11th hour project

Guess what's in here?

Under that old book cover?

I got a wild hair to take my kindle on my trip to San Diego tomorrow to visit my friend Julie. 

But it needed a cover of some sort so I dug out a book cover about the right size, messed around with elastic, E6000, and some fabric, and lo... a cover emerged.

Not sure how long the elastic is going to stay stuck to the inside of the book cover, even with E6000, cause it's already starting to pull up the paper. But it should make it thru this trip, then I can do rivets or something.

Took me about an hour spread throughout the day as the glue dried each time.

crazy train - Jan 2013 ROC prompt

Playing along with Roc's prompts again this year. I'm always a month or so behind so I just finished January's spread today, the theme of which was 'what personal goals would you like to have this year?'

I love the wording here. Not what goals would you like to accomplish, but which ones would you like to have? Well, I'd like to have the goals to be skinnier, and to retire sooner. I'd like to move back to San Diego. I'd like to find an art journal group that wasn't an hour or more away.

However, those are mostly not going to happen, because I'm not a magician. Well, except maybe the first one, but that would require fewer cookies and more exercise so I think I'm good, thanks. Something that I'd like to accomplish in 2013 is to make more art. I have the time - an hour or so most evenings and one weekend day - but I while it away cruising thru all the wonderful stuff on Al's internets. Art blogs. Dog blogs. Garden blogs. Horse blogs. Chicken blogs. Tutorials for the art I'm not making. Really neat acrobatic vids on YouTube.


I'm working in the journal I made for the purpose and I started out by putting down some layers of paper napkins I liked. Then began doing some lettering because something else I want to work on is my lettering. Or lack of, actually. I letter in one style and one style only and I need to break out! Add to the repertoire! But just doing the lettering for the spread about lettering depressed me so much that I glued some gelli printed paper on top of it and started over. Only this time, I grabbed a photo I'd torn from an art book a few days earlier, simply because I liked it. Tore it in thirds and the rest happened without any further input from me.

The journaling reads:
 "Am I the crazy person jumping off the building, taking chances? Or am I the sane normal one dutifully pedaling off to work? (I'm quite sure I know the answer to that)  Please punch my ticket to the crazy train!"

and yet more mail art

But this time for a good cause, the saving of the tiny little post office in Rupert VT where Jane Davies lives. The linked blog post says she owns it. I'm not sure what that means cause I thought the government owned the POs but maybe she owns the bldg? 

Anyway, it's threatened with closure so she's working on upping the volume of mail by putting out a call for postcards. The PO is a charming little thing, complete with its own chickens, so I sent a card.


Background is another gelli print (what else?), some gellied phone book page strips, and some images from a November  1946 The American Home magazine. Love the stunned expression on the little girl's face. She was from a different ad than the laundry soap. Check out the soap price - $0.75 cents for 5 POUNDS. Did some stitching for textural interest and glued it all down.

more mail art

MailMeSomeArt has a collage challenge where you have to use only the items on a given collage sheet. You can cut them up but you can't add anything. 

I cut up a bunch of old file folders from work into 6"x8" pieces and folded them in half so that I'd have a final 4"x6" postcard. Stamped a text stamp on the bare card, then glued down a sheet of gelli printed deli paper. The deli paper is somewhat transparent when glued down so the stamping shows thru to varying degrees depending on how thick the gelli paint is. Very cool look.

Then I cut out all the collage sheet pieces and played with them for a few minutes. They pretty much divided themselves into two piles - the medicine ones and the money man ones.

The medicine pile brought to mind the phrase "take two and call me in the morning" so the card came together quickly, including punching out "pills" from the blue strip of paper and gluing them down. Annoyingly fiddly little things, especially when your fingers are sticky.

 The money man pile made me think of the saying "more money than brains," so I made a card based on that. Every time I see a head cut open with things flying out, it cracks me up so I did one of those with the pennies. The other elements just sort of filled in the other half of the card. I quite like this one and will prolly make an ATC or two with those same elements.

yellow postcards

Made a couple cards for MailMeSomeArt's current theme. 

It took me a long time to realize why I like postcards so much, but it's a simple reason: they have a finite amount of writing space. 

When I would start a letter on stationary, it seemed like I would never be finished cause there was always another sheet of paper on the box. So I'd run out of things to say or my hand would get tired or I'd have to stop to make dinner, and then the letter never got done. 

With a postcard, you have only the space on the back. Period. Then you're done and can resume your life. 

Once I switched to postcards, I became a better corespondent. Not good, but better.

gelli print freebies

Had another gelli printing extravaganza this afternoon while the Byonce Bowl was on. 

This time I did a bunch of cereal boxes for future postcards, putting layer after layer on them to cover up the Cheerios and Chex graphics.

I also did some of the folios for a journal I'm making. More on that in another post.

I cleaned up the plate in between colors with phone book pages. I like them cause they're thin and layer well, and the type is a great neutral background for collages.

The various mark makers this time were four 6" stencils, bubble wrap, sequin waste, crinkly packing paper, fruit bag netting (thanks, Rhonda!), the cardboard center from a roll of packing tape and a foam tube.


I made about 5 times as many as I'm showing here, but these are the coolest ones and a good assortment for freebies.

I'm tellin' you - if you don't have one of these goofy things, you're missing a whole lotta fun, and it's bargain fun after you buy the plate. 

The cheapest craft paints and free paper like the phone book are all you need.

All I have to say about the Stupid Bowl is that it's too bad the refs forgot what 'holding' looks like in the 4th quarter.

and the winner is...

Well, the Grow Your Blog Party is over and I count it a success. It netted me almost 4 times the followers I started with, and now it's up to me to make my blog interesting enough that you all not only stay but tell your friends!

The winner of my altered vintage postcard is Catiean of Catiean & Co. Congrats!

Catiean, I sent you an email...

Many thanks to all of you who left wonderful comments and especially to those of you who signed up to follow me. I'll do my best to make that decision a good one. 

In that vein, I think another giveaway is a good idea, so this time it'll just be from all my followers. I'll draw from whoever's  still around on March 1. Not sure yet what the goodie will be but it'll be something handmade by me. Once I figure it out, I'll post about it so you can see what you're hanging in there for.