A Coffee Loving Ancestor Emerges.....

Last week I received my good friend Pat's Vintage Ancestors book, and I just love the way everyone has continued the theme that Pat established at the very beginning.  One way or another, all her ancestors were involved in the tea business, and the stories created for them are just wonderful.  Of course I'd go with the flow, but with a tiny little twist.  My contribution to the Tilly-Lipton clan, one Hazel Tilly, was definitely the black sheep of the family; horror of horrors, she hated tea!

Here is my two page spread:

This is a very simple layout, almost like a scrapbook.  The background is a vintage coffee and tea adverstisement that I printed on lightly patterned vellum, cut to the size of the two pages, then split down the middle so that half is on each page.  After I wrote my story (in my head), I just went on a search for pictures to illustrate it.  Thank you, Pinterest!  Thank you, Google images!

Here's a closer look at the story, and remember you can click on any of the photos to get a larger image.

 

 

Hazel's travels took her all over the world, but it was in Denmark that she found true love, and married there.  Why Denmark?  I'll get to that later.

 

 

 

Now, what is the meaning of the statement on the coffee cup?  Does that hinge actually work?

 

 

 

Why, yes, it does!  And what secret is revealed?

 

 

 

It seems that the Keurig coffee maker empire had its roots in the union of Hazel Tilly and Henrik Keurigsen.  Who knew? 

 

What inspired my twisted tale?  I happened upon an article giving the history of the Keurig company (very interesting TRUE story, by the way), and learned that keurig is the Danish word for courage.  I already knew I wanted my ancestor for Pat to be a coffee drinker, and Pat and I both love our Keurigs.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Totally invented history, but still......

 

I can't wait to get the book back to Pat.  I know she's going to love it.  I've said it before:  maybe you can't choose your relatives, but in our little collaborative art journal world, your friends can choose them for you.











Back to Russia

How Sue Acquired A Russian Ancestor

 

 

Clearly, I still have the desire to incorporate images of Russia into my art.  When I received Sue's Vintage Ancestors book this week, I knew immediately where her next ancestor would come from.

 

Sue structured her book a bit like a mystery (a very cool idea), setting her main character, Alice, off on a world wide journey to locate distant relatives.  Each one had a key (and Sue asked that we all use a key somewhere on our pages), and one of Alice's quests was to find the key that matched the one she herself possessed.

 

So naturally, I sent Alice to Russia, although an additional trip to Paris was necessary.  And I just had to throw in some Russian royalty as well as a rather emphatic nod toward my own Jewish Russian roots.  I knew all those years of reading mysteries would come in handy some day.

 

 

Very much under the infuence of Lynne Perrella, most of the coloring I did was with my Portfolio pastels.  The church which is furthest in the background is a drawing of the New Russian Orthodox Church in Paris.  Overlaid are some drawings of Russian churches as well as a few of the stamps I carved myself.  They have all been embellished with sparkly things, German scrap, and lots of doodling with my glaze pens.

 



The young beauty is Natalia, widow of Alice's distant cousin, Grand Duke Dimitri.  Below her photo is a pocket containing the explanation of all this, and to her left, the key she inherited from the late Duke.

 

 

After taking pictures of my pages, I decided that the litte faux Faberge egg atop the key needed more bling, so I added some.  Much more authentic now, LOL.

 

 

 

And here is the story of Natalia and Dimitri. 

 

 

 

I do love the challenge of inventing ancestors for my friends!









Another Ancestor Shows Her Face (and a few other things......)

The Vintage Ancestors round robin is coming to an end.  Sox just sent my book to Elena, and then it comes home to me.  I just finished pages for Teri's book; I'll hand it off to Pat and then it will end its journey and return to Teri.  She has a sewing theme, and started things off with Mezzo Couture, a fashion house of great prominence.  Pages full of lush fabrics and beautiful papers followed, each showing fashions from the Mezzo salon, modeled by various friends, relatives, and clients.  Sue had brought up Aunt Rose, and I thought if Aunt Rose is living in Paris, and if she had a daughter, something interesting could have happened.

