Posts filed under ‘paper arts’
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.”
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!
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.
Kelly Kilmer class
I took the plunge…I couldn’t resist meeting Kelly Kilmer in person after taking her on-line journaling class since January and so I signed up for her journal course at Stampers Warehouse in Danville this weekend. Sound be fun!
And I have my altered book swap group Sunday so it will be a fantastic weekend!
Alphabet Altered Book
Last weekend I took a 2-day course at Castle in the Air with Ulla Milbrath constructing an altered book in a Moleskine Japanese style accordion book. We did 26 pages and the covers! So it was a good lesson in working quickly and not overanalyzing (okay–I failed that because i skipped a couple letters so I could keep up!).
It truly was a lot of fun, I learned some new techniques, and got to play with a bunch of lovely papers and materials. it was a great way to spend a rainy weekend.
Check out my Flickr! paperarts set to see more photos of the project.
getting better!
This page spread was within an old Hallmark book about nature. We were asked to use the existing artwork when possible. So here I added some glazing to enhance to existing photo, added two pop-up fish, one flat fish, and another one which folds out along the edget. I like the way the pieces I added look like they are part of the part.
I had cut the fish out of a magazine and then added some blue glaze to the white edges. The flip-down fish is attached with a brad and there is a piece of yarn which is the handle.
For this spread, I had purchased some natural history ephemera from Urban Fauna (San Francisco) and it included this page from an old field guide for liverworts and ferns. I couldn’t decide which side to use so I decided to make it fold out so you could see both sides and it goes along with the existing fern forest images on the right. I also did want to keep the quote on the bottom visible so I made a flap out of the decorative paper I pasted on top. Both the field guide page and the flap have a piece of yarn through a metal eyelet.
My tag was covered with a napkin I nabbed from my godmother’s house during thanksgiving dinner! I loved the colors and patterns.
