put a bird on it

Inspired by a postage stamp of a many - colored bird. Marker, watercolor, hand carved stamp - all in a little nature journal I made last week. The little feather is from the belly of my mean parrot Winston.
I'm just gluing in things I like and working on whatever page appeals to me at the time. A way of working that I've decided suits me much better than one thing at a time, or a given thing on a certain day, like icad.
I'd been mildly agonizing that I wasn't doing much art but, like most things, my desire for it comes and goes and eventually returns again. Wandering around thru this journal is perfect.

a better look

Here's a bunch of pics that give you a better look at the finished giveaway journal. I've captioned most of them, but if there's no caption, it's a pic of the inside pages.

Beginning to bind using some pretty turquoise thread I got while visiting Julie in San Diego.

Finished spine. 

Detail of cover. Dress tissue, spray ink thru stencils, black paint, gesso, collaged bits of paper, paint stamps with bottle caps and tape rolls, gesso thru stencils, black stamping. Used a lot of techniques on the covers and no particular plan, just added stuff till it looked good to me. 

 

Inside front cover and first page. Both inside covers are mostly vintage papers.

All the black stamps are Tangie Baxter's grunge stamps.
I have sets 2 and 3. Love them.

I added a small envelope with a painted tag.

Sprayed this with two colors of Dyelusions ink and got some real pretty color blending.

Inside back cover with a couple detail shots below.

Those bits of advertising are from a 1946 Popular Mechanics.
Wonder how well the 'poems set to music' guy did?

and the wiener is...

Jean of Jean's Muse blog. Congrats, Jean! I'll email you just in case you miss this post.

Here's the journal still under construction on my kitchen table. I've been working there for the last week so that I can watch the Olympics while I art.
The top center piece is the inside back (or front) cover done with mostly vintage papers, the purple/blue piece to the right and below it is the front (or back) cover, the other parts are the inside pages in various stages of being decorated with inks and stencils, and a bit of collage, and some stamping with Tangie's cool grunge stamps. I have sets 2 and 3 and love them.
I'll bind it this weekend and send it off to Jean on Tuesday.
Sorry I couldn't make one for everybody but thank you for all your nice comments, and thanks especially to those of you who signed up to follow me. Hopefully I'll keep you entertained. 

AZ workshop journal (lots of pics!)

Front cover

The mariner's compass is actually glued to the page two images down.
You're seeing thru a hole cut into this page.

Click (or maybe double-click) on the pics to embiggen them. There are a ton of techniques on all these pages but I simply don't have the energy to caption them one by one and call out what's on them. I'll caption a couple that have something really interesting but otherwise there's scraped paint, sprayed ink, stencils, stamps, gel medium transfers, Neo Color IIs, gel sticks (gelatos), marker, pen, collage, cutouts (holes cut into the page).  If you have a question about something in particular, ask away. 

All these pages are from a journal made of just three pieces of paper. The outside piece has a short foldout at each end. The second piece has a full foldout on the right. The third (inner) piece has a full foldout on the left. Very cool design and fun to work on. Tangie's husband Dave makes them for her classes and for sale.

Lots of masking tape put onto page before scraping 2 colors of paint across it.
Makes a very cool background.

Took one of Tangie's cool journal pages (printed out that you can buy
altho this one came with the class) just torn up with no thought
to what would end up on each piece, then glued down, also pretty randomly,
altho I did place the girl and the word 'found'. Love this look.

The little pocket at bottom right holds a Fugi Instax Mini pic
that Tangie took of each of us. 

Another hole cut in the page to view the sunburst on the following page.

Looking thru the hole from the back of the page.

And here's the sunburst from two images up.

The girl at bottom left is a gel medium transfer done directly onto the page.

This image and the one below are the front and back of a short foldout.
Some of the other pages are foldouts too but full size.

The back.
I very carefully decided where I wanted to stamp my hand carved 'dream' stamp,
then proceeded to stamp the damn thing upside down. 

notched journal swap

first one

Another MMSA swap. Those are pretty much all I do any more. I get pretty good stuff back and I like her themes.


