The Sumerian religion was polytheistic in nature, and the Sumerians worshipped a great number of deities. These deities were anthropomorphic beings, and were meant to represent the natural forces of the world.

Sorry about the female samurai article missing but here is another great article: One of the best-known non-Japanese samurais was the 16th-century African

Catherine Monvoisin was a woman with a dark story. Her life influenced the world of the occult and the court of Louis XIV, a famous king whose golden palace brought him immortal fame and countless lovers.

While in New York next week I’m hoping to check out the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Whitney. Known as the “Princess of the Polka Dots,” the Japanese avant-garde painter/poet/sculptor/designer recently collaborated with Louis Vuitton. The retrospective began at the Tate Modern in London and I’m so pleased it’s crossed the pond. Have you seen […]

I just love old wooden boxes, doesn't matter the size or the condition, they are my favorite place to start an assemblage with. I got out my stash of favorite boxes and got to work! This is an old drawer and a great size to use this wonderful larger photo in, I wish I had that beautiful long, dark hair. This was an old telephone box that had been painted silver at one point. I loved the depth of it and had such fun creating this piece! This old cream white box had made me so excited when I found it, I just loved the aged patina of the wood so I added one of my favorite photos to it, a perfect match, I think! This old drawer is so sturdy and heavy that I tried to balance it out with the delicate little girl and her butterfly. This old box worked perfectly with the rusty old oil can which I found still had oil in it when I saw the spot of the floor of my car! I finally drained it and got it dried out and love it so much as a base for this piece. This little angel has found a perfect home for herself in this wonderful aged paper covered box. This was the lid from the old telephone box so I could not let it go to waste!! and finally 2 more fabric hearts made just because I so love working with fabric and needle! to see close-ups of these pieces just stop by here.

