Soul Journal Page 2

I really had fun with this one. We were to write about the things we need to protect and nourish our creative spirit - the things that shield us from outside criticism and our own inner critic. I followed Sarah's lead and used a picture of a suit of armor for mine - I found my picture here.

Soul Journaling Page 1

I started a new journal a couple of days ago, working along with Sarah Whitmire. Here is my first page. This was a lot of fun to do. I'm using a Moleskine Sketchbook that is about 5" X 8".

Silk Fusion Postcards

These are my postcards for the Silk Fusion swap in the Surface Design Yahoo Group. To create the background, I used soy silk and textile medium and followed these directions at Joggles. After I finished the background, I fused it to a batik with similar coloration and then fused that to a stiff interfacing (like Timtex). I put Razzle Dazzle thread in my bobbin and did bobbin work all over the piece, then cut it up into postcard sized pieces. I added some Bonash and foil, then stitched on the flower just in the center so the petals are loose (I made the flower from two pieces of batik that I fused together, stitched in the flower shape, and cut out just outside the stitching). I added a Swarovsky crystal to the center of each flower, fused a piece of muslin to the back, then satin stitched the edges with variegated thread.

Back Home

I've been home several days now, but I've been too busy to post until now. We've been doing a bit of remodeling to our house; we had all of our counter tops (except the one in our utility room) replaced on Wednesday. My DH took all of the old counters off before I came home. He also had to remove all of the sinks, and since our house is 19 years old, most of the shut off valves to the sinks leaked. This meant he couldn't just shut off the sinks; he had to shut off the water to the whole house. He was able to set up a temporary work-around so that they only dripped very slowly with a bucket under each to catch the water. This allowed us to turn on the water, shower or fill water pitchers or do a load of laundry, then shut the water off again. The plumber came yesterday, so I now have new counters, new sinks, and new faucets throughout the house. They look so good! I've been wanting to do this for more years than I can remember, but several years ago we had a new housing development go in to the north of us, and for quite awhile we thought we might move. During that time, we didn't want to spend any money remodeling our house. Now that we've decided to stay, I finally convinced my DH that this would be a good thing.

So, this is our new kitchen island.



And new kitchen counter with sink and built-in drain board.



These are our bathrooms, with new faucets, towel bars, towel rings, and toilet paper holders. We still need to put the mirrors back up; turns out when they were ready to install the back splashes, the mirrors were about a half inch too low - or else the back splashes were too high.







I'm still working on getting the house clean and back together, but it's getting there.

Arte y pico Award

I was so surprised to open my email today and see that Carol had awarded me the Arte y pico award! Thank you Carol!!

The rules for this award are:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, for creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributing to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winners and the one who has given the prize should to show the link to the "Arte y pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.

So, here are my picks for 5 blogs that deserve this award:

1. Imagine, Create, Inspire by Fannie Narte
2. Ashton Publications by Darcy Ashton
3. Sue Bleiweiss by Sue Bleiweiss
4. StegArt by Terri Stegmiller
5. Dear Me! by Jessica Wesolek

There are many other blogs I read, so it was difficult to narrow down my list. But these are the five I settled on. Go take a peak!

Quilt Camp in the Pines Part 2

I arrived in Flagstaff on Sunday, and have been very busy ever since. I'm taking classes every day. Monday I took an appliqué class from the very talented Sharon Schamber, and on Tuesday I took another appliqué class from Sharon's daughter, Cristy Fincher. The two classes taught different techniques. I like to appliqué, and I've never done it exactly like either of these ways, so I learned a lot and really enjoyed both classes. Today and tomorrow I'm in a paper piecing class from Deb Karasik, and there are some curved seams in the project. I've never really liked sewing curved seams, but Deb taught me how to do them, and I was very pleased with my results. Then on Friday I'm back with Sharon Schamber in a class called painting with dyes. I'm really excited about that one! And on Saturday I'm taking a class from Martha Nordstrand on making a fabric landscapes. Not sure how much time I'll have to post again while I'm here.

From the Road

Fannie asked me if I was doing any shopping. I've been to 5 quilt shops in the past 3 days - one in Amarillo (R & R Quilt Shop), one in Santa Fe (Santa Fe Quilting), one in Corrales (Quilts Ole), and two in Albuquerque (Southwest Decoratives and Ann Silva's Bernina Sewing Center). And then Santa Fe has tons of other shops (including Overland Sheepskin, where I bought the most awesome coat):



And I bought a pendant and earrings from one of the Indian vendors at the square. So, yes, I think you could say I'm doing some shopping.

