Vintage, Shabby and Blue

No, my friends, the title does NOT represent my mood, but the theme I worked with on my newest collaborative art journal project.  Not my first rodeo by any means, but the first round robin in the Kindred Souls group.  And my first pages (not counting what I did in my own book); these are for Kimberly, and vintage, shabby and blue is her theme.

I started with a background I did on deli wrap with my gelli plate, but that was the last paper I used.  It was into the lace and ribbon and bead stash after that.

The center piece began as a little heart with a printed image in the center, but the shape soon got obliterated by all the embellishments,

 

 

The blue lace was actually off white, transformed by a generous spritz of blue smoke Perfect Pearls mist.

 

Originally I'd planned to just do one or two rows of beads, but obviously got carried away.

 

The stick pins, to the best of my recollection are from Maya Road.....except for the largest one, which didn't start out as a stick pin at all.

 

 

 

I just glued a button from Tim Holtz's idea-ology accoutrements collection to a trinket pin (another Tim piece).  I used Ailene's super tacky glue, which is becoming my go-to adhesive lately.

 

 

 

Another close up.

 

 

 

The back just needed to be finished, not decorated, and I began with another deli wrap gelli plate paper, and added a little stamping (stamp from The Stampsmith's Art Nouveau 2 set) and collaging.

 

 

 

As soon as everything is totally dry, this journal will be on its way to Mary-Beth in Canada.  I LOVE these round robins!













Lace and Fabric and Tags, Oh My

As is often the case, inspiration began with a blog, was enhanced with a video, and just took off from there.  Elena, the ringleader of most of my collaborative projects sent everyone a link to this video, with the comment, "I HAVE to do this!" 
Prior to that, I was blown away by the lace journals my friend Sox has been making.
The result is kind of a cross between the two, and I'm really excited about it.
Over the weekend that NY was hit by hurricane Irene, I worked on making a book to distract me from the howling wind and torrential rain.  It was supposed to be an exposed spine book, but I totally messed up the sewing, so wound up covering the spine with fabric, which led to more fabric and lace. 

Above, the front of the book, embellished with some Prima loveliness and beaded trim.

The back....so far.  I'm not sure that I'm finished adding fabric, lace and trim.

The pages inside are paper, and some signatures were wrapped with patterned paper, and some with wide pieces of lace.  I think this does two things.....for sure it adds a bit of interest, but also, it makes the pages stand a little more apart from each other, allowing extra room for embellishing each page.



And some pages, like the one above on the left were cut from scrapbook paper instead of plain white paper.

If you checked out the video, you'll see that the tag project was done with a totally fabric journal.  I didn't have a huge selection of upholstery weight fabric in the right size, but I did put one together.  I sewed all the pieces together as one signature, and I did that sewing by hand, not wanting to risk messing up my very basic (and inexpensive) machine.  It's OK, and I may use it, but I'm thinking right now that I'll be a rebel and use the book I showed you above instead.  I have plenty of time to decide, as I have to wait for the other 15 people in this project to make and send me their tags.  Anyway, here are some snaps of the fabric journal.....totally unembellished, but when you view the video (if you haven't already) you'll see how cool it can turn out.

We decided that our tags could be any theme, but that we'd all include some Tim Holtz stamps, die cuts, embossing folders, etc.  Thanks to a lot of horrible rainy days I was actually able to finish all of them, waaaay ahead of schedule.  We're sending them on with coordinating lace trim and buttons to assist in the decorating of the books.  All my tags are of the same design, with some variations in color and trim.  The first picture shows a part of four versions:

The beaded trim is attached to the bottom of Tim's dress form from his "Sewing Room" die.  The forms were cut from several different colors of the Core'dinations paper that matches the distress line.  The torsos were covered with french text.

I stamped Bon Voyage (a Stampsmith stamp) on vanilla seam binding ribbon (Stampin' Up) with black archival ink, which is permanent, so I could then dye the ribbon by swiping it with Old Paper distress stain.  A quick blast with my heat tool and they were dry, and wrapped around the dress form.

I cut up some zippers to use as the tag toppers and kept them in place with some twine.  Why the staples on the top?  Well, the zippers I used are craft zippers and they came with adhesive on the back.  I folded them over, but the adhesive wouldn't hold and they kept separating.  I tried other glues with no success, and removing the adhesive was a nightmare, hence the staples.

The little butterfly resting on the dress form's shoulder is from a Stampin' Up sizzlet die, cut with Core'dinations paper left over from cutting the dress form.  With a little added bling.

And, here is a full shot of one of the tags.  The background is a piece of a brown paper bag, stamped with sewing themed stamps from both Tim and Stampin' Up, then embossed with Tim's Sewing Room folder.  Behind the dress form is the Eiffel Tower, cut with Tim's glasseine paper with an old Sizzix die.  I know I seem to have two themes going here.....Paris and sewing, but they feel like they belong together.

Oh, and how could I forget to mention that I attached the brown paper to my tag base by running a zig zag stitch around the perimeter....on my machine on all 15 tags.  Yes, I am  proud of myself for that.

















