Colour Me Happy

This is a pocket I created for Shakti's color Me Happy journal. Instead of sending a completed journal around, she sent all participants a pre-cut pocket to work with.

The background for my pocket is done in watercolour crayon (Caran D'Ache Neocolour), which I scribbled on then "painted" and fixed with baby wipes. I love this technique. It'S so simple. but the colors are stunning and you can achieve lots of gradients and effects with next to no effort. Over that I stuck scraps of lampmaking fleece left over from another project.

I then punched some holes around the edge of the pocket and sewed on eyelash yarn and big, bright leafy sequins.

My leftover box contained a few sentiments from a paper pad, so I painted over some cards and stuck them on before popping then into the pocket, so it wouldn't seem so bare.

So Long Since Summer

A while back, a friend (Ursel) from Berlin visited her mother, who lives in a village not far from here. While she was up north, she dropped in for a couple of hours one evening and, among other things, told me about her summer holiday and events she'd experienced. She had a sheaf of photos to document it all, too, but no album in which to stick them.

Well... as you can guess, that's a state of affairs it takes next to no time at all to change. While she was here, she admired a little envelope journal and a tag booklet, and as I know here tastes and color preferences quite well, it was easy to create something similar that will be to her taste.

Ursel has been on dutiful daughter detail over Christmas, so I think she deserves a little something to remind her of more abandoned days of summer long gone. I'll be popping her journal in the mail tomorrow.

Altered Tin

Shakti recently hosted an altered tin swap. Each of us received two tins, one of which is to be altered and sent to a swap partner. This is the tin that will be on its way to Pascale later today.

I sanded the tin and painted on black gesso, inside and out. I was really pleased when I discovered black gesso in a store in Rendsburg, but it transpired that the brand (Bob Ross) is too runny for my purposes. It's probably wonderful for priming canvas, which is what the manufacturer had in mind, of course, but too thin for creating textures. Luckily I was in Hamburg at the end of November and picked up a super special offer on some Lascaux, my absolute favorite gesso.

Once the tin was dry, I glued a plastic doily to the outside lid and applied Dark Gold Rub n' Buff all over the exterior.

I collaged pictures, papers, and found objects into the tine and painted the left side over with a wash of fine glitter paint. As a final touch, I added a slim accordion journal.

Blank Albums

With Christmas approaching, I've been making lots of little accordion fold blank journals/photo albums -- so called "exploding books". As as it turns out, they are in demand. This year I made some in a larger (approximately six-inch) format, as well as the smaller (four-inch) size, and I can barely keep up with requests. I had to make a couple of quick and dirty album/scrapbook examples, as scrapbooking is not widely known or popular here, but when people saw what they could do, they were interested. Here are a couple of blank six-inch albums. The great thing is that the cover paper is from a luxury brand wallpaper pattern book, so it cost me nothing.

Book of Me

This is a little blank journal I made for Diane in New York.I hope she'll find a reason to write in it.

There is nothing particularly arty about the journal -- onthe contrary. I'm easing myself into the habit of usingscraps of paper and other materials rather than hoardingthem for some possible future project. One of the best waysfor me to do that seems to be to create journals for people.

Crone Journal

This is a spread I completed in Lee's Crone Journal. The spread plays on forms of trinity. Among other things, the maiden looks out from within the heart of the mother. The mother is represented by a torso with a red sash tied at the waist--a widespread wedding custom in many cultures--and tiny red roses. The maiden appears to possess no body of her own, and the mother's body seems both to stand out and to be incomplete. The scraps of sewing pattern and the rich fabric and bead border reinforce the idea of body and dress.

Click to enlarge.

The black and white crone at the bottom right seems to be leaving the page. The pop-up in the center of the page opens to reveal crone wisdoms watched over by angelic figures -- messengers from a different dimension.