"Round Robin" Altered Book Swap

A few artsy friends and I are participating in a "round robin" altered book swap. We each created our own book with a specific color scheme, a sign-in page for everyone to sign, and a two-page spread. Then we are sending each book around for everyone to create a spread.

I don't think I posted photos of my book yet. My theme is "Hot Pink and Orange." Should make for an interesting book!

This is my cover. I made "fabric paper" - covered a piece of muslin with gel medium and layered paper scraps, tissue paper, paints, stamping etc. - then glued Tim Holtz tissue wrap on the reverse side for the inside covers. I folded it in half and stitched around the edges, adding two rows of pom pom trim. I stitched in watercolor paper pages and added beads to the threads.

On the left is my sign-in page - glassine envelopes with dyed tags and trims.

The right page has my instructions.

And this is my spread. I used lots of spray inks and stencils for the background, then texture paste for the feather stencil. I added dyed lace trim on the top edge. Frida is a computer printout. I added part of a napkin for her dress with Liquid Pearls for the neckline trim. The flowers are all cut from magazines and added to her hair. The earrings are two long silver beads I found in my stash that were perfect for this!

Here is the first book's cover I have worked in. This person's colors are "olive and red." This was hard to do without it looking like Christmas!

This is the spread I created. I was working on another project about gypsies so had this image on my desk. Since it had some green and red in it, I decided to use it as my focal point and go with the gypsy theme.  

The background reinvented itself several times. First I transferred some book text with gel medium but it looked muddy when I added paint, so I covered that up. The paint is a combination of Distress Paint and Lumiere. I mixed gold paint, gold Perfect Pearls and texture paste for the brocade stencil and added some script stamping in red Archival ink.  I collaged on scraps of paper, upholstery fabric, a tea-dyed fabric doily and a heat-stamped piece of red velvet.  Finally, I added some text and the upholstery trims.

For the sign-in page, she wanted us to do art on 1/2 of a watercolor page. I used my new Distress Oxide Ink in Peeled Paint with a touch of Fossilized Amber. It took many layers of going back and forth with adding ink, drying and spritzing with water until I liked the texture. (The color is more olive than this photo shows.) I stamped the leaves with paint, stamped my name with an awesome calligraphy alpha stamp set from Concord & Ninth, and then added some tiny sequins and the doodled border.

This one is off in the mail to the next recipient and I am anxiously awaiting the next book to work in!

I'm off to Austin again for the weekend. Our littlest grandson, Mitchell, turns two and we will be celebrating his birthday with a party on Saturday. See you next week!

More 30-Day Art Marks Challenge pages

Yippee!!! I am now caught up with my art marks challenge journal! (Traveling sure puts a crimp in daily-art-exercise plans!)

Days 18 - 19 - Striped and Encircled

 Stripes: strips of paper glued diagonally over painted background. Outlined and doodled.

Encircled: painty scrap paper glued on and then areas of interest circled with pink marker and blue colored pencil and tiny white circles drawn with white pen.

Days 20 - 21 - Covered and Parallel

Covered: the background was "covered" with brush strokes of paint, then "covered" with cross marks.

Parallel: watercolored background stamped with roller stamp and white ink; fuchsia liquid ink dripped in parallel lines and then more lines doodled with black and white pens.

Days 22 - 23 - Spiral and Numerous

Spiral: watered down acrylic paint background; painty scrap circles glued on and then doodled in black for spiral and white for radiating lines.

Numerous: painted background covered with "numerous" different marks - black circles and lines, white circles, pink small lines, turquoise stencil, turquoise drawn triangles.

Days 24 - 25 - Squared and Odd

Squared: three squares of book text glued to watercolored background; turquoise boxes drawn with pen; yellow and blue Pitt pens on book text.

Odd: belli-printed paper glued on for background. Enhanced the 7 elongated ovals with white and black pen marks and added a scalloped border cut from book text and painted with gesso.

Day 26 - Even

This is torn on the left side. It was a piece of scrap painty paper. I painted two (for even) flowers with orange paint and then doodled inside with white pen marks. Then I added the drawn scallop border.

Only four more days!

