workplace wednesday

This corner of my work table, where I get most of my work done, is my favorite. It looks a disorganized mess but there's a space for everything and I know where it's all at. 

lately

A lot of making, a lot of experimenting, a lot of dirty hands!

National Card and Letter Writing Month

April is National Card and Letter Writing Month. I'm a big letter writer anyhow but it was nice to sit down and make a bunch of cards to mail out to let people know I was thinking of them. Learn more here and send some mail yourself! 

it's a challenge

Paper Wings Productions (owned by my dear friend Carrie) is having their April Challenge and this is my entry for it! 

They're just manila tags that I used this glue and distress ink technique on. The one on the left is a combination of Salty Ocean, Pickett Fence, and Picked Raspberry. The one on the right is a combination of Picked Raspberry, Festive Berries, and Dusty Concord. The stamp is the Sweetie stamp from Paper Wings that I just love and have been using all week. I made the love using this Sprayed Box Letters tutorial that I forget about and need to use again - it's just one of my favorite looks. The tag on the left has the heart stamped directly to it (note: if you use the glue/ink technique and stamp direct to tag, be sure to let it dry - it's takes a bit longer to dry than it normally would.) The heart on the right was stamped on a tag that I sprayed with 3 different red/pink sprays and cut out. If you must know, the one on the right is my favorite! 

travel journal glimpse

After months of saving and planning, I spent a week in New Orleans with a dear friend. I had been there once, in high school, but it wasn't really much of a trip, so I was super excited to have a week to explore at my own pace while reconnecting. (And also drink more than I ever had in my life) 

While I don't feel that you have to be any kind of scrapbooker to create a travel journal or keep an art journal, I seem to find myself using the qualifier: I'm not a scrapbooker. Don't ask me why. I took simple supplies with me on my trip, along with the book I'd made for myself. 

The book was a repurposed address book from the dollar bins at Michael's. I made the cover name strip from some kraft cardstock and some Tim Holtz letters. 

The book is a combination of pictures from my phone, my friend's phone, and my camera. 

It's got things in it like the box from cereal I had at the hotel, when we'd have breakfast in the courtyard, plan our day, and I'd work on my travel journal. 

It's also got things pulled from free magazines we collected on our walking tours of the French Quarter. 

Business cards from places we visited. 

Things I found on the ground. 

Receipts. 

When I got home, while waiting for pictures to come in from the printer's (I used York Photos) I went through and put together pages with stamps, stencils, etc. Glued in things from the airport, wrote down details, etc. 

On a somewhat related note, I just finished reading 'The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society' by Darien Gee. It's about a small town in Illinois and it's scrapbooking club, weaving in out of stories about friendship, love, adoption, loss, and scrapbooking. These quotes stood out: 

  “Memories can happen anywhere. It’s not just the big events, but the small moments, too. Scrapbooking isn’t about making things pretty on the page, but about how you feel, about the details in life that are special, that feel good. Invite others to take an emotional journey with you." 

"Bettie shows them several more albums. “You get to choose what goes inside,” she tells them. “It doesn’t have to be in chronological order, it doesn’t have to be anything other than what you want it to be. And if you don’t have pictures, find other images or words or colors that evoke the memory."

i love a good drawer

i just finished labeling my large storage drawers and rolling rack. the drawers i’ve had for awhile but i was finally motivated to move them to a place i could easily get into them. the rolling cart i’ve had for years - again, not in a place i could easily get to. 

now the drawers are fully accessible and the rolling cart i can move to my work station. which means i no longer have to hunt for the things i use the most. (they aren’t the best drawers - they don’t really stay on their tracks, as you can tell) 

it’s not the best labeling job ever, but it works. it also let me use up the ugly tim holtz paper i’ve had forever. i’d take the stickers off the inside dividers, but honestly, ain’t nobody got time for that.

tiny houses mixed media canvas

I recently participated in Smooth Pebble's Tiny House Swap and I have to say, I really struggled with the idea of tiny houses. Which is odd, because I really love the shapes of houses and whatnot, especially in mixed media. I signed up before I spent a week in New Orleans, thinking, oh, I have a few weeks to get it done. I even created a Pinterest board dedicated to tiny houses for ideas. 

The Garden District and architecture of New Orleans sparked nothing. The board did not a thing to inspire me, despite all of it being exactly that: inspiring. So as I am wont to do, I came up with something with a scant two days left before the mailing deadline. 

The particulars: 

I took a flat canvas panel and covered it with pages from a vintage book. (And by vintage I mean the 20's, so that it would flake apart and off the canvas in some spots, mostly the edges) I covered the seams of the pages with some 7Gypsies masking tape, then added two doilies. Those little white round things? Those are hole protectors, you know, the kind you use on the back of a hole punched document to keep it from ripping?  Then once I was happy with what I had, I gessoed over the entire thing. (Which I did not get a picture of) 

To achieve the color that I did, once the gesso was dry, I simply sprayed. I used a combination of Tattered Angels Jazz Blue Glimmer Mist, Dylusions Fresh Lime, Mister Huey's Color Mists in Shine and Seafoam. Spray a few layers, wipe off with a baby wipe. Repeat, wipe, repeat, wipe, letting it dry in between layers. It was mostly just happenstance that it came out the way it did, but using a baby wipe seemed to be the key.  

I ran a length of vintage ribbon along the bottom and each house is different. This one is paper covered grunge board. 

                                                      

This one is a manilla tag that I ran through my cuddlebug and inked to give it that brick look, with a paper roof and door. 

This one is a vintage Bingo card with some vintage pom-pom trim. 

This one was a vintage postcard and vintage stamps I cut into the right shapes and then glued to a thin sheet of plastic. I used one of the postmarks as the door (you can see the tiny little dot handle!) 

The banner is actually banner pieces off a sheet of Girls Paperie paper that I'd been hoarding for awhile now, layered over some colorful twine. I didn't get a pic of it on it's own and you can see it here, but I did do some light stamping all over the canvas with stamps from Paper Wings Productions. I took my favorite white pen and did some very light doodling. 

Finished product!