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.

















The Loves of Marie Antoinette

So reads the title of my friend Inge's Marie journal, the last Marie book I have to work in.  It took me a while to decide which of Marie's loves to use....fashion, family, Versailles, cake?  In the end, I chose jewelry, and I did have an ulterior motive.

Over a year ago, when I was still on the PID design team, I did several projects using their Marie images.  One was a bracelet, and as I was making it, it was in my mind that I would use it in one of the Marie journals.  I think we had just recently started that group.  For one reason or another, it never felt quite right in the other books, but I had a feeling it would find its way into Inge's book.  And so it did.

First, here is the bracelet.  The band is fabric, decorated with beads and other baubles and some funky fibers.  The Ranger memory frame holds a small picture of Marie which was covered with Crackle Accents.

So, my concept is, Marie loves beautiful jewelry.....especially when it contains her own image.  And here are my two pages:

I used Distress Stains, Colorwash, and Perfect Pearls mists to get the colors in the backgrounds.  On page one, I added stamping to create my own patterned paper.  The image of Marie was an internet find.....found, I think by Val.....and she is colored with markers and embellished with Liquid Pearls and glaze pens.

Both pages have a gold embossed leafy border (Wendy Vecchi stamp).  I didn't further decorate the second page because I wanted the bracelet to be the focal point.  I attached it with easily untied gauze so if Inge actually wants to wear it, she can.

So, for me at least, no more Marie journals to work in.  The queen is finished, long live the queen!

Stayin' Dry

As I write this, Irene has been downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm.  Hey, a rose by any other name.....she is still doing a good job of kicking ass.  I couldn't resist opening a window and snapping a few pix.   The raw wood you see on the trees is where large limbs and branches used to be:

Behind the trees in the next shot is a usually well traveled parkway.  Only official vehicles on it today.

Any blurriness is not due to the photographer's shaky hands....just a basic point and shoot camera trying to capture trees bending crazily in the wind.

One last shot....you can barely make out the Hudson River through the rain and fog.

Many folks have mentioned that this weather makes it so convenient to stay home and make some art.  I don't know about anyone else, but I can't focus on a thing besides this storm.  The news has been on non-stop and every time I try to do something creative I get distracted....checking windows for leaks, watching the poor reporters getting blown to bits in Long Beach and Coney Island....I tried to work on a book binding project and just kept screwing up the stitches, so I gave up.

And now a shameless plug.  Please check out Seth Apter's blog, The Altered Page.  It's a wonderful blog any day of the week, but on Sundays he has a feature called The Pulse, which posts photos and answers to questions by an assortment of mixed media artists.  Someone you might know (insert big smile) is in today's issue.

East Coast buddies.....stay safe!







Getting Smashed

Caught your eye with that one, huh?  Sorry, not that kind of smashed.....the journal kind.  Smash journals seem to be all over the place, and even my round robin journal group is getting into the act.  We'll be sending ours out in the fall, but in the mean while, I managed to acquire a second one (blame those blasted deal of the day sites) and decided to use it as my travel journal on the upcoming (yea!!) Tim Holtz cruise.   It's perfect for note taking, big enough to add photos, ATCs, and all the ephemera you collect on a vacation.  But.....I wasn't really in love with the covers.  This is what it looked like straight out of the bag:

I thought the red was too.....well, red.  And the kraft colored cover is OK, but kind of blah.  And I don't feel the need to walk around as a Smash Book adverstisement, so the logo had to go.  The design on the cover is not printed, by the way.  It is embossed.  Now that, I thought was cool.

 

An hour or so later, after applying many layers of ink and paint and torn up paper, and stencils and stamps...... this is what the cover looks like now:

 

 

Definitely more "me," and I'm happy.  I copied the cover of our class schedule from the cruise documents Scrapmap sent me, and that is now the "title" of my journal.

 

The back cover is similar to the front:

 

And yes, in case you were wondering, I did also change the color of the elastic that holds the journaling pen/gluestick.  I used black distress stain on that....and on the fabric spine of the book.  Works wonders.  Yes, I know I am a little obsessive about such things.  Don't get me wrong, I do love the color red, but not on this journal.  And if you're wondering why then, did I buy a red smash book, the answer is......every other color was out of stock that day.  I did mention they are wildly popular.

 

Marty's Masterpiece - A Sketch Challenge

Here is Marty's August sketch:

I interpreted this quite literally because I wanted to give it to a friend who won a monthly lottery in one of my groups.  The theme she selected was summer, so this sketch was perfect.  I made this wall hanging:

It was done on watercolor paper attached to chipboard and is pretty sturdy.  Here are the details:

• background:  denim Adirondack color wash.  That's all!  It formed the variations all by itself.
• fence:  cut from wood sheet using Tim's on the fence die, then dabbed with picket fence paint to create a worn out look.
• palm tree:  Sideshow stamp, colored with markers, and extra leaves hand cut and added for dimension.  Coconuts cut from a specialty paper I have that looks like.....the outside of a coconut, LOL!
• parrot:  also from Sideshow, colored with markers and attached with pop dot.
• beach sign:  cardstock inked with a few shades of distress ink in the brown family, then stamped with archival ink, then covered with rock candy crackle paint.
• sand:  the real deal, from last year's trip to the Dominican Republic.
• shells:  also real, origin unknown.
• shack:  pieced together from a variety of handmade papers and fibers found in my stash.