We head on to Flagstaff to Quilt Camp in the Pines tomorrow.

Quilt Camp in the Pines

I'm leaving in the morning for Quilt Camp in the Pines. It is a week-long quilting retreat in Flagstaff, Arizona. I've never been before, but the good friend I'm going with has been and she says it's wonderful. I'm really looking forward to it! I'm all packed and ready to go, except I still haven't decided whether or not I'll take my laptop. I don't know if there will be internet access - I kind of doubt it since we're staying in a college dorm. But then again, there are always places with WiFi, so maybe I will. Hmm . . .

More Woven Strips

These things are addictive - I've made 3 more. All of these are card size (4 1/4" X 5 1/2").

Woven Strips

Someone in my journaling techniques class asked the question the other day, now that we have all these painted papers, what do we do with them? Good question! Sue Bleiweiss, the instructor, gave us lots of good ideas, including cutting them into strips and weaving them. She posted some pictures of some that she had done, and they were beautiful. So I had to do some as well - with my own twist to them. I decided to tear my strips instead of cutting them, and here are the results; this first one is journal-page size (9" X 6"). I used watercolor sprays on these and glued them to black cardstock. I always think that black makes colors pop - I use it in my quilts a lot too.



After tearing the strips for the journal page, I had some shorter strips left. I couldn't let them go to waste, so I made this next one, which is card-size (4 1/4" X 5 1/2").

Journaling Techniques Lesson 3/4

I've also been having a lot of fun painting papers for backgrounds for my journal; here are the results:









I've used watercolors on some, acrylic paints on others. Most of the watercolor pages are sprays, and some of those used either plastic wrap or paper towels on top for added texture. For some of the acrylics, I put paints on a tile, put my paper on top, and brayered it. For others I scraped the paint on with a credit card. And on one I used a comb for texture. I've done several things I've not done before, and it was a lot of fun. I think that the watercolor ones will be easier to use as backgrounds - not sure how easy it will be to add anything on top of the acrylic ones - but I like them all (at least all of the ones I photographed).

These are all techniques taught by Sue Bleiweiss in her Journaling Techniques class.

Completed Journal

I finished the journal I was making for my son. The cover is made from a brown paper bag - can you believe that? Looks remarkably like leather. Basically, you paint it with brown paint, then crumple it up and smooth it out again, and rub rubber stamping ink over it, and this is how it turns out. I'm really pleased with the results. I modified the pattern somewhat, and here is the front cover:



This is inside the front cover - it is lined with black wool felt, and the tag reads "Joy is not in things; it is in us."



Three of the inside pages:







Close up of the spine:



Close up of my closure (one of my modifications to the pattern):



My son is a writer, so I filled the journal with lined pages. I'm making another one similar to this one for an artist friend, and that one will be filled with various kinds of art papers.

Leather Look Journal

I've been working on a couple of journals the past few days. Unfortunately, I don't have anything finished yet, so no pictures to share. But my latest journals will be gifts. These use brown paper bags and paint to make a surface that looks very much like leather. It's really amazing. Anyway, I'm really having fun with the journal making class. I hope to have some pictures to share in a day or two.

In other news, my son and daughter-in-law have finished the hiking that they were doing. They spent a month on the trail, starting from West Virginia, then going into Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and ending in New York. It's really hard to imagine hiking as far and for as long as they did. I'm glad they had a good time, but I'll be really glad to see them in another week or two.

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

Very enjoyable book - witty and smart. Unusual story - not exactly believable. Set in an alternate England in the 1980's where the prevailing culture is based on literature. The main character, Thursday Next, is a Special Operative in literary detection. When her husband is eradicated, she moonlights as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside books. She is apprenticed to Miss Havisham of Dickens' Great Expectations, who teaches her to book jump like a pro. I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Shaving Cream and Watercolor Backgrounds

I had a lot of fun making background papers a few days ago. I marbled the first four using drops of paint in shaving cream.









I used watercolor sprays on the next four. I used a Heidi Swapp mask on the first one, blotted the second with paper towels, and covered the third and fourth with cling wrap.

Fabric Bowl

Sweet P has a contest on her blog to post pictures of unique containers in our studios. So this is a fabric bowl that I made. It is sitting on a not-so-unique container - a cardboard box! I keep name tags and pins and that sort of thing inside it.

Third Journal

I finished another journal yesterday, and this one is my favorite so far. I have always loved oriental art, and I have quite a lot of oriental paper and fabric and rubber stamps and stuff, so I am going to use this journal to do oriental artwork.

