More Handmade Books

I have created a couple of new books. These are "recycle" crafts as the paper inside is blank plain copy type paper that is torn off of a printout at work. They tear the blank part off so there is not so much bulk to file. They were trying to find a way to recycle it instead of throwing it away and of course I said "Let me help you out with that". The covers came from work also. They were 8 1/2 x 11 pieces of cardboard. So I had to make something to prove that I was using it.

For some reason I got a picture in my head of pillow ticking. So I made a background in photoshop to resemble it:

The beauty of Photoshop is that you can now make it any color you want. I made a red book and a blue book.

I made the heart for this book out of kraft paper--the kind that comes on the roll to wrap packages in. This is a staple in my studio! I cut a piece big enough for the project I want and then take it to the sink and wet it. I then crumple the wet paper to give it texture (give it a good squeeze to wring out the excess water). Carefully flatten the wet paper onto a piece of freezer paper or plastic. Pick 2-3 colors of acrylic paint so there will be depth in the finished piece. I use a triagular make-up sponge to apply color (the flat end oposite the point) and I also use a little blending gel or floating medium. This keeps the paint moving and also helps blend different colors. On the heart above I used burgandy paint primarily and then just a touch of black used very sparing to bring out the texture.

Once my paper was dry, I glued a piece to cardstock and then cut out a heart. To add the trim I first poked holes evenly spaced around the edge of the heart and in about 1/4 in. I used crochet thread and blanket stitched around the heart. You could leave it at that, but I like frills and bling so I single crochet around the edge of the heart using the blanket stitch as a base. Once I had gone all the way around I did a little ruffle stich by chaining five and then a single crochet in every third base single stitch. I added a little crochet flower and a button to finish it.

For my little blue book I created the star in a similar fashion except I used some of my husband's gasket material. I had read about using this a while ago and can't remember where, but they had used it as a book cover. You can get this in automotive supply stores and my husband says it's not bad in price, although he doesn't recall how much it runs. To describe this material it is like the kraft paper in a way, but much heavier and stronger. I wet it and purposely tried to tear it and I could not. This has much potential. There was some printing on one side, but I just lightly sanded it and it came off. If you are painting over it you probably don't even need to do that.

I prepped the gasket material the same as the kraft paper. It is a little harder to crumple, but I just did what I could to create texture. I painted this with a brown paint, copper paint and again a little black. Once it was dry I cut out the star. This cuts very easily so no problems there. I then poked holes in a decorative pattern using a large tapestry type needle. I painted the edges with black. I layered a piece of black cardstock creating a mat to give the star a little pop. The center element is made of polymer clay using a mold made from a button.

Hope you give this a try! Thanks for visiting--Denise

Playing with my food!

It's a busy time in the garden these days. We have many tomatoes and crookneck squash. The tomatoes were my idea. I love a good homegrown one. They have so much more flavor than store bought. However my husband is not such a tomato fan. He will occasionally eat a slice on a hamburger, but that is about it. Therefore I had way more tomatoes than I could eat so I began making marinara sauce. To begin this process you have to blanch the tomatoes to remove the skins. As I am doing this and tossing the skins into my "garbage bowl" ala Rachel Ray, I notice how vibrant the colors are (one of my plants is a pear tomato which has a bright golden skin when ripe).

This leads me to the "playing" part. I belong to an online yahoo group called "The Latest Trends in Mixed Media Art". Cindy Powell, one of the owners of the group, posted on tutorial on creating digital kaliedoscopes. Well, that got me started and of course when I saw the beautiful colors in my bowl it lead to this:

And this:

And this:

You can see how this could be a wee bit addictive. Kind of like snowflakes--no two come out alike. These were all made from the top photo.

So what does one do with these? Well, my mind has gone on quite a journey answering that question. Some of the ideas are still just ideas, but here are a couple of examples:

I happened to have some Daisey D paper that matched the orange kaliedoscope perfectly. The teal is also from Daisey D. The background paper on the purple card I made on the computer to match the kaliedoscope. Here are some close up photos:

I printed the images 3 times; each time a little smaller. I then cut them out. They are layered together with 2 layers of foam tape for dimension. I made the purple one last and got the idea to cut "petals" on the second layer. I really like this effect. I then added some sparkle (which unfortunately does not show up so well in a photo) with Stickles in a coordinating color.

This was not on the "To Do" list for this weekend, but oh well. :) Sometimes I create my best art when I go with the spontaneous projects.

Thanks for visiting, Denise

lastest art projects

I have been busy lately making several new items. Here's a couple. The first was inspired by this photo I took:
It was taken a year ago April. We went on a camping trip here in Southern Oregon. The day we left was sunny, but the next morning we awoke to snow. I have to explain though that we are no longer what I call "hard core campers". We do not tent camp. We have an 8 ft camper that has it's own bathroom and we can turn the heat on when it get's cold.... so I don't know if you can really call it camping but we love it! This particular trip we spent surfing the web, watching DVD's, reading, and I was doing artwork. (We still call it "camping"). Anyway the first day I took a walk and shot many pictures of flowers, bees, birds and nature in general. The next day I got the idea to do the same walk and take the same pictures with the snow. Got some great shots and have been working on a book documenting it, but that is still in progress.

I recently decided to paint a picture from my photo and this led to the following collage: I used my ripped up Reader's Digest technique for the background (see earlier post) and then made two copies of my orginal painting. The first I glued down directly and the second I cut out the bird and the branches and attached them with raised foam adhesive to give the image dimension. I then added the swirls and words on the edges using a graphite pencil (spray with fixative after this step to seal and prevent smudging). Then I glued on a birds nest bead I had made. I know this looks more like a winter project, but sometimes I end up going down a road that takes me to an unexpected place.