Check out my friend Heidi's blog to see what the rest of the Gotham City Stampers did with Marty's sketch.

Still Headin' East, And Getting Closer

Remember this?

Yep, the cover of my then unfinished journal for an upcoming round robin.  The paper I ordered came, I created my signatures, did my sewing, completed the back cover and even worked on an art page to get the party started.

I totally copied Sox's great idea of wrapping a strip of colorful paper around the fold on the outside page of each signature.  That way, when you look at the spine (this is, after all, an exposed spine technique) you don't just see boring white.  I used some very beautiful origami paper.  Here's the spine:

And this is what the pages with the origami paper look like inside.  Whoever works on these pages can incorporate the papers into their art or work right over them.  Up to the artist.  I only did this to further decorate the spine.  Though they do look pretty, don't you think?

As for those stray red strings in the first photo, they are what's leftover after binding the book.  They can be tucked into the spine, but I read somewhere that one of the book binding gurus said that those strings are the sign of a handmade book, so I'm leaving them alone.

Here is my inside front cover.  I used more of the origami paper to reinforce the book tapes.

Same idea on the inside of the back cover:

The back cover itself is all fabric, lightly padded.  Here's a secret and a tip for any fellow lazy efficient workers out there.   I didn't feel like moving a dozen boxes to get at my fiberfill or whatever that stuff is called (since I didn't get to it I can't read the name on the package).  So I just took some fabric I really don't care for, folded it a few times and used that as my padding.  Works well and I never would have used that ugly cloth for anything else.  The fabrics that do show,  I found in a shop in Bar Harbor on last year's Tim Holtz cruise.  I think they're beautiful.

Since everyone in this journal group will be doing a two page, side by side spread, I did the first (single) page myself.  It may or may not be finished.  I'm still meditating on that.

The very last page is also a single.  I just used some paints (the scraped paint technique....apply paint, use plastic card to scrape it into the paper.  Apply more paint....etc.), some text and a coat of glaze.  Depending on the final total of artists it may stay as it is or become a sign in page.  We'll see.

The funny thing is, when Elena first suggested this journal I said I'd love to but only if it started in October, because I just KNEW I'd not have time to get it started any sooner than that.  And here I am, in August, all ready to go.  Well, if everything turned out the way we imagined it that would make for a pretty predictable and boring life, no?

I Confess.....

......to yet another addiction (I am so weak!)  I am a journal making/bookbinding junkie!  Who'd a thunk it?  Oh, I've always admired hand sewn books and even made a very simple one or two, but then.....then.....my unintentionally (I'm sure) enabling friend Sox decided to go and post photos of her handmade journals.  First were the lace ones.  Oh my!  Then, what dragged me in was the fabulous asian inspired exposed spine book.  That was it.  I had to make one.  I did, a little sample which I blogged about the other day.  I've also prepped my covers for an asian round robin that's coming up, and just have to wait for the paper I ordered to make my signatures arrives.

However, addicts aren't known for patience.  I WANTED TO MAKE ANOTHER ONE NOW!!!!!  Then I remembered I have a whole bunch of beautiful two-sided 8x8" journal pages and one sided 8x10" background technique pages from a portfolio group I'm in.  All done by some of my favorite artsy peeps.  Why not use those?  For the larger pages, I just folded them at the 8" point (remember, they measured 8" on the other side already), which created a little bit of a page which would be perfect to "tip in" the two sided pages.  Yes, a little of one side would be hidden, but I so much wanted to use all these pages, and no, no, no, not another coil or binder ring solution.  I WANTED ANOTHER EXPOSED SPINE JOURNAL!!!

And here it is.....I even cut up the portfolio that my pages traveled around in, and it became my outside covers.

the spine

front cover (from my portfolio)



back cover (also scavanged from my portfolio)

What follows are the pages.  Any blanks or messed up ones will be covered with either paper or pages I haven't received yet, or I'll just do a background directly on them.  I DID NOT overthink the order of the pages; I just put two together to form a signature, stacked them and started sewing.  And yet, as I turn the pages, they all flow one to the next. 



There was one background page I couldn't use in a signature because it had been done on heavy cardboard.  No problem......it became my inside back cover:

Many thanks to Sox who inspired me to begin with, and Inge, who mentioned casually that she was planning to use the backgrounds she'd received in a journal.  And of course, to everyone in my journal/portfolio/mail love groups.  I think what I love most about this book is that it contains a little bit of each of you.