Ponderings 1

As February comes to a close, I had a big burst of creative energy this week, making a new art journal. 

I am far from a professional bookbinder, but I had such fun learning a new binding stitch~the double X.

I started with a vintage book that I picked up at a local shop.  My pals Kristi, Susan and I were shopping one Saturday before Christmas and ran across a couple of great old books.  Kristi spied them first, and of course we had to grab them to use in an upcoming project. 

Kristi and I are both taking the fabulous online class from Mary Ann Moss... TICKET TO VENICE.

The class cranked up right before Christmas, and with all the hubbub of the holidays... then Valentine's Day and other projects....  I just got inspired to jump in this week. As I anticipated the change of seasons soon, I felt the urge to create something funky and new.  This is really a fun class... such a value for the money... and it's ON SALE through today!  Even at regular price, it's a fabulous value.  

The text block for my book is filled with all kinds of different  papers, some thicker and some thin...more about that later. 

 I can't wait to fill it... for now it is not very thick, but that will change over time... I've ordered more bookbinding supplies, so I'm sure there will be additional "ponderings" to come...

Tomorrow, March 1st, is the beginning of "meteorological spring"... sounds good to me... a nudge to fill my new book with all kinds of visual bliss.  Welcome spring!

Happy Valentine's Day... Share the LOVE!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Share some love... it's really all that matters.

But... chocolate never hurts, either...

Making tag art, cards and some forget-me-nots...

I've had the yen the last few days to make some cards and tags to cheer and encourage some special family members and friends.  I just love the little vintage forget-me-nots that I have found off Etsy.  They are so sweet and add a touch of charm and texture to my tags and cards.  Here is a birthday tag that I made today to send to a friend for her upcoming birthday.

 I love that little vintage boy gazing out the window. 

The simplicity of the little wreath adorned with flowers was all this note needed.

My dear friends Susan Edmonson and Kristi Steiner held a fabulous retreat for "creative spirits" for several years.  Each year there was a delightful mixed media project that each participant made over the long weekend.  For several of the projects, Kristi and Susan created some wonderful rubber stamps to compliment the project. I decided to pull out their BELIEVE stamp and create a few tags for some pals.

One of the most fun things I do is to go into my art space, pull out all kinds of this and that... and see what materializes... very much fun, indeed.  The words on this tag are among the most powerful in the English language... BELIEVE...

A Matchbox Chest

One of the favorite tools in my art arsenal is my ink-blending tool to use with all the Tim Holtz Distress ink pads.  Just got a few new colors last week... yummy colors... of course 2 of the 3 were pinks!    I have twenty-some colors... not all they offer, but quite a few.  I have invested in enough of the blending pads to have one for each color... so that I don't have to constantly be cleaning them or worrying about contaminating some of the light-colored pads.  

The issue was... how to store them easily so that I could change out as needed.  I saw a couple of cute projects online using cigar boxes and matchbox drawers.... Then when I discovered that the removable ink blending pads fit PERFECTLY inside a little matchbox.... I was ga-ga!!!   First stop was the grocery store to get several packs of box matches.

Next I was off to my local antique store to get an old cigar box to play around with.  I found one where the little boxes fit perfectly inside the outer  box, so that it would look like a chest of drawers.  Scrounging around in the basement, I discovered some old drawer hardware.  So my little "chest" has a handle on top so I can carry it from place to place if needed.

Getting all the boxes glued together and in place was the next step, as well as chosing some fun papers to go around the stacks of drawers.  I inked papers with names of each ink color and glued those to the ends of the boxes.  I used tiny brass brads as "drawer pulls".  

Tucked inside each drawer is the colored foam pad designated for that particular shade.

I am SO PLEASED to have this imperfect, funky little cigar- box chest of drawers to keep right on my work table, so that when ink is being applied in so many layers.... I'll for sure have all my colors at my fingertips. I included a few extra drawers for new colors yet to come!

Happy inking and stamping!!!

Follow your bliss... each day of the year...

Back last summer my dear friend Tonya and I attended a scrapbook show in Charlotte.  We love looking at all the fun elements we might use in our mixed media art.  One of my all-time favorite product lines is 7 GYPSIES, with their vintage-inspired pieces that really speak to me.  At one of the booths in the show, Tonya and I spied a couple of the fabulous photo display stands... only 2 left... so we snapped them up!  I have seen some great projects done by other artists, but none had quite been what I wanted to do.

I mentioned at the end of last year that I had an old flip calendar that I had used for many a year.  It was getting a bit shabby.

So the little cogs started turning this week, and I decided to take the old calendar apart and make a new creation.  The bird theme was integral in my conception.  I love my BIG KICK machine... so out it came with snippets of this and that finding a place on the bird and the collaged background.

I have fallen in love with some new dies called MEMORY BOX.  They are delicate and just delightful!  One of my favorites is a wreath that I cut apart for embellishments on the shipping tags.

Of course there had to be some BLING... so the bottom edge is adorned with some dangling crystals and scrunched seam binding. 

As the days pass and I turn the tags... I want to be reminded of the sentiment on my calendar...

"follow your bliss".  May you follow yours, too.