Altered Book Round Robin

Just finished the first page of three for Kris' book in our round robin. Her book is small - only about 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 so not sure why I procrastinated so long. I guess I just work better under pressure!

I used a new technique (to me - thanks Jeri) that I also used on one of my row houses. I first painted both pages with gesso and stamped into it while still wet with an uninked leaf stamp. After letting this dry completely I swiped several green, blue and yellow Distress Inks over the pages and then dabbed with a paper towel until I liked it. I spritzed with water and let it dry.

(Note: since the gesso seals the page, if you wipe the page after wetting, it will all just come off. The trick is to let it dry.) The water droplets leave little white spots which gives a nice texture to the background. The inks also settle into the depressions left by the leaf stamp which gives some definition to these areas. I then adhered some bits of torn music pages and cutout images from the Internet. Finally, the spread still needed something so I stamped the "sing" and attached it behind a copper name plate.

I WON!

I just received an e-mail from Gail at Shabby Cottage Studio that I won one of four birthday giveaways on her blog! It's a beautiful hanging magnetic board with darling flower magnets. You can see it on her blog and, while you're there, check out all her neat art and photographs. She also has a great etsy site, wonderful products including digital collage sheets (pay for them, then download to your computer to use whenever you like - very convenient as there's no shipping!), and very prompt service.

The rest of my day went well too. I met five dear friends for lunch at a nearby tea room in an antique mall and we ate, chatted and browsed most of the day. Five hours to be exact - in fact we were still chatting out in the parking lot after leaving the mall and one man came out and asked it we wanted to rent the conference room! It was a great day catching up with everyone and looking for treasures. I only found a few things - a nice silverplate spoon for another spoon fairy (previous post awhile ago), a darling tiny glass cup and saucer to add to my shelf with my kids' old silver baby cups and christening dresses, an old package of rick-rack (original price on this is $.15 and I paid $.25! It'd be much more in the fabric or scrapbooking stores.), a very old tape measure and a few vintage photos of "instant ancestors." It was a fun day.

Last 3 Row Houses!

I'm finished! All 11 houses are now completed and in the mail. This was a fun swap, but why do I wait til the deadline to do these? I had two months... Can't wait to see what I receive back!

Canvas Class

As promised, here is the photo of the canvas I did in class Thursday night. Isn't it darling? My friend Jaclyn designed and taught it. It uses 3 1/2" squares of the new Simplicity line of papers from Fancy Pants and is 11" by 14". The embellishments include die cuts, ribbons, buttons, embossed pink metal and paper, velvet and crocheted flowers. The class sample had black and white photos of her three boys and her husband. I am trying to decide whether to add photos of my kids and keep it or maybe old photos of my Mom and give it to her.

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

for the next half hour at least! What did you do today to celebrate? I spent all day at a "Scrapbook in a Day" class and actually finished - yes, finished - a twenty-page album! This is my very first album since I usually don't scrap, but it was so cute I got talked into taking it by the teacher (and my co-worker!). It was alot of fun and there's nothing like spending the day with ten other like-minded women.

New card class

I will be teaching a "Stamp a Bunch of Thank Yous" class soon. These are the four sample cards - students will make six each for a total of 24 cards. I'm hoping these will be simple and easy enough to accomplish that in two hours. It's always hard to judge how long it will take everyone!

These all use white, dark chocolate brown and turquoise cardstocks and inks and are A2 (standard) size.

Fun day

What a great day I had today! First, I taught a card class and then this evening I took a canvas class. I will upload a picture tomorrow when everything dries.

And I finished two more houses for the swap:

The second one - the birds - is a bit different than what I've been doing. I tried a technique that my friend Jeri wrote about on her blog, The Artful Gathering. The background was first painted with a rather thick coat of gesso and stamped into with a clean leaf stamp before it dried. After it was dry, I swiped several colors of ink across, letting it build up in the "valleys," and then wiped off any excess with a paper towel. After adhering the collage elements, I stamped leaves with a darker green ink. I like how it turned out.

And the highlight of my day was receiving a beautiful tag RAK from Jeri in my mail! She recently had a play day at her house which I couldn't attend and I was whining about not being able to make some of the neat projects they worked on. So she sweetly sent me one! I love it Jeri - thanks!