Peeling Paint

I found this wall of peeling paint layers in Graton  near the Pacific

 coast, about an hour above San Francisco

I loved all the layers and colours.

If I squinted my eyes I could almost picture old circus

 posters and Mail Pouch ads.

Beautiful textures as well!

Fun in the Mail Box

A few yummy goodies from eBay and Etsy.

Vintage Master combination lock - check out the graphic 

in the center and the word "Champ".

Very vintage Cracker Jack harmonica.

And 4 retro locker tags with numbers and mysterious writing.

All waiting for assemblages to come.

Easy Pieces

For our up-coming show I've created some ephemera paks - sort of grab bags of paper and 3-D items for art journaling, altered books, collage and assemblage.

 This series, called Lost & Found, includes bingo numbers, scrabble tiles, and different bits of old jewelery or brass stampings, buttons, etc. - each one is slightly different.

25 Easy Pieces - delves into the game cupboard and has a selection from Monopoly, a Harry Potter game, dominoes, Trivial Pursuit, Mah Jong, Bingo and letter tiles.

And 45 Easy Pieces contains old maps, stamps, postal ephemera, foreign pages and newspapers, illustrations from vintage children's books, Life magazine ads from 1950, language flash cards and fabric samples.
 Pair these with one of the journals from this post and you're ready to start a visual art journal!
All available at  Art Girlz in Autumn on September 23 here at the Altered by the Sea Studio in Morro Bay.

Give Away!

 It's been a long time since I've done a give-away here at Altered by the Sea.  So when I scored this entire box of 9 boxes of vintage  4th Class Mail labels recently at a thrift store for $1.00, I thought it would be fun to share the wealth!

There are 20 labels in each small box - 

and how cool will they look on a journal page or in a collage?

First five to leave a comment will get a box. If you're one of the five email me ( you'll find it at the top of the blog on the right hand side) with your address so I can send them on their way.  And then you'll score too!