I have wanted to make sand dollar pictures for a long time, but Sunrose Gallery here in Seaside, Oregon already had an artist who uses sand dollars. I got good news last week that the artist has new opportunities and so she is leaving Seaside and moving on to bigger things. LUCKY ME I get to make stuff with sand dollars!
This mixed media piece combines (my newest favorite product) inkjet shrink film, a thrift store necklace, and the lacy insides of about 8 sand dollars.
I found the image of a ballerina and printed it 8″ tall on the inkjet shrink film so it would shrink to 4 inches.
I traced a circle with a bowl and decorated the edges of the “skirt” with the insides of the sand dollar attaching it to the canvas with hot glue.

I used hot glue to attach the necklace to the skirt. Next I needed to “fill in” the fabric of the skirt. First I made straight hot glue lines from her “waist” to make a pattern. Working quickly as I made a line or two with the hot glue, I applied some white sand (from the craft store) to the hot glue.
Next I made “squiggles” all over the skirt with hot glue and quickly covered each squiggle with white sand. Then I place extra pearls from the necklace into the blank spaces of canvas.

All that was left to do was use hot glue to attach my shrink film ballerina to her skirt.
I was so happy how my ballerina turned out I printed out another shrink film ballerina top and want to make a tissue paper skirt stained with tea.