Life Documented - April Week 3

April 16 - 22

This was the week starting with Easter Sunday. We had gone to Albuquerque to be with our grand boys, Drew and Grant, for the weekend. I got sick with a stomach bug on Sunday which put me in bed for the day. We were supposed to fly home that night, but waited until Monday morning. Luckily, it was just a 24-hr bug!

On Tuesday I flew back to Austin to be with Kelly and her two boys. She had a follow-up appointment on Thursday with her doctor and got a good report. She can now drive and lift her 2-year old. 

The background for this spread is scraped yellow and orange acrylic paints. I added punched circles from scrapbook paper for the days of the week and strips of gelli-printed paper for the dividers.  On the right page I added pictures of all four boys from Easter along with a few journal cards and 

a die cut.

I am now caught up to the current week in my planner!

I'm back - for a few days!

April has been a crazy month - I've been home a day and a half since April 6th! I returned yesterday from Austin - my daughter got cleared by her doctor to now drive and lift so she won't need me. It's strange to be home but I'm ready to get back to my normal routine. Love those grand boys but, boy, do they tire you out!

I spent today working on my "30-Day Art Marks Challenge". I'm still not caught up but I got several days' done. They are all pretty simple and self-explanatory. (For the transparent prompt I used alcohol inks,)

Days 10 and 11 - Horizontal and Just One

Days 12 and 13 - Erased and Sketched

Days 14 and 15 - Vertical and Transparent

Days 16 and 17 - Half and Pinpoint

Life Documented 2017 - Planner pages update

Even though I've been gone much of April, I've tried to keep up with my planner pages.

The is April's monthly calendar.

April - Week One

Background is watercolored. I used my "altered address labels" for the days and my Art to the 5th date stamps.

April - Week Two

I used Distress Ink Oxide on the background, page flags for the days/dates and washi tape to separate the days. Since I was in both Austin and Albuquerque this week with all my grand boys, I had lots of photos to document with, so I dedicated the right page to that.

We ate dinner at the Japanese Steak Kitchen on Saturday night - a first for little Grant. The boys really enjoyed the experience but Grant was a bit afraid of the fire and noise! I used the restaurant's business card as a tip in to add the picture of him.

Art Marks pages - Days 7-9

It's been a crazy few weeks. I left on Thursday, April 8, for Austin to be with my daughter's children while she had surgery. I stayed a week and then flew on Friday, April 14, to Albuquerque to spend Easter with my other grand boys. We flew home early this morning and I will be returning to Austin tomorrow night for the remainder of the week.

I am trying to keep up with some of my projects.  Here are three more days of the 30-day Art Marks Challenge.

Day 7 - Arrow-like

Painted scrap as background

Day 8 - Filled

Deli-printed background enhanced with circles, scallops and dots

Day 9 - X'd

Watercolors

One more Art Marks page

Day 6 - Black and White

Black and white was an easy prompt - I had so many ideas but settled on white and black doodled flowers and some washi tape. Love how this came out - so very graphic.

I had just enough time to complete this before getting ready to go out of town. I was supposed to fly to Austin to help out when my daughter has surgery tomorrow and during her recovery as she won't be able to lift for several weeks (kinda hard when you have one that it under 2!). As it turns out, the flights all filled up overnight (I fly non-rev) so I am going to have to drive! I'd better hustle...

I'll be gone at least a week and then may go to Albuquerque for Easter. See you later!

30-Day Art Marks Challenge - Days 3-5

 Day 3 - Layered

This page started as a dictionary page. I did a wash of pink acrylic paint and then swiped some white paint horizontally with my finger. I "layered" circles painted with paint daubers, then doodled with white and black pens.

Day 4 - Stacked

This background is a gel-plate printed deli paper which I glued on to the index card page. I cut triangles from another painty deli paper, glued them on in a stack and then doodled with white and turquoise paint pens.

Day 5 - Round

This was a thin book page. I used blue and green watercolors for the background and "stamped" with bubble wrap. I  then painted yellow circles with acrylic paint and my fingers. I added a touch of turquoise and then doodled with a black marker.

