Blogging A to Z: Washi Tape

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

I can't believe I had to wait all the way to the last week to talk about one of my favorite craft supplies: Washi Tape!!  Now to some this may seem like an overpriced roll of tape, but to me I see it as instant happiness added to just about any project, surface, letter or envelope.  I may have a few rolls of the stuff...

But I use it a lot! I love to make cards with it...

And I have been known to use it in my art, both alone;

 and as an accent;

 or main theme on Artist Trading Cards;

I have found it to be one of those addictive pleasures, but as I said, I use it a lot. Even if I just collected it, though, it would be a fun hobby! :)

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you were inspired!

Homebound

I haven't been out of the house for over a week--maybe two weeks, I can't remember the last foray I made into the cold, cruel world. Well, maybe not so cruel, but it sure enough has been cold!  Which explains my absence from the public eye. It has snowed or showered us with some form of wintry precipitation every weekend for a month, so I haven't been doing a lot of venturing out.

Over the weekend Ornery bundled up and worked on the couch table out in the garage while I stayed inside and tried to keep warm while I worked some puzzles, one really hard one and then a super easy one to let me know it was the puzzle's fault it took two days to finish, not mine.  :)  Really, that is about all I did all weekend. Today, however, I have done quite a bit of arting in my studio. (Arting isn't in the dictionary, but it's my blog, so my words. You get the gist, anyway.)

I started a double page spread for a friend's art journal, (no photo yet) created two mostly-identical altered Rolodex cards, one for a swap, one for moi:

Theme is Spring

made this awesome Butterfly Koi from washi tape for a Swap-Bot swap and I really like how it turned out:

and after signing up for a handful of new swaps, created this ATC for a series of Months of the Year.

It is a shaker with little hearts in the jar and the background has all sorts of cool texture on it.  The fiber is metallic DMC floss, and one of my favorite additions these days.

We survived the week of no wheat, and in fact never ate out a single time last week--which has to be a first for us in a really long time! I am pretty sure we aren't eating enough vegetables, but at least we cut out the wheat. So, that's about all my news these days.

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? :-)

Traveling Letter Journal

I have two pen-friends who are both interested in art and pen-pal letters.  We all connected via swap-bot, although I had met Karen on Instagram. Over the last several months, we have done a variety of collaborations, and recently embarked on a new one.  Beth bought a small journal and we are each going to write in it, preferably with doodles and whimsical writing as well.  Here were my first couple of pages.

 This first one is doodles and paint. I used glaze gel pens by Sakura for the doodles, and Twinkling H2O watercolors for the fill-in.

And this is the finished spread.  I did one more page, but it is all writing, so I didn't post it. The journal will travel around to each of us, and we will get to read what the others wrote, then add a message to both of them. We still write regular letters as well, but this is a fun little adventure, especially with all the fancy lettering and doodles. 

Mail, Mail and More Mail!

I have been getting more and more creative with my outgoing mail.  I love to write letters, almost as much as I love receiving them!  Below is a photo of a little booklet letter I made.  The cover picture is a color copy of a page from my first art journal back when I started painting with twinkling h2O watercolors.  I folded the booklet so each page is a little inset from the next, and then put washi tape on each edge so it shows all the styles when the booklet is closed.  I sewed the binding with some sparkly DMC floss, and I stamped some flowers on each of the pages with different shades of purple ink.  I glued the recipient's initial on the front cover (which unfortunately I had forgotten until after I had it all sealed inside the envelope!)

The envelopes below are all for the Secret Snail Mail Society I am a part of.  It is a very small group of women who are all interested in sharing mail and mail art. Various members issue challenges and members can participate if they want.  These envelopes are filled with 40 or more little pieces of ephemera from a scavenger hunt challenge.  Much cutting and sorting ensued!

After having two days of NO MAIL this week (I think the postal workers were slacking!) I decided to make a few envies.  This after I realized what a ridiculous amount of scrapbook paper I had sitting on a shelf gathering dust and mites. I think I made 39 envelopes, then I set about using up a bunch of the washi tape samples that seem to be multiplying.  I emptied 14? 17? cards that day.

Here is a sample of one of the envies after I decorated it up. :)

Here are a bunch of them that are ready to go out on Monday.  I am starting to run out of all those stamps I had collected back in the 1990's and early 2000's.  Other than Christmas stamps, I don't have any 37 or 34 cent stamps left.  Still lots of 32 and 33 cents, though.

Hopefully more mail will come in this week than came in last week. It was pretty pitiful!  My count for the year so far of outgoing pieces is 525 counting these that will go tomorrow.  How did that happen??

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)