it is time again for Elizabeth’s second look at a favorite blog post from our archives and since it is also T Stands for Tuesday I thought I would select a favorite post that had to do with tea and combine the two …
here goes (I disabled any links that are no longer working):
from the “365 Things Every Tea Lover Should Know” … thank you Judy P
I am joining Elizabeth of Altered Book Lover again this month to take a second look at a blogpost that I originally shared back in April of 2009…this was one of many wooden ATCs/blocks that I altered around that time…it is fun to see how my photography and format have changed since I began blogging in 2007…
“In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson “
February already and it’s time for the second “Second on the 2nd” thanks to Elizabeth at Altered Book Lover for the chance to look back and repost something you would like to share again…
here is a look back to February 2012 and an altered heart book that I created…
the post was titled “pages of my heart”…
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ~Marc Chagall”
Art Journal Journey’s June challenge theme is “Houses/ Häuser” so I got busy in my Full Circle art journal working on a page that had a green flower and some vintage paper lace glued in place…
I cut the PaperWhimsy girl‘s hands to drape over her castle and added some Dresden wings and a tiny crown…
paint…gesso…pencil scribbles with some scraps of favorite golden tissue and plastered book text helped finish my pages…
“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.” ~Unknown
the August challenge over at Art Journal Journey (AJJ) is QUADRAT / SQUARE…
“inchies” (1×1 inch squares) immediately came to mind along with this collage I had made on a piece of scrapbook paper way back when...
I printed the sheet and cut rows to create a border…
reducing the size a bit to better fit my 5.50 x 6.25 inch (13.97 x 15.87 cm) spiral journal pages…
next I checked a tin I altered awhile ago which holds twinchies (2×2 inch collage squares) I had made...
I found two that spoke to me so I glued them onto cut squares of map paper…
I really enjoy starting with blank pages letting them evolve without much planning (Paper Whimsy girls are always irresistible)…
inking the edges and smearing some of my new Viva Inka Gold Metallic Rub for highlights
♥ thank you very much for your visit ♥
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…
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 *
Dawn’s Journal Journey’s challenge theme this month is “Choose a Word” …
I started working in a sweet little handmade journal that the talented LaWendula created with magazine pages, gesso and paint (each page measures 4.5 x 4.5 inches * 11.43 x 11.43 cm) …
the precious Paper Whimsy girl on the left is from a collage sheet that I won in Nancy of Sugar Lump Studios’ fabulous 14 Days of Hearts creativity and sharing earlier this month with special thanks to Gale Blair for generously gifting several lucky people each day with Paper Whimsy collage sheets …
I walked away from my pages for a bit and when I looked at them again I realized the girl could use a ‘crown’ which led to adding more bits of old lace and netting…
Google Translation of the German text that I randomly tore out of a book for the page above: “Is it because of sensitivity? It’s about honesty, of all against himself over. A person has only so much honesty as he can afford. Honesty is …”
my TRUTH page began with a photocopy of one of the felted wool cards I made in January adding a scrap of map paper, bits of torn lace and some rubber stamping …
Valentine’s Day came and went so quickly …
I know it would be wise to start on Easter and Spring creating NOW 😉
“Love is the medicine that accelerates healing.
Love yourself,
love your neighbor,
love your enemies,
but begin with self-love.
You cannot love others until you love yourself.
You cannot share what you do not have.
If you do not love yourself, you cannot love anyone else either.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz
* you are Loved * oxo *
assorted fabrics, lace and velvet rickrack sewn onto watercolor paper, Paper Whimsy girl, scuffed up beads that Mr Magpie found in the road, Dutch postage stamp with silk ribbon for hanging…
“Love is a language spoken by everyone but understood only by the heart.” ~Unknown
heart BOOK that is…
a couple of years ago I picked up a heart shaped book and covered it with paper, fabric and bits of this and that…
closed it measures approximately 6 x 6 inches (15,24cm)…
using paint, gesso, paper and more for the blank pages…
I left a little room above for some journaling or a quote perhaps…
I also plan to edge the pages…
these blue pages were inspired by a ferry boat ride to Sausalito and some really fun late night cable car rides in San Francisco…
I used black gesso for these pages along with Italian cookie wrappers and paper doilies with white gel pen to finish…
this spread uses a copy of a seaside siren I created … a bit of road map, rubber stamping and a special Polish postage stamp from a very talented blog friend…
I {heart} postage stamps and have collected them since I was a girl…
these pages were inspired by a castle in Berkeley Spring, West Virginia using patterned tissue as background…
my “Seasoned” pages began with vintage math book pages…
the word seasoned came from a package of firewood sold at the local supermarket…
the last two pages pictured are actually the first two pages in the book that I covered with tissue paper…
they have been patiently waiting for just the right finish…
do you ever slow down on a project just before completing it?
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ~Marc Chagall
Posted in Altered Book, Fabric/Ribbon/Fiber/Lace, Heart, Mixed Media, Paint, Paper, PaperWhimsy (PW), Photography, Quote
some mail days really outshine others…
our mailbox was pretty darn amazing yesterday…
thanks to my sweet friend Linda in Texas for some really special surprises……
AND to Stampington and Company for publishing one of my fabric pieces in the Gallery section of their Winter 2012 issue of SEW Somerset…
as I pulled the plastic wrap off the magazine I wondered what it might be…
then I saw this…
WHAT…
oh my gosh how exciting…
but I had absolutely no clue what it might be…
often I will look at magazines beginning at the back…
not this time…
I started carefully at the front…
at one point thinking ‘oh my this must be a mistake’…
finally on the very last page of the GALLERY section…
page 139…
there she was…
my “Cherry Pie” sweet Paper Whimsy girl fabric and paper creation (the PW credit along with a couple of other sentences were edited out of my description)…
did I mention that I was opening the mail in the car while Mr Magpie was in the coffee shop getting fuel for our day…
we were headed over to Maryland to spend a Hobby Lobby gift card that I won…my first time ever setting foot in a Hobby Lobby…
next stop since we were in the neighborhood was to visit Patti Euler’s amazing store in Savage Mill, Maryland…
The Queen’s Ink AND she just happened to have some hot off the press SEW Somerset’s on her extensive magazine rack…
more on the amazing new toy I bought there in another post…
everything has a story…doesn’t it 🙂
after a little checking when we got back home I found that I had sent this piece to Somerset back in January of this year…
no wonder I forgot about her…
a lot has happened since then…
featured in this issue are three very talented and special blog friends of mine each with full articles in the magazine…
and Caterina in Michigan…
lots of gorgeous creativity…
it really is a very nice issue if I say so myself…
wait I’ve already said that haha…
check back soon as I will be giving away a copy of the magazine to celebrate…
and again I must thank the sweet and talented Estivalia in Chile for helping me get the new Published Widget on my sidebar…what a doll she is always!!!
this soon to be altered metal recipe box has been kicking around for awhile now…
it is perfect for holding my 3×5″ index cards…
my attempt at creating an earthquake card did not work out…
but I did want to share some of the other cards I created recently…
with a short description of what went into each…
I so enjoy putting bits of this and that together…
playing with scissors and glue never gets old…
it seems my blog has turned into part of my memory…
you may notice that there are underlined words in most of my posts…
I try to add links to provide further info and of course give credit where credit is due…
there is a handy tool on my sidebar marked “Looking for Something” … typing in a word or two oftentimes takes me where I need to go…
for a clearer view you can click on the pictures…it helps sharpen them…I should really take the time to get out the tripod…
here goes…
Citra Solv background…scraps of paper doily and graph paper…copy of a TAP transfer piece I made with beaded and stitched silk frame…Goddess stamp …
Citra Solv background…stamping…gold Krylon pen…scrap paper from garden catalog…faux leaves and flower colored with Sharpie…center brad…gold napkin for bottom trim…the image was in a cigar box with some pages I cut up for text…not certain where she is from…
mini me…age two in Germany on a paint scraped and doily gesso background…German book text (thank you Margaret I finally got brave enough to rip those nice pages) …text washi tape…and rubber stamps from Catslife Press…really Loving the “Remember to Play Everyday” freebie stamp from them…
another Citra Solv background…some you hardly want to cover up they have such great colors and design…the Polish postage stamps really inspired me on this one…a Debbie Warren free microscope size image trimmed down with a little more graph paper at the bottom…
I had scanned a piece of green and black collaged background paper that I created some time ago added a little gesso stenciling with a plastic doily…along with my favorite Paper Whimsy sun face…dotted piece from a recycled envelope…black rubons and the word “luminous” cut from a paint sample…
another piece of my scanned background glued onto my pink index card…I decided to print it larger which made it a little different and interesting…my favorite “Art Helps Me Breathe” stamp again from Catslife Press and the fan stamp enhanced a bit with my white Signo gel pen…
our house is on high ground here in Northern Virginia…
still not sure what to expect with Hurricane Irene…
they are throwing the “historic” word around again…
we are hoping for just a tropical storm here in the Washington DC area…
it will be nice to say “Goodnight Irene“ after this weekend…
sending best wishes for everyone’s safety…
may each of you stay out of harm’s way…
OXO
I try to give credit where credit is due. Please do not use any images or text from my Magpie's Nest Blog without my permission.
I do not mind being pinned on Pinterest if you link back to the item on my blog. Thank you
~*~ Patty
you can contact me at:
PatriziaSzymkowicz (at) gmail.com
Magpie's Nest ~*~ Patty Szymkowicz 