Look What I Won!!

I'm the luckiest gal ever!  Check out ALL the fantastic goodies I won for OWOH!!  

I won the bracelet (above) from Deborah over at Deb's Vintage Soul.  I love the brass numbered piece, it's so cool!  I plan on adding some charms onto the chain to make it really jingle!  

Deborah's blog is where you will find her crafting adventures and where she also posts photos of the vintage goodies that she puts into her Etsy shop!  I bought some fantastic vintage flower trim from her that one day I hope to find a clever use for, but for now I just stare at it cause it's purdy!

These books....sigh...oh how I love these books!!  I won these from Melanie of M Ann M.  She described these books beautifully, so I'll just put her description here...

"... two vintage publications.  'The Country of Aunis and Saintonge' was printed in 1926 in French and is full of black and white prints on uncut paper.  'Coronet' printed in 1938 is one of only 18 issues and is full of black and white photography and color prints.  This will be great to use in your mixed media art or to actually read for a bit of historical reference."    


Go check out her blog and her Etsy shop.  She makes the most extraordinary things out of paper!!  You have to see her art dolls....NOT your ordinary paper dolls...oh no...you have to see them!!  Truly amazing!!

These wonderful notecards of original collages by Cathy Horner are fantastic!  Check out her art on her blog Cathy Horner Collage Art or on her website Cathyhorner.com.  I love her collages.  She uses vintage images, handmade paper, paint, found objects, etc...  And I'm not the only one who likes her art... she's received awards, had solo shows, and even been in a 9 page article in Victorian Homes magazine.  Very impressive!

And last but NOT least ...this beautiful dichroic glass cabochon was made by the multi-talented Terry over at Aviya Glass.  I can't wait to use it!  She has two blogs (I can hardly manage one at times), Aviya Glass has her latest fused glass pieces and jewelry and Aviya Designs is for her paintings, multimedia collages and beautiful photography.

Thank you Deborah, Melanie, Cathy, and Terry!!!  Thank you sooo very much!  You are all very talented and admired for what you do!!  And everyone, please go and check out their blogs, websites and shops! We must all help and support one another.  xo

Oh, and I've been meaning to share more about the gallery that I'm now in, so I'll try to get to that soon.

OWOH Winner Announcement

Well, the brilliant madness is over!!  What a crazy time!  This OWOH blog hop was so huge, I didn't even make it to half the blogs on the list!  I still plan on hopping around now that it's over.  I am always looking to find new artsy blogs to inspire me, but now I'll do it at a much more leisurely pace (big sigh of relief).  I had a blast though and man...there are some very inspiring people out there.  My reading list is growing...

So enough of the chit chat...the winner of my mixed media Eiffel Tower art piece is the lovely and talented Andrea of My Everything Corner!  Congrats Andrea!!! Go check out her wonderful blog.  I love her jewelry and am very jealous of the person that won Andrea's OWOH giveaway necklace! sigh..so pretty!

Oh, and if you're wondering what the top photo has to do with this post...nothing!!  I just wanted to put a pretty photo there and this one goes so well with my painting!  It's that same church in Pasadena, that I've already showed tons of photos of.

Shadow Shot Sunday and Thanks

Hi.  I hope everyone's enjoying the fantastic OWOH blog hop!  I haven't had much time lately to hop around, but hopefully soon.  It's so much fun!  And I am amazed by all the comments on my post!  Thank you so much!  I will get back to all of you, but it may take me a while so please be patient!

In the meantime, here's my shadow shot for this week.

To join in on Shadow Shot Sunday with your own shadow shots, visit Hey Harriet here. 

One World One Heart 2011. It's Here!

Intro
Hi there!  The One World One Heart event is here!  Grab a nice cup of coffee and let me officially introduce myself.  I'm Esther Orloff, the "E" behind E Makes Art.  I am a mixed media artist, photographer, and occasional jewelry maker from So. California.  For 15 years I worked as a decorative artist and muralist, and I am now a stay at home mom who sneaks into her studio whenever she can...or else nobody's  happy!

Some Of My Favorite Things

• learning new techniques
• travel (esp. to Europe...sigh...)
• rusty bits 
• copper
• peacock blue
• tons of texture and personality
• beautiful light and shadows
• THAT moment......you know....that excitement you feel when you've perfectly captured "it"....in whatever medium you are using at the time.

