I Begin…

The 1st of August has arrived bringing with it the start of Effy’s challenge to blogalong with her for 30 days in August. There’s still time to join in if you haven’t already, just click on the link below.

Being a little slow off the mark, I have just decided to join in Effy’s Inner Excavate Along where she is going through Liz Lamoreux’s book Inner Excavation. Effy has nearly finished, but I’m just starting …. O well as Effy says, I own the book so I can work through it whenever I like :).

Anyhow… after reading all the ideas and suggestions in chapter 1, I decided to create a word poem using a few of the words on the pages of my recycled journal. Originally I thought I’d add some joining words between the words on the page, but on reflection, I decided that would be overkill and have bravely left them stark and suggestive. I hope you like them.

I started out by very careful covering the words I wanted to use in masking fluid. Once that was dry, I covered the pages with a thick layer of gesso, then started adding layers of acrylic paint, stencilling and stamping. When I was happy with the result, I carefully peeled off the masking fluid to reveal the words, then added my theme ‘I Begin…’ using die cut letters.

I’m off to see what everyone else has been up to now. See you tomorrow!

Recycled Journal

Ever since I saw Rae Missigman’s ‘Go Green’ class on 21 Secrets 2013 I have been longing to have a go at making a recycled journal following her instructions. I have been an avid recycler for many years and have made use of many books in art projects, but I have never before taken one apart and reconstructed it, so this was a new adventure for me! My first step was a trip to my local Charity Shop to find a suitable hard back book to turn into my journal. These are the before and after pics!.

As usual I couldn’t quite bring myself to follow all the instructions…

… plus I didn’t have all the recommended ingredients, so I improvised a bit! The biggest change I made was to the binding. Because I had 7 signatures and my pages were quite heavy, I thought it better to use a different binding format to the one Rae taught. I used this brilliant tutorial from Sarah to learn how to do the binding the way I wanted.

But I digress! Having chosen and purchased my book for the princely sum of £1, the first task was to very carefully take it apart, removing all the signatures. Next came the fun part of decorating the cover, followed by the much trickier part of reassembling it into a book again! I started the decorating process with lots of layers of gesso, clean and painty tissues, and coloured inks dripped and sprayed. Once I was happy with that I added some scraps of material which I machine stitched very carefully to the cover – I only broke one needle in the process! Then came the embellishments which I added using hot glue and a material wrap to keep it closed. I am always envious of my American peers who seem to be able to purchase waxed bookbinding thread in assorted colours quite easily. I always end up waxing my own thread – and getting melted wax all over my cooker! With most of the book pages safely restitched within the covers I moved to inside the book.

I covered the inside of the covers back and front with fabric which I stuck in using iron on fabric glue, then set to work creating a title page for the book. I started off with a layer of gesso, then added several layers of acrylic paint using a mixture of stencils and assorted stamping implements. I used letter stencils to create the titles and neocolour crayons to draw the flower.

I’m really pleased with the way the book has turned out and can’t wait to work on some more pages! Thank you Rae for a really inspiring Class.

AEDM 2012!

When I started AEDM (Art Every Day Month) this time last year, we were in the process of selling the house prior to setting off on our travels. It’s been a very exciting year, we’ve experienced a lot and had so much fun along the way! Now – one year later, we have settled near the sea in North Yorkshire. I’m really looking forward to taking part in the challenge again.

I created todays art for this weeks Life Book class from Tracy Verdugo.

As I completed each part of the process I was reluctant to go on to the next stage – I liked it as it was, so I scanned the four stages. The first stage above started off with journalling using wax crayon. I was supposed to use oil pastel but I didn’t have any! The idea was to create a resist – I thought the wax crayon would work, but it didn’t seem to work at all! I added acrylic paint on top of the journalling.

The next layer included stamping done using a home-made foam stamp with distress ink, and some more acrylic paint.

More acrylic paint for the next layer,

and finally a doodle layer. I doodled using a selection of gel pens, sakura soufflé pens, uni paint marker, and rotring rapidograph pen then added some additional colour added using neocolour crayons.

Challenge – Use Ordinary Household Objects to ‘Fill This Page With Circles’

I’ve always been a fan of recycled craft projects and using everyday objects in unexpected ways, so when I saw the instruction to ‘Fill this Page with Circles’ I took on the challenge to use ordinary household objects to create these effects.

I started off with a bottle lid, then moved on to a wine cork and its cover. Next I used the cardboard tube from the centre of a roll of tin foil followed by a small roll of electrical tape. Lastly I used the top of an empty jam jar. I’m quite pleased with the finished effect and will probably use the image to create some background papers.