Cybertorture Mandala

I wanted to make one of those cool earth mandalas where you manipulate a photo... which I did. It took me many hours. Not happy with it  (Of course I am not) but I am still posting it here! 

Collage folder

This was made from a recycled manilla folder. I saw this on youtube awhile ago and this months "Cloth Paper Scissors" issue has one as well. I am only showing the front cover since its a scan. All the collage elements (cept the puzzle piece) were all things that came as inside or outside packaging from mail I received from art swaps; postage stamps in the mail, that lovely card (is that not the coolest card?) and the antique wrapping paper. Of course I also used Jim Holtz's tissue tape... love that stuff.

I have made these before with my clients, they are relatively easy to do and make great tag holders since the inside of the folder has pockets. 

In the past I did not sew it together, just used glue so this part was new to me. My sewing machine was not enjoying sewing through this paper and the thread kept breaking.... no matter how many times I adjusted the tension. . Now the machine won't work at all... grrr tension!

Artist Trading Card.. with quilling

Assorted Artist Trading Cards

Artist Trading Card.. magazine painting

The  technique is one I often teach my clients. It requires no drawing ability, just some patience and creativity to get great results.

Manipulating granny

 I never met either of my grandmothers but I am very interested in them. This photo was taken of her when she was quite young, I believe this is 1914. She looked very uncomfortable in this pic. I believe the photo was taken at a funeral, my grandfather loved to take photos. She is actually she is buried in the plot where the photo was taken.

I purchased Lani's zine http://lanipuppetmaker.blogspot.com/     on photo manipulation and spent many hours working on photos, but had a hard time with some basics with my programs. So, yes of course I was not happy with this but wanted to post something since I have a tendency to put these things off.

I made these beaded hands at work awhile ago, one blue one pink... and brought them home last month when I left my job.
One of them mysteriously fell off the wall in my office last night, beads fell off..... hubby said it was not his fault as he handed it to me. Do I hang too much art?

Don't mind me ..just trying to get some blogging experience.