Frida, Dominos, and a Blog Birthday Bash

Sox selected "Frida in Paris" as the theme for her journal in my Frida Kahlo collaborative art journal group.  I didn't know, until I read the handy reference sheet Sox included, that Frida was a very unhappy camper when she was in Paris.  I probably would have done some very different pages had I not learned that.
So, I had this vision of Paris through Frida's eyes.....cold, gray, totally lacking the warmth and vibrancy of her native Mexico.   And the only color would come from Frida's memories.

All the Parisian scenes are images from the Stampsmith Paris sheet.

The Eiffel Tower was cut from a Sizzix die, and the wonderful lizard....I'm having a brain freeze and can't recall where I found that stamp, but I sure had fun coloring (and altering) it.  There are also some Heidi Swap transparencies on the pages.

Speaking of altering, I joined an altered domino pin swap at ATT and here they are. (sorry how dark they photographed)  These are the pins I'm swapping:

 And this is the one I made to keep for myself:

My friend Stephen is celebrating his blog's 1st birthday, and he's having a fantastic giveaway.  Besides the freebies, you'll find some really cool art there, so check it out.

Dreaming of Autumn

What else should I be dreaming of?  It's been 90+ degrees for days and I'm sick of it!  Yesterday it hit 99 and it was humid too.  Yuck.  Anyway....I received Elena's Journal of Dreams last week, and have been thinking about what to do in it.....well, the temperatures inspired my wishful thinking.  It's September.....let's have some autumn!
Here is the two page spread:

Elena made her journal with the fabulous Fabriano watercolor paper, and that stuff is a dream (speaking of dreams) to work on.

I started with colorwashes in stream and butterscotch, then added some colored paper towel bits.  Stamped some Tim Holtz leaves with different distress inks, sprinkled on some distress embossing powders and heat set them.  There are also some leaves stamped on old dictionary pages, cut out and glued down.  Some fibers were added to the spine as well as on the pages.  

My journaling consists of some words I associate with autumn on the first page, and just repeating the words autumn and fall on the second.

Closer looks at the two pages:

I'm not sure where the woman fits in, but she looks like the spirit of autumn to me (that's my story, anyway).  She is from Stampsmith, and I stamped her on a bit of paper left over from a background experiment.

I hope Elena likes the pages.  I just wish that dream of autumn would come true already.

L'Amour

At the Stampsmith yahoo group a cool challenge is going on. Estelle has a wonderful Paris full sheet, and the challenge is to use one of the Eiffel Tower stamps in a project. We just wanted to see all the different ways one image could be used.

I got the crazy idea of putting Miz Scarlett and Rhett Butler in Paris! Well, why not? Both very romantic images, yes? I got even crazier and stamped the passionate pair in an unexpected color -- Crushed Curry, one of the new SU! colors.

I think the combination of black and this yellow/golden color is very elegant.

And I just love the entire line of Stampsmith's photo-realistic stamps.

My Stash Increases

It has been quite an interesting few days. I've taken advantage of some online sales and have been placing oh so many orders for art supplies. On top of that, SU demos have been able to pre-order certain items from the yet to be released new catalog.

Here is some of what came in the mail Friday:

And yesterday I spent a wonderful day at the Heirloom Rubber Stamp & Paper Arts Festival in W. Springfield Massachussetts. The Ink Pad, NYC's premiere rubber stamp shop, sponsored a bus trip to the festival.

ALL OF THIS was in the gift bag we each received as we entered the bus (the gift bag itself was cool, but you can't even see it under all this stash:

We arrived in Massachessetts at about 11 am, and didn't leave until 5 pm. Here's some of the damage I did in that time:

Great rubber from Stampsmith and Lost Coast Stamps:

And a little bit of everything else! I actually found a Cuttlebug folder I didn't already own, some of the new alcohol inks, inchie stampboards, some Nestabilities, collage items, embossing powder, distress ink........


On the bus, both coming and going, names were called and several lucky people won additional gifts. On the way home, I was one of them! Beautiful metallic and pearlescent paints and a fine brush, rubber and clear stamps, and a DVD on bookbinding. I was amazed at the last item, because Friday night I took a class at my friend Laurel's meetup group on Japanese stab binding. Talk about the universe giving you what you need!


Now, if only I had room to store all this stuff! Better go make something!

A Little More Rock & Roll - Let It Be!

Couldn't stop until I did a card with the John Lennon stamp. A few weeks ago I found a book of Lennon/McCartney sheet music in the trash. Unbelievable, what people will throw out! I photocopied a piece of "Let It Be" and used it for the background. Lots of distress inks and glimmer mist, and the words are computer generated.

Rock N Roll!

One of my favorite stamp companies, Stampsmith, just came out with a great new sheet called Rock N Roll. It features photo-realistic stamps of some of my all time favorites: John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. If that isn't great enough, these fabulous stamps were hand carved by someone I know from my yahoo groups. Estrella Bianchi is a wonderful artist and these stamps just knock my socks off! I am slowly working my way through the sheet. Well, not too slowly. I just started yesterday! I still haven't done a card with John's image yet, but am very happy with my Jimi, Jim, and Janis creations.