Art Journal pages

I've left off the "Fabric" in front of "Art Journals" as I've not got to doing any fabric work at all, but instead went a bit mad with paper collage. I cut out and collect interesting, pretty and/or striking pictures whenever I see them and have boxes full, so I hauled those out and collaged some pages. I LOVE doing this.

Thread holders

I've StumbledUpon :)

I've joined StumbleUpon. Can you tell we are not too busy at work and I have time to surf the web a bit? My page is here. Would love to meet fellow arty, quilty types there! :)

Covering boxes

My girls were surprisingly impressed with this, so I thought I would post it. I'm a box-oholic. I have so many collected bits and pieces that I have to order them in some way, and as I have "More Sense than Money", I collect any nice boxes that I see. Sometimes I cover them nicely and elevate their status. Here's a bit of how-to.

Use found boxes that are sturdy to make your efforts worthwhile.
Little dividers inside are useful, so everything isn't all in a pile, depending on what you are storing, of course. I use scrap cardboard cut into strips and cut little slits halfway into it, along its length.
You get the idea. (?)

I wanted to be able to see into the box without having to open it, as I have a lot of similar boxes so I cut windows into the lid. Mark windows in pencil:

Cut them out with a craft/Stanley knife.

When it comes to decoration, I tend to cave as far as the recycling thing goes, and use new materials. I like using sticky-backed vinyl paper (called Contact here in South Africa) because it's easy to wipe, stays clean, sticks by itself and is long-wearing.

Cut out a piece of Contact big enough to go over all sides and into the lid. Stick it on top.

Make holes in the windows and cut out enough to it can be folded over. Fold over every flap.

Cut out a piece of clear, stiff platic or acetate. I use laminating waste from our Graphic Services Unit - they have a big box they throw their waste into, which people are welcome to come and pick from. I collect rolls of the stuff: it's clear, very strong and a fantastic craft material. It's also a good book cover to protect school books that get re-used every year and get VERY worn. It is VERY transparent in the photo below and you can only see it because the light from the flash reflects off it.
Glue the laminate onto the inside of the lid, covering all the joins. I use Bostik clear glue for this, as I find glue sticks aren't generally strong enough for this.

Weigh it down for a short while, to make sure the glue touches everywhere. Not too long, as there may be unwanted glue seepage!

And there you are - a beautiful box in which to keep your treasures, for the cost of the Contact and a bit of glue.

Making a stationery caddy (from old boxes)

Here I am again with another of my re-use passions. Collect little boxes eg groceries and medicines and the insides of toilet rolls and sticky tapes. Cut all the tops off.
Find a sturdy box that will hold them all.

Experiment with how the little boxes will fit inside the big box, taller ones at the back. Height and width depends on what you will want to store in each compartment.

It looks a little drab in the picture above, but watch it brighten as soon as you put the things in:

Of course, the most fun is in the decorating. An easy way is to paint it all, but you can also cover each box with a pretty gift wrap glued on with wallpaper paste (messy and a bit of a fuss to make initially, but once you have a batch, you can do them all and it's water soluble and dries clear. Here's the one I use at work; made many years ago, from tubes of different diameter only:

Another lampshade

A chandelier for the bathroom, which currently has a bare light bulb. If it shades TOO much, then it will move to the entrance and Plan B will need to be concocted for the bathroom. I saw this kind of chandelier in Atmosphere, a craft shop in Port Elizabeth.

It's been fairly easy to make, but VERY labour intensive. Stringing thousands of beads and tying them on to the wire frame, string by string. It is ALMOST done - as you can see in the picture, I just need to complete the outmost ring. I've been stringing beads in every spare minute I can find, at work, in the car, and will hardly know what to do when it is finished.

Sigh

I didn't get to my art journals this past weekend and somehow I feel down about that. Mainly because I really wanted to, but when I sat down with it, I just felt blank. So it was a weekend of plugging along on finishing other things which didn't require any artistic input, just lots of repetitive actions to complete them. I'm working on a beaded lampshade, which I'll post soon, and I'm quilting one of the house-warming lapquilts. Also doing some house-repairs (scraping, water-proofing and re-painting a piece of wall - how exciting...)

And just struggling to shake a pervasive case of the blues...

Don't swat it....!

... it also has a right to live :)

Art Journals!

Wow, I have just discovered these. Or re-discovered them, I'm not quite sure which, as the concept seems very familiar.

