Bookcase of the day?

I have been living in our new condo for 5 months now, so there really is no excuse for not having a completely organized and creativity enducing space. But you know, i had so much chaos in the move that although everything had been unpacked and "put away", it was not really sorted and workable. Sure i could create a few things here and there, but for the most part i avoided the space entirely.

But now, is different. We'll have guests! So a complete overhaul was in order. I spent all weekend consolidating supplies and tools and labeling drawers so that everything would be user friendly for my niece Erica, who is visiting this weekend, along with her mom, my sister Donna, and my mom. I have dubbed the event Craft-a-Pallooza! Above is the last of the "misc" bins and totes i finished sorting.
One of my first projects was to sort my books. I have several categories: how-to books on collage and altered books; vintage tomes to become altered books someday; and reference volumes like dictionaries and foreign novels, that i use to tear pages out of; and ones with pretty pictures, like travel guides. Fairly easy to indentify and sort, right? So why did i choose to disregard these themes entirely and sort the books by COLOUR? Because it looks awesome!

I think i got the idea from isuwannee, a blogger who posts the bookcase of the day. But i have since seen it many places, including decorating magazines. You gather up your books and sort them by colour family. I did green - blue - pink - white along one shelf, and yellow - red - orange - brown - beige along the other. No room for black - they're on the other side.

I am so pleased with this i just had to share. Will this make it harder to find a certain book when i need it? maybe. But since my craft room has to double as an office and guest room - i wanted it to look nice.

Happy Halloween

This is a little black cat inside the back of a stretched canvas.

This is a little black cat inside the back of a stretched canvas

I don't know why, but this week i have typed Halloween several times

(including just now), h-a-l-l-o-w-e-e-D! Must be that TV show!

Vintage postcard image turned into a shadow box collage

I am spending the day, nay the whole weekend, getting my craft room ready from Crafta-pa-looza next weeekend, when my mom, sister and niece will descend on pasadena for 5 days of creative bliss. Well, and shopping. And eating some fine food too!

So as i sort the contents of my craft room, i give you halloween collage from years past.

Mini notebook altered with a young witch

a collage on canvas board with stencilled bird

Page from an altered calendar featuring various haunted houses

Another calendar page with a Poe theme - including a hungry raven

Here is a calendar round robin page with a glitter spiderweb

Here is another calendar round robin page - where i just went with what was in the book and added a stamped bat and cat and foam letters to wish you all a happy halloweed, i mean halloWEEN!

2005 Calendar Swap

I will participating in a 2010 calendar round robin with some dear creative friends. In case you have never heard of a calendar swap - i thought i'd post some images to give you some ideas.

Here was my first calendar - back in 2005 - ie before i had a blog to share with you all! I picked a large binder-like calendar that i purchased in Montreal. It was filled with photographs and sketches an artist did while traveling around the world. Mostly African and south american countries. It was beautiful. I added all sorts of fibers and charms to the binding so that it would be exciting for the participating artist to open each month.

Here is the inside cover - i added some vintage map paper and messed it up with ink and sandpaper to age it.

Here was the sign in page - i used air mail envelopes to hold paint chip tags. I used all blues and greens to reflect the water in the oceans crossed by the artists on this journey.

Here is the facing page.

Here is an example of a page "altered" by me. The cool thing about an altered calendar is that you can use the images on the pages as inspiration to create something. And the best things are spontaneous and evolve -in my case, with what supplies i have within arms reach of my craft table. With regular altered books i tend to over-think the collage. Or plan it more.

With the calendars you already have illustrations on the page - so your colour choices are more or less predetermined. So you can grab anything in that theme and stick it to the page. It opens you up to creating more interesting pages - filled with juxtaposition. Here i did some journaling - detailing daily events in the weekly calendar pages. But mostly covered the whole thing up with a transparency. I think it was a Gauguin i printed on a transparency because the colours and mood meshed with the illustrations on the page.

Here you can see i covered a sail boat image with some blue netting - and just scribbled on some swirls and stars. Very haphazard and LOOSE!

Mind you - this calendar was already printed with very loose illustrations or notated photographs. The artists name is Titouan Lamazou if you want to look him up.

Check out his art here.

The artwork that the other 11 artists did in this book are something i will always cherish. I sort of feel funny about scanning their altered pages and posting them here. I'll think about it. But i think it is fare to say that this particular calendar was inspiring to them all.

Mixed Media Monday - Marvelous Moustache

In keeping with the season - here is my entry for the weekly on-line challenge at Mixed Media Monday. The theme this week is "moustache"! What better gent than Mr. Edgar Allan Poe himself. This is an altered journal done in a creepy Halloween theme.

Mr. Poe is on the inside cover. he sits ontop of somem vintage journal pages, some text from a european book, Czech or Polish - not Transylvanian - but it looks appropriate. bunch of scribbles add to the effect.

Here is the cover of the journal, titled appropriately Quoth the Raven. The image is from the book but that is a random spooky mansion. The whole cover is coated with a layer of melted beeswax. It gives an ethereal effect.

Here is the back cover - some sheet music with the right degree of sepia aging. The dictionary snippet has the listing for Vulture. A leaf-less foam tree finishes it off.

Please check out Mixed Media Monday comments with links to many other fabulous artists work!

Papaya! Design Challenge

I am a big fan of Anahata Katkin and her company Papaya!. I have her beautiful wall calendar and journal. So I am proud and excited to participate in the first ever Papaya Design Challenge. I read her blog, plus the company blog everyday, so I quickly signed up when the call went out last week and was one of the first lucky 25. woo woo!!

