"Art is my vehicle through life; may we share the ride together." Ron Wickersham

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Another retreat project - Christmas mini album

This is a Christmas mini-album created from long, black "policy" envelopes and bound with a coil binding.

Front cover

Pages 2 & 3 with a pocket made by cutting off one of the envelopes

Pages 4 & 5 - page 5 is the other portion of the cut envelope above

Pages 6 & 7

Pages 8 & 9 - page 8 is a regular black tag

Pages 10 & 11 - page 11 is a larger envelope with a flap

Pages 12 & 13 - Page 13 is a small, hand-cut kraft tag

Pages 14 & 15 - page 15 has a pocket at the bottom
created by a piece of patterned paper

Pages 16 & 17

Last 2 pages - page 19 is the inside back cover

I have set this to post while I am away. We are currently in Kansas City to celebrate my 
mother-in-law's 90th birthday! Kelly and her two boys are joining us and great-grandmother 
will get to meet 2-1/2-year-old Mitchell for the first time.

We will return just in time for Halloween. We'll be going down to Austin to trick-or-treat with the grand boys!



Thursday, October 26, 2017

Fabric and Lace Book

This is the fabric and lace book made during my retreat. It is filled with vintage lace, doilies, buttons and ribbons. The images are printed on fabric. Enjoy!





Inside front cover and first page

Pages 2 and 3



Pages 4 and 5

Pages 6 and 7


Pages 8 and 9


Last page and inside back cover






Monday, October 23, 2017

Life Documented 2017 - Oct. Week 3



October - Week 3

This week was a busy week with friends. Tuesday two friends and I celebrated our birthdays jointly. Mine is in August, one is in Oct., and the other is in Nov., so we try to set one date to celebrate them all.  We went to lunch and shopped at a few antique "malls."  Then on Friday a friend who moved away about 2 years ago was coming into town so we met for a long brunch.

The background of this spread is acrylic paints scraped over the pages. I used thin strips of patterned paper for the dividers, stamped the dates and cut out the days of the week from an old calendar.  On the right page I added photos of our birthday celebration with some stickers and three flowers I had saved from the birthday card my Mom had sent me. (Hate throwing things away!)  I've saved the tiny strip of lace for forever so was happy to use it!

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Retreat Projects



There were seven of us at last week's retreat and we created seven awesome projects. We do not disclose our projects before coming to the retreat, so it is amazing that there were so many varied themes and surfaces. 

First up is my project - a collaged wooden block resting on a glass pedestal and topped with a glass knob. 

One side with painted heart and key



Reverse side with house, arrow and gear



Next is a textured canvas collage. The gal who "taught" this brought just about every possible embellishment and metal pieces she owned and we just rifled through everything. Each canvas turned out totally unique!


Next is a beautiful neutral framed photo collage. Some of the flowers are store-bought and some were made from coordinating papers with the Tim Holtz Tattered Floral die.  This photo is one of my husband and his two siblings in the 1950's. I was originally black-and-white but I printed it out in sepia. I will be gifting this to my husband's sister.



This project is an open box embellished with beautiful papers, many metal pieces, paper leaves and a darling metal bird. We could choose our papers from a large assortment, so these all turned out differently too. I love the metal flourish on top.




Next up is a darling Christmas mini-album made from black pocket policy envelopes and bound with a coil binding.  This has really pretty papers with a little glitter on them and the rhinestones and beautiful flowers add the perfect touch. (I will photograph the rest of the album and post later.)



This is an easel "perpetual" calendar. One side of the flips is a monthly calendar and the other side is a card to write down birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays that don't change from year to year. The monthly cards are attached with removable tape so they can be replaced in 2019 with new ones. The gal who shared this project is a consultant for Fun Stampers Journey (a stamp company) and the easel is from that company. It would be equally cute with the month on one side and photos on the other!



And, lastly, we created a gorgeous fabric book. The base is a long piece of canvas fabric folded accordion-style with 1/4" "valleys" between each page. The cover is a vintage velvet fringe piece. We are unsure of the original use of this but it may have been a placemat (small) or maybe a prayer rug or a decorative piece to place on furniture?  At any rate, it makes a pretty cover.  The gal sharing this project brought tons of vintage lace, fabrics, trims, ribbons, flowers, etc. that she had been collecting for years. She put it all out for us to choose whatever we wanted. I will share photos of all the pages of this book in a later post as well.



As you can see, we were very busy at the retreat, but we also had some down time, lots of good food and great fun with artsy friends! It's a retreat I look forward to all year. Friends come from Utah and New Mexico as well as several from Texas and it's a blast.


Thursday, October 19, 2017

I'm Back - and Catching Up, Again

It's been another busy few weeks. On Wed. the 4th, I went to Albuquerque to babysit Drew and Grant while their parents went to Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon to run two races. Then I left there on Saturday and went directly to a week-long retreat in Taylor, Texas, with six other artist friends. I just returned this past weekend and we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary on Saturday.

I've caught up on my documented life planner and am working on putting finishing touches on my retreat projects, which I will share later.

October Monthly Spread


I used watercolors on background and washi tapes for the top and bottom borders. The dates are punched pumpkins with numbers written in white pen.


October - Week 1



Background is acrylic paint. Dates are stamped and dividers are washi tape. On the right spread I added an ATC I received in a technique swap. The technique was "cracked glass."  The photo is a collage of the boys and I since I was in Abq. that week.


October - Week 2



This was retreat week. We each take a fully-kitted project to "teach" and we do one or two per day, depending on the type of project.  For the right page,  I created a collage of the finished projects and printed a 4x6 photo to use as a tip-in. I also made a tip-in of the business card of the restaurant where we celebrated our anniversary.



The left side of the above photo shows the other side of the "tip-ins."  The right page has more photos from the week.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Quirky Collage #4 - Veronica

Another collage from Joanne at crafty hodges. Her name is Veronica. I basically followed along with Joanne and did exactly what she did. There's a little bit of stenciling with Distress ink in the background, colored pencil work and details with a Micron pen.



 I am loving these little collages! There are still two weeks to go in the series and next week we will be using magazine images along with the collage sheets.

It's going to be a little quiet on here for the next week or so. I am leaving tomorrow to go to Albuquerque to babysit the two boys while their parents are gone for the weekend. Then I will fly home Saturday night (my hubby will be staying on to do babysitting duty thru Sunday) and Sunday driving to a small week-long retreat in Taylor, TX. There will be seven of us and everyone does a project (and meal) for a day. So looking forward to this! I will share our projects when I return.