Kelly Kilmer -- Fairy book

I attended Kelly's "Reclaimed: An Altered Artist's Journal" class yesterday at Frenzy Stamper here in Scottsdale. We spent most of the morning painting pages to go in our gutted books. I took a copy of "The Queen's Physician" which I only bought at the thrift store because it had queen in the title, thinking I would play off the queen theme. Even saved the spine to use in the book, which didn't happen. I was looking through some of April's collage materials when I saw the fairy picture which happened to be the same color scheme as my book and painted canvas spine. I got two signatures sewn in and a little bit of decoration on a few pages before we had to leave, but I really wanted to do some more to the book so I could take it to school and show the kids, they LOVE to look at my stuff! It gives me incentive to keep plugging away on my projects. So I added a dragonfly charm to the front along with some wool felted beads, the front is not finished, but getting there.

I fixed my "upside down" pocket accident. The pocket holds my ticket from So You Think You Can Dance show which was on my birthday last year:

I also cut Alice out of my Alice in Wonderland book as an homage to the Jabberwocky poem we worked on in Reader's Theater, added some color and some wings so she can escape the JubJub bird and mome raths:

And cut out some puppies from my puppy book that I passed around at class because I love puppies:

And, Kelly, if you're out there: I licked the brush when I was finished!

Thank you Cards

The first week in May was Teacher Appreciation Week and I always have my students write letters to a teacher in appreciation. I received quite a few from them myself so I decided that they would all receive from me an artsy card to thank them for their kind words. I found some embossed pink thank you cards at Goodwill last weekend and had to run back for some more when I counted the letters and realized I needed closer to 40 than the 20 that comes in each box. For the cards themselves I sewed scraps of fabric on the edges:

For the envelopes I blew black ink to decorate them:

I hope the kids like them!

Memo Book and Ink

First I need to say WAHOO to Jane whose journal is featured on the upcoming issue of Sew Somerset. I am so psyched for her! Maybe I'll even get an autographed copy! LOL Go check it out and buy it when it comes out next month!
My sister has been sending me good junk from NY since my trip out in Oct. and here is a memo pad I made to thank her. In the last box she sent there was a Scrabble board with a note attached that hinted she would like it used for a book, so here it is! I sewed some of my handpainted canvas to a piece of cereal box, added a transparency and some hand dyed trim for the front. The pages are recycled odds and ends (some she sent me, like menus, calendars, etc.) including some cardstock with hand dyed fabric sewn on.

The back is simply a piece of the Scrabble board with her name in tiles. I used the Letter Distribution section of the game just because I think it's cool! I just mailed it out today, so she should be receiving it early next week:

I'm too cheap to buy straws so I saved my Starbucks straw from yesterday and played with my inks. I have been itching to blow the ink around like I've seen in several tutorials so I grabbed a piece of canvas paper and used black, turquoise, pink, bright orange, burnt umber, and black. I also used transparent yellow, but it was too light and didn't show up as well as the darker colors. Hmm... maybe on some dark cardstock?
I'm loving the effect and am thinking of using some of it in the journal I am working on:

Journal in Progress

I have been working on a journal/book/whatever on and off when the mood strikes for several months now. I used a paint sample booklet for the cover base and sewed hand painted canvas to the two pieces. I used assorted scrapbook type cardstock/paper, fabric, tablecloth, take out bag, barf bag from the airline for the pages. I sewed on many before adding the signatures to the covers. I dyed (of course!) really wide twill tape, doubled it with interfacing in between for the spine. I sewed large beads also to the spine.
Here is a close up of part of the front cover. You can't see the dragonfly transparency at the top which is sewed on over tulle. I added crown tape, Dick and Jane (Look) word for a tab, a Dog playing card wrapped in black tulle and embellished with brads, fabric, and stitches. I connected chain and charms from the spine to the Dog card:

One of the pages is a piece of tablecloth that I used to have on one of those outdated round tables. To the edge I sewed fabric and then stapled a photo of my sisters, my brother, and I from my trip to NY last October. You can see the back of the star flower I sewed on a previous page:

I just love the photo I took in Hawaii a couple of years ago of a sign forbidding rock piles in the Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island with a pile of rocks underneath. I hand sewed the photo to the page and wrote Irony with a Sharpie poster paint pen:

This page just shows random pieces of scrap fabric sewed to the page:

And finally the back cover with a pilfered goodie from Jane's trash (my favorite place to "shop"), the heart of muslin which is sewn on and decorated with another brad:

Yesterday I took the book in to show my seventh graders and today Kaitlyn started her own book (after rooting through our recycle box!) out of "junk" and "stuff." LOVE IT!

Calling all Alisa Burke fans!

If you check out Alisa's blog you will find a link to here and some fab give aways, including a clutch by Alisa.

Unscripted Sketch #4

This is my version of the Unscripted Sketch #4:

I painted a piece(9X12) of canvas paper, stenciled the black "lace" at the bottom center, painted the rectangles with lumiere, stamped them and then outlined both with black sharpie and decorative stitching. I sewed dyed lace and snaps and then bordered the piece with calico fabric. I added rubons.