We each got to pick two decorative papers and 5 letter gift tags from their line. They sent us the supplies along with a stack of cool papalicious stickers and labels.

Ok – there is a catch, right? Sure is! We each have to create something with their products and send them pictures, videos, blog entries, whatever we can to get them excited about what us paper crazy people might do with their stuff.

In this case, more specifically, we are to create cool gift wrapping ideas. I need an actual gift giving idea – to help me come up with something to do with my new paper. Next month my mom, my sister and my niece are coming for a visit. It is a repeat of the craftapalooza event we had last year. Read all about it here.

So why not create a real crafting retreat for us girls, complete with welcome goodie bags?? I’ll make gift bags for us girls and fill them with treats. Oh – and one step even FURTHER. I'll actually make some gifts too!

I used cigar boxes to hold gift card sets made out of the papers. I decorated some guest soaps. I also altered a plain journal. Two gift bags, two decorated cigar boxes, two gift card sets, a set of guest soaps and a journal - all created and inspired by Papaya! gift wrap paper!!

Here is a cigar box covered with dictionary pages and accented with Papaya! Indian Floral paper and a sparkley Papaya! sticker. I hate cutting things out - i only do it if the effect will be awesome. Dontcha think it is??

Here is another cigar box covered with a gorgeous Pam Garrison paper called Vintage Tangerine. No need for fancy embellishment - the paper is so lovely - Pam uses vintage wallpaper to create collage in her journals. I just added a bit of white gesso around the edges and a key with a tattered piece of ribbon.

Here is a nice shot of a group of items i created- yeah - me - i created all these things from two sheets of paper! A gift bag, a covered cigar box, a journal and some note cards and envelopes.

Oh yeah - and some soap. Here is the box of guest soaps that i covered with hand painted deli paper and accented with a band of the Pam Garrison paper. (too beautiful to give away...)

This is the deli paper i used - having a large assortment of colours is key! Here is the last time i made a big batch.

And i covered the lid of the box as well. I accented it with a scalloped strip of dictionary paper and some leaf trim.

Here is a gift bad i covered to hold another cigar box. I used a Dominoes Pizza take out bag - just glued on the Papaya! paper and added some trim and ribbon.

Here is the gift bag and set of soaps. You can see i added a pretty pearl H and some organza ribbon.

Here is a blank journal that i covered with paper and added some ribbon, rickrack, lace and a tin bird. A bit of black sharpie highlights the details.

Here is the inside.

To make the sets of note cards - I cut out shapes and swirls from the papaya paper. I found a set of blank note cards and envelopes in my stash. I used the paper cut outs to add style and colour to the note cards and envelopes. Just applied with some glue stick.

Here is the gift bag and cigar box using the Indian Floral pattern

Here are the note cards. Won’t they just love it?

Please check out the Papaya website here:

Check out Anahata’s blog here:

And check out the Papaya company blog here:

350.org Art Show

Here are some images from the 350.org art show i participated in at Zinnia in South Pasadena. I wrote about it here. there were over 350 5" square works of art, including those done by children at some local schools. Read all about it at the Zinnia blog.

The works were available to sell at 3:50 sat afternoon. We went by the store late sat, and i was a bit sad to see that none of my 4 beeswax collage pieces had sold. But they will be hanging in the store for a few weeks - so maybe. Believe me - it is not about the money - although that would be nice for me, the store and the 350.org charity. It would just be nice to get some, you know, "validation" by selling one. But if i get to take them all back home -well, that would be totally ok too! I will proudly hang them on my own walls.

That cute one with the felt balls sold right away!

That's mine in the middle - my mom and my aunt.

Again in the middle - my mom and aunt with their parents.

Top center, my aunt, my mom, and my godmother and godfather.

The one underneath is one of the student pieces. The whole class did scratch paintings in black paint over multi coloured backgrounds.

Above the little witch, my grandparents, my aunt and my mom and dad on their wedding day.

That's me!

Dripping Colour

I was on a roll yesterday, buoyed by the fact that i delivered my 4 beeswax collage to a gallery show, that i decided it was time to paint something. I haven't done anything in over 6 months. I wanted to try a technique i first saw on the show Top Design last year. One of the designers,Nathan Thomas created a quick painting for his room in the finale. It was so impressive. Th trick is that you paint it in one direction - then flip it sideways so that the drips run ACROSS the canvas. I think it tricks the eye in some way. It is not rocket science or high art - but it looks cool.

The first step was to spray water along the top edge of the canvas - you can faintly see the lines dripping down. Th first step SHOULD have been to go purchase a heavy plastic drop cloth, but i do like to jump right in and start working - so i thought a few newspapers on the linoleum would suffice (they did not).
Then i started squirting cheap acrylic paint along the top edge, spritzing it with more water, and letting the drips fall. You can see some of the paint was clumpy - so i added more water to thin it out.
At this stage i am worried that it is not going to have the effect i want. I want to make sure the drips show - and don't get completely painted over.

Here i am just adding more paint - sticking with a blues and greens pallette.

Here you can see i added some splashes of orange and red. I tried yellow - but the paint i had was not intense enough to stand up. You can see there are some globs and smudges - but it adds to the overall effect.

Drum roll please..... here it is! You let it dry, clean up the colossal mess you made, get in fight with husband over the crucial drip cloth, end up painting some old wooden deck chairs with the puddle of paint on the floor and hang it on the wall!

Ta da!