Catching up and More Art

Ornery finally got the oven installed at the rental property last night. The electrician recommended by the property manager helped him in the morning to wire it in, but he had to go back after work to finish remodeling the cabinet because of course the oven was not the same size as the old one.

He started working on the new couch table for the living room this weekend, and actually made quite a bit of progress despite not really getting started on it until Saturday afternoon.  He spent most of the morning helping me rearrange the kitchen cabinet contents to make my work space more functional. I am pleased with the results, but still have a bit more to do to finish it up.  After four hours of working on it, I was more than done!

I am not sure why we were in the house over the weekend. The weather was incredible with the high on Sunday 78 degrees! I opened my studio window and enjoyed the day--except for the yappy dogs...

Here are some of the things I worked on from Friday through Sunday.

Pages for a traveling art journal

Pages for a friendship journal.  These are sent alone, not with the journal.

back sides of the pages above.

Altered Rolodex card. I used pieces of art journal pages I had trimmed off to weave the background.

another altered rolodex card. This one is called Family Game Night.

Happy Art Swap cards for February. (#haswap)

An ATC I made for a swap using Fibers

More scraps cut from Art Journal pages, and I added some embellishments I had in my stash.

Metal ATC for a swapbot swap. I have tiny cuts all over my hands from weaving that background!

Junk Journal/Letter for a pen pal

This last item is a conglomeration of odds and ends that people have sent me as extras in swaps and with letters.  It gathers in a couple of piles, and before long I have a huge mess. The pen friend to whom I am sending this always sends me lots of extra fun stuff in her letters, so I decided to do something new and different for her and created this journal. There is writing on all eight pages, plus a wide variety of ephemera and other things tucked in here and there. The back cover has a pocket with string closure and it contains an altered Rolodex card and an ATC. One page has a little envelope on it with a washi feather inside.  The whole thing will take her longer than a minute to read and since she says she re-reads my letters several times, I figured I'd give her more to look at.  :)  I do the same with her letters, and I have really enjoyed the things she has made for me. Hopefully she will have fun with this.

This week we are saying our last goodbyes to wheat. We'll see if the loss will be sustainable, but for now we are hopeful that it will help us to lose some unwanted pounds and improve our health.  Of course on Saturday a neighbor came by selling Girl Scout cookies, but we only bought one box of thin mints and decided they just don't taste as good to us as they used to.  That's a good thing!  It is amazing the number of foods that list wheat as an ingredient. I don't plan to give up all grains, and I am not going to try to maintain "gluten free" practices, but giving up just this one ingredient will be a significant change and require a dramatic lifestyle adjustment.

Tags and Postcards

I spent two glorious days last week with my gelliplate.

Then I used some of them in various projects.

 All these above are post cards except the second one which is a5x7 for a monthly art swap called Happy Art Swap (#haswap)

This one is a tag I made for someone on Instagram. My sweet daughter was feeling generous and ordered a few items from my Etsy favorites, just because. One of the items was the new Dina Wakely scribble birds stamp set. Another was the Tim Holtz layering stencil with splatters. I'm pleased with the projects so far, and I have a pretty hefty pile of prints to create with..

In the printing sessions I used file folders to clean my brayer and stencils and have had fun altering them as well. I am sending one off today in a mail art swap with a variety of little ephemera pieces, and I used three others to organize my mail and swap groups. As time goes by, I plan to add more things to the fronts, but at least I have a place to store my various swaps while in progress.

It feels great to be back making art (besides washi tape postcards)

Those are a tremendous amount of fun to make, and I am making a valiant effort to use up my washi tape samples by the end of summer. Several have already been sent out either naked with stamps on them, or as a little note in another mailing. Don't those fun strips of color just make you happy? :-)

Journal Pages and Cover

My pen friend Karen received her ojswap journal almost six months after it was started, and was sad to find several blank pages within. So she asked if I would do another spread to help her fill it up. She hadn't decorated her cover either, so I offered to do the front. Here are pictures.

