Green Paper

On a Grand Tour...

Have you ever heard of a Grand Tour?

Wikipedia has a full description, but I'll just give you a few lines:  "The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means…The primary value of the Grand Tour, it was believed, laid in the exposure both to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent."

Sounds intriguing, doesn't it?

photograph credit here

So, when you wonder why I haven't posted to my blog in forever, just imagine I'm on a Grand Tour. That sounds much more exciting than I-got-a-demanding-new-job, and sadly, I'm-not-very-interested-in-my-art-or-my-blog-lately.

As far as the winner of the November challenge...They all won! I am sending the French Dictionary Collection to each of the artists who entered. I am missing emails for 3 of the artists who entered, so if you entered but haven't been contacted, just send me an email at [email protected] and I'll get your collection to you.

I plan to keep my Etsy shop open as I sell off some of my extras and things I know I really won't use again, so feel free to stop in from time to time to see if there's anything new.

And, of course, Classes and Images are available in the e-store, as always. If you've read this far, I have a bonus for you - 50% off anything and everything in the e-store. Just use the discount code grandtour (all one word). The offer's good through January 15th.

I hope you're well, and that you're enjoying your art. Have a wonderful Holiday season!

Just a Few Hours Left!

There are just a few hours left in the August Collage Challenge. If you haven't posted your entry yet, you have until midnight CST.  If you don't have a location on the web, just email your image to me and I'll post it for you. I don't want anyone to miss out. (although visiting everybody is part of the fun)

My de-stashing continues. If you like trade cards, you might like some of the ephemera packages being listed... 

Stop by my Etsy shop to see what's available. 

Found Objects

Don't you see that term - found object - and ask yourself, what in the world are found objects? I think they're little vintage bits and pieces of paper ephemera, game pieces, numbers or letters, tags, little toys, etc...they're the things that people use in art which make you say. "where do I find THAT?"

I always think of found objects as obscure, unusual and maybe just plain hard to find.

Anyway, I came across some fun new things, plus a few of my old favorites. I also went through my stash of bits and pieces, then I listed these terrific found items in my Etsy shop. 

These run the gamut from rare things I've only spotted a couple times all the way through to vintage pieces I've collected that look really old and distressed!  

But, if you're like me and you love the odd, unusual, distressed and shabby...well, I have some things you may like. Please stop by my Etsy shop if you'd like to take a look at all of the found objects I found...

 

Ephemera Book, Journal, Gluebook, Whatever...

I've been making ephemera book kits this weekend, I haven't done that in a long time! 

I recently had some questions about using these kits to make gluebooks. This time I added even more papers, especially the kind I use in my own gluebooks, like pages from French dictionaries, old readers, travel books , etc.   

 Here are all the kits, all ready to go: 

 

 Three are listed on Etsy so far.

  I'm planning to have the other two listed by tomorrow. The link to all of the book kits is HERE.

Now the Clean Up Begins...

I hope you're having a lovely holiday weekend and staying warm and dry. It's been a wonderful season for us this year, plenty of family and friends in spite of the weather. The foot of snow we received gave us a pretty White Christmas..as well as treacherous travel and a few changes in our plans. 

I'm staying in today. There's snow on the car and I can't think of a single reason to go clear it off. We have electricity, heat, water, and food in the pantry.  Life is good. 

 

I've been making book spine book marks, I have a few more of those to finish. I have no idea what I'll be doing with all of them, but they're fun to make!

(To the horrified book lovers out there - OF COURSE I DO NOT TAKE APART GOOD BOOKS FOR THIS PURPOSE! If you've read my blog, you'll know I'm devoted to saving and re-using old damaged books that others are selling for cheap or throwing away.  The water damaged, mouse-eaten and warped books can find a home with me. I can re-use any salvageable pages in my art, a front or back cover can be reused like a canvas for artwork, and the occassional decent spine can be made into a bookmark. Any piece of an old damaged book can be salvaged and saved in some other way. 

If you're devoted to saving books, please visit your local library sale, thrift stores, flea markets, etc for books often one step away from the trash can. Not everyone appreciates a good old book, and many fine books are in garages right now collecting moisture, mold and funny smells. Please search out the places these books might end up and save a few. And if they're too damaged to salvage, call an artist friend. Those are the ones we want. )

  

 

I put some of the image collection CDRoms on sale on Etsy, the ones left from Silver Bella. They're all 25% off, so even less than the download price.