These are journals you can make from old greeting cards or decorated papers. You stack them up, cut notches in each end for your binding string to slot into and you're done. 


I used a bunch of my paste papers from that great day in Niles at Maria's studio. The backs of them were plain so I painted them up mostly with watercolors, then cut them into various sizes so that more than just the cover page shows from the front.

second one, front

second one, pages

third one, front

third one, pages

first child journal page

Using up my old family pictures is very enjoyable. Most of them I'm just cutting up and putting on a journal page or a post card or an ATC. Not scanning them first. Not worrying about never having them again. Many of them go off into the world via the mail system of one or more countries and live out their lives far from home.

Altho they're far from home here with me, too, I guess. Home was mostly Ohio and Michigan. I'm in California.

Long ways. In distance as well as years. But it feels good, letting them go. No one to miss them but me, and I don't.

Gelli print background. Circles stamped from various circular items - empty scotch tape center, empty toilet paper roll, empty adding machine paper center. Hardly anything goes in the trash around here anymore lol. It's all in my studio.

Some pen work. A little machine stitching.

Journal Soup from 21 Secrets

page with tag in envelope

Yes, folks - here at One Woman's Hands, it's All 21 Secrets, All The Time. 

Because here's a journal page from Kate Crane's class Journal Soup. All this was from instructions in the first 14 minutes and 31 seconds of her class vid. The rest of the hour and 7 minute video is other techniques, coming soon to a blog near you lol.

My page looks completely different from hers but the basic idea is there. Spray, stamp, glue, doodle.

page without tag

I started with a page that already had a gelli ghost print on it from the large bubble wrap. Then I sprayed various inks, stamped a few stamps here and there. Made paint marks with bottle caps. Did the same to a small glassine envelope, and using slightly different colors, to a tag. 

Glued strips of the printed out painted page from Roben-Marie's class to the envelope, along with a cut down ticket. For the tag, I liked that little quote from an English/Chinese dictionary cause I do have a hard time socializing most of the time. 

tag

Anyhow, the contrast of 'play' and 'socializing is hard' grabbed me, so that's how it all came together. Love all the colors in this. It's fun using my spray inks, which I don't do often enough. I tend to hoard them cause they're pricey. 

Kate isn't someone I'm familiar with but I like her teaching methods so far. And she's British, so it's fun listening to her.

bonus project from 21 Secrets

GLUED, THEN SEWED CUT PIECE TO
OUTSIDE OF FOLDED BAG BOTTOM

Roben-Marie included an additional little booklet in her class. It's made using a photocopy of the painted page, in this case, the second page I made, not the one I made the dos-a-dos book from. 

INSIDE VIEW - NOTE I DID NOT SEW ACROSS THE TOP*

It also uses the bottom of the gift bag that was cut off to make the main project. I love that aspect of this. Now I'm not faced with the bottom of the bag laying around. I'd have a hard time throwing it away because, ya know, it just might be useful for something, so I'd end up keeping it for years. Now it's a cool little book for my purse or desk. 

It's a little larger than 4" square.

SIGNATURE WITH SEWN ON BITS OF PAGE COPY

PS - added a tie using the same old linen napkin I used for the dos-a-dos journal.

INSIDE BACK AFTER SEWING IN SIGS

INSIDE FRONT

POCKET!  THAT'S WHY I DIDN'T SEW ACROSS THE TOP
WHEN ATTACHING THE COVER TO THE BAG.
THERE'S ANOTHER ONE IN THE BACK COVER.

OUTSIDE OF FINISHED BOOKLET.
I USED DOUBLED PINK LINEN THREAD TO STITCH
THE SIG IN. STARTED AND FINISHED IN TOP HOLE
SO THAT I COULD LEAVE THE TAILS ON.
PUT A FEW KNOTS IN EACH FOR INTEREST.

CUTE LITTLE BOOKLET!

ADDED A TIE

STITCHED IT ONTO THE INSIDE OF THE FRONT COVER
UNDER A BUTTON