Friday, February 27, 2009

Off to see the Wizard!

Over at Penney-Jane Mixed Media our FIRST EVER CHUNKY BOOK SWAP is wrapping up. I can't wait to get all of the pages and bind them into the chunky book! I made the covers and the Tin Man page so I will be receiving two sets of books in return. The front cover has a replica of the door to the Emerald City, the transparency art was drawn by one of my seventh graders, Kaitlyn.

The Tin Man page is made from roof flashing:

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Today's Play Date

This post was supposed to be finished last night (and it really was--three times in fact!), but apparently I was blog-challenged, so let's try it again...
Today (actually yesterday) was another play date at Jane's Studio 23. I should have been working on swaps for my group that are due this week, but frankly needed a break from what I SHOULD have been doing to just "play" with all of the supplies that are sitting in piles yelling at me to use them. So I gathered tons of supplies and trotted over to the studio to sew........... I haven't decided exactly what the covers and pages in this and the next post will be, but then I usually never have an end purpose when I start. My goal was to just create.
The covers started out as the freebie paint chip brochures at the home improvement store. I covered them with painted and stamped canvas first. On the front cover I sewed my favorite dragonfly transparency over some light green tulle and then added a Dick & Jane tab. On the inside back I sewed some random pieces onto the actual paint chips for interest:

The next sets of photos show the fronts of a couple of pages and then unfolded.
This page is sewn onto a Claim Jumper's doggie bag: stamped, hand-dyed fabric, bits an pieces sewn under plastic, paint chip with a fabric strip woven through it and wall paper:

My plan is to utilize the open (left) side of the bag as a pocket

The base for the next set of pages is an old tablecloth (for one of those outdated round plywood tables covered with glass) that I had dyed with coffee to "age" it.

Inside I sewed fabric and a piece of Jane's tape measure twill tape:

Today's Play Date Continued

This is a piece of Basic Grey paper (I think it's Infuse, but could be wrong) and sewed around the outline of the butterfly with embroidery thread, used a button for the head and sewed down a Dick and Jane word:

This page started out going in one direction until I accidentally sewed through both sides and had to refold it differently. I sewed down a dyed piece of table runner and added gathered black tulle under the plain side of the fabric.

Another piece of Basic Grey paper with fabric and phrase sewn to the edge:

And the inside of the page with some more of my dyed fabric as a base for my star flower. At the top are a few odds and ends of fabric, paper UPC and another D&J word

Monday, February 16, 2009

Dragonfly & Cat

Geesh......has it really been two entire weeks since I posted? Cripes! The past couple of weeks have been busy, some deadlines for swaps have been creeping up so I've had to get it into gear and start making art, baby! I am currently fighting with a couple of ideas that have been brewing for the Wizard of Oz chunky book for my Yahoo group. The door to the Emerald City is almost finished and I am trying to use the chunky tin snips to cut out the tin man out of roof flashing. Anyway.........finished my D page for the ABC Chunky book for Treasure Art Trends. I backed it with a paint chip "Summer Dragonfly" from the Home Depot, sewed a burned edge transparency over some singed tulle and hand-dyed teal fabric. Dave got me some washers that I painted with alcohol inks (the glue is still wet on this one). Oh, I also got my labels on a huge 120 page recycled technique swap over at Arttechiniques due the end of this month. I actually did two sets of 120 pages (one book will be for April) and finished both ready to send in soon.

We've had a visitor on and off lately:

It took several weeks for him to come to us, but he loves to be petted. He's obviously an outdoor cat, he has scars, scabs, and scratches all over his head, but he's fed and hasn't been neutered so he's around quite a bit. No, April, I'm not adopting him!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Sample Fabric Project

Today was play day at Jane's, we swapped out the gold pages (see April's blog for the bound version) and sewed. I ripped strips of my dyed fabric and made a sampler wall hanging. The backing is fused plastic grocery bags.