The ones on sale are the Logomachy collection...

the French Holy Cards...

the Graphics & Text collection...

  

 
and the French dictionary collection.

 

 

 

I hope you and yours are having a lovely weekend...and that you carve out a bit of time for crafting!

*******************

For those asking about the Book Spine Bookmarks, they're really easy to make...

I used:

·         a book spine
·         Heavy cardstock
·         Matte gel medium for glue
·         Brayer
·         Eyelet
·         Ribbon or tassel 

1.  Use matte gel medium to glue heavy cardstock to back of book spine
2. Use brayer to really flatten them together. Let dry completely.
3. Trim around book spine
4. Punch hole and set eyelet
5. Add ribbon or tassel

You can decorate your bookmark by stamping, ink, chalk or any sort of embellishment, just remember not to make it too 3-dimensional...and nothing that will stain your book pages!

Such Beautiful Covers...

I did a bit of shopping this week, and found some incredible book covers. I'm using them for Ephemera Book Kits and listing them in my Etsy shop. You can click on any of the pictures below to find out more...

This kit uses one of the new book covers and may be my favorite - isn't this gorgeous? 

 

And this one's title, The Story of Paper, is just too perfect for most of us....love the illustration on the cover:

I have one set of empty book covers available. They've been 3-hole punched and come with binder rings, and even some silk ribbon, so they're ready for you...

 

I also found some great jewelry... 

    

And these cool bird cards from Chamberlain's remedies:

 

Also in the shop this weekend, there are just 2 of the loose ephemera packs left...

 

And, of course, paper packages...

I hope you have a minute to stop by.

A simple love story...

I just listed the most gorgeous scrapbook on Etsy, but there are too many great pages to show them all there, so I'm sharing more of them with you....

It's really a handmade book documenting one love story...

 

The cover calls it a true story, but I wonder if it is...

 

It begins in childhood and school days...

 

They each go on on to college - Yale & Vassar?

 

Young adults, favorite past times...

 

the proposal and acceptance!

 

sharing the news...

 

there are 14 pages including the front & back covers...

 

a sweet love story...

 

the wedding day...

 

the honeymoon...

 

their own home and children...

 

A vision of the perfect relationship. True or not, does it really matter?

The listing is  HERE.

In the jewelry stash...

The jewelry stash is too full of things I keep meaning to do something with.

Like these gorgeous charms in shapes of little bottles.

 

It's time for me to set them free - maybe you can find the perfect use for them

 

I've added them to my Etsy shop. Click on any picture to go to that lot.

See these charms and more HERE.

Journal, Sketchbook, Ledger, Whatchamacallit...

I've run across a lot of vintage books lately with really cool covers, but inside they have that crispy old  paper that falls apart. I've started removing what's left of the pages and filling the covers with an assortment of blank paper to make fun journals, sketchbooks, or diaries. 

This one is from 1896 and called "The Guardian's Mystery" - spooky.  Great for recording the mysteries in your own life!

In addition to sketchpaper and watercolor paper, it's chock full of 1930s ledger paper, all of it blank except for the very cool column headings. If you like to draw on graph or ledger paper (Nick Bantock?) this one is for you.

 

The covers measure 4 3/4" X 7 3/4" and are in excellent condition...see it on Etsy

Recent gluebook pages

 I haven't been able to spend much time with my gluebook lately, but here are the latest:

See that wonderful paper all the way in the background there? Says January in French? It's from old appointment book I found. I'm taking it apart to share the pages, they are beautiful. They're sorted but not posted yet.

There are 4 tinted seasonal pictures in the book, I have those for sale right now on Etsy. I think they would be beautiful framed - in distressed white frames maybe?

The backgrounds on the next pages are also from the French appointment calendar.  Flowers on the right and over the photo are snipped from (copies of) antique holy cards; I'm predictable.

 

I collected the Tennyson calendar images onto disk and download, I think I'll do my antique French holy card collection next. I'm starting to get the hang of this.