Postcard swap

In my last post, I mentioned that I made a box with layers of various materials. I made a similar background for eight postcards that were sent out in a postcard swap with some of the other students in the class. After creating the background, I cut it up so that there would be interesting bits on each postcard.

The postcards did not look finished to me at this point, rather they looked like exactly what they were, chopped up bits of background.

I let each piece speak to me and added hand stitching where the background told me to. That was fun and mostly successful.


I really enjoyed creating these and have enjoyed receiving the postcard from the other swappers, I am still anxiously awaiting the rest of the postcards. I love the feeling of anticipation that comes from knowing great mail is coming into my mailbox any day. Of course, that thrill does occasionally get me into trouble when I longing browse some of the wonderful products that are available in on-line stores. I just have to remember how difficult it is to clean out my studio and make room for the things I already have -- I keep hoping that thought will make it easier to say no, but it is not easier yet -- I will let you all know the minute it gets easier.

I have been busy with classes and with cleaning up my studio. Everything is progressing slowly, some things are even progressing surely!
The items in this post were created in Sue Bleiweiss's class "Mixed Media for the Fibre Artist". I really enjoyed working many of the techniques and making them my own. The orange vase shown is gossamer thin silk -- a little too thin, on a really hot and humid weekend it totally collapsed! Oops. I inserted a glass cylinder vase and all has been well since. The dark green vase is a little thicker (a full layer of silk cap) and sturdier, but I miss the beautiful translucency of the orange one.






























The box shown below was fun to make and will be useful to hold small sewing notions.














It has three drawers and a top storage area as well. The cover fabric is a rich combination of painted cheesecloth (I love painted cheesecloth and hoard the bits I have made over the years -- thins time I actually used some!), bits of silk roving, bits of yarns and Angelina fibres. Yum!

There were other projects in the class, but those are still works in progress.

I may not have been posting a lot in the last two months, but I have been doing some creative things. I have taken more of SueB's classes. I was not able to keep up with the first one completely and do need to finish up a few items for it. The second class, Creative Mixed Media Journalling Techniques started just as the school year was winding down and I have had little time to really get into some of the great techniques that have been covered so far.

In other news . . . I was involved in a book swap. Coincidentally, the person to whom I was to be sending a book mentioned that she had seen some of SueB's books and really liked them. Therefore, I used some of the techniques from SueB's class and created a book with the theme "Our Town" -- my town happens to be Ottawa, Canada's Capital.

The cover is made of a stiff stabilizer that was painted red. Then I used a added printouts of photos that I took, mostly of famous building in downtown Ottawa, including our Parliament Buildings. I covered the first layer of photos with a sheet of white tissues and used gel medium to hold it down. This also made the tissue more translucent. I added some focus photos of top, to highlight them. The whole was then coved with fusible web and a layer of off-white tulle. The first photo shows the cover opened up with some of the photos being more prominent than others. The second shows the book closed with hand made cord to keep it closed. I searched everywhere for red maple leaf buttons to make the closure, but could not find them.

The last photo shows the inside of the book with the sewn in signatures.

Week 5 journal

This is journal 5. I pretty much made this one as instructed. I love this journal because it has interchangeable signatures, which is one of the things I really seek in journals and sketchbooks because I tend to not work linearly. I am always jumping from one thing to another and like flexibility in my sketchbooks.

I also really love this book because I am able to use lovely, premium 8 1/2 by 11 inch papers and fold them along the grain. I used three different colours of thread to hold the three signatures in. Then I added beads to weigh down the ends of the threads.

Week 4 Journal 2

This is the second leathery journal I made. This one is made from a large paper grocery bag. The folded pages measure 8 1/2 by 11 inches. I used a five hole pamphlet stitch to attach the three signatures to the cover.

I used a coppery elastic to tuck the flap into for a closure. I discovered that the thicker paper of the grocery bag does not work as well as the thinner paper of the lunch bag, though it does provide a much larger surface area so I can make a larger book.

It is also essential to really flatten the paper after crumpling and painting. It looks more leathery if it is really flattened as opposed to highly textured.

Week 4 Journal 1

This leather look journal is based on Lesson 4 of Sue Bleiweiss's Journal Making for the Fiber Artist class. I added gold flecks of colour to the red leathery journal. I had made this leathery paper before and I had forgotten how much fun it is.
I stitched the signatures through the cover using a long and link stitching. Each of the long stitches went through the long red bead on the spine. I think the gold colour thread complements the specks of gold that you can see on the back of the journal. A gold colour elastic holds the jounal flap in place.

Lesson 3 Journal

This is the journal I made using the Lesson 3 instructions. The twig I am using inspired the fabric choice in this case. The colours on the cover are brighter in real life and the fabric has an autumn woods feel to it. Inside pages, accents and tags are decorated with walnut ink.










I made three different sized tags with my Sizzix die cutter using the walnut ink coloured papers. These are attached to the journal in various ways.

Small tags are tucked into a pocket made from the same paper.

Medium tags are hung from a paper strip glued at each end to the sketchbook paper.

Other tags are tucked into a strip so that the strings hang out the side of the journal.

Some pages are merely decorated with a strip of the walnut ink paper.