Hidden behind the ribbon is the story. 

 

 

Yep, one of Teri's ancestors danced with the Folies Bergere!

 

 

 

You just never know what might happen when you leave your family tree in the hands of your friends.  LOL!  I will miss working in these journals.  Although we all agree that some of our genuine ancestors are even stranger than the ones we invented, this has been such great fun.







Vintage Ancestors - A Jilted Lover

Karen's Vintage Ancestors book begins with two lovers, separated by the Civil War.  Sarah and Lawrence write to one another, professing their undying love, until.....Elena gets her hands on the book, LOL.  Then, it's all about Sarah leaving Lawrence for his brother Timothy. 

As I continue the saga, Lawrence responds to Sarah's "Dear John" letter, and I do believe he takes the high road (while getting in a few well deserved zingers).

First, the two-page spread.

 

 

I used fabric and paper scraps to create what I thought a journal made by a young woman might look like. 

 

 

 

On the left, a pocket (a Tim Holtz glasseine envelope covered with 7 Gypsies tissue paper) holding the letter Lawrence wrote after receiving the bad news from Sarah.  Pinned to the fabric below is a bauble I had in my stash.  Yes, the heart opens, and yes, there is something inside.  A lock of hair, perhaps?  Too creepy?  Well, how about a lock of doll hair, then?

 

I did some research, and my friend Google found a photo of a Confederate officer.  Not a general (they all seemed so old); I think this one is a lieutenant.  And his sword is a Confederate foot officer's sword.  I printed it out and covered it with Glossy Accents and then cut it out with my trusty craft knife.  What I really liked about it is that the site where I found the sword said that it was made by a sword maker in New Orleans.  Karen's characters are from southern Louisiana.  Fate!

 

 

 

 

Although I have Tim's rosette dies, I made this one the old school way, by doing accordian folds.  I wanted it to look like it was made by hand, as I'm reasonably sure that Sarah did not own a die cutting machine.  In the center is a button from my stash.

 

The two brads on the cabinet card are from Stampin' Up, and I've had them for years.  I thought they kind of looked like the buttons you might find on a military uniform.  Speaking of cabinet cards.....the holder for the photo is not authentic; it is a replica, also courtesy of Mr. Holtz.  Because the back of the holder had cool stuff on it, I separated it from the front and will use it in another project.

 

And, lastly, here is the letter that broken-hearted Lawrence wrote.  If you have trouble reading it, click on it and it should get large enough to decipher.

 

 

 

Will Lawrence survive the war and find fortune and love in California?  Will Sarah and Timothy actually marry?  Will we ever even know?  Well, that all depends on those who receive the book after me.  They may continue the story or go off on another track.  And someone further down the line may decide to go back to the current story line.  That's one of the things I love most about this particular journal;  you just never know who might turn up in a family tree, and what they will be doing.



 







Another Ancestor Turns Up

Although not due to be passed on for another month, I had the time and an idea, so I worked on Jen's Vintage Ancestor book last weekend.  Jen requested we find her some babies or children when digging at the roots of her family tree, and I was happy to comply.

Note:  Jen has her very interestingly shaped pages on rings, and instead of flipping horizontally, they flip vertically.  Just thought you should know that. 

Jen started things off with a cabinet card of a baby by the name of Caiterine, and on my pages, she makes a reappearance, a decade later, and under drastically different circumstances.

Here is Caiterine, surrounded by lace.  I have so much of that stuff set aside for my Vintage Lace group, I just had to use some for this page.  There's something about vintage photos of little girls that just calls for some frou-frou.

And here is the story (which does explain the appearance of the cat).

 

Just in case the text is hard to read in the full photo......

