More Baby layouts of Emma - my step daughter

This page layout has a little pull out tag at the bottom of the heart.



Experimenting using The Crafters Workshop stencils, and then spraying with the glimmer mist. It worked well on the single sheet, but when I tried it with photos already on the page, the millimetres in height caused some of the mist to go underneath the stencil. So do watch out for that.

Page Layouts of Emma

I have been experimenting using Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mist. What fun I have had today. I have used Basic Grey's Two Scoops paper here, and then sprayed parts of it with Glimmer Mist in Key Lime, Sea Glass and Cherub Pink. It gives a beautiful irridescent look, which the picture doesn't quite show.
Here is a close up view, so you can try and appreciate the irridescent spray.

Peace I offer you

This is a painting of one of my daughters who has been projected as a 20 year old woman by my friend and fantasy artist, Paula. Paula created this picture just from a photograph of my daughter when she was five years old. That photo is pictured below (now has been removed). I also collected three other photos of myself as a young woman (my teenage wedding). This was set against like an English moors look (inspiration from the Wuthering Heights, Bronte sisters).

I got this painting done for personal reasons, where through certain circumstances I was unsure about my future, and this daughter is my youngest, so I just wanted to see what she would look like as a woman. Then I was going to get my other daughter done (which I will one day), but the circumstances had changed and I had passed my trial, but only by the grace of God. It's ambiguous, but it has to remain so, but through this adversity, I came out a braver and more courageous woman, I can honestly say now, I fear no one or anything.

There's a saying
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -- Edmund Burke.

Well, I'm certainly no coward, so I confronted a situation, but didn't realise its implications. Enough said. As Psalms say 'Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy' (Psalm 107:2). That's why the picture is called "Peace I offer you", with the dove symbolising peace.


She was given a brief to create a pre-Raphaelite like type of painting and scenery of the English moors.




Check out that looong hair. Eek these photos are so old!

Carousel Dreams

Paper engineered books (you know the pop ups) are so awe inspiring and explorative. I am really looking forward to a day (if there ever will be one), when we can buy pre-made paper engineered pages (you know the 'naked' ones, and then we can assemble them on our pages).

This piece is an altered art scrapbook page, the carousel paper engineering was done by my previous staff members.
I hope you enjoy these photos, you won't find anything quite like it in the scrapbook industry. Yes, you'll have the usual pop ups, but not as detailed as this, she did extremely well.




We had entered this into the Basic Grey contest, only to find out the prize wasn't available to international people.


Here is finer detail:
This is not a metal embellishment, but a horse cut from card and then embossed with silver embossing powder.

Note that those are just pins with beads on them.

Visual Literacy

I had a fantastic weekend spent in Wellington. My DH (for the uninitiated DH stands for Darling Husband) allowed me to indulge myself (once again, he is a real good man letting me indulge in my recreational pursuits). So off I went to see Iain Watt and flew down to Wellington. Iain has a BA (Hons), Cambridge University, UK, PGCEd and MEd, so he is a clued up man.

If anyone has met Iain you can quickly think Billy Connolly. Ah yes, he's Scottish through and through, has this wonderful moustache that twirls up around the edges, and then this long long hair braided down the back. Quite an unusual character – typically the artistic type you might say.

Anyway less of the man, more about what he had to say ... or teach. He was wanting to instill in us, as artists, what visual literacy was. For a start when we talk about illustration, it is the visualisation of a block of text (meaning a novel, poem, editorial etc), and literacy is about reading and communicating a message.

So if we, as artists, can develop within ourselves a visual literacy we are better able to answer our critics eruditely. It's about justifying our art work, and then we can start with a relationship with them. Iain talked about taking the stage further from the therapeutic; from intuitive to intellectual. Finding meaning in the imagery we use, and not just in our own work, but in other people's work, too.

For any one who is interested in finding out more information on visual literacy you can contact Iain on iain.watt@tlc.ac.nz.

Mt Eden Store Start Up

Just reminiscing over the start up days of our Mt Eden store, this has now been rebranded Altered Art Alchemist.

Here is an old article in the newspaper for Scrapbookers' Delight in Mt Eden, Auckland.

Start up North Shore Shop

More memories of start up days, 2005 in our first store in Milford, North Shore, before moving into much larger premises and a brand new store in Albany, North Shore.

Woman's Day 2003

The start up days in Mt Eden.



My first pr stint in NZ Woman's Day.

Victoriana ephemera collecting

It was my first real day of being back at work. My vocation is as a careers counsellor, but my scrapbooking and altered art, well they are my hobbies in between running the stores.

So I'm almost back at work, but because Tatjana was scheduled to be on today, I decided I would do a spot of retail therapy and check out some of the antique and second hand stores. I came across a delightful shop called Victoria Gilt in Auckland. This shop specialises in vintage lace, beads, curtains, sewing tools, costume jewellery, collectable and wearable clothing. I had a good ole fossick around collecting bits of ephemera, beautiful old fashioned Valentine cards, miniature envelopes from a museum, bits of lace and silk, antique brooches, flower motifs, postcards .... All this collection of stuff, I don't know what I am going to do with it all. I intend to add some of the work to my altered art, but feel I cannot destroy or even alter antique (and expensive) pieces of ephemera, so the best idea is to save it in a box, look at it, and wonder .... I'll do something with it one day. Maybe I'll do an altered art piece used as a prop especially created for the antique.

I also went into another antique store nearby and saw this quirky but quaint folk art diorama. They wanted $1,870.00 for it! Ouch I can't afford that. It was a little too shabby, maybe I'll make my own diorama, among the hundred of projects I've got going or are at least in my head.

Angels in our Midst

This is a beautiful collage canvas decorated with sequins and glitter. Three angel images have been used, with one being 3D'd.

It is great for a child's bedroom. Little children can be reassured that God's angels are watching over them at night.

Love in a Garden

The poem is by an Afghan poet.

"We her petall'd lips are parting,
Whitest pearls so lose their lustre;
When her glance to me is darting,
fades the fairest flower cluster;
Roses shamed, forget to blossom,
Brighter radiance to discover
in the budding of a bosom
Haunting as to bee the clover;
On the thorn, that waits her pleasure;
I the fountain, faintly flowing,
Mirror of a garden's treasure,
Lover, loved, together knowing
Rapture passing dream or measure."

Khashad Ahan Ahatak

Hmm, this was written in Farsi or Pushto (language of Afghans) first before being translated into English. Yet with amazing clarity and rhyming the message is still very appealing.

It's Valentines shortly so here I have used a 12 x 12 canvas board (305 cm x 305 cm) to create a romantic Victoriana scene. A combination of techniques have been used from image transfer (of the poem) with an ink jet printer and dye wash; the tissues were decoupaged, and then the entire piece was crackled. Once this process was all dry the embellishments were added. Victoriana images were used from Memories of a Lifetime Romantic Illustrations by Sterling Publishing.

Ballerina Canvas

This collage paper tole has been created by Tatjana Stefanovic, an Elam School of Fine Arts graduate with Masters.

Tatjana works at Altered Art Alchemist shop in Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand
Tatjana Stefanovic.

The Lady of Shalott

This collage canvas has been worked with wax on vellum, little vignettes of Shakespearean tales, with a quirky add of other stories.

I have used Finmark Decoupage papers here, with a mixture of laser prints. Fibre has been added, to add to the storyline, with spools of wool being used to weave.

A poem has been added as an image transfer using an ink jet printer with a dye ink wash, before layering the image with acrylic gel.

Here is part of the story used as the image transfer:


"There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott."

The World Needs People ...

Who cannot be bought;
whose word is their bond;
who put character above wealth;
who possess opinions and a will;
who are larger than their vocations;
who do not hesitate to take chances;
who will not lose their individuality in a crowd;
who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
who will make no compromise with wrong;
whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
who will not say they do it "because everybody else does it";
who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as in prosperity;
who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hard-headedness are the best qualities for winning success;
who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
who can say "no" with emphasis, although all the rest of the world says "yes".

A Heart of Gold

I worked on this collage canvas for about two years. I had collected the red pieces of paper I wanted to work with, drew the heart (folk) and then pasted on the pieces, created an antiqued background, and then left it for awhile as I had no real idea what I was going to create.

I gave this piece to someone I knew who would treasure it and realised I created it for this lady. It was a large heart that had been patched together, now seamless, no longer broken. It was a vibrant heart with strong splashes of red colour and subtle streaks of gold. The heart had a gush of gold emitting from within its centre at the top, this then had light radiating out from behind it. This was symbolic of this lady's life and how she had found God, or how God had found her. The background of the canvas was antiqued with walnut ink and then sponged. To pull this effect back, it was then chalked over so fresh whiteness was washing away the shabbiness of this – this was also very symbolic.

When I presented this to my friend, she was overwhelmed by it, but what was more startling or even supernatural, was that the collaged images reflected snippets from her life. It depicted a young girl riding a horse, which my friend enjoyed doing, there were little images of birds, parrots, animals, butterflies, fishes, love hearts, (things she loves), a child's face blindfolded (this was also symbolic), a box of chocolates, a cat's paws, books, scroll, a handbag she owned. By positioning the canvas in four different ways, new pictures developed in her mind relating to her life or things that she loved. It was as if God was showing her heart was intact and that those things all positive in her life would be highlighted and those things in her life that were negative remained in the background no longer able to touch her.

This canvas measures 620 cm x 620 cm.

This work is in the collection of a formal international model.