The next project is the card I made for my Grandmother's 89th birthday. We celebrated it last weekend and this card just popped out of my head! I made it in about an hour. I don't know about you, but I almost never beat any speed records when I am making something. The only way things go fast is if I am making a duplicate of something I have already made and usually I get bored with that, so it doesn't happen often. Here's the card:

I mentioned in an earlier post that I love Photoshop and this is why; I started this card with white cardstock and the bright pink cardstock. That's it besides my computer and printer. The drawings I had done awhile back and had the images in my computer. I made the dotted paper by using the pattern function in Photoshop. The roses were scanned into the computer already colored.. I just printed them and cut them out. For the bird I used the brush function on some blue patterned paper I had made. Again I printed and cut him out. Made the faux twill ribbon and typed the words on and cut out. Glued it all together and the last thing I took a black fine tip marker and doodled the scroll. She loved it!

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for visiting. Denise

Dollar Store Treasures

Hello all, today I thought I would show some items that I purchased at the Dollar Store and turned into art. One is in process and one is complete. This first one is one of those little puzzles for kids where you try and get all the little metal beads to fall into the little holes. Here is a picture of what it looked like to begin with (size is probablay 2 in across):

I found that I could remove the top clear part fairly easily. Once that was done I pulled out the cardboard background. I then painted the orange base with Krylon hammered metal spray paint. This took several coats. When that was complete I created a collage using vintage paper, an old family photo of my grandfather when he was a boy, and some rusty washers. I glued that in and replaced the top and this is what it looks like now: Love these kind of projects! Of course I bought out the inventory of these little toys so now I have enough to last for a long time. I thought they would look cool incorporated into the cover of a book someday but that project is still in my head.

The other project is the one in progress. I came across these canvases at a dollar each and couldn't pass them up. I figured I could gesso them and go from there. However, I could not get the gesso (white) to completely cover the LOUD colors. (black gesso may have done it, but I was on to another idea). Here is the canvas as it was:

So, I took pages from an old book that I got at Salvation Army store and ripped them up and glued them so that the entire surface was covered. Then I aged the canvas using acrylic paints, gesso and inks to get the following look:

A great background, but now I got to figure out where I want to go with it. Some projects come easy and some just take a little mulling over. Course with me I am probably on to 6 other projects before (if) I get back to this. Showing it here though should give me incentive to finish it and post what it looks like! Enjoy!

Finally, an update!

Sorry if anyone checked back here and still found nothing new. I have had a baaad case of bronchitis and have been very slow for about 6 weeks now. Hopefully, I have seen the worst of it.

Anyway I am putting up some pictures of projects I have done using the gel media transfer method. The first one is a cover on a handmade book.

This is a small book about 4.25 x 5.25 with hand stitched blank pages. I really am not one to journal, but I LOVE to make all kinds of books. Now I just need to figure out what to do with them. For the cover I had taken a photo of a statue left at our house by the previous owners.

I then turned the photo into a high contrast black and white image using Photoshop (one of my favorite toys!) and paired it with a graphic background I had created from one of my drawings. Once I printed it on the inkjet, I made a toner based photocopy and transferred that using gel medium.

Here is a jar I did in the same manner. I have saved all kinds of jars to repurpose and this is one technique I was playing with. To get the background color I painted the glass with gesso, then a couple of coats of turquoise, and then sprayed with a clear coat. When that was dry I proceeded with the gel medium transfer.

The top center piece is made of polymer clay and crystals. This turned out, maybe, a little over the top, but I still kind of like it and it was part of what I call R & D (research and development); so usually things get better after the first piece.

I have one last image to share for now. It uses heat transfer instead of gel medium. It is still taken from a toner based copier. I then used one of the heat transfer gadgets that looks like a woodburner, but has a round flat tip. This was an image of lace that I transferred to thin copper sheet. It will be the perfect thing for some future project I'm sure.

Well, I could go on and on, but I must save something for another day! Hope you all enjoyed my babbling and hope you have as much fun with this stuff as I do.

Note: I am still trying to figure out all this blog stuff and hope to get some of the blogs I visit onto my list soon.

My First Post!

Well, I have been reading many blogs lately and have decided to try my own! I find so much inspiration from everyone's creations and wanted to contribute. I am (I hate to admit it--) a compulsive creator and work in just about any media I can get my hands on. Luckily I have a wonderful, understanding, and supportive husband who somehow puts up with my many artistic adventures (and misadventures) with a great sense of humor.

Just the other day we were remembering the time I called him in a panic because I had managed to melt a page protector on the drum of our brand new Canon photocopier. Whoops! there goes the warranty. It was one time that my thinking outside the box didn't quite work out so well. I am fairly mechanically inclined and I moved the copier into the kitchen to scope out the situation. Could I take it apart and get it back together without anyone but myself being any wiser? I started in but soon I was stuck. I needed to get to a place and I could'nt figure out how to get there. That was when the panic call went out to my husband.

My husband (who is a Diesel Mechanic by trade) came to my rescue and after about an hour of the two of us analyzing, and slowing taking the copier apart we got to the drum and managed to peel the offending plastic off. Of course during this whole process I was wringing my hands and also getting them gently slapped as I kept trying to "help" my husband. (Does anyone else have this problem? You know when you are watching someone do something and you can see what needs to be done and pretty soon your hands have a mind of their own and end up right in the way of the other person.) Amazingly enough, with lots of praying, we got the copier back together(with no extra parts left over) and I have been using it constantly for about 2 years. It is a toner based copier, so I use it for many art projects where I do a gel or heat transfer.

I will be working on posting some pictures of my projects soon.