Summer is coming... but not today

We've had some wonderful weather already but today is overcast and windy. A bit miserable. But here is another art journal page I've completed.

This is decoupaged napkins again and the dragonfly is a rub-on transfer. I'm doing this in my pregnancy book. No, I'm not about to have a baby at 60! I have repurposed a second-hand book from the SPCA shop. It's a really weird book on pregnancy with old wives tales, recipes, strange bits of prose and the most unusual 50s style drawings. Think of it like Buzzfeed. It's just a whole load of different things flung together. On this page I decided to leave a bit of a drawing exposed. The top of the page is the original book page.

I've been playing around making some texture plates for my gel plate. These are cardboard letters that I bought somewhere, probably Warehouse Stationery, and then mounted on to foam core board. I love the look of text in mixed media art works but I'm too cheap to buy stencils. I figured that this would work on the gel plate since they are the right way round which when stamped into the gel plate and then lifted in a print will end up the right way round again. I picked out "happy birthday" first, reckoning on that being useful. Then I filled a board the same size as my gel plate with random letters, numbers and punctuation. Looking at the letters I had left, I could make "bacon", "cove, "zone" and many more but I thought "sun" would be more useful. Here's a fun game; add any other words you can see in the comments, just from the ones that are not on the happy birthday or the big mat.

Well, "sun" ended up being useful on the page above. Of course, if I had stamped it, it would have ended up the wrong way round. I had to ink up half my gel plate, press the stamp into the paint and then stamp it on the other half of the gel plate. Then I printed it on to the white layer of napkin I had pulled off the flower napkins. I cut as close to the letters as I could and then glued it in the book. The white of the napkin disappears when it dries.  I have small letter stamps which I found in the bargain bin at Spotlight. I used them to print "here it comes" in purple ink but I forgot to let it dry and I ended up with most of it on my hand. I went over it with a fine Sharpie instead. I've gone around the words with a glitter gel pen and added lines to the "sun" words. It doesn't show in the photo but nice in real life. I hope you enjoy my page and ramblings. I'll make a video next time - maybe!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

An art journal page using the weta threadpainting I did many years ago.

I trimmed the fabric around the weta leaving about 2cm all around. Then I decoupaged napkins, painted, stencilled and sprayed until I felt that it was all looking like one piece. The saying was added with Posca pens and highlighted with gold and silver pens.

There was a light bit at the bottom which looked out of place. The napkin had an image of brown ornaments with string. The light bit was a bit of string and that gave me the idea to add some jute. I think it improved the composition of the page as well so a lucky accident.

A little book made from index cards

I've been following Robyn McClendon on YouTube and was inspired to make this little book using index cards and my gel plate. I have also collaged bits of napkins and washi tape to some pages.

100 days project 2019

I finished my 100 day project about a week late (due on the 8th August) and then I made the book for it about a week later. I've been busy producing other goodies since then and never cleared my desk for long enough to make the video of the last section! Here it is - finally.

100 Days project 2019

I started the 100 days project for 2019 on the 1st May. So far I've completed 46 pages and it's day 48. Not bad going!

My project is to make a paper doodle or collage (most are more of a doodle) using gel print paper. I'm loving my gel plate! I have lots of A4 sheets just done on copier paper as I was trying out things and learning how to print on the gel plate. I have used prints for the background and also for the doodles. My only tools are a pair of scissors, some gum glue (doesn't dry as fast as others) and a bamboo skewer. No pens, extra paint or any other embellishment.

Here is the first 40 days. Please turn the sound down so you can't hear my washing machine!

Mixed media canvas and bits of nonsense

I started this blog on 1st January 2011 and the New Year is always a time to reflect on the previous year. I often think back to what I've achieved in my art work over the year and also take the time to read what I've written in this blog. I have not done much this year but I realise that there are some things I haven't loaded up here so I'll take that opportunity, for my benefit really! Also, reading through my blog I see I've mentioned things in my life that have not come to fruition. I thought I would address that here. That may get a bit personal so if all you want to see is art work, let's get that out of the way first and then you can decide if you want to read further.

A lot of my quilting work more recently has involved some surface design. I love messing about with stuff on fabric. I've been watching YouTube videos on art journals and mixed media techniques and decided to give some doodles a bit of a go. I had a small spiral bound notebook already so that determined the size, 100x150mm or about 6" x 9".

Here are the ones I made from Dec 2017.

Unfinished until I find my inktense blocks!

And then a whole year later, I made another one. I stamped the birdie with brown ink which didn't show well on the gold paint. So I stamped it again with black ink. Now the idea is to slightly offset the stamping for that 50s look. It just looked like how I see when I have a migraine! I tried again with slightly different colours and this is more of the look I was going for. I prefer the little branch I drew rather than the inked ground.

This was inspired by this video from Kim Dellow. There is so much inspiration out there. My question to myself is, why don't I just go for it. This didn't take long, turned out wrong and so I did it again. No big deal, right? I don't know what I'm going to do with them but that's not the point. The point is to be creative, even if it's only copying someone else.

The beginning of 2018 was incredibly busy. Sue and I used to be part of a Caribbean steelpan band in Auckland. Sue now lives in Waihi and I live in Tauranga, about an hour from each other. She is a very talented crafty person. We were asked to design five different costumes for a carnival parade and then organise and help make 20 of each. So 100 costumes in total! I'm going to do another post about that. I thought I could cut it down to 5 photos but I can't!

I did start and finish one complete art piece in 2018.