 

By the way, the comment about the prissy cousins refers back to something Elena wrote on the pages that came before mine.  It's fun to figure out ways to continue the story's thread.

 

I know Jen like pink and Jen likes girly, so I'm thinking she'll like what I did. 



Vintage Ancestors, Adventurous and Murderous

My friend Lee (who I hope to actually meet some day) from Australia has been a part of all the collaborative art journals I've done over the past five years or so.  I love the way she started off her Vintage Ancestors book, with a tale of two young sisters who somehow turn into the murderous seniors that Arsenic and Old Lace was based on.  All ficticious of course, but what fun!  Here are Lee's pages, which I will build upon to continue the story.

So, Lee asks the question, how did these young girls become killers, and what in their background led them down such a path?

I introduced their father, one E.J. Jones, who just so happened (according to me) to be the inspiration for another film character, the one and only Indiana Jones.  Boy, did I have a blast concocting this story, and the artwork that accompanies it.

 

 

This particular Dr. Jones was an explorer, working in rain forests throughout the world, in search of medicinal plants.  Along the way he discovered some poisonous ones as well.  Oh, and he was always accompanied by his two young daughters.  Hmmmm.....could there be a connection there to Lee's story?

 

Here are closer looks at the pages.

 

 

 

 

 

The backgrounds were made by first scraping several earth tone colors of fluid acrylics over the paper.  Then some stamping (stamps by Dyan Reaveley and Wendy Vecchi).  The photo of Dr. Jones is in a holder made from Tim Holtz's cabinet card die.  The leaves and birds were cut from a Sizzix decorative strip called Birds and Branches.  The label holder is a very old Stampin' Up accessory that started out in life a vanilla color, but was distressed to look rusty with nothing more than acrylic paint (black and shades of brown).

 

The story was printed on vellum.  I made the little envelope for the specimen (Specimen B stamp by Wendy Vecchi, by the way) from deli wrap.

 

I added the number tab (I believe it is from a 7 Gypsies set) because Lee had an index tab on her page, and I thought it would be a nice element to continue.

 

In mid January this book goes to Pat, and I can't wait to see what my creative pal does with the continuing story of the surprisingly (or not) homicidal siblings.

 







Another Ancestor, Found

I mentioned before that one of the latest round robins I'm in is called Vintage Ancestors.  It is so much fun, because we're all searching the internet, garage sales, and flea markets for cabinet cards (or making faux ones) and giving everyone an ancestor with a back story.  I am having the best time with this, and have been working on my friend Sox's book.  Sox started things off with a relative who was a circus performer and though I didn't start out with that in mind, I gave her one who was also quite the rebel.

Without further ado, the tale of Claudine Romanov-Mercurio, gypsy, dancer, actress, runaway, and so much more.

Here is the photo that started it all:

First, a quick look at my two page spread:

 

 

Where is the cabinet card?  Well, it's hiding behind the narrative.  I printed the story on transparency film.  Originally I was just going to put it over the second page, but decided to back the transparency with vellum, which also makes it easier to read.  Time to backtrack a bit.

 

The title, "A Misspent Youth," continues on page two, with the question, "Or was it?"  The story answers that question.

 

The first page consists of many tags and other memorabilia that our wayward Claudine collected in her youthful travels.  They are strung together and pop out of their pockets easily so they can be looked at.

 

 

 

The transparency, vellum, and underlying page were machine stitched together on one side so the story can be lifted to reveal page two.

 

 

 

And this is Claudine's story:

 

 

 

You just have to love a project that allows you to be both artist and storyteller.  Can't wait to get my next victim, I mean book.













New Journal Pages

As two collaborative journal groups approach the finish line, another begins its journey.  The Asian themed journal and the artistic evolution journal are just about done, so we launched our latest project, Vintage Ancestors.  We each created books and started things off with a cabinet card (real, copied, or invented) and a story.  While we could use actual family photos and stories, what's the fun in that?  So, most of us went online, began collecting images and thinking up some juicy family secrets.

