be blessed …

my little 4.5 inch book was  finished in the span of a few months with no real plan or theme…

just a place to play…

back in 2010 I created a “soul” angel from a sweet Paper Whimsy girl’s head, butterfly wings, a Tiffany lamp from a catalog and a stamped heart that I colored…

a copy just happened to be handy on my work table and this time she is acting as the soul of the Bluebell Forest on my pages below (shame about the glare but I was having sunlight issues in my photo below)…

there was some green silk ribbon threaded on a needle all ready and waiting on my pin cushion so I decided to stitch on the torn page from an old dictionary and a closeup photo of Bluebells from our archive of hundreds taken over the years…

when I first ordered these handmade books from LaWendula I immediately stamped the seedhead on the left with one of my hand carved stamps …

the book then got set aside for awhile … 

a bit of found text helped complete the pages along with a scrap of map that I colored and a piece of painted metal zipper…

I shared my “Truth” pages above with you back in February adding some tabs to each spread as I went along this time…

same with my “Kindness” pages…

I am repeating the images here for my own convenience to have the finished book all in one place…

I think of my blog as a visual journal of sorts recording some of what I get into and even find it handy to refer to when I need a date or link or something…

I usually like to add the covers to my books at the end making it easier to work in the journals along the way…

one of my favorite sari patchwork purses was falling apart so I decided to carefully tease all of the patches away from their backing keeping them to use for future stitching projects…

the piece below was the perfect color and made a nice cover for my book…

the title of my little book (also found text) ended up on the back as I did not want to add anything else to the front…

 I hope to share one of my larger completed art journals very soon as I have been busy on the last couple of spreads…

promise…

Susi’s Art Journal Journey May challenge theme is to “Challenge Yourself” (all are most welcome to join along each month)...

my challenge began with two painted and stenciled pages that I made just because I wanted to play with some replacement dabbers and my favorite distress stains (I missed the opportunity to snap a photo of my beginning pages as my camera always seems to be downstairs)…

 I also enjoyed stenciling with some extra thick gesso to give texture and interest to my book pages…

I had no specific plans for what else I would be doing to these plain painted pages until I uncovered a wonderful Paper Whimsy image sheet on my work table…

I started with the right hand page brushing several coats of soft gel medium onto the little girl distressing with a sanding block along the way…

repetition is something I enjoy while creating so I carried the strip of three images over to the left hand page and before I knew it they ended up being speak no evil…hear no evil and see no evil…

I altered a white paper doily rescued from a recent tea outing with a sweet friend of mine using colors that would blend in with my painted pages…

then I let words pop off the pages of some book text that was also handy and my pages began to really come together…

adding the lace at the bottom was a nice way to connect the pages and compliment the lace in the girl’s collar …

 tiny posies snipped from a vintage hat were the finishing touch to some of my favorite green leaf ribbon that you may have seen me use before…

I continue to be thrilled by the challenges of beginning with plain book pages …

letting the ideas come and flow as I go creating something I could have never planned beforehand …

thank you for visiting and letting me share my excitement with you which is exactly why I started blogging back in the fall of 2007 …

* Happy May *

Kindness is …

not sure whose quote that is but it is a good one…

the Sweet Pea image is printed on fabric from here…

using more bits from my flower press along with lots of layers of paint, gesso and papers …

and another spread I created using a copy of a sketch of mine on the left and a photo from a garden brochure on the right along with torn shorthand book pages, some pressed flowers and greenery…

LaWendula’s handmade books (4.5 inches square … 11.43 cm) make perfect little canvases (I am working in the green one on the bottom right just now)…

this is my second quote spread for Dawn’s Journal Journey’s April “Quotes” challenge…

green …

inspired by the focus on Earth Day this week  (even though we try to make every day Earth Day at our house) I created two more pages in my art journal…

beginning with a photograph we took on the Italian part of a Swiss trip we enjoyed a couple of years ago…

mixing paints and recycling parts of a garden brochure from a favorite local garden…

 pressed flowers from our garden were the finishing touches for my pages along with stamping on tissue paper using my favorite B Line Designs Iron works stamp…

I am joining in Dawn’s Journal Journey’s challenge theme of “Quotes” for this month…

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.” – Pedro Calderon de la Barca

sunlight and flower petals…

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” ~Twyla Tharp

it has been a little while since I have gotten my hands into paint as I seem to have my camera in my hands this time of year snapping photos of the glorious Spring blooms arriving anew each day (sorry to all of my friends where Spring is long overdue!)…

wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do other than use some of my new dabber paints…

using a page from a large print book I let a few words pop off the page at me and was inspired…

my camera was downstairs so there is only this one photograph of my pages just about completed after lots and lots of layers of paint and rubber stamping…

being recently inspired by a talented artist’s beautiful creativity I knew that my pages could use some of this leaf trim…

often I find it good to step away from what I am creating for a bit…

it is easier to see where things might be added or not…

“Art is both creation and recreation.  Of the two ideas,  I think art as recreation or as sheer play of the human spirit is more important.” ~ Lin Yutang

“Landscape within me”

the Art Journal Journey April challenge theme of “Landscape within me” got me busy…

 sloshing paints and gesso on the pages of one of my encyclopedia art journals…

remembering to snap a few photos to show some before and after…

everything goes better with some gesso, lace and rubber stamping…

first time using a white correction pen (thanks to my friend Lisa for that recommendation) it flowed really well and dried quickly…

the lady is a citra solv transfer I did on tissue paper and I thought she looked pretty with the broken brooch that I attached with heavy gel medium underneath…

the monthly Art Journal Journey blog is a wonderfully talented and inspiring place to visit again and again…

‘Tea with Marie’…

my talented friend Susan created her first gorgeous altered book for a round robin in our mixed media art group…

you can stop by her blog to see her interesting post on how her book began here…

working on the plain French-English dictionary pages adding lots of layers and embellishments was such a delight…

I highlighted an old French ledger page from The Graphics Fairy with a piece of pretty German napkin that I rubbed with gold gouache…

tiny flowers from a vintage hat I collected decorate a French cocoa label also from The Graphics Fairy…

some French 7Gypsies tissue paper started the background for this page along with a piece of old blue velvet for the edge…

the oval portrait of Marie was from a free digital collage sheet The Graphics Fairy shared back in 2009…

 one of my golden flimmers and some delicate German scrap helped frame Marie…

white gesso, gold gouache, bits of my favorite gold patterned tissue paper, torn napkin, scraps of embroidered netting, pink silk rose petals (on the left page edge and behind Marie’s head) and a K & Company vellum border at the bottom helped put the finishing touches on my pages…

such a fun theme and a very beautiful book to work in…