the Toy Camera mode. Gives it a retro kind of look.

Here is Apollo sitting in the flower bed, in the SymmetricCam mode. He looks quite entranced with himself.

Last but not least here is my Cinderella Party Shoe as Andy Warhol would see it.

The possibilities are endless with this app, I am sure there will be more to come.

Art for Sale, now on Etsy

Once again, I have braved that crazy thing called the Internet and now have my Etsy shop up and running. Etsy is a site devoted exclusively to the sale of handmade and vintage items. I have two art shoes for sale there now, more shoes and other Blue Dahlia Studio creations to come! Link below and at sidebar to left.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueDahliaStudio

Altered Shoes

Off to ArtFest first thing Wednesday morning. Completely changed my mind as to what I wanted to put into the gallery, I originally was going to do some encaustic pieces but when I tried to decide which way to go the encaustic muse decided to take a three martini lunch and not come back to the studio so I went with really makes me the most happy and that is.....SHOES....of course!

For me the shoes come the easiest, there is some planning involved, I usually I have a basic idea in my head but they really just flow out of me once I get started on them. First up is "Cinderella's Party Shoe", once the glass slipper was off and tucked away in the castle vault this is my interpretation of what she would wear to a fancy ball.

The shoe was covered in specialty paper, the inside is simply green tissue paper glued down with white glue, buttons, rhinstones, fancy trim, ribbon and some pieces of an old rhinestone necklace I had laying around finished it off. The heel is glass pieces colored with Pinata ink and some jewelry findings all glued together with E6000 (a super strong multi purpose glue for non-porous objects).

Since the theme for ArtFest is Once Upon A Time I thought if I had Cinderella then I better have something on the other end of the spectrum, so this next one is my shout out to all the "evil" ladies in fairy tales, although I am sure they were very misunderstood and just needed a group hug. Struggled with a name for it and have tentatively settled on "Wicked".

The shoe was covered in some black netted fabric and adorned with chunky glitter, fancy black and silver trim, the heel was the most challenging part, I glued on pieces of that glass you use for mosaics.  The decoration on the top is just two 5/8 washers with some microbeads glued into the center.

I think I am almost ready to go, there is a large pile of art stuff on the studio table to be crammed into my rolling craft carrier, lists laying everywhere, and cats are starting to freak out because they know Mommy is going somewhere and of course the best way to help her is to plant their furry butts in the middle of the open suitcase.

Finally, I am asking my readers to send out a prayer for my very dear friend, Sherri, who was going to ArtFest but ended up having to have quadruple bypass surgery yesterday, which went well thank goodness, but she has a lot of recovery time ahead of her.