What It's About

My blog is a place where I share what I've created with a bit of my process and details/materials, etc, in part  to document it for myself and in part to hopefully inspire and help others.  My photography is also a huge part of my blog.  I LOVE taking photos and carry my camera with me most of the time. There were MANY times in the past when I missed the perfect photo and still kick myself for not having my camera with me...such as the time I saw that fantastic dog sitting on his owner's lap in the front seat of the car, hanging out the window, with I swear the biggest smile I've ever seen, and more importantly...wearing red goggles!!  So now my camera is pretty much attached to me permanently...it's become part of my personality.

One of you will win this!  Ooh La La!!

One World One Heart
Find inspiring blogs from around the world and have a chance to win fantastic goodies at every stop!  To participate and/or see the lists of blogs participating click on the picture at the TOP of this post.  I will announce the winner of my giveaway on Feb. 17th by posting the name on my blog and contacting by email.  For a chance to win my giveaway you must...

• leave a comment on THIS post
• leave your blog link/email 
• Again...PLEASE make sure I have a way to contact you if you win, or I will have to pick someone else!!

What Can You Win?

My giveaway is the mixed media Eiffel Tower piece up above.  It's an 8"x10" canvas board with my photograph taken in beautiful Paris.  I embellished it with lots of texture from gel medium that was troweled through a stencil,  painted it with fluid acrylics, then drew over areas with a pen.  Here are some detail shots...

I figure since this is an international event (and I love Paris)...why not celebrate that with an international art piece!  Good luck everyone!!

If you don't want to win my giveaway, but at least want to say hi and/or have me come visit your blog that's fine too!  Just tell me to not include you in the drawing in your comment.


Comments for the drawing are now closed.  Thanks everyone!

Lovely Jewelry!!

I've been wanting to share some jewelry that I made a few years ago, so I finally had a fun little photo shoot with a few of my favorites.  Turns out I not only like making jewelry, but I also love photographing it!

I did not make the beads, but I did do all the wire work.  I love working with wire.  For the chain mail one above I made and cut all the jump rings from sterling silver wire, then linked them all together...very meditative.  hmm...need to make another one of these soon...

I made this one above with sterling silver wire also.  Sigh...so pretty.  And I love that red bead.  Just don't wear it with an open weave sweater...one guess as to how I know this...

These first three pieces were from classes taken at Brea Bead Works.  This bracelet I made below was taught by Sharilyn Miller.  She is brilliant!!  Check out her website...she has amazing DVD tutorials and books on jewelry making if you can't take a class from her in person.  

Fun rings made with sterling or copper wire and natural stones.

This great pendant I bought has the sun on one side and the moon on the other.  I designed a pretty scalloped beaded chain for it.

This last one is very simple and hung on a leather cord.  I think the heart was by Thomas Mann, but I'm not sure because I don't see it on his site with the rest of his hearts.  I wrapped it with copper wire and hung a little Swarovski  crystal on it.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my jewelry.  I haven't even shown you my very favorite pieces yet.  You'll just have to wait.  This makes me want to make more, but there's lots of painting to be done first...  

I'm hoping to open an online shop in the next several months, and although I want to concentrate on my artwork and prints of my photos, I also want to sell a bit of jewelry too.  I have many beautiful beads that need to see the light of day.  Sigh...not enough hours in the day...

Also, don't forget about the gigantic blog hop I talked about in the last post.  I heard last year had around 1000 people!!  If you want tons of people to be able to find your blog, and visa versa, join us.  Click on the link above or in the sidebar to find out how.

Giant Blog Hop Coming Up!!

Hi there!  Just a quick lil' post to let you know what's coming up.  If you are a blogger and want to find other bloggers to inspire you, help people find you, and have a chance to win great giveaways...then this is for you!  It's one big giant blog hop!  Click on the photo above to go see what it's about and read all the rules.

 Everyone who participates has to do a giveaway/door prize, so that's what I'm working on right now...my 1st giveaway!  I can't show you what it is yet because the fun doesn't start until Jan 30th and it runs until Feb 17th. If you want to join the hop you have plenty of time, it's going to be fun!!  Again, just click on the photo for all the info!