Everything Happened!

Yeah, alright....

Maybe not EVERYTHING happened, but a lot did!

Creatively speaking, that is.

I sewed a bit, learned a new way to make a book, been doing a tiny bit of drawing, got my fingers all colorful playing in the paint...forgot to take a picture of those folded stars and there are a couple of altered envelopes I forgot about as well.... I learned a new technique to try on paper napkins and I assembled a few little books.

I've been a busy girl.

It all started with a trip to youtube. You can learn some amazing stuff there!

Go look up jenniebellie. I think that's how it's spelled. It was she who gave the inspiration for this unfinished book. It was really fun to make though! I'll be going to see this tutorial one more time before I do the binding of this book. I'll share the link with you then. I'm a bit too spacey at the moment.

I used the bubble wrap as a stencil to put designs on the pages.

I have to agree with Ma that some of these pages are very dark! She didn't quite 'get' the idea of making random shapes and splotches on the page backgrounds. 

It's what the muse demanded!

The brayer was a fine tool in this endeavor also.

These are parts for the tags that will be tucked into the pages. They are chipboard painted in acrylics. Tags will be cut to fit the book from these pages.

Here the 38 pages collaged on one side, painted on the other. They originated as greeting cards. Mostly gotten in trades with a note written inside. Some are cardstock folded to resemble a greeting card. Some are last year's birthday and christmas cards. All in all I ended up with 38 of them of many different sizes.

The inside of the cards are all painted in like colors as the tags above. There will be pockets and whatnot added to the pages to accommodate the tags.

The outsides of the cards are mostly collaged with random pieces of colored and patterened paper to either make the greeting card thicker and/or to cover it completely. 

The strings are what will bind the pages to the cover.

The rounds in the front of the box are the parts to the flower that will adorn the front cover.

Those tubes of paint cradling the book pages are printers ink that I found at Hobby Lobby in Hutch for not much more than $1 a tube. I bought 8 different colors. It's nice ink to play with! 

The cover is also made from greeting cards (and a bit of cereal box chipboard). I've not covered the inside of the cover yet as it still needs its closure attached and the decoration put on the front. The strings tie around the middle of the spine for the binding. In the tutorial she puts beads along the spine as she ties the strings. I'm thinking that might be a bit ambitious for my first foray into this binding, but we'll see when it comes time to actually bind the book. 

I'm still working on this one! Just wanted to show it off thus far!

:)

Then I got burnt out on painting...cause all good things come to an end and the muse gets bored with the same old thing if you don't change it up on her. The chunkyathon came along over at AFA and put this book on the back burner.

I've just today taken pictures of it. I did an inventory of ufos in progress. 

I worked out in the burnt house for two days straight with Ma, cleaning and sorting and organizing and collecting crap to send off with the trash men.

In the process of that cleaning spree, I found a book on making ornaments. I made some ornaments. I started them on Wednesday. It's now Friday. I've gotten this far on them.

A dozen, not quite finished with them yet though.

I've tons of felt taking up space on the shelf in my closet so felt was the material of choice for them. The tutorial in the book calls for any thick fabric.

All are sewn with one strand of regular sewing thread in different colors.

The kittens are my favorites.

The next one looks like a soft cooked egg! I'm going to add french knots and some long stitches around the white part before it's sewn tot he red backing.  Most of the ornaments will have red backings. Four will have black.

I've still to sew a backing to each of them, put a hangar on them all and stitch in my tipsy wineglass.  A little more embroidery on a few of them and the backs will go on. 

I wanted to draw the other day. The muse did not. I fought to draw this cute little elephant and the muse cooperated begrudgingly. 

I'd already drawn three chickens shortly before I found the drawing lesson on this little guy. Markers on orchard paper. He's cut out ready to adorn an ATC or a chunky page.

There were books made in the last 8 hours.

Six ATC sized books. Chipboard with black construction paper glued on the printed side of cereal boxes. Halloween stickers, some with googly eyes, glued to the front covers. Ten manila paper pages sewn in the pamphlet stitch with metallic purple embroidery thread.

This one's my favorite of the six.

Oogidy Boogidy

That's fun to say.

In regard to that metallic embroidery thread. It takes the patience of a saint to actually embroider with that stuff! It works pretty good for binding small books but you really have to pay attention so you don't tangle it all up. 

Little books are a cinch to make so I whipped out another one. 

I took two napkins, two sheets of cardstock and the plastic wrap out of the kitchen cabinet into the laundry room. I had to fight to find the end of the iron's cord so I could plug it in. Dang thing was stuck behind the washing machine! I fired that baby up, sandwiched the top layer of napkin with the cardstock and a layer of plastic wrap in between. Bottom up: cardstock-plastic wrap-napkin-parchment paper---iron it with a hot iron till the plastic wrap melts to the napkin and cardstock binding it together into a single sheet of paper. You can fuse napkins to copy paper in the exact same way.

I then cut down the ghost....there will be a spider book next. This one is sewn with orange crochet cotton thread in the long stitch. It has manila paper pages, 20 of them. 4.5x4.5 inches.

There is no artistry in the covers of the little books shown. I had nothing to do with the artwork presented there. I can only lay claim to the book itself and the skill it takes to sew one. Practice does indeed produce improvement!

Can you spot the ufo?

Thanks for hanging around to see what I've been up to. 

I wish I could say I've been up to no good but that really isn't the case these days. 

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace, Friends!

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