Topic 10: Bottles Hi everyone, Leandra here You might have figured out our topic strategy now we are at Topic 10! We like to alternate 'objects' with 'concepts' to mix it all up a bit. But we always like to keep every topic as open as possible so they can be interpreted in a multitude of ways by you when you pay along in the challenge. This fortnight its all about bottles, big, teeny-tiny-small and loads in between! The dust is settling here at PA HQ, after a crazy start to the year. I have even managed to get a load of 2015 new products online in the PA shop. That includes some teeny tiny Timmy bottles, lots of new embellishments and Scrapbooking products from Prima Marketing, and their coordinating flowers. Also Stencils, Golden Gels, Mediums and Texture Pastes, plus Faber Castell Whipped Spackle (which Trish Latimer used ina recent Craft Stamper Mag article), Dreamweaver Texture Products, and Finn's Art Extravagance line. Pretty productive huh! I think my most favourite products are mediums, they offer so many options, and it is nice to try out some new ones too! We have had Mark's brother here this week as he had a stop-over enroute to Belgium. It's the first time he has seen all our family together since we left New Zealand 14 years ago. Was really lovely to catch up! This weekend, we are relaxing, its all about the cricket (NZL v ENG), the weather and the BBQ! And I intend to have some crafty time developing a few ideas. But first, here is Darcy to announce the challenge winner for Topic 9: Words Hi everyone, Darcy here. I think Words has to be my fave theme so far. I adore text/fonts in all their forms. Seems like you do too! We had some fantastic entries, with some really cool techniques. Well done everyone. Sooooo, the winning name from Topic 9:Words..goes to... Catherine from Inky Fingered Cat To claim your £50 voucher, please email me, Darcy with your details to [email protected] and I'll explain how you claim your prize. Thanks Darcy for drawing the prize winner, and well done to our latest winner Catherine So....it's Leandra back to explore the fun of bottles. The first thing that we need to make clear is how easy peasey it is to use Frescos Directly onto glass. Our paint really is a one size fits all. Some companies offer paints which are specifically for certain situations: chalky finish paint, glass paint, wood paint, journalling paint, craft paint, fabric paint, outdoor paint, metal paint, multi-surface paint etc. Frescos are all of that in one bottle, they are the MOST versatile paint on the market. Fact. And YAY! So, YES, you can apply it DIRECT to glass, no need for an undercoat! You will see over the next 2 weeks some of our designers who have done just that in their posts coming up this week. Here is a fab post from Lin Brown with a tiny painted and stamped bottle, she was actually teaching about grungepaper in that post ... here's the close up of the bottle detail to the left... You can therefore, easily stamp directly onto the painted glass, you can see Lin rolled the bottle over the script stamp... but if your surface is curved, you may prefer to stamp/ colour tissue and adhere that to the glass, like Lucy Edmondson did in this post... Do you also remember this fabulous couple Lin made?? Here's the post about Bob Sprocket, handsome chap on the right... the bottle is decorated with grungepaper used in all kinds of ways! I had a bit of fun painting the inside of a glass bottle based on some ideas i saw on pinterest (you can see the result on the video). I went for a more marbled effect, but you can use solid colours as below. In the same way that our paint can look totally different with a gloss glaze on top of the chalky finish, if you paint the inside of the glass, then the glass itself acts as a gloss-glaze effect, so no chance of scratching it off. Example below in shades of blue, very cool! Speaking of putting things in or perhaps on bottles, how about this! Another simple interior decor idea is fairy lights. Would be so easy to use alcohol inks to alter the bottle colour, with white fairy lights inside to highlight... OK so how about some more crafty ideas then?? Here Tim Holtz made a butterfly with one of his Bottles as the body, wiring through the paper layers, cool embellishment for a bigger bottle! Tim's bottles are pretty cool sizes... and now there are also these cool short and stubby ones too... Here they have been used in this config box to great effect... I also love how small bottles are used in this book niche, a bit like a portable spice cabinet! And here you can see all kinds of different objects add fabulous interest to each and every one! This is one of Deryn Mentock's fabulous necklaces, she is awesome with resin, wire, bottles, beads and texture to create stunning wearable art! She teaches online, so check her out if this is your thing! If you want to use a texture paste or gel with inclusions, like glass bead gel, fibre paste, grunge paste, crackle pastes etc. then I think it is a good idea to give any brand of paste some tooth to grab onto, otherwise its quite likely the heavier texture will break off in chunks. The easiest way to achieve this is use a thin layer of matte medium or glaze onto the bottle first, and then apply your textured product. Ageing and distressing bottles, (or simply putting cool things into them) is so much fun with paints, rusting powder and texture products. I'm sure you have an empty bottle, jar or maybe even a lightshade stand that you could alter to fit this topic! Whatever you choose to do, we can't wait to see it! Don;t forget the challenge is open for 2 weeks for you to join in! ~Leandra We would love you to join in with the 2 week challenge for Topic 10:Bottles. Feel free to join in and share your ideas and link up your creativity to this page. All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Bottles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, June 7th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00. 1. The challenge is a chance for you to show how you have been inspired by a particular technique of the fortnight. Your entry should contain: - a mention of which post inspired you and why, and - a link in your blog post to that original post on the PA blog. The whole concept of this challenge is 'play along with us'. You are encouraged to put your own twist on ideas you see on our blog. We love to see how you are inspired! 2. The link you put on our linky page must lead directly to the specific post on your blog where you have explored the technique/ idea mentioned in point 1 above. Don't link to the home page of your blog, or we will be unable to find the post to leave you comments. 3. Spam links will be deleted. 4. We prefer your challenge post is created exclusive to our challenge, but if our topic fits perfectly with another challenge, then of course your post may link to both if you feel it is appropriate. 5. You are most welcome to use stamps/ products/ substrates you have to hand from a variety of companies, we do not expect you to exclusively use PA products - it's lovely when you do though! 6. You can enter as many times as you like in the fortnight. We don't want to restrict your creativity or participation! Link closes at 17:00 Sunday June 7th (London Time) 7. The winner of the random draw will receive a £50 credit to be redeemed on the PaperArtsy Website, the credit includes VAT and postage. We request that one of your purchases is an A5 rubber stamp. You can add any other items to your basket, but the final total should not exceed £50 8. Each Sunday fortnight the winner will be announced at 19:00, also, in the same post, the link for the next fortnight will be posted. It's your responsibility to claim your prize coupon from Darcy: email her [email protected] Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Jen creates little assemblages from just about anything, composed of collected oddities and edited into tasty little pieces. First saw some of her works at the uber-cool Eclectix and wanted them so…

size 106x57x14cm

国立新美術館での展覧会『わが永遠の魂』が、世界中から注目を集めている草間彌生。88歳にして今なおアートの最前線を走り続ける、その原動力は何なのか。過去のインタビューから展覧会の最新レポートまで、草間彌生のすべてを紐解く。

Sharing my love of all things vintage, and aged with the patina of time...

I took a look around my home the other day, and while there is no real-live canine companion in these parts, there sure do seem to be a numb...