I have been SO awesomely inspired by the following sites:
Cramzy, by Emmy from the Netherlands. Decorative embellished pieces to feast your eyes on. Lots of photos of exquisite work - thanks so MUCH Emmy, for showing your work to us all and inspiring an old girl so far away!

Fabric Art Journals, a group blog by several artists, one of whom is Arlee. Awesome stuff there.

Follow links from both of these blogs and you will quickly use up all your allotted bandwidth (I did!) and go to sleep very, very happy with your head filled with the sumptuous images of colours and textures and possibilities.

I did a cover for a journal, and the first page. Photos will follow.
Edit 15 Aug: Photos added:
Whole Cover:

Front Cover (left) Back Cover(right)

...Can hardly bear to be at work while it lies at home on my desk, BEGGING to be worked on! - and by evening I am just too tired. Ah, weekend, where are you??

More pics: First page:

Strictly speaking, I suppose this is actually an altered book, since I used an existing book and I am just covering the pages and using the spine and structure of the book. But who's speaking strictly?? I WILL move onto making the book out of the actual pages I make, but this was an quick way to get started. I also want to do mixed media, to use my many lovely papers, so it helps to have a foundation to stick things to.

Here are two of the lovely papers:

I have stuck them down to make backgrounds and as soon as I can get finished with this workweek-thing that steals my time, I will begin embellishing these pages, as well as sewing some other fabric-based ones....

Wednesday is Hump Day (as in just getting over the hump in the middle of the working week, NOT the other kind of hump.) This isn't THAT sort of blog ;)

Making envelopes (from old magazines)

Requirements:
1. Magazines. Glossy, corporate-reports are good. Travel brochures are also great. The glossy ones are good to use as they are harder to recycle, because of the gloss.
2. Used envelope to take apart
3. Used cereal box to glue envelope onto, to make a template. Make a window template, so you can see what the envelope will look like on the front.
4. Pen, to draw around template onto paper.
5. Scissors to cut out envelopes
6. Glue of some sort, to stick sides of envelope together.

Optional: Ruler and an old pen which has run out of ink, to use to score lines to make folding easier and more accurate. Sticky labels to put on the front, to make an area on which to write the name and address (or just use a light-coloured piece of magazine paper)

Is "brotherly love" only a reality when we're asleep?

Kuhleke is finished

Kuhleke Moya Wam means "It is well with my soul". I previously blogged about this quilt, while I was still busy with it.

The Quilt Inspector insisted on being photographed with the work as she poses prettily.

Detail: Left, is me sitting in my Afro-pessimistic pose, at times when I worry that South Africa will end up like Zimbabwe is at the moment, a very worrying situation. I worry especially about what will happen when I am too old to work, or fend for myself.

Below: Watching what is going on, looking at and assessing.

Left: Happy, rejoicing, because, as the slogan on the TV ad goes, South Africa is "Alive with Possibility" and it is an exciting time to live and work here, to raise my daughters, and to contribute.

Another Housewarming present

This scrap quilt is for a friend who has bravely bought a house at the age of 59. Isn't that fantastic? She gave me two bags of scraps and bits of haberdashery, braid etc, so I decided to make a scrap crazy quilt for her out of these bits, that she must have carefully hoarded. She often talks about how her mother would make scrap crazy quilts when she was younger, so I think it will be special to her.

Detail: This golden "flower" is beaded, and was amongst the bits she gave me.

Postcards

I have very little idea how to format the placement of these pictures - tried to spread them over the page a bit, but they seem to have got into rather a random layout...

Anyhoo, had some fun a while back making postcards.... nice way to try out a technique without too much investment - and if it works well, you can do more.

Handmade paper with pineapple bits in it.

Very random stitching on sheer fused onto background:

I bought this very cheerful elephant fabric as a child's dress at a jumble sale for the princely sum of R5 - went home and cut up the dress. Here it is with some Elle Plume yarn around the edges and below, without.

Some very zany neon-coloured snakeskin bellbottoms I bought at the second-hand shop and also cut up. You'd have to be on acid to wear them as clothes but they make cheerful postcards... :)

These two blueish ones are rather random and not all that successful in my eyes, but there's no accounting for taste and since I hope to offer them for sale, they may just appeal to someone!:

The last two are my mother's taste - ethnic, striking in design. Not much to be done, as the design is so strong, so I mainly quilted them, and outlined the one at the bottom: