Project Share: Coffee Dying Digital Prints

 

I’ve been binge watching through several of Yvonne Whites videos in search of inspiration for a group of journals I’m thinking about creating as Christmas presents and perhaps for Lindsey’s Marketplace. I love Yvonne’s style and I’m going to attempt to deconstruct her elements, adapt to my aesthetic, use what I got and bang through a bunch of books.

Front

One tip I gleaned from her was her coffee dying process on digital prints.

She applies the coffee to the back of the page with a paint brush, then she dries them in the oven. I have an inkjet printer so I had to learn to live with the bleed that occurs when the print gets wet.

backside -I love this

I’ve not only learned to live with the bleed but to embrace it,

Backsides 

My biggest struggle with using digital prints had been making the prints serve my style rather than trying to serve the digital.

Another backside- this is prettier than the front

I applied the coffee and just kept stacking the next sheet on top of the last one while I painted.

Then I transferred each sheet, peeling them apart, onto a sheet pan. I stagger stacked them, about 5-7 sheets and put them in a low oven for about 10 minutes.

Then I ironed them

One of the things I had to do in order to utilize digital prints was to break them up from their creator in order to give me the freedom to deconstruct and mash different kits/ papers up.

I have a digital reference journal that I can go back and identify the source if I need to, but usually I don’t need to.

Project Share: Friendship Journal Challenge

 This is one of three journal pages I created to send off to a couple of You Tube creators who are doing give-aways to celebrate subscriber milestones. I made one to keep for myself.

 The creators have asked for submissions of one journal page that they will subsequently assemble into a Friendship Journal.

 The receipt of the page will enter me into a drawing for a journal made by the artist.

 I've done this sort of thing once before when Andrea at Artymaze did a similar giveaway last year.

I had made some paper awhile back with dried and pressed hydrangea petals and tea. All of the inserts were from my stash except the belly band.

Three of these took forever to make but this kind of challenge always inspires me to up my game.

Project Share: 101 Journals

12 Journals in 10 days

The paper is getting out of control so, I've issued myself a challenge, prompted by a post in one of my junk journal Facebook groups. Someone had posed the question "Could you go a year without purchasing any craft supplies (not including adhesives)?

Interesting thought as this made me reflect on why I went down the junk journal rabbit hole to begin with...re-purposing. I was a theatrical costume designer for 20 years and prior to that a student, then teacher of costume design as well. I collected a lot of paper: images, postcards and books about fashion, costume history, art, design, clothing construction, millinery, etc. in addition, things I collected throughout 20 years of travel. 

I started off well enough until I discovered a store called Tuesday Morning. It's kind of a discount Home Goods with a nifty craft section.  In the last 18 months I've accumulated more paper than I started out with.

My riff on this challenge is to make 101 naked journals without buying anything but glue and blades for my paper cutter. I live in a studio apartment so my stash, though out of control for my space, is not as massive as those who have dedicated craft rooms and storage.

Cadillac Ranch

I unearthed a large box of photographs I'd taken on my travels and made a bunch of cover plates. Cadillac Ranch is made from a box of Trader Joe's crackers collaged with painty paper scraps. my fattest journal thus far.

Birthday Girl

Gift for my nieces 25th birthday

Birthday girl was made using a gutted hard cover book decoupaged with a decorative napkin, fabric from a sun-worn tablecloth and a band made from strips of scrap decorative paper.

I had several pieces of "Frankenpaper" sort of a paper crazy quilt of scraps, which became journal covers

I covered the inside with fabric...

There's no decoration within the journals at this point...

The papers are a mash-up of anything I could fold in half: book/magazine pages, lined paper, graph paper, greeting cards etc.

I've given myself a soft deadline of January 1 because I really want to "use it or lose it" and re-organize my space. I'm also curious to see what kind of chunk this will take out of stash.

On My Art Table-Scrapbusters!

Whenever I'm feeling the urge to make something but don't know what to do or I don't want to get into anything too complex, I collage scraps.  Collaging cardstock packaging with painty papers, random scraps and spent art tissue for what I'm now calling my "Background Book", is a go-to no brainer I find completely relaxing. These will eventually get some further stenciling, stamping and/or random painting. I might use them for journal covers or possibly cut up for tags and journaling cards...who knows?

Junk Journal ephemera: I have an excessive amount of  scrapbook paper that I'm trying to find projects for. These are the cut up strip pages that are included in many pads. I mash them up, layer 3 different widths and then do a decorative stitch down the center. These can be used as belly bands and then remnants of those belly bands can be used in clusters.

Works-in-progress: Book pages pockets colored with bleeding art tissue.

"Frankenpaper" (sort of a paper crazy-quilt) made from a bunch of scraps sent to me in a swap.

I did some eco-printing a couple of weeks ago. I'm still hoarding them as I try to decide what to make with them. I love them just as they are...for now;-)

Project Share-Two Swaps

It's official. I'm hooked on this whole junk journaling thing and I'm really enjoying the swaps organized in the Facebook group Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals. Until I can achieve the bandwidth to make video flip-throughs of these projects, I decided to create separate posts to document the art I send away. I also realize that I need a way to archive ideas that I might otherwise forget down the road.
I sent out two swaps last week.

This first one is a Flow-ish Journal. This is basically a stash swap where the contents cover an assortment of inspiring journaling papers, images and ephemera that can later be removed by the recipient to use in their other art. Elements are not permanently bound or glued.

I'm not a scrapbooker or card maker so my own stash consists mostly of images I've collected throughout my years as Theatrical Costume Designer/student as well as  cards and papers I decorate myself.

This cover is a file folder that I collaged, painted and stenciled

I've tucked in several decorative napkins which are fun to use in collage

I also have a very large collection of art related postcards

I have a lot of costume reference images

the butterfly is a napkin I fused to cardstock and then stitched on the sewing machine

there's a little cluster in the corner using scraps and postage stamps

there's a piece of eco-printed watercolor paper

a belly band made of cardstock infused with a napkin

 french playing cards

 and paper clips with fibers attached otherwise known as Hairy Paperclips

coffee stained ledger paper

painted junk mail envelopes

a napkin/cardstock journaling card

copies of my hand drawn butterflies

and stamps on resume paper

I made a snippet roll

scraps and small images stitched onto a strip of fabric

tea dyed doilies

magazine pages stenciled and outlined a with gold paint pen

pieces of "Drop Paper" (sheets of calligraphy paper used under what I'm arting)

hand made tags
the pages are held in place by a length of bakers twine that wraps around the spine and the papers slide underneath the twine

the two signature covers are mixed media paper stenciled with tea

stenciled magazine pages

a decorated recycled envelope holding some clusters

I collaged some napkin scraps onto an insert

from a box that held 12 small wheels of cheese

(I work at a cheese counter)

some more drop papers that I added some stamping and stenciling to

I folded up some tourist maps into pockets to hold some of the handmade tags

This is my latest "Signature Swap". It's an 8 page signature (two 8 1/2" x 11" sheets folded in half) to form a completed signature. The decoration is permanent with pockets and bands that can hold tags and journaling cards.

That is all.