AlteredPages Artsociates

While our family has a true multi-cultural background, a significant portion of my heritage is Swedish and Norwegian.  For most of the year that has little influence in my family's life, but when Christmas rolls around that Scandinavian heritage suddenly becomes all-important. Or at least it is, if you base it on the lefse, sandbakkels and spritz cookies consumed in my house during the month of December. I'm Betsy Skagen of Paper Calliope, and I decided to celebrate my Swedish heritage in a non-caloric manner by making some little tomtes. I experimented with two different media, CelluClay Instant Paper Mache  and  Lumina Air Dry Polymer Clay . I did not start out with the intention of making two different kinds of tomtes, but someone who will be going on Santa's naughty list caused this to happen.   First I hand formed the Tomtes with CelluClay Instant Paper Mache and let the clay dry overnight. The nature of paper mache requires sanding....

I don't like Thanksgiving.  There. I said it.  I am Betsy Skagen , and you see, I find Thanksgiving booooooring. It stems from sitting through years of formal dinners in my childhood, where the mantra was "children should be seen and not heard." Since my closest sibling is six years older than me, these holidays got pretty lonely.  I know, I know, we are not exactly talking hardship here. But since I started this sad little tale, I might as well finish explaining why I don't like celebrating the American Thanksgiving.  Admittedly, mine are shallow reasons--nothing so noble as opposing the blatant romanticism of the pilgrim/Native American history. Nope, I don't like Thanksgiving because there is no gift giving to look forward to, Easter baskets to rummage through or fireworks to ooh and ahhh over. What's the point of handwashing all that china when there's no reward at the end?  The biggest cause for my disdain, however, m...

Thanks for stopping by on this Friday. Today I have for you a fun little project keeping with the Design Teams wooden spoon "updo" theme. My spoon is a little nod to a vintage Christmas in baby blue and festive red.  I used a fun Santa image from the Christmas Bottle Cap collage sheet as my focal point for my spoon.  The pretty blue base was created with the so easy to use Americana Decor chalk paint in "vintage".   I used my  Wink of Stella gold nib pen  to create various sizes of polka dots all over the front and along the edges.  I distressed the edges just a bit.  I then added Petaloo paintable flowers that I washed with the same Vintage chalk paint then added just a glimmer of gold metallic acrylic paint on top of the blue.  I could not resist adding a bit of festive red cup chain to dangle from the top...just for extra sparkle when hanging on our tree.     For the hanger I used an antiqued l...

"They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games." Like many altered art crafters, I have a fondness for Steampunk. Yet, it is such an odd genre--it combines Victorian fashion and 19th century steam-powered industrial machinery with technology, sci-fi and fantasy. Let's face it. Steampunk is a misfit. So it is fitting that I paid homage to the epitome of misfits, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, by creating Steampunk Rudolph. I'm Betsy Skagen of Paper Calliope , and you can see just how much of a misfit Steampunk Rudolph is from the background of games that he is not allowed to join. I began this project by gathering some of the game ephemera that I wanted to use for my project, then tearing, cutting and inking Christmas papers for my background. While the game pieces came from my personal collection, it just so happens that Altered Pages sells  packets of vintage games pieces . Next I printed two copies of the Steampunk Reindeer from Smeared In...

October is such a great month for so many reasons.     Fall, Halloween and Breast Cancer Awareness are a few important items. It seems we have covered them all with our fabulous Design Team Artist's work. We hope you have enjoyed the projects and tutorials.  We are also hopeful you have done your self exams..... That said......we have three winners of lovely Pink items this month.    The pink palette goes to -  Rita Sue Chambers The Pink Journal goes to - LINDA Plummer  The Pink Acrylic Art Kit goes to -  Doris McDonald Congrats and Thanks for your orders. Jean says be healthy!   NOVEMBER BRINGS SOME VERY INTERESTING PROJECTS FROM OUR TEAM.   Be sure to check in and find a new art form that we hope catches on!     We are always Altering your Creativity!

I recently used Royal Artist Pastels to make fun background patterns for greeting cards. Below are just a few of the patterns I mad e. I'm Betsy Skagen of PaperCalliope and I alread y gave the birthday card above to someone special.    Tutorial to make the pastel & embossing ink greeting card Step One: Use a palette knife to lightly scrape across the surface of a dark-colored pastel and cover parts of a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of white cardstock with chalk dust. Repeat with a second dark color. Step Two: Use your finger to work the chalk dust into the card. Be careful not to leave any white areas. Step Three: Position your stencil over the card. I used a length of paper lace. Press an embossing pad over the stencil, making sure you get fairly heavy coverage. I got carried away making my card and forgot to take a picture of this stage, but here's a picture of another card, where I used the same process. Step Four: While the...

Make sure to scroll down for lots of  good information! Normal people buy Altoids for the mints. As my family will readily tell you, I'm not normal.  I'm Betsy Skagen of Paper Calliope and unless I begin eating a bushel of garlic a day, I will never be able to eat all the bags of mints I have accumulated. That's because one of my favorite craft activities is making altered art with Altoid containers. (or using the fabulous tins from AlteredPages) I'm going to keep this fairly brief since this is the second time I am writing this tutorial. Right before it was due for publishing, the post mysteriously disappeared. Now that the tears have slowed enough for me to see my computer screen, I'm going to give you a quick and dirty tutorial.  Tutorial on how to make an altered art tin Christmas Ornament Step 1:  Twist the hinges and remove the lid from a  Tin . Snip off the hinges as close to the box as possible and use a pliers to fla...