Jen Bowles Design

Newest Treasure: Assemblage Birdhouse

Recently, my mom and I ventured to Sudbury, MA on a rainy Sunday morning to visit the 'Art Around Town' Open Studios event sponsored by the Sudbury Art Association.  By far, the highlight of our trip was the time we spent visiting the home studio of Cathleen Bradley of studio cb.

After about an hour and a half she pretty much had to kick us out (not really, Cathleen was uber-gracious; letting us poke around, answering questions and sharing resources).  Good thing we made purchases to  atone for our lingering!

cb's artistic talents and outlets are many but one common thread is her dedication to repurposing and reusing materials.  Whether by transforming plastic bags into textiles or fashioning old toys and farm implements into birdhouses, her creative re-use skills are incredible.  And we found her artwork to be incredibly capitivating.  Imagine how thrilled I was to find a piece that I loved (that I could also afford) to bring home with me!

Yep, along with baling wire and reclaimed wood from a nearby farm, that's a vintage tin bird whistle and an Ornithology themed View-Master reel!  And it spins!

It's hard to say which element I like better ~ the carved 1/2 bocce ball that forms the base or the weathered wooden "leaves". 

Without hesitation, we put our names on the studio cb mailing list with hopes of a return visit to take a class.  I heard there might be power tools involved...

Thanks for stopping by,

St. Patrick's Day sign

It was a wonderfully warm and sunny day here in coastal Massachusetts--which means Spring Fever is on!  Before I go full-on Spring and Easter decorating though, I have one more St. Patrick's Day project to share ☺.

Fittingly, this St. Patrick's Day sign is "green", as in eco-friendly. For the base of the sign I used an old game box, Scrabble I think.  I had to cut three pieces because the box alone wasn't long enough and we were all out of extra large pizza boxes in the recycling bin.  I taped everything together and then glued on old book pages.  After the glue dried, I painted a wash of spring green paint to the book pages.

The lettering was originally going to be glittery but I didn't have the patience.  Instead I used a combination of green paint and green Sharpie. 

I wanted to do something a little bit different than shamrocks, thus the rainbow.

You can't have a rainbow without a pot of gold, right?  I outlined the coins with a gold glitter pen to help them stand out.

And there you have it, a green, eco-friendly decoration for St. Patrick's Day! 

Thanks for stopping by,

Handmade Valentine Projects: Day 10, Valentine Fish Trio

When you think of Valentine's Day, of course you think of...fish, right??  Me too, that's why I created this trio of Valentine fish!

The thing is, I love whimsical fish--they are so much cuter than the actual fish remains we often find on the beach during the summer.  I also love the art of  the talented Catherine Thursby of Red Shoes.  Months ago, I pinned this fish created she created from scrap wood.

Source: redshoesllc.typepad.com via Jen on Pinterest

 

Hello inspiration!

Now, I could've used wood for my fish.  But I didn't. Instead, I used a different, easily cut with scissors material...

Yep, I just sort of went to town cutting out cardboard shapes, painting them and gluing them together.
  I love the dimension and all the little extras like glitter, wire and ball fringe that were so easy and fun to incorporate.      

I also love how lightweight these fish are.  Mine are adhered to the wall with poster putty.    

So fun, so easy, a great project to do with kids!  Maybe not my kids--can you believe my teenage daughter rolled her eyes at me when I suggested we make Valentine fish the other day when she had a friend over??  It would've been a different story if she was 7.  Or had even more teenage friends over.  Then I'd surely have them crafting up a whole school of these love-ly fish!

Wishing you a great weekend,

Linking up (still trying to get the hang of this!) to:

Friday Flair at WhipperBerry

Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie

I Want to Ride this Bicycle

I knew it was Bike Week on the Outer Banks but this isn't what I expected...

It's way cuter!

This awesome creation was on display at Lighthouse Garden in Corolla Village, parked outside on the porch.  What a great combination of elements: garden flowers, beachy, and whimsy.

All the little details are so fun.  Ribbon and fabric strips wrapped and tied all over, hand painted chain guard and I absolutely love the bike basket.  How can you resist starfish-on-a-pink-stick and glittered paint sticks?!  There's even a bit of funky costume jewelry in the mix. 

I love this idea and I love this bike.  I'm not sure exactly what you do with one of these if you don't have a quaint storefront to display it at but I do know that the next time I see a bike at the swap pile...watch out!

 

 

Studio Storage: Pencil Cups

The creation of my Image & Inspiration book has rendered the dining room table, aka my current studio table, unusable for things like eating.

Hmmm.

Yep, it's a bit of a mess in there.

While I was sitting in there the other day, my eyes came to rest on some of my upcycled pencil cups.  Very happy making.

For many months, I was storing my pencils in a used crushed tomato can.  Finally, I got around to gussying it up.  I love the results and it only took about 15 minutes.

I used 3 different types of vintage paper I had lying around, ribbon from a gift I bought myself at Henri Bendel in NYC, some gauzy fabric scraps and a velvet leaf from a clearance poinsettia stem from Michaels. 

First I cut the papers and used glue stick to adhere them to the tin can.  I used gel medium to secure the edges.

Next, I hot glued the length of polka dot ribbon around the top. 

Then I stitched up the flower.  I cut a few circles (4-5) out of a fabric scrap.  I sort of gathered them together with my fingers, pinched and pulled through a few quick stitches.  The stitches helped with the twisty, funky shape. 

I hot glued the leaf on, and then the flower.

All done.

Except for the filling with colored pencils.

This pencil cup is now a happy resident of my art table lazy susan, and a wonderful neighbor to Ms. Upcycled Sheet Music paintbrush cup. 

They're a match made in heaven.  Well, the craft room anyway!

Special Delivery ~ Valentine collage

Inspired by a combination of Sarah Ahearn, Teesha Moore and Sarah Lugg, I've been exploring the art of collage.

On this Valentine themed collage, I used scrapbook paper scraps, found paper, vintage sheet music, letters cut from thrifted books, paint, a white Signo pen, a black Pitt pen and a shaped by me paperclay heart.  Oh, and a doily and a vintage button card.

Phew.

The overall size is 5x7.  I'm tempted to go even smaller for my next project, I bought some 4x4 and 5x5 canvases on sale last week.  I find it very relaxing and satisfying to cut out strips of paper and fit them onto the canvas like a puzzle.  I have an extraordinary (for me) amount of patience when it comes to searching through old books looking for just the right letter or word.  Of course I lose my {extraordinary} patience when a teeny tiny letter gets lost on my work table...

I love how you can use even the smallest scrap when working on a collage--good and bad when you like to save virtually every piece of interesting paper that crosses your path ;-). 

Looking forward to creating and sharing many more collage projects.

Because, I'm pretty sure, I'm never going to run out of supplies to make 'em!

Welcome Winter (???)

Whereas we had our first snow this weekend and our first frost (latest date for that here in our part of MA in over 130 years) and it's currently just above 30 degrees outside, I figured it was time to change out my blog banner and just give in to winter.

We didn't get much snow at all at our house, maybe a 1/2 inch on parts of the grass.  However, due to the cold temps and the lowness of the sun, we still have some snow to look out at. 

Will & Cuyler were especially excited for snow.  At 10pm on Saturday night when they went outside on the deck to dance in it. 

In shorts. 

{Welcome banner made by me using all natural or recycled materials including sticks from the yard, fabric from the EXCL center, vintage wallpaper, scrapbook paper scraps and thrifted book pages.  More pics on my flickr photostream.  Oh, and not made for winter ;-) }

Celebrating Earth Day

Right now, our patch of Earth is looking quite lovely.  The early morning sun is bathing the backyard in a warm glow.  The grass is green and glistening from last night's rain.  Squirrels are scurrying, birds are swooping, daffodils and vinca are blooming and the trees are budding.
And all my children and the dogs are sleeping so it's quite quiet and peaceful.
Today I'm hoping to try out another project from my Summer Art Series with Ebby and her pal.  We're going to be making Yes You Can Mermaids.  I'm not quite done with my prototype, but it's very cute if I do say so myself...which I just did ; .  As with all the of the projects I'm hoping to do with the children this summer, it's a very eco-friendly project.  Almost all of the materials have been saved from our recycling bin or were picked up by me at the ExCL center.  Seems like a good way to celebrate Earth Day.
Speaking of ExCL, my recycled birdhouse is now complete.  They are closed this week due to school vacation, but I'm planning on dropping it off next week while I pick up my next batch of supplies.
As promised, a few more details about the birdhouse:

• the birdhouse itself is a recycled cube tissue box covered in fabric samples from a showroom at the Boston Design Center via ExCL.
• the roof is made up of 2 chipboard pieces from ExCL (donated by a greeting card company, I think)
• the post is a shipping tube covered in pages torn from a 1970s report on the British economy
• the base is shipping material that I carved into a leaf shape, dug a hole in and covered in another fabric sample and then painted green.
• The bird is die cut from a plastic divider card
• the perch is a piece of a flat binding clip

All of the materials, with the exception of the tissue cube which I took out of our recycling bin, are from ExCL.  I loved the challenge of working with only recycled or reused materials, it's a great kickstart to creativity.  With the exception of the dryer lint bird that never properly took shape, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  Hopefully someone will bid on it at the fundraising auction at ExCL : )
Happy Earth Day!

{if you like, check out even more photos of the birdhouse on my flickr photostream}