This mixed media canvas started with a base of stamped tissue. The metres and metres of fusible web I bought for the costumes came with tissue between. It has green writing on it but a great mixed media resource all the same! Then I've stamped, stencilled, added modelling paste, sprayed and painted. The image was from a magazine. The stamping on her cheek was done using a meat tray from either PacNSave or New World. I can't remember which but it's not somewhere I shop often. Lovely texture! Then I've added scrapbooking doodads and gold and white acrylic paint pens.

That's all the art work. Now, what has been going on in my life...

You know what, I wrote a whole load of crap and then decided that it wasn't me anymore. Why talk about what went wrong. Here's what has gone right in bullet point form.

• Mum and I moved to Tauranga 3 years ago.
• I bought a house just over 2 years ago and Mum lives very close in a lovely retirement village.
• Fox was born in Dec 2016. I've put a couple of photos of him up here already.
• I adopted a retired racing greyhound. Paris is just the most gorgeous dog and is getting me out and about. She talks to everyone at the park!
• I started singing with a choir, the recently renamed Scholars Baroque Aotearoa. This has been incredibly challenging but also a lot of fun.
• I've been at my new school for three years now and this was the first year I didn't try to leave! Ok, that's a bit of a downer but I'm actually looking forward to teaching with a new team next year. So that's good news.
• I'm feeling a lot better on the health front and finally managing to lose weight. I got a new fitbit for Christmas, a Charge 2, and discovered that I'm fitter than I thought I was. I've got a very fast recovery rate. That made my day!

I still love fabric and quilting but I've just found it really difficult to get back into it since the move down here. However, I am enjoying the mixed media art and I have ideas about how to put the two together. I'm looking forward to being more productive this year.

Little house quilts turned into a book

Time for my annual blog post!  (Updated Sept 2021 with more instructions at the end)

Summer holidays are here and I've finally got around to doing something with my 100 day project quilts. I made 16 of them... in 2016! 

I had a lot of fun making this book. The cover is my usual rubbing, stamping and stencilling on white fabric until I've built up a good texture.

There are lots of videos out in YouTubeland on how to make a book. I've made this one with a cardboard box that was the right depth to make the spine (Mini Magnum box) and used a pamphlet stitch. Just search for pamphlet stitch if you fancy making one like this. Enjoy!

Update: I found my purple ink and script stamp. It just needed a little bit more. Spot the difference!

Updated with more instructions in 2021. This would have been easier as a video or with photos but I didn't take any of the process. I hope my wordy instructions make sense.

• First, I sewed the 16 mini quilts into back-to-back pairs to make 8 pages. Then I sewed each pair of pages to a grosgrain ribbon spine to make 4 signatures. I used ribbon so that it reduced the bulk at the spine and allowed the pages to fold easily along the spine.
• I stacked all the pages and measured them for the depth of the spine, making sure to not compress the pages. I found a food box that was an appropriate depth. Turned out to be an ice cream lolly box. Yum! Cut the box a bit bigger than the pages to give a front and back cover and spine all in one big rectangle.
• The next stage I made overly complicated by sewing on the "Home" letters and also using double sided sticky sheet. A thin coat of mod podge or tacky glue would work just fine. Cut the fabric slightly bigger than the cardboard and glue down. Fold the book closed to make sure that the fabric can stretch over the folds at the spine. Fold the fabric around the edges and glue to the inside of the cover, trimming if necessary. Don't cut the corners off completely. The fabric will just fray and make the corners messy. Cut a few mm from the edge of the cardboard.

Attaching the pages to the cover

• From cardstock or patterned paper, cut two endpapers very slightly smaller than the inside covers. This will cover up fabric from the outside of the cover. Cut another piece the height of the endpaper and the width of the spine plus about 6cm/2 inches. 
• Cut a piece of cardboard the same height as the endpaper and very slightly smaller than the width of the spine. This has to fit inside the spine when the book is closed.
• Now for some maths. Measure the width of the extra cardboard spine that you cut. Divide this measurement by the number of signatures that you have. This is going to be the spacing between your signatures.
• Mark the position of the holes in the cardboard spine to attach the signatures. Mark the first line are half the spacing distance from the long edge. The rest of the lines will be spaced out at the distance you calculated so that the final line is half a spacing from the other edge. Round as nessary for easy measuring and the make sure that the signatures are centered. For example, my spine was 47mm. I had 4 signatures so my spacing was 11mm and a bit. I rounded it down to 10mm for the full spacing and rounded up to 8mm for the half spacing. So I had lines at 8mm, 18mm, 28mm and 38mm, which meant I had 9mm space at the back.
• Now to find the position of the holes for stitching in the signatures. Draw a line across the vertical lines half way down the length of the spine. Draw another two lines across at equal distance for the top and bottom holes so that the holes will be inside the page size (not the cover size).
• Glue the spine patterned paper the the other side of the cardboard spine, centering the cardboard on the paper.
• Punch holes in the cardboard at the positions you marked. I have a very small hole punch but an awl or anything sharp can used to make the holes.
• Sew in each signatures using a pamphlet stitch. As I said at the top, there are plenty of videos showing this and it is hard to explain without photos or diagrams.
• Using a strong glue, tacky glue or silicon, glue the cardboard spine in place and glue the extra flaps of paper to the front and back covers.
• Glue the front and back endpapers to front and back covers respectively.  These will go over the extra paper from the spine to help secure it.

I have to say that this isn't a traditional bookbinding method. Endpapers are meant to be a double page and glued to the text block (the book pages) and the inside cover. I've adapted it because obviously I didn't want to glue paper to fabric. My book is still looking good three years on. The cardboard spine didn't glue down properly but the endpapers have kept it all in place.