Here is the cover - I appliquéd the square with the geisha face onto the background fabric. I used a set of ornamental chopsticks that I have had for a long time - thanks Michele!



This is inside the front cover - left side is the cover, so it is fabric. Right side is a piece of Japanese paper:



This is fabric - leftover from a wall hanging:



This is the back of the page above - I fused two pieces of fabric together to make this page:



Another fabric page:



And back of the above page:



Inside (white) pages are cardstock, so it should be heavy enough to stamp or paint on without bleed-through. I'm looking forward to filling this up.

Paper Towel Fabric Vase

This is another project from my Mixed Media class - this is made from dyed paper towels! I tore them into pieces and fused them to muslin, then to wool felt, quilted the layers, then cut the sides and sewed them together.

The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel

The author, a journalist for the New York Times, finds a diary in a dumpster in 2003 written by Florence Wolfson. The diary was a gift to Florence for her 14th birthday in 1929. She kept the diary for 5 years. The story was interesting, but not told in a very interesting way. It was obvious that it was written by a journalist rather than a creative writer. It was an interesting look at this young woman's life in New York City during this time period, but it was a somewhat disappointing read. I would rate this book 3 out 5.

My Second Journal

This journal is the second one from Sue Bleiweiss's Journal Making class. It uses binder rings, so the pages are removable, and I tied ribbons and fabric strips to the rings.



There are pockets on the inside. The ones in the front hold my pens, pencil, eraser, and water brush.



The pockets in the back hold my scissors, white gel pen, bone folder, and 6" ruler.



I'm using 90 lb. watercolor paper for the insides, which I cut 6"X9". All in all, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Oh, and this journal is for me.

Fiber Postcards

I made 3 fiber postcards and 2 ATCs yesterday and today. I love this technique, which I learned from Sue Bleiweiss in her Mixed Media class. Basically, I started with a base of wool felt, then used Misty Fuse fusible web and fused on a variety of things - dyed cheesecloth, mulberry bark, fibers, ribbon, organza, painted paper towels, foil, tulle. I used several layers of Misty Fuse, which is so light that it you hardly know it's there. One of the postcards will be for an individual trade I'm doing with Ruth, whose blog is here. I'm going to let her choose her favorite.






Then these postcards are some that I made during the first lesson; they are made with tissue paper fused (with Misty Fuse) to muslin, then colored with several things - including color wash sprays, acrylic paint, and silver krylon pen. All but one will be traded with other members of the class, but I will have one left from that batch. This means that I will have 3 postcards and 2 atcs available for trade with anyone else - so if you'd like to trade with me, just leave me a comment please.



ETA: Ruth selected the third postcard, so the first two are available, along with one of the last two and both atcs.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

I finished this book several days ago, and thought it was excellent - very well written. The story begins in 1935, when 13-year-old Briony Tallis sees a flirtation between her older sister Cecilia and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony is too young to understand what it all means, so when her 15-year-old cousin Lola is assaulted, Briony convinces herself and everyone else (except for Cecilia) that the attacker was Robbie. The book follows the story into WWII and to the close of the twentieth century. I rate it 5 out of 5.

I started another book when I finished Atonement - The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. The only reason I started it was that it was the current month's selection of my online book club (Bookworms Reading Group, a Yahoo group) . I wasn't really all that interested in it, but thought I'd try it. I didn't like it well enough to finish it - although I must admit that I didn't give it much of a chance. I usually read more of a book than I read of this before giving up on it, but I hadn't chosen this book myself. I'm sure that a lot of people would really like it - it just wasn't the sort of book I like myself.

Journal Making Class

In addition to Sue Bleiweiss's Mixed Media class (which ends this week - we had our last lesson on Monday), I've signed up for two more of her classes. The first one is Journal Making, and it started this Monday. I finished my first journal for the class today. The second class is Journaling Techniques, and it starts next Monday. I'm going to be busy! But I love her classes!! She is a great teacher.

So here is the front cover of the journal I made this week:



Here are the signatures (groups of pages). The one farthest to the left is already sewn in to the cover in this picture. The dark blue on the left is a fabric pocket.



Here is the inside front cover:



And this is inside the last (decorative) page of the last signature:



I made this for my daughter-in-law. Since she is an artist, I used drawing paper for the signatures. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and I think she will like it too. I want to make a journal for my son, too, but with lined pages. I haven't decided yet which style of journal I'll make for him.