A little bit of art for my daughter’s friends and something fun

My daughter just turned 9 and is having a slumber birthday party.  I decided I wanted the goody bags to be different than your typical bags, so I went to some of my talented friends for some help.

Joyce made the bags, bunnies, felted carrots, and felted balls.  At Maren’s request all the bunnies are different.  Julia painted the 11″ X 11″ silks.  They are also all different.  You can see the other four here.  I made the notepads and bookmarks.  She is so excited to give them to all her friends.

The other night I was chatting with a friend about what I should make to stock at a patriotic guest stocking I was doing.  She told me that a mutual friend loves dark colored Americana pieces.  She is also a moose lover, so I couldn’t help but create this for her.

 

 

A little bit or art for me

A few years ago I started talking with my friend LeighAnne about working out a license agreement.  She makes the most incredible maternal art that is often embroidered on bags.  I was so excited when we worked it out for me to be able to use her incredible artwork.

We also talked about doing a trade when she got through with her customs list.

Well that day has come and I just got the picture of the applique that will be going on my bookbinding bag.  I gave her a lot of freedom and I am glad I did.  I told her my favorites and what colors I liked and that I wanted my three kids on it, and she went from there.

Not only do I get a super cool bag, but now I have this fabulous applique to work with.  I have to decide what I am going to make first.  Thank you LeighAnne.

My favorite book

I am so proud of this one.  I really wanted to combine the beautiful Bluegrass Moon artwork I am blessed to be able to use, with the woven cover I learned from Pam Sussman.

I have been trying to think of the best way to do it.  I didn’t want to loose the beauty of the texture of the woven cover, so I decided to just weave a frame.  It makes the weaving a little more challenging, but it was so worth it.

My artistic journey

Chris’ comment on my blog got me to thinking about how I decided to start bookbinding, and my artistic journey in general, so I figured I would share it.

I remember when I was young loving to doodle, and do artsy type things.  I was very excited when art was a choice in junior hight school and I loved my art class.  The next year I had too many classes that I wanted and needed to take, and there just wasn’t room for art, but it was always a dream to take art classes.

Well life got busy and the next thing I knew I was a mother.  My sister started me scrapbooking.  Then my other sister invited me to a CTMH (rubber stamp) party.  I wasn’t going to buy anything, but came home with one set that I was going to use to scrapbook.

I don’t think I have scrapbooked since that day.  I fell in love with rubberstamping.  Since I have never learned to draw or paint, it gave me away to be artistic.  I could take other peoples images and play with them and make something I was proud of and enjoyed.

People would often look at my cards and tell me they wished they could do that, and I would often think, well I can show anybody how to make that card.  It was quite awhile, before I realized that what they wanted was not to be walked through making a card, but to decide on their own how to group the colors and images to make something beautiful.  That was when I started realizing that maybe there was a little bit of an artist in me.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I wanted to branch out.  I wanted to make something other than just cards.  I started seeing some of the incredible journals, books, and other items that Chris Peden and some of the other members from Stampsmith’s yahoo group made and I started to branch out.  I also really wanted to learn to bind journals.

I couldn’t find any classes, so I got Chris’ instructions, some bookbinding books, and set out to teach myself.

I fell in love and there has been no going back.

It worked

One of the reasons I love binding journals, is after the journal is bound I have this incredible canvas that I can work with.

When Pam Sussman taught us to weave the book cover, I really wanted to figure out a way to be able to do that and still leave an area for me to embellish.  The more I thought about it, the more I thought, “why can’t I weave a frame around my focal image?”  I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t work, so I decided to give it a shot.

First I created the focal image of the journal, collaged it, and let it dry.  Then I cut the weaving strips.  Weaving was a bit more intense, but it was doable.  It looks great.  I still need to add the fiber, glue it to the boards, and bind it, so there won’t be a picture for a little while, but it is coming.

More inspiration from Artfest

Before I left for artfest I had a bunch of covers covered in fabric and all ready to go for mini journals.  I came home ready to use the new binding techniques I had learned, so I pulled out all the ones that would look good with ribbons and then started looking for matching ribbons and brads.  Here is what I came up with.

 

 

An Artfest inspired journal and a few ramblings

Well, yesterday Maren said something that made me think, “yep she is my child.”

My mom had called me to see if I could go to Michael’s and look for cute boy themed 8″ X 8″ albums.  When I told Maren what we were doing and that Grandma could find lots of girl ones, but no boy ones, she said, “Why doesn’t she make the girl ones boy ones.  She just needs paper and decopodge.”  I had to laugh, because I would just change them.

Last year on my birthday (April 30th) I had a big celebration at my hyenacart.  I invited lots of different artists to make an item and then I made something to go with it.  It was lots of fun and did very well, so I decided to do it again this year.

I am licensed to use all the beautiful artwork from my friend LeighAnne.  She takes her sketches and creates the most incredible maternal art appliques.  I am also a huge fan of the sketches.  I got permission to have a few fellow artists use her sketches in sets.

So I sent one of my favorite sketches to Lady Malice and asked her to work her magic on a journal cover.  It arrived the day after I got back.  It was so incredible I knew it had to have a special binding.  I loved the look of the ribbon binding I learned from Pam Sussman, but couldn’t run ribbons over the artwork, so I decided to mix things up a bit and make the same binding without the ribbons.  I love how it turned out.  It just shows me what incredible things we can accomplish when we all work together.

What a nice surprise

I really enjoy teaching, but I haven’t been able to since Stiles was born.  So when a mom at my daughter’s homeschool resource center asked me to show her how to bind a book, I was thrilled to be able.  These are some that she just made on her own and posted.  They look great and it is wonderful to know that she is using what I taught her.

More artfest details

I personally thought the weather was perfect.  The sun was shining most days.  It was chilly, but that is to be expected in Washington in April.

I couldn’t believe the fabulous bag of goodies waiting for us at check in.  It was all in this cool white tote with the logo on it.  The tote was perfect for throwing in all your supplies for class.  I loved the open configuration of it.  As if the tote wasn’t good enough the contents were fabulous.  First thing I opened was this long white box to find a faux leather case and inside the case was a thermos etched with little Artfest logos.  It is the coolest thing.  Then there was a box of some yummy mint chocolates, a colored patch of the artfest logo, needle and thread, and lots of cool postcards.

They were selling the coolest rustic looking camp type messenger bags in brown.  I love to run my fingers around the rough edges.  I had to get one.  I also got a couple packages of the H.U.G.S. badges.  One to keep and one to give away.  They were cool badges, like girl scout badges.  Each had a meaning and you were suppose to give them away.  I had a blast giving my package away.  I took my package to keep along with my owl and sewed them on the front of my bag, thanks to the great idea of Deena.  It looks great.

Dinner was great.  I loved all the vegetables and salad.  The kick off meeting was lots of fun, it was great to be able to listen to each of the teachers.

After it, my housemates and I all ended up back at the timeshare where we stayed up talking and giggling.

I set the alarm clock for 7, but I didn’t need to worry.  Remember when you were a kid at Christmas and the excitement had you awake super early.  5 am I was awake.  I tried to go back to sleep and gave up so I got up at 5:30, got everything ready, wrote in my journal, and chatted some more with my housemates.

My first class was with Pam Sussman and was a bookbinding class called wrapped and woven.  I have been so looking forward to this class, since bookbinding is one of my favorite things to do.

I walk into class and our tables are presented so nice, there are these cool little notebooks with pencils and chocolate, yummy.

The class was fabulous.  We learned how to weave paper with paper and fibers to make a cover piece, then we did this fabulous woven stitch to bind our journals.  The stitch is so gorgeous and looks so complex.  I was surprised how simple it is.  I also learned lots of little tricks I hadn’t known before for bookbinding.

I am so excited to take these techniques and mix them up with others and make journals now that I am home.

Here is the journal I finished in class.

Friday night at Vendor’s night I bought some cool paste papers from Mary Beth Shaw.  I also bought some fibers from the yarn store.  I had this overwhelming desire to make one with those items, so I started that night and finished it at breakfast Saturday morning.

Here is a close up of the bindings of the two books.

Thursday night was spent talking and chatting and doing art stuff.  Friday I still didn’t need my alarm clock, this time I woke up at 6 am. 

I had a fantastic view of Discovery bay and the sunrise from my window each morning.  It was gorgeous.

Friday I had Just in Case with Pamela Huntington.  I walked in the class room and there is this case filled with goodies and chocolate waiting for us.

The class was fabulous and we learned some incredible techniques about making book cloth with fabric and fabric paper collages.  I can’t wait to use these to make bound books.

I had never found the perfect piece for the focal images, but had over bought fabric and twill tape, as we were sitting there making the case, I realized that tearing butterfly squares from my fabric and using the twill tape would be perfect and it was.  Luckily I had brought and orange ink pad to change the color of the twill tape.

I love my case and it was so much fun.

After we finished the cases, it was time to make the journals.  She had taken old books, gutted them so it was just the cover and then had store bought journals the right size.  My cover wasn’t the right color so I pulled out the distressing inks and made it the right color.  Then I collaged it with fabric and twill tape and glued in the journal.  I love it and loved the whole set together.

 

I loved how in both of my classes the teachers presented the techniques and then let us all take whatever spin on it we wanted.

The week was going by quickly and was the most incredible week ever.  I loved eating and hanging out with my housemates during breaks.  I also had a great time giving away my set of badges.

Sat., I managed to sleep until 6, too. 

I was so excited to take another bookbinding class from Pam Sussman and I wasn’t dissapointed, it lived up to all of my expectations.  I love the binding technique and the teeny tiny size is just too cute.

I will use all the techniques I learned at artfest.  They are all perfect for me and fit in so well with what I already do.

I also made some of the greatest friends and already miss them and can’t wait to do something with them again.

 

Artfest!!!!!

Last week was one of the most incredible weeks.

When I was getting ready to go to Artfest, I debated between staying on campus or booking our timeshare for the week.  I chose to book the time share.  Then the debate was, do I stay by myself or do I invite others.  I knew that if I invited others and I liked them, it would be fabulous, and I figured the place was big enough I could hide in my room if we didn’t get along. lol

Artfest has a yahoo group, so I posted looking for roomates.  There were five beds so I looked for four roomates and found them.

My family and I went up on Sunday and absolutely enjoyed ourselves.  On Wed. morning my family got ready to leave and at about that time my first two housemates arrived.  Nelda and Deena got there at the same time and it was like we were old friends.

My nine year old went up and introduced herself and my four year old boy helped Deena unpack all of her owl stamps.

Later that day we met Ellison and Kathy and all became best friends.  We ate meals together, talked together, stayed up and talked.  We were all a perfect fit.

Artfest week was incredible.  I had three fabulous classes with great teachers and created some things that I love.  All my teachers started their classes with chocolate you  can’t get much better than that. 

On Thursday I took Wrapped and Woven (a bookbinding class) with Pam Sussman.  On Friday I took Just in Case with Pamela Huntington, and on Saturday Book of Talking Ribbons also with Pam Sussman.

I will add more details a little later.

This is a picture of all the items I made at Artfest.