Project Share: Book page Envelope

This is a collaged mini folio I made as an entry for a giveaway.

Inspired by Rachel at Roxy Creations  and made for Andrea at Artymaze. Two of my favorite You Tubers. Andrea recently reached a subscriber milestone and created a beautiful junk journal that she plans to give away to a lucky subscriber drawn from us crafty peeps who send her a piece arty ephemera.

Inside pockets...

... hold these tags...

Project Share: A Postcard Swap

I had a crafty fun day today. I finished up a couple of postcards for a swap for one of my Facebook groups.

I was having so much fun I made some more...

This is for another swap in the same group. It's a Template swap. The shoe template was determined by the groups admin as is the prescribed dimensions of 6"x8". This kind of thing is way out of my comfort zone, especially the glitter.

I started my crafty morning with this awesome caprese wrap. The sun was shining down on my cutting board and the colors were so gorgeous I couldn't help but take a photo😉

Project share and a new tangent...

...collage. Much in the way that Zentangle relaxed me, gluing things to paper has weaseled its way into my daily artsy endeavors.
These are for a monthly swap series I've been making for the Facebook group Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals. Each month, we're given a template to incorporate into a 6" x 8" journal page. The idea is that at the end of the year you end up with 12 pages to bind into a journal.

I had two partners for this dress form swap. In a different swap, my partner had sent me a bunch of vintage buttons. I had so much fun with them.

The flower at the top is made from tea bags;-)

The Cheese Stands Alone...

At my day job, what keeps me in art supplies and a roof under which to craft and create, I'm a Cheesemonger. I work behind the cheese counter of a small, family owned specialty food market.

Back in January, I competed in The Cheesemonger Invitational. The video below  is from a CBS Sunday Morning feature of last years competition. It's pretty fierce and when all was said and done, I placed 11th out of 37 cheesemongers. I won a trip to visit Wisconsin dairies in October so I'm really jazzed about that.

My signs describing the 3 cheese presentations/pairings I had to create

I did NOT create these cheese boards. They were at our meet and greet party to kick off the 3 day event. They were prepared by the guy who won last years competition and is going on to compete later this year in France.

This is a CBS Sunday Morning feature from last years competition:

Yes, I'm a curd nerd.

Project Share: Baby Journal

This is the project that pretty much de-railed me from everything else over the last couple of months.
It was a labor of love, created for my niece's baby shower last weekend. We know it's going to be a boy. A big boy apparently...he's currently known as Brutus😉

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Re-Booting, Catching up and Diva Challenges

Somewhere along the way my holiday blog break detoured into a black hole of sorts...well, more like a rabbit hole of many artsy diversions along with family stuff, work stuff, dead computers and more family stuff....and YouTube;-)

Through it all, I started all of the Diva challenges in my Trainwreck Journal but never managed to finish any of them until yesterday, whilst hanging out, on rainy day off, at my neighborhood cafe.

This current challenge almost did me in though. After my second failed practice attempt I decided to go big and do it in pencil first. Much better. Although I'm pleased with the results, it vexed me in terms of knowing where and how to stop it, or how to integrate other patterns.

My morning at the cafe...

...finishing up abandoned challenges, which was it's own challenge I believe:

I'll be posting my Project Shares in short (hopefully), random posts as I try to get pictures off my cell phone camera.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

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.