back up and running!
Okay, been gone for over 2 years now. I’m hopefully back to undertaking some creative endeavors. Am signed up for an online course with Creative Kismet “Art of Giving” and hopefully, that will get me back in the habit of journaling and making things with my hands again.
Dollhouse
This is the second “page” I did for the House art project. I made a sweet dollhouse with flaps that opened up into different rooms. Each flap has some brads.
In the middle row, I have a bathroom where I added a shell to the wall as a decoration and a sitting room where I added a watch face to the wall.
In the lower floor, I have a kitchen on the left and a living room on the right where I added some dimensional glue to highlight a glass vase.
This is the bedroom of the House project with some curtains. I literally cut this from the bottom of my real-life curtains!
Each of the rooms came from the paint chip brochures you can pick up from the home improvement stores. I picked up the brochures so I could paint–so this was reusing stuff I had in the house! In other words, I didn’t pick up the brochures for this project–but the sizes were perfect.
home improvement
This was part of an altered book swap–but it wasn’t a classic assignment! My friend wanted us to work with cardboard forms of houses. She had done a lot of home improvement projects with her partner so I made a tribute to those efforts.
I used a background of paint chips with magazine photos of tools.
The chimney smoke has a quote on it: “A home is made, not bought.”
recycled t-shirt necklace
Wow! I found this on Whipup and am just so intrigued by it. It’s a necklace from used T-shirts. It can be painted using textile medium. Very cool! I am on a crafty binge I think… You can buy a similar one from Urban Outfitters for $38 but it’s not as nice as this one.
Self Help Altered Book swap
My latest altered book for swapping is about the humorous side of Self Help books. I’m using a book from the ’60’s about improving your life as the substrate and there are some very funny quotes and dated anecdotes in there as inspiration.
Here, I make a play on the Ayn Rand quote about our mind being the most powerful weapon. On this page, there is a drawing of Stephen Covey and his thoughts from a Southwest Magazine article.
But when we flip the page, I have a drawing from a NY Times magazine of a body with headaches, dizziness and blurry vision (get it–our brain is NOT a good weapon?).
I also have a “Fix Yourself” page for the book too.
Mini board book project
Although our teacher has moved, we’re continuing with our altered book swap and projects. This month, our hostess had a mini-board book project which took about 2 hours and I spent about 30 minutes at home completing it.
She bought these easter-themed books and brought out her stamps, stamp pads, and some small paper/images for us to use. For text, she challenged us with a page of Fenimore Cooper-like story.
I put together a little story about a naturalist who collects specimens and observations–but ends up being a doctor in the end.
enjoy!
New workshop
I went to Tim Holtz’s workshop last night and it was a lot of fun! The 3 and a half hours went back so fast–I hardly got anything done! We played with acrylic fragments, alcohol inks, background papers, canvas and other materials. My favorite technique had to be the frosted pieces that were embossed–I’ll post photos later!
Journaling
I’m on Kelly Kilmer’s A Prompt A Day online workshop and while I am behind, I’m trying to catch up! The colors are not what I would choose myself, but I like it! As usual I like to use discarded materials as much as possible and here I have a tea bag tag and perforations from water color paper pad.
Written on the body altered book
This was the latest book for my altered book swap run by our fearless leader Diane. It’s called Written on the Body and it features Victorian nudes.
I do find that I’m getting so much better! On the left page is a transparency attached with paper clips over tissue paper which I stamped lightly on. In the center is a “flag book” format where if you pull on the ribbon, it flips out and you can see the whole postcard. If you’d like to see it, here it is (but it is a nude!).
For the second page, I have a handmade background paper on the right and on the left is a dress pattern tissue paper (which I thought brought out the irony since she’s not wearing clothes!) with a figure and another text transparency attached with a brad.
The third page (the first time I’ve had time to do three pages!) is a vellum pocket with the postcard in it and the left is from a retail paper bag.
Lastly, one side of the sign-in tage was a book page, with tissue paper stamped with letter and a sticker with my name and date on it. The second side is featured below and it’s a magazine photo with a question mark. What I was trying to suggest that if women were taking photographs, the results probably would have been different.
Altered Journal
This is what I made yesterday at Kelly Kilmer’s class! It was a wonderful experience and I’m very glad I signed up. She is as generous, patient, funand warm as she is online. I did get some new tips from her but also saw in person some of the techniques she discussed online. As others have pointed out, one of the highlights of the class is just the chance to use her stash–especially her tapes! I now understand her addiction…I share it now!
I also found a love for transparencies and some really good tips from Kelly about how to use and attach them. She also gave me a couple extra pieces and I bought some more at Stampers Warehouse in Danville after the class.
The other thing I’ve been discovering about my style is that I really do like to mix up the textures. I already knew that I like to use everything including “waste” but I really do like to mix it up. This was one of the spreads where I used the wax paper I painted on and use it inside the book–partially for an unusual texture but also to remind me of the great workshop.
Unlikely Crafter 