Second thoughts

When I woke up I thought maybe stitch the signatures to a cover of soft felt and leave it unattached near the hinge. It would still be hard to use as a sketchbook and that's when I came up with this great idea. Why not fill the pages with something and then have it as a tin book of art work. 

This turned into a "What if" day of trying many techniques for coloring these pages. There were so many I will do half today and half next post.

One of my favorite effects is the way watercolors shed off oil pastels so I used these texture plates (idea I got from Beata's post on the FIRE blog).

These are very inexpensive texture plates for children I bought from Dick Blick years ago.

Yes, I am actually painting on a new book!

Then I tried Dye-Na-Flo paints and splashed it on wet paper like acrylic inks.

Finally stopped painting on a new book (lazy) and put down a piece of lexan which I could wipe with a sponge.

Don't get too excited. The salt did nothing!!

The Tin Book

One of my good friends found this box of colored pencils in her house and thought of me.

I saw the box of colored pencils and thought, "Boy, wouldn't this tin make a great cover for a book"!

I measured out the inside dimensions of the box and torn four signatures

I thought I would do a pamphelet binding stitching the four signatures to a piece of card stock them glue the front and back covers of the book to the inside front and back of the tin. Great idea.

Then I started to look at the joint (hinge) of the box and wondered how exactly that would work. Could I use it as a sketchbook? Hum! I better sleep on this.

The big clean up

I started to make this cute "tin" book and while folding the signatures I noticed black smootch on the paper. I knew it was time to clean my cutting mats. I think I've mentioned before my fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants approach to my work and my laziness around protecting my table tops and clothes. The apron from a few weeks ago is a good start but I needed to scrub the cutting mat vigorously. Alas, it was in such bad shape, I decided to peek on the other side and see what was there. ALL CLEAN and new looking. So I flipped both cutting mats and could start fresh. I covered the cutting mat with an 18 X 24" piece of paper and started to print the solstice cards. Within minutes I had speckles of paint outside the bounds of the paper. I finished the cards and scrubbed the mat (and table).

The work table before the cards - all new looking

 

After scrubbing the speckles to no avail.

Sometimes I just can't win for losing. Well, it's mostly clean. I need a new plan for the next project.

Solstice cards

This year I am doing a repeat of an old solstice card that I sent many years ago. I sent it to my friends and one sent me a copy if it in the mail with a note saying that she kept it with her all these years. I realized how much I loved the sentiment and how pertinent it was in just about everyone's life.

Here is the card and the sentiment

Have a wonderful (warm) winter solstice 

A bigger winner than I thought!

A few weeks ago I won a give-away of a beautiful handmade necklace from Joke. Well, the package came today and what a surprise. This is what was inside:

Joke has the same sense of color that I have and I LOVE texture

I'll try to only do this once

 I'm sorry but I just can't contain myself. This is our new dog, Owen. He is a rescue from Louisiana and he is perfect: cute, smart, well behaved, and fun PLUS he at 18 months gets along great with my 10.5 year old Poodle, Niamh.

I was trying to make a fitted fleece "sheet" for his upstairs dog bed and when I put the bed on the fabric he perched!

"I don't want to get out of bed"

He actually sleeps like that even under the blankets!

He and Niamh waiting at the window in Brian's room

Niamh

Acid dyeing with Grace

My neighbor Grace came over and since she really isn't a surface designer I thought we might make a few silk scarves with acid dye in the microwave oven.

We started by wetting or dry crepe de chine scarves (14" X 72") in a vinegar/water bath. I make mine strong 4 water to 1 vinegar. We squeezed the solution out, opened the scarves and arranged them in a pyrex dish I use for acid dyeing. The scarves were a bit rumpled up and arranged in the dish then we squirted acid dye on them. 

I covered the dish in cling wrap, punched about a dozen holes it the wrap and micowaved on 50% power for 5 minutes. You know your dyeing is successful when no dye rinses out of the fabric.

This is mine after 3 dyes. I couldn't knock down the yellow but next time I will mix green in a separate bottle instead of trying to mix it on the scarf.

This is Grace's turquoise, blue and red.

This is Graces blue and purple. You can definitely see the purple when you hold it up.

That crepe de chine is simply luscious!