Shrine Art Display

As I sit here in the library I am avoiding an essay that due before an exam Monday. Bad for my education, good for you. I was on craftster and saw this amazing shrine/art display made by OriginalYouth.

She took one of those old wooden calendars that have the separate numbers and months that you change out and made this amazing piece:

Here's the link to the original post on craftster: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=330126.0

And this is the link to her flickr account to see more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/originalyouth/sets/72157622820366633/

Learning to deal with it

In the past I've struggled with judging my journal pages but I've grown to understand how silly it is. Yes, I share my pages with people and post them online for the world to see but that isn't my motivation. I journal to record my life and decompress and those should be my main goals.

Above there are two spreads. I love the top pink one: I doodled in watercolor crayons (with no water added) and then covered the spread with hot pink tissue paper. It's simple but I love the texture and color.

The second blue spread I struggled with. I had journaled on it before doing anything to the page and went back later to decorate the page. The background is a failed attempt of a salt-watercolor resist. The more I added the more I hated it; but it tells a story about the funny things the kids at my daycare say to me. A part of me wants to rip it out and redo the whole thing but I now realize that it is just a journal page. I learned that my page was too wet to take the salt resist and that is a reason worth keeping it in there. Journals are records and experiments for ourselves and we should be our first priorities.

APAD #4 prompt

Only a week to go until freedom is attained!

Here's my fourth spread from the APAD class. Number three hasn't been posted because I couldn't get a good photo of it yet. I am not fully content with how this spread turned out; the page size was a challenge for the part of the assignment that required five strips to fan out from the top horizontal strip. I do like the colors and the stamps though, it's like the turtle is swimming through the clouds. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the stars were outlined with a Sakura gelly roll silver glitter pen. I love those things!

My "A Prompt a Day Journal"

As I've mentioned, I've been taking Kelly Kilmer's "A Prompt a Day Class" and I finally got to sit down and work on some pages last night. School's been keeping me busy and I spent Saturday making my journal.

I decided this entire experience was going to be a series of experiments and playing around with stuff without worrying about the outcome. I've never made or worked in a brown paper bag book so I went for it.

How I did it:

1) I took brown paper lunch bags and folded them in half.

2) I took black/white/neutral colored paper I wasn't planning on using for anything else and adhered the pieces to each page with regular gel medium. I am interested to see how the different background techniques affect the papers.

3) The thing that took the longest was punching the holes. I made a guide out of an extra bag so all my holes would line up, but between the 8 layers of paper of each "signature" of 1 bag and the gel medium, it took a lot of energy and cursing to punch out the holes, one-by-one.

4) I'll eventually get some 1" binder rings to connect the pages and I'll tie some ribbon and extra goodies to the rings for extra decoration.

I chose the lunch bag size because I want to challenge myself to work within a smaller area and concentrate on the details. I am really feeling it so far.

Onto the photos!

On a roll... a blog roll that is

I'm in a cheesy mood today I suppose =)


As the fall semester is ending I find myself spending a lot more time online when I should really be studying for exams and finishing up term papers. I realize posting a single journal spread at a time can get really boring (but it's the only craft I've been doing except knitting hats on my knifty knitter, and really- how many hats of the same pattern can you look at?)


So here are some absolutely delicious craft blogs that I waste away the hours plotting my next projects:

(In not particular order)

Hanna's blog is extremely eclectic and is very user friendly, you can navigate it by subject and/or date.
http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/

Kelly's art journal blog posts every day and always has tons of great links to explore. She gets me in trouble a lot at school when I should be writing!
http://kellykilmer.blogspot.com/

If you've been living under a rock or swamped with work you may not know Teesha has posted a ton of video tutorials on her journaling style recently.
http://teeshascircus.blogspot.com/

For stunning photographs sure to make you jealous and inspired:
http://afieldjournal.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-11-11T01%3A44%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=6

Kathy is such a hero of mine- her glitter fabulosity is awe-inspiring. She does just about every craft you can think of! She has posted many of her projects from her craft books (which are amazing) and has tons of tutorials:
http://thecraftychica.blogspot.com/

Tammy runs yet another crazy eclectic blog full of inspiration:
http://daisyyellow.squarespace.com/

Andrea Zuill's sewing blog posts one free embroidery pattern a month and is constantly updating all of the different projects she has going on:
http://zuill.us/andreablog/

LollyChops is also very eclectic ranging from recipes to craft tutorials and free patterns and designs, I love her stuff!
http://www.lollychops.com/lollychops/




I think that should keep you guys busy for a while! Back to cleaning this messy house!

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I never received the photos of Chrissy and me at the Dalai Lama's lecture at American College in D.C., but this is the spread that came as the result. I didn't realize I put a Christian priest on there until after the spread was done- I chose him for his robes (I love the color and texture). I can fully enjoy the irony now. Red is the color for good luck in the Tibetan culture so I chose to apply it here. The background is red and gold paint applied with a dry large horsehair brush, the resulting pattern looking like the weave of a piece of fabric.

Christmas Angel Milliande

For those of you who have yet to be introduced to Milliande, she is one of my ultimate crafting heroes. She has created a ning community for women that hosts art swaps, tutorials, blogs, and a message forum where everyone can learn from one another. You can lose track of the days watching all of her amazingly information and creative youtube videos. She is a beautiful free spirit who loves to share her passion with others.



For the holidays she is hosting a sort of pay-it-forward giveaway! You can go to her website here:

(Doesn't she just exude artsy spunkiness? I love her!)

http://www.milliande.com/Mixed-Media-Artists-Christmas-Wishlist.html

where you post 10 craft items/supplies for your wish list and one art destination. The more people who participate, the more winners there are. If your wish list is chosen she will grant one wish off of your list.



Here my wish list for those of you at home keeping score:


1) The ARTChixStudio Dream Box with Doors kit:http://www.artchixstudio.com/mall/kx616.asp

2) Fortune Teller Hand charms from ARTChixStudio:http://www.artchixstudio.com/mall/ab993.asp

3) Some of this awesome Day of the Dead fabric:http://www.equilter.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=97356&sid=31U9Hz2Dw0HtDH9-07109132646.d9

4) Some of this lovely Egg fabric:http://www.equilter.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=111156&sid=31U9Hz2Dw0HtDH9-08109610630.23

5) This amazing Rosie the Riveter Stamp:http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24335704&ref=sr_gallery_2&&ga_search_query=rosie+the+riveter&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=4&order=date_desc&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title

6) Beautiful Day of the Dead art journal:http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34867516&ref=sr_gallery_5&&ga_search_query=art+journal&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=28&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title

7) (Book) How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-Kind Book By Esther K. Smith

8) (Book) Acrylic Revolution: New Tricks and Techniques for Working with the World's Most Versatile Medium (Spiral-bound)~ Nancy Reyner

9) Bold Brights Watercolor Crayons from Stampin' Up!http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=106695

10) My *HUGE* wish is for the Sircle WB-110 book binding machine (So I can make my own art journals with my own paper):http://www.abcoffice.com/sircle-wb110-binding-machine.htm

My artsy destination would be: JOURNALFEST! Its an art journal festival with different classes and activities in Washington, USA. My only problem is that I am terrified of flying =)http://www.teeshaslandofodd.com/1/journalfest.html



Come play and hang out with us at the Ning Community! It's a cozy little community- it's not as big as craftster.org but it is a more intimate atmosphere.

http://milliande.ning.com/