Green Paper

Wall Art Inspiration

I spotted this picture on the Restoration Hardware site. Notice the wall art?

Those appear to be framed pages of sheet music - not the decorated covers, but the pages of music itself. They look beautifully graphical.

I love this idea - do you?

Storing Your Vintage Books and Paper...

I had a couple different questions recently about how I store my vintage books and paper.

So, today I'm opening the door to my non-glamourous methods for storing my supplies. Please be kind, I will never be in Where Women Create.

First, book shelves. I have some cheap industrial shelving in the closet of my craft room. These were supposed to be a temporary measure but they've actually worked out pretty well, so I still haven't replaced them. 

I have very few 'complete' books on these shelves. I go through each of them as I buy them and take out pages that I particularly like, or those I know I want right away. The books are then put on the shelves, and they're loosely sorted so that all of the foreign language is stacked together, all of the children's books, etc. So it's really not too hard to find what I need when I get into them. I do go through the stacks periodically and resort, and it helps to remind me of what I have.

Loose paper I pulled out too much of, or I'm not using right away, goes into file folders in a big plastic tub. It's sorted by what type of paper it is. I also use these files to build the 30 page paper assortment I sell on Etsy. So, you can actually buy the paper I use myself.

Lastly, I keep the paper I am currently working with in an office in-basket. As you can see, it's overflowing right now, it's time to go through and put some back in the folders. I have a bad tendency to over-estimate my needs and add too much from each book.

If you've taken the Your Vintage Gluebook class, you've already heard about this in more detail. I keep three baskets on my desk - small, medium and large, they stack up in each other. When I need a little accent of something, I go to the small basket first and look through the little pieces of papers and images. It helps me use up what I have. 

In the past I sorted all of my images by style or subject, but now I sort them in these baskets by size. May be odd, but it really works for me.

Thanks for following along. How do YOU store your papers?  

 

A Memorial Day story...

So my father walks into a bar...it's during WWII, he's in his Air Force officer's uniform and about 19 years old. The bartender asks for identification to prove he's 21. My father was a quick thinker and said he didn't have his ID with him, "But I'm an officer, you have to be at least 21 to be an officer."  The bartender says, "Oh yeah, that's right."  He got his drink.

 
These pictures are from that time and labeled on the back: 1944? Before he went to Pacific.  Dad was a navigator on a B-24. 12 missions over Japan in WWII and 27 missions over Korea in the Korean War. 

You are sorely missed, Dad.

Happy Birthday Audrey Hepburn...and me

 "For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others." - Audrey Hepburn

What a lovely woman to share a birthday with...I hope all of you, my friends, have a wonderful day today!

Cousins

I just have to share this darling family picture of two of my nieces, Kyra and Nica.  They are great friends.

 I hope your family had a wonderful Easter! 

My Friend, Marion

Did you wonder who won drawing for the April Collage Challenge?

It was one of my first art friends, Marion Bockelmann.  Marion is the second person I ever traded ATCs with, all the way to Germany no less!  I still have those ATCs, and others she's sent me over the years.  We spent loads of time in the same Yahoo groups back before I had a blog...and that's her art illustrating the Your Art Using My Images folder in the right hand sidebar.

 
Marion and I once had an (email) conversation about how hard it is to explain to family and friends that there are people you consider some of your finest friends... yet you've never met in person. The friends we make in the art community understand us in ways (that for many of us) few others do.

So I hope Marion enjoys the images she's won, and if you haven't visited her blog, you'll do so today. Her work is consistently beautiful...and she still trades!   

I missed you...

Where does someone go for weeks on end when they're missing from a blog? Well, mostly to bed.

I have been getting sick, being sick, still being sick, getting well, relapsing...well, you get the picture. Just a nasty sinus infection that moved to my chest and just would not go away, in spite of the medications and the rest. All I wanted to do was sleep.

(Thanks to The Graphics Fairy for the cute ad on the left)

And of course, when I did get up, life intruded and I had a zillion things to do.

I think I answered all of my emails (and oh, my, if I missed you please, please forgive me).

I finished up the Artful Pages - 4 artists 4 ways class, which was a huge success. There was such wonderful feedback from the students of the class for us, both individually and as a group, and it was a treat to play along with everyone. Hope inspired me to try decorative tape...Lisa had me digging out all of my old trims...Lenna had me trying out some new color techniques...don't you just love to see how other artists do things?

The Artful Pages - 4 artists 4 ways class has a fun Flickr group and is now available in self paced format. The class will continue to be available, there's no end date, so you can join us at any time!

It was both fun and horrifying to download the pictures from my camera and realize how much of my blog I was hopelessly behind on...like announcing the winner of last month's Collage Challenge, Leanne from Provoking Beauty.

 
(By the way, this month's challenge is coming! It's already scheduled to post later today.)

Also on the camera - pictures of the present my son was sweet enough to buy. He saw these and thought of me - they're tiny little Moleskine notebooks...about the size of an ATC!

They're on the left, in case you can't tell! On the right is the pocket size moleskine - the little 3 1/2" X 5 1/2" size I normally use - It looks huge!

Here they are with the average size Moleskine too:

 
So teeny - they're like little baby Moleskines. I started playing with them at Karla's house - weeks ago, before I got sick. I have a few gluebook spreads started. Here's one that's finished...

 
What do I do when I am loopy in the middle of the night and half asleep? Play the Hong Kong version of Mahjong of course...

...when I think they should be serving clockwise it is time to go back to bed, I am too far gone even for playing games.

So, what have you been doing while I've been gone?

More Gluebook Pages...

I have been doing a GREAT job keeping up with my gluebook this month. Since the holidays are over I seem to have soooo much more time to myself. Here are the latest pages....

 

 
 
 

 
Can you tell which pages I DON'T like? Doesn't really matter, I guess, I just show them all!

I hope you're finding time to play too!

Curiouser and Curiouser....

There's been a sad announcement in Kansas City recently. The Curious Sofa store is closing. Deb will be focusing her attention on the online store and a variety of other projects she has in the works.  Everything evolves: style, design, buying, selling. If anybody will be the cutting edge, it will be Deb, so I'm anxious to see what she has up her sleeve.

 
CS is already marking down their merchandise and getting ready for their last sales...photograph from Curious Sofa's sale blog post.

I took my buddy, Marilee to Curious Sofa over a year ago when she visited before Silver Bella 2009. She quietly walked through the store and we each purchased a couple things. When we got to the car she said, 'Do you know when you've built something up in your mind and expect it to be amazing?" and I said yes....and she said, 'that was even better than I expected'.

 
Everything must go - sad words! This photograph also from the Curious Sofa sale blog post.

What an amazing thing - to have incredible word of mouth and still be able to meet and exceed it. I was lucky enough to display some of my art and ephemera books at Curious Sofa a couple years ago. The staff is amazingly kind and supportive - they made me feel so welcome and appreciated.

 
I think they made everyone feel that way, and I for one will surely miss the beautiful store.

...and now for a musical interlude...

A beautiful song from The Rescues...

And it's just less than 2 weeks to the start of Green Paper Collage Club!