Have you ever wondered how to make a bezel for a butterfly wing or add a second head to a deer figurine? Perhaps shrines with spoons or doll heads with nail adornments are more your thing? Might I recommend Altered Curiosities: Assemblage Techniques and Projects
by Jane Wynn. I’m a day late and a dollar short with this book review and giveaway since the book came out in 2007, but a book like Altered Curiosities never goes out of style.
Not only does artist Jane Wynn have a very distinct style about her work she also has a lot of great information to share. Altered Curiosities: Assemblage Techniques and Projects
overs topics like soldering, using resin and etching metal. Whether you are into jewelry design or making keepsake boxes you will walk away from this book full of inspiration.
We all know how I feel about fawns so the Peeking Deer Necklace obviously piqued my attention. Something about the creepy teeth in the Wisdom shrine spoke to me. I have a pair of vintage dentures that live in my bathroom, maybe I will breathe some new crafty life into them. So many of the projects in this book interest me. Even if this is not your style, what you will learn in technique from Altered Curiosities: Assemblage Techniques and Projects
is invaluable.
So to win your own copy of Altered Curiosities let me know your thoughts on mixed media arts. What is the oddest thing you have ever incorporated into your craft? Doll parts, taxidermy eyes, teeth? Even if it is as vanilla as some interesting paper or fabric, I wanna know.
What a wonderful giveaway! I am so into learning more assemblage that I would love to win!
Strangest thing I've used in one of my mixed-media pieces? Shriveled and dried orange peel….or maybe it was the egg shells that I cleaned and dried. I love using strange things in my art.
Peace, Love & Art,
~Barb~
I have a bezel on the table filled with apple seeds and some computer parts that I'm dismantling for jewelry use. Not too odd . . . for me the odd thing would be combining those two things into a single piece!
i love this whole oddity thing. but i have not been out of my comfort box of altered books to do something more dimensional. i bought a tiny rubber chicken and some actual bones to use someday, but i have not actually used them. i have used chicken wire, mica, keys, rusty bits of whoknowswhat i found on the ground on my walk to the mailbox, but i'd love to get really odd someday.
What a fun looking book! I'm sure kinda creeped out by that doll head on the cover, but otherwise, it looks fun and informative.
I'd have to say the strangest things I have ever incorporated into anything would be thanks to my pets.
When my cat was a kitten and losing his teeth, I found one of his canine kitten teeth and I incorporated it into a poured resin
I have had my eye on that book for quite some time and haven't purchased it. I love Jane Wynn – her work is awesome. I haven't incorporated anything really odd, just your everyday paper, vintage items and found objects I pick up while in the parking lots like rusty nails and rusty wires and washers. I love those scattered goods!
Love, love, love altered arts! The strangest thing that comes to mind right now are the bent spoons and forks that I used to create an altered doll..used them for legs, feet, arms, and head…I also adore mettalic muffler repair tape..you can emboss, alcohol ink..almost anything…and it's already sticky!
love this give away – love the authors work – so excited to see new ideas—-keeping my fingers crossed.
I'm pretty conservative and like to keep it cute… but one time I was learning how to accaustic? / wax painting with my friend and she has her dogs teeth in a little manilla envelope and she mushed them in…. then she offered me some dog fur. I had to decline. Her piece turned out creepy, but it worked.
I have used goldleafed chicken bones, doll parts, hardware–but not for many years. Now it's mostly twigs or fabric. I love learning new techniques and would put this book to good use!
Hmmmm.. It would probably have to be little pieces that I've pulled out of dead electronics. Wires, chips etc.
I would love to do more stuff like this! The oddest thing I ever did was make a diorama (similar to the day of the dead type diorama) with glow in the dark alien figures I got in Roswell.
That book looks awesome! I love stuff like this. I really don't use odd materials, but some of my accessories are a bit odd like my cheeseburger and popcorn necklaces.
The oddest thing that I have incorporated into my artwork is garlic skins that I stamped on.
I'm so glad I asked this question, I'm loving all these answers! I'd have to say for me baby rattles, cupcake toppers, tin typewriters. I love using odd found goodies in my work.
