free images - Christmas postcard

Here is the front and back of a lovely old postcard that was among my maternal grandma's things. I especially love the green border on this one. It's embossed, as you can see from the back. If you make something from it, I'd love to see.

Click on images, then right click to save. scanned at 300dpi

FTB journal #2

For my second FTB journal I used an old book cover. It was pretty boring, so I dropped some India ink on it, then blew it around with a straw. Much better. From my silk ribbon embroidery days, I have boxes and boxes of the stuff in all colors and width, ruffled, sparkly, hand dyed, you name it. I want to use it up cause I'll never get the value out of it by selling it, so I cut a bunch of 8"-10" lengths of just about every color, then folded them over and sewed them to the center fabric tape. Definitely an odd look but I like it well enough. It's very tactile and interactive, just begs you to fluff up the strands and run your fingers thru them.

The signatures are made up from the signature swap we did in the group, plus some I'd made. Actually, I haven't photographed those yet, so I guess this post is just about the cover! Well, there's one shot of the journal standing up so you get a glimpse of the pages.

I'd neglected to watch the 'preparing to bind' vid before I got my cover and pages ready,
so I spent a completely useless hour making holes in the thick book cover.
After I realized my @#$%* mistake, I decided to put grommets in the holes
and call them a design feature!

Silk ribbon lusciousness.

All sorts of fun pages made from such a wide variety of papers. It's so much fun to see other people's work.

The bound signatures with my tapestry fabric tapes. 

Kelly Kilmer's journal class - lots of pics

For being near such a large, artsy city, there seems to be a real dearth of art classes of the sort I'm interested in. But - recently Kelly Kilmer came to Oakland and taught 3 days worth of classes in a private home. I went for the Sunday class, which was a collage journal class, First you made your journal, then you collaged in it.

We chose two pieces of handmade paper which, glued together, became the journal cover, then we stitched in one large signature of 140lb watercolor paper. She hauled along a huge duffel bag of collage papers of all sorts - magazine pages, book pages, handmade papers, wrapping paper, etc - which we dug thru as we chose a pile of stuff that appealed to us. Then we worked our way thru 5 different pages, as Kelly directed us where to put various elements such as the focal point, the background, tape and so on. I've collaged enough that I'm comfortable with it, but it's still fun to work to someone else's tune and with materials that are new to you.

The pages are shown in the order I did them. Not sure if there's any difference to be seen as I worked or not. I collaged on only the right side page and think I'll journal on the left.

green outer cover, gray inside, black thread binding, with
ends knotted and left hanging, a look I like

The scruffy white strip near the top is part of the spine of a book.
It was in the collage bin and I liked the texture of it so I glued it down.

I like the colors in this one. I've always liked gray and the bits of yellow and red are just enough.

I love this circus image. I used to imagine I was a circus lady, riding a horse in a spangled tutu.
Me in the tutu, not the horse.

I like this one. Something about the b/w image with the sparkly turquoise accent.

A study in blues.

Lots of paper tape and stamping. And greens.

and so winter begins...

I live in a windy town. A few years ago we got gusts that hit 62mph. That's really windy when you're just trying to walk across the parking lot to your car. There were tumbleweeds the size of Volkswagens rolling down the streets. Crazy.

Yesterday wasn't that bad but late in the afternoon, a wind sprang up that set all the piles of leaves to dancing along the sidewalk, swirling them up into leafy tornadoes now and then. A storm was blowing in and the cloud formations were gorgeous. Here are some shots from around 5pm yesterday. Notice the lean angle on the (blurry) trees shot from my car window while driving. Every tree in town has a permanent eastward lean like that, plus the wind was blowing the tops over even more.

 

this & that

1. Blueberry dye. I always keep a little tub of thawed Costco organic blueberries in the fridge for cereal, pancakes, scones - whatever. As they thaw, they release some juice. I usually pour it off but the other day, I put it in a small dish, added a splash of vinegar for mordant, and plopped in a few small pieces of lace. A minute in the microwave to set it, then I rinsed it out and let it dry. Wa-la. A lovely lavender.

2. Sunrise. I love sunrise. It's maybe my favorite time of day, even if I'm not actually up for it most of the time. Last week I was driving to an event out in the boonies and rounded a bend to find the rising sun lighting up the hills. I immediately pulled over and snapped a couple gorgeous pics.

3. Poppy pics. I planted some pots for the back yard the other day and among the various flowers were a couple poppy plants. One evening, I noticed that one of them had a couple blooms. It was a bit dark so I shot with a flash and a very shallow depth of field. It came out very dramatic.

ROD journal #1

I signed up for Mary Ann Moore's 2nd class - Full Tilt Boogie - a few months ago and it was pretty cool, so I signed up for her first one - Remains of the Day - a couple weeks ago. Equally cool. This one has a cloth cover and since I have tons of upholstery fabrics and laces and doilies, I had a really good time working on it. The pages are sewn together using the remains of your day, or whatever you feel like incorporating. I used practically everything I had in the studio - scrapbook paper, old envelopes, ledger pages, paper bags, lace, old photos, pre-cut frames, part of a small folded book I made as a sample - all sorts of stuff.

This journal falls right into my liking of variety - I love a deli where you can have a little bit of a whole bunch of things, I like scrap quilts because of all the fabrics, I like thrift stores cause there's some of everything. So what some might look at and see a total hodge-podge of stuff, I am fascinated by the endless new bits to see every time I flip thru it. I haven't journaled in it yet. I might make it my Australia journal, long after the fact since we were there in 2005, but I have lots of pics and notes, so I'll be able to make a cool memory book of the trip.

Anyway, here are a bunch of pics. It has a total of 48 pages but I'm only making you look at the more interesting ones for now. If you think it's cool, I strongly encourage you to go sign up for her class. It's well worth the money.

back cover

front cover tied

front cover without tie

inside cover and 1st page

misc swap art

I just can't keep up with all the things I'd like to blog about. Gotta take pics or scan the item, tinker with it in photoshop, write the blog, add in the pics. Just seems to take longer than it should.

These are items I've made recently for a few swaps.

postcards for a mail art swap - scan of old postcard for background, image of
vintage ladies, stamped title, stencil B, definitions, old stamp. I quite like the
overall bluish-green tinge of these.

ATC for the theme vintage ladies.
gel medium transfer of  my maternal grandmother Theresa.
painted background, stamped with sequin waste, old tea bag glued down,
a bit of lace, edge of computer paper.
Really liking the turquoise and brown color combo.

ATC for the theme Halloween
background is acrylic paint with vaseline resist, stamped, smudged, gel medium
transfer of two girls, correction pen Boo!, black pen markings along edge

ATC for the theme books
painted book page, stamped with sequin waste, stamped title, definition.
I love this image of the kids reading. I've used it a few times before.