Hold That Thought!

Yay! After a few weeks of tinkering and experimenting, I’ve completed my first paper-tiled mirror! The colors are some of my faves… purple, navy blue, teal, rich jewel tones with touches of gold. I went a little crazy, incorporating a number of design motifs. It’s almost like a paper crazy quilt of some of my favorite things.

See what I mean about the colors and designs? But I think for my first effort it turned out just fine. I learned a lot from this first mirror.

I have another, with red as the predominant color, and an Asian motif, that has all of the tiles done and is just waiting for the final steps.

And another one, with a leaf motif and deep shades of eggplant, forest green, chestnut brown, and touches of gold and copper, in the beginning stages.

I’m really excited about these mirrors and am having so much fun thinking of new ideas for them.

In fact I’m taking this coming Monday off from work to have a ’studio day’ so I can work on these all day.

Here is a picture of the first mirror on the wall…  excuse the flash. I need to improve my photo taking techniques!

I never really followed up on the Say it with HeArt show earlier this month. As in the previous year, it was a big success and lots of fun! I think the participating artists would all agree that this should be an annual event, and I believe Jude, the wearable arts artist who so generously opened her Beaumont Village home and organized and hosted this event, is willing to do it again next year. Yay!!

Here is a picture of Jeanette Padbury and four of her friends enjoying Say it with HeArt. Jeanette is the one with the pretty brunette hair. What a lovely lady she is! We haven’t met in person yet (I wasn’t there when she and her friends stopped by, darn it!) but we’ve been corresponding via email since shortly after the 2008 LOCAL 14 show. She bought several of my Note Totes there and contacted me wanting to know where she could find more! Now that’s a great customer! But in our correspondence we’ve discovered that we have many, many things in common, and have become e-mail friends. We plan on meeting up at some point soon. Isn’t it funny how art can serve as a magnet?

This paper tile mirror project is addictive! Here is another “in progress” photo of my first attempt. I’ve added more tiles. I think it’s coming along nicely. What do you think?

Now a few more tiles have been added, and I’ve created a quote tile and placed it on the right hand side of the mirror. This is fun! I have lots of ideas for color schemes and themes. Stay tuned for more progress reports!

Here is a picture of the mirror with a few tiles in place (but not glued in yet).

I’ve been working on an idea for a new item for quite some time, and after a trip last weekend to IKEA, the idea is finally taking shape! I’ve seen beautiful mosaic-framed mirrors in many places, and have wanted to try a similar decorative mirror using my paper tiles. This week I’ve been working on covering 1″ to 1 1/2″ matboard squares with various handmade papers, and today the first mirror is beginning to take shape. This first one will be in jewel tone shades of purple and blue with touches of lavender, teal and metallics. The quote used is one of my favorites by Rumi: Let the beauty we love be what we do. I’m posting (hopefully) a few pictures of the work in progress.