Handmade first: I was cruising the web for art journalling techniques and came across an excellent little video of how to make a simple journal from a few pages of standard size paper and glue.  Here’s a link to Laura Tiffany’s web site and video. And here’s the youtube link for the same video.  I like this method because you can do background painting on several full size sheets of paper (I used sketching weight), then cut them in half to make a small journal.  The first one I made just 3″x3″ from cardstock, to make sure I understood how to do it.  The cover is from an old Christmas card.  The second one, that I still have to glue together, is from the last pages of a sketch pad.  I used the cover of the pad, which is watercolor paper weight, to make the cover of the book. To glue the pages and cover together I used my favorite large size glue stick.  Quick and easy!

Now customized production: Shutterfly is a favorite of mine – I love their easy software for making books and calendars, and the finished product is always of excellent quality.  Now they have notebooks!  You can choose lined or unlined pages, and you can compose the cover using your own photos and text.  I ordered the two shown in the photographs above during a half-off sale, so the price was right.  Excellent gift idea!  Size if 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″.

The small clutch style snugs were inspired by the Urban Winter fabric from Stephanie Brandenburg’s Urban Art Collection, Camelot Cottons.  I love the typewriter image!  I embellished with sari silk yarn that I unwrapped and stitched on as I free motion quilted before inserting the zipper and then stitching across the ends.  They’re just the right size for my small notebooks!  The smaller one fits a small moleskin notebook – fabric, batting and lining were cut 7 3/4″ x 9 1/2″. Fabric, batting, lining for the slightly larger one were cut 9″x11″.  I used nylon zippers and cut them to fit, after stitching across the teeth for stops.  Each snug also accomodates a small pen and a few envelopes, in case in my travels I come across papers I’d like to save.

So what are your plans for 2012? I’m in goal mode – art, home, life. Writing them down, dating applicable tasks; musing on art-imparted resilience and authenic creative endeavor. My art ah-ha’s disappear so quickly beneath the every day, I find it helps to have a few notes on new things I’d like to try. ideas I’d like to expand and explore.

Meanwhile, it’s good to have a quiet spell after holiday hectic. Time to make the last batch of ambrosia!

Notes on the photos: cholea’s on our kitchen window sill; a frozen winter in Troy, New York the year I was 11; our daughters and friend all bundled up on their babysitter’s porch swing!

Click for a link to the pattern. I used fusible batting for the ends.  Pattern calls for  turning under 1/4″ around the end pieces and layer everything wrong sides together.  Instead I stitched the pieces right sides together around three sides, then turned, poked the strips into the open side, and stitched across.  Worked well.

I’m tempted to try doing one from plain muslin, then stamping words and painting. ..

Best of the Christmas/New Years week to you all!

Next year we plan to coordinate our week at the beach so we can take advantage of the Sunday tram rides from Back Bay to False Cape State Park. Public vehicular access isn’t permitted.

A very Merry Christmas to you all! Next post – beach and wildlife photos – stay tuned!

Boxes from Christmas Cards

Yo Yo Tree and Small House

Happy Thanksgiving! And almost time to start thinking about Christmas! Here’re a few craft ideas you may want to try, if you’re not already familiar with them. I made these little boxes from Christmas cards many years ago, but forgot all about them until we made them recently at a quilt chapter meeting. The directions look complicated, but once you’ve made one they’re easy as pie!

At the same chapter meeting they had kits for the little Christmas tree shown above.  I takes four yo yos, an empty thread spool, a 5″ dowel or twig to fit in the hole of the spool, and a small star.  Circle sizes for the yo yos are: 2 3/4″, 3 1/2″, 4 1/2″ and 5″.  Glue the twig into the spool.  Snip a hole in the center of each fabric circle by folding the circle into quarters and snipping off the pointed tip.  Starting with the biggest circle, stitch around the edge turning down about 1/4″. Gather about halfway and slip over the twig.  Place a little stuffing in the yo yo, then finish gathering tightly around the twig and knot.  Repeat for each successive smaller circle.  Cut a slit in the top of the twig and insert star!

The little house is a bit more complicated, and your best bet is to get the May/June issue of Cloth Paper Scissors – pattern is on page 87.  Once assembled, its just the right size to insert in the bottom one of those fake tea candles.  Photos of 95 of these little houses can be found in the November/December issue.  I love the great variety of approaches folks came up with!

Part of the reason I was working with the pomegrantes, tho, was for our Virginia Consortium of Quilter’s Fall fabric postcard challenge.  The topic is ‘seeds’ – going forward six degrees of separation/free association.  I wasn’t having much luck, but did come up with a bit of verse that might work, and I needed to show the seeds of the pomegrante.  I wasn’t sure how to do that with a silk screen, so fell back on cutting two stamps.  I was somewhat pleased with the results on paper, tho doing it with two partial stamps wasn’t completely satisfactory.

I wound up recarving the image as one stamp, with a border to reduce some of the unwanted area from printing.  Worked well on fabric, and that’s what I used for the postcards.  First I discharge printed with one of the partial stamps, to highlight the seeds.  Then overprinted with gold/yellow using the single stamp with the full image.  Added some stitching and glitter highlights to finish up!

Mailed the cards out to my fellow posties on Saturday, and used the same design for the Cloth Paper Scissors Reader Challenge from the Nov/Dec 2011 issue! 

Here’s the verse that went with the cards, with apologies to Persephone:

I seed the light, it were shining down on me.                                                                           I closed mine eyes, the better for to see.

The under demon grabbed me, all unaware                                                                           Of the rapture in mine heart, the flames he cannot bear.

I surged forth from his bonds, a ‘grante in my grasp.                                                     Six seeds forever bind me to Winter’s freezing fast.