 I covered the front with gesso to give it a clean surface, then adhered printed tissue paper and a few torn squares of lime green tissue with matte gel medium. I cut the letters free hand from a variety of papers except for the Tim Holtz playing card A.

 Here is the spread. Below are closer shots of each page. The background is twinkling H2O watercolors dribbled on, then manipulated with bubble wrap and a baby wipe. The banner flags are gelli-prints, all but one are made by me, the r is on one made by my friend Jonathan. The spread took me a full (long) day to create.

I wove some strips of paper (mostly gelli-prints) behind the f. The bicycle is stamped and embossed in white. The flowers between the r and i banners are torn bits of washi tape. The letters are stamped with making memories foam stamps using distress paint by Ranger. 

I always try to use some washi tape on my artwork, and on these pages, in addition to the torn strips along the top left and bottom right pages, I cut pieces to hang the flags on the green eyelash yarn, a leftover from my daughter's last shawl. The feather on the d flag is cut from the front of a pen pal letter-- a bit of recycling... The little flower pot is actually metal, and the leaves and flowers came from other pen pals. 

I have one more single page to do before I send it on to another pen pal to work in. I got some new alcohol inks yesterday and plan to do something with them. Happy Sunday!

Instagram Friends Traveling Journal Home!

I posted a number of weeks ago about a traveling journal project I was doing with some friends on instagram, and it came back today with the most amazing art inside!!

All the @references are instagram usernames. I encourage you to check out their feeds if you enjoy art!

Front cover by me! 

Intro letter by me.

Contents page, which indicates there is still room in the 'hood for more artists!

First page by Kim Burk (@kluvmy4js) "Gossip in the 'hood"

Second page by Kim Burk. Shimmery, textured goodness!! 

By Darlene Winter (@dar63) "Crafting in the 'hood"

Second page by Darlene Winter. Amazing textures, rich colors, such amazing attention to detail!! 

First page by Ramona Samuels (@ramtalk) "Romance in the 'hood"

Second page by Ramona Samuels. Such fun collage elements! Love the ribbon banner and the washi tape!!

First page by Syda Howery, (@kreativenotions) "Night in the 'hood" 

Second page by Syda Howery. These pages are awesome! Texture, rich saturated colors, just so fun!

First page by Karen Adams (@yeah_its_mom) "Happy 'hood!" 

Second page by Karen Adams. Both pages are reminiscent of cards I have sent to her. The style and theme is very much her own, and I love every sparkly colorful bit of it! 

Both pages by Nicole Bray, (@wholeheartedart) She is in Canada, and sent her pages to Karen to be added to the journals. 

I added a page in back for each participant to add a few snippets of washi tape. I love this page! 

And, finally, the back cover, made by me, my gelliplate, and a fun sticker by David Icon (@davidicon) 

Week in Review: A Lotta Art

First up, an art journal page I did in a friend's journal.

I used some gelli-prints for the background.

Next are some ATCs I made for various swaps this past week.

Black and white sender's choice.  I actually made three of these, one to keep, two to swap. :)  The background is plain black cardstock stamped with embossing ink, then embossed with clear powder.  I added a bit of white acrylic paint and lots of butterflies punched out of security envelopes.

I used gelliprint background and also for the butterflies.  I set a stencil over the paper, applied glass bead gel medium, then pulled the stencil away.  It left the shape of the butterfly, which I cut around, then glued down and outlined.

More gelliprints, glass bead gel and some washi tape, butterflies and embossed stamping.

I was trying to clear out some of my stuff, and put this together.  I sent it as an extra in a private swap. :)

The next three ATCs nearly caused a riot on Instagram!  I made them to swap with a few people I had already told I would trade with, so they weren't really available except to those three, but there were a few people who really wanted them!  I ran out of copper wire, and need to order more.  Clearly these were a popular item!!

 I tied a yellow ribbon around the tree... I don't think anyone really got the significance of that.

The second one I didn't unfurl the branches at first, but before I sent it I will.

This is the third one.  I made one more for a swap I am hosting on Swap Bot, but so far no one has signed up for the swap.  It's still a week or two away, though.  If they don't I know I won't have any trouble trading it!