Last week I received Elena's book.  It is already amazing.  She found an actual cabinet card scrapbook and took it apart and reworked it.  Her story began with a group photo and the tale of a family separated by politics and circumstance, and leaving their native Spain for the United States and Cuba.  The year was 1899.  The family consisted of the two parents and their nine children.

I thought that was a great way to begin.  While we're free to do as we please, there are enough family members for each of us to choose one and continue their story.

I chose Miriam, aged 19, and here are the pages I did about her. (You can click on the photo for a better view).

 

 

Along with this book, Elena also sent me Sarah's artistic evolution journal to work in.  This is the book where the pages go up and down in size and each artist evolves in some way from the artist that came before.  Elena and I have very different styles.  Her page that is partially visible when looking at mine has lots of circles, so I took that as my inspiration.  My pages have embossed circle stamps, circle stencils, etc.  Oh, and Sarah requested purple, yellow and green as our primary color palette.

 

 

Believe it or not, I started with black paper, over which I samped my variety of circles with clear embossing powder.  Then came many layers of watered down perfect pearls, followed by paint, ink, and more stencils.  The shimmer of the perfect pearls makes it hard to photograph the pages without a lot of glare.

 

I outlined my text and the stenciled figures with white to 1) make them pop and 2) make them relate better to Elena's pages, as she used quite a bit of white outlining.

 

Here's what it looks like with Elena's page visible behind mine.

 

 

 

I think it looks like the girl is peeking out, trying to get a look at my pages.  Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

 

In December we're starting another round robin called Vintage Lace.  It's going to be a fabric journal.  I am hardly queen of the needle workers, so that should be interesting.  You ever notice how people use the word interesting to replace some other, usually negative word?  Just asking.



 

 





 



 





Vintage Ancestors and Art Is You

The newest collaborative journal I'm involved in is themed Vintage Ancestors, and we will begin mailing our books in mid October.  We're using cabinet cards (or our version of them), creating a back story, and then each successive artist will give us another relative or two or six (might be a group photo) and add to the story.  I see great opportunities for every style of art.  Seriously elaborate lace, fanciful altered ancestors, and everything in between.

I think most of us created our own books for the project, and from what I've seen so far in the photos we've shared, they are pretty fabulous.  My own is modest in size and decoration, but I think it does have a vintage feel.  Here is the cover:

 

 

The covers are corrugated cardboard disguised by many layers of decorative napkins, tissue paper, paper tape, gesso, ink, and paint (not necessarily in that order; I just kept layering).  Here is a sideways view (a little dark; sorry about that) to show the exposed spine.

 

 

 

The binding method I used is one I learned from Michelle Ward at CREATE this past summer.  No sewing at all!  Pages are attached to one another with strips of paper and strong glue. In Michelle's class we used tyvek, but I used decorative paper, which the artists can incorporate into their work or ignore and cover completely.  I'm leaving that up to them.

 

 

 

The back cover I left plain. 

 

 

 

To get my party started I chose a cabinet card that has some special meaning for me.  According to what I read, the couple in the photo came from a town in the Ukraine called Brody.  My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Brody, which I always thought odd.  I thought Brody was an Irish name, and imagined that it probably started out as something like Brodsky and was shortened by immigration, as was often the case back then.  Now I'm wondering if her name was something else altogether, something not understood by the folks on Ellis Island, so they just gave her the name of her home town.  Remember how young Vito Corleone got his name in the Godfather?  Anyway, here is my first page.  I haven't written the story behind it yet.

 

 

 

I won't be working on that story for a while.  This afternoon I leave for Connecticut and what I know will be a fabulous week at Art Is You.

 

 

 

Everyone I've spoken to agrees that this is one of the finest mulit-teacher art retreats around.  If you live on the east coast and haven't signed up for classes, they're not all filled and it isn't too late.  Hope to see you there!