Look Out!

Look out! It's book making time. Here's a collage from this past year. I like to play around with eyes. I'm not big on figurative imagery but multiple of eyes, lips, etc., are fun. I have more eyes waiting to become a cover on a composition book.

I had a bit of a task last spring while my finger was healing from the gardening mishap. Create a book for our retiring principal. She asked that it be purple and teal, our school colors. Dolphins, the school mascot, were quite abundant!

 

The spine was three inches wide but the book was still bursting with notes and scrapbook pages full of well wishes from staff members.

The hardest part to getting started was deciding the size and basic construction of the book. There were two items I envisioned. The fanned envelopes pictured above and a beaded binding seen below. Yes, those are paint chips we wrote messages on the back of in the envelopes. One day I will be banned from the the paint department at Home Depot...

The spine was constructed from book board wrapped with hand painted and stamped canvass.

Beaded bindings make me drool. In a good way. The book construction is somewhat informal but the beads add texture and subtle bling. If "subtle" can ever go with bling... 

 The interior pages consisted of scrapbook papers, papers in braille and hand painted papers. I went to town using newly acquired stencils from Crafters Workshop. Who knew that painting could be a challenge? Although I didn't need my index finger to hold the paint brush, I had to lean it against the healing finger. It was an education on how every inch of the hand plays a vital role. Healing was not going to keep me from making the book I had in my head.

More paint chips and hand painted envelopes. It was a sad moment when I went to Home Depot looking for Mickey paint chips only to find out they no longer carried that line of paint.

Paint chips, flash cards and rubber stamping were sprinkled throughout.

Making the book was a cinch in comparison to gathering my own thoughts and well wishes to share.

 

When words fail me, I create. I gathered bits and scraps and went to work on the sewing machine.

I created two facing pages, the #1 page as a pocket for a #1 card I wrote on and slipped into the pocket.

Shoe boxes full of my scraps stash. Postcards, magazine images, LOTs of candy wrappers...

It's all fair game for artmaking. The Craft Fair season is starting up here in Phoenix and the scraps will be soon be flying through my sewing machine as I build up inventory for the upcoming season. 

What a blessing to not fry the moment I stick my head out the door :)

Marissa

Postcard Swap

 I have a long list of blogs that I follow. It's hard to keep up with some of them but my timing was on target when I was able to join this post card swap this past spring.

Participants were to make 10 postcards and mail them to the addresses provided by the swap hostess.

The cards were made in March and the instructions were to send them out by the end of the month.

Desert spring was on my mind so I decided to dig out my green scraps that included magazine clippings, museum announcements and scrapbook papers. The desert flora and fauna have been collected from some of my favorites: Phoenix magazine, Phoenix Home and Garden, and publications from the Desert Botanical Garden.

The sewing machine was humming! These are the first of 15 cards made. I'll share the rest of my cards and the cards I received throughout this week.
Marissa