Ok it may be gross but … I've used "bladder stones" removed from my precious dog. They were wrapped in my dad's favorite shirt and it was in a piece that represented love and loss. Dad had died, dog lived – stones looked like eggs sitting in a denim shirt nest. Turned out cool actually.
I used an earring for a chandelier on the "roof" of a shadow box. Not weird, but it looks cool. I have some really cool parts set aside to use though… some doll heads, pieces of an old lamp that I'll be using for a hat… etc. I would -LOVE- to win this book! Someone is going to be very lucky!!
xoxo
Sheila
Weirdest thing I've included in my art? Turkey bones!
Please include my name in the draw, I've started bubbling over with ideas just in response to your post.
Thank you and Creative Wishes!
Krystin Goodsell
http://www.walkingwithkrystin.blogspot.com
I have been dying to try assemblage art, but have no idea how to get started. Lordy, would this book come in handy!!
I save random things I find for "future assemblage art projects". I have a little drawer for them. Things like: dead bugs, feathers, butterfly wings, dead dragonfly, a flattened fork (someone must have run it over!), keyboard pieces, old floppy disks,
Odd keys, bolts and odd hardware pieces that I've found on the ground, doll heads. Anything can be embedded in resin! I'm about to use cupcake wrappers on tree branches.
Hummm… I've used old school film strips in collages. Made broken CDs into earrings. And as a Girl Scout troop leader I've made communion cups and cotton balls into ice cream sodas. Beer bottle caps, beads and felt into cherry pie, old prescription bottles into sewing kits. I am all about reusing discards and cast off stuff!
my stuff is pretty vanilla, like dice & poker chips, stuff like that. but one of my faves is using old-fashioned looking asian clip art with pieces of japanese snack wrappers on my bamboo tiles bracelets. it gives me the warm fuzzies!
I don't think I've used anything very odd in my work. I've cut cd's up, used rusted things, hinges, keys…nope, nothing odd. I need to get this book and explore some ideas in it… love what I see from your review.
I wear daily disposable contact lens.
So, I once save up a whole pile – a year's worth – of these fragile little clear-as-glass shriveled flakes and put them in a jar in a shrine to the passing year: 'A Year's Worth of Insight.'
I loved mixed media jewelry and have figured out that most anything can be turned into a bead with a diamond core dremel bit! If my kids leave their legos and doll shoes around they become jewelry! I also love to "fry" marbles and wire wrap them!
I love Mixed Media! The oddest thing for me … probably snakeskin
I do most of my work on canvas so I love things that add texture!
What a darling little dear!
I love decoupage myself.
http://www.patrickcourtney.blogspot.com
Fashion|Art|Food|Lifestyle
butterflies, cicadas, beetles, shredded money, porcupine quills, horse hair, my own hair and blood, broken mirrors, feathers and bones collected from road kill, roofing felt, asphalt shingles, fuses, metal washers, anything and everything peeling, rusty and corroded… oh the list goes on and on 🙂
Last June I had 18 of my 28 teeth pulled in one fell swoop. I managed to get the student dentist to allow me to keep 3 of them. My goal was some sort of jewelry or other adornment made with them to remind me how words can "bite". This book would show me the way!!!!! Thanks for listening, Peggy
Hey, I really enjoyed your site and I was wondering if you'd be interested in a link exchange? I just recently started my blog in hopes it'll help me keep up with crafts and motherhood and all that jazz! Thanks ever so much 🙂
That book looks like fun! I really could use some help with assemblage and collage. I have used some slightly wierd things in my attempts at crafting. Remember when the granite-look was all the rage, when the textured spray paints first came out? They were (and are) really pricey. I decided I could re-create the look for less. I needed a planter so decided to cover a plastic bucket with glue and
At one point, my hair was falling out in clumps from anxiety, so I saved the hair and made a canvas art piece with paint and lots of strands of my own hair that had fallen out. It turned out looking like a waterfall 🙂 This book looks awesome !
Used a horse's tooth in an assemblage. Would love to win this book….techniques look cool.