I am having so much fun with this challenge. I love my tiny junk-papers book and working for less than ten minutes to "make my marks." Of course, these aren't art masterpieces, but rather little exercises to get creating every day.

Art Marks #2

In January, Rae Missigman initiated a month-long "Art Marks Challenge" which involved taking a small journal and daily creating pages/marks according to given prompts.  I played along in February and posted my daily progress here on the blog.  

Now she is doing Art Marks #2 with a new 30-day set of prompts. This is the link if you would like to check it out and follow along.

I had so much fun the last time that I am going to participate in April. I made a tiny booklet of scraps - book pages, painted scraps, gel-printed scraps, product packaging, tags etc. - to use for the challenge. This time I am going to incorporate the time limit as well - 10 minutes a day to create the page. Wish me luck!

This is my tiny journal before starting. The size is 4" wide and 4.5" tall.

Open

Closed showing front cover (using Prima flowers packaging(

This is my first page (April 1).  The  prompt was "Clustered." The light blue and pink paints were already on the page. I added the dark pink pieces of paper towel. My clustered marks are the small tick marks in turquoise and pink paint pens. This took me much less than 10 minutes to do!

Day 2 - "Repeating"

The background color was already on this page. I just added the scallops cut from some of my altered address labels. The repeating marks are the little black "v's" and the raindrops (because it rained most of the day!).

Life Documented 2017 - last of March

I'm playing catch-up for the past few weeks' planner spreads.

Week of March 19-25

I knew I would have lots of photos and memories for Saturday (Carl's birthday) so I delegated the entire right spread for that day. The background in watercolor and I used washi tape for the dividers between days. The days of the week and numbers are on a painted scrap deli paper. Most of the "stickers" on the right page are actually cut from the wrapping paper I used for his gifts.

Week of March 26-31

Since Saturday of this week was the first day of April, I did not include it in this spread and, instead, added it to next week's spread.  The background is blocks of blue and pink acrylic paint. I used very old white rub ons for the day dividers and days of the week. I added a flower stamp used with white acrylic paint on the right page along with some alpha stamps and a few stickers. I like being able to add photos to these pages to document important memories.

Im Back and Catching Up

I've been gone for a week visiting the grands and babysitting a few days. It was Carl's fifth birthday (how is that possible??) last Saturday and he had a Pokemon-themed party. Since my other daughter's family couldn't get away, I had promised Drew that he could come to Carl's birthday. So on Friday I flew into Albuquerque on an early flight and Drew and his dad met me at the curb at the airport. Then Drew and I caught a flight to Dallas and my husband met us and we drove to Austin. Whew, what a long day!

Drew's first trip without parental!

The boys always have such a good time together and Drew didn't have time to miss his parents all week! On Monday Kelly and Josh went to Seattle for three days to attend a concert so we babysat all three boys. We took them to The Thinkery (children's interactive museum) in Austin and The Jumpy Place in Kyle. They all had a blast!

Happy 5th Birthday Carl

The Thinkery

Meeting Aunt Kim for lunch

Just hanging out - drawing

Storytime and bedtime

On Thursday I flew back to Albuquerque with Drew and then home that night. I must say, I'm exhausted - those boys keep you going! But I do miss them when I'm not there!

Anyway, back to my normal reality...

I received a finished "divided postcard" from the swap I mentioned in the last post. Three other artists worked on it and I love how it came together!

I also received the last postcard that I needed to create on. The other two artists used cats as their themes so I decided to stick with that. My section is the far right. With all the stamps I own, I couldn't believe I didn't have one cat stamp that wasn't a Halloween one. So I found this cute "mer-cat" online and printed it out. The recipient of this postcard loves mermaids, so I thought that was appropriate. I colored the cat with colored pencils and a metallic pen and used Distress Oxide Broken China ink on the background and a few word stickers. 

On another note, I also received a RAK from a friend in Missouri who didn't participate in the saving cream background card swap but made one and sent it to me anyway! I love the stark contrast of the colorful background with the black layer and the black die cut (which is actually glossy but doesn't show in the photo). She also added some rounded corner offcuts to add some texture - I never would have thought of that!