Sew and sew and so on

I've been hanging 0nto a dozen or so "girly" fat book pages from friends, as well as some I made, knowing that I wanted to bind them into one book. I was going to use my Zutter binder, but then I decided to cover the covers with fabric. So I just used two rings to hold it all together.

My beginner sewing attempts with my tiny machine continue: I tried to make a patchwork, quilted cover out of fabric scraps, a chenille heart, buttons, a puffed applique and some embroidered roses cut from a vintage hankie.

The end result isn't too bad, but I know I spent more than eight hours on it yesterday, whereas an experienced sewer (sewist?) would have had two four-inch by four-inch squares covered in less than 30 minutes. And, the eight hours were even easy! But they were fun. Well, sort of. Except for all the times I broke my needle, broke my thread, sewed crooked, jammed the bobbin case...pretty much everything an inexperienced sewer would do. But it's a good way to learn.

And now I have a darling book. The back of the Little Red Riding Hood page and the Starry Night page are both by Malin of Sweden. I just adore style, and thanks to her I found the Suzi Blu group. The Barbie page is from Bryanna of The Canary's Cupcake, a fellow enthusiast of all things girly--like Alice in Wonderland, Marie Antoinette, Blythe and Barbie.

The next-to-last page shows the inside front cover with a pocket for Moo cards and the facing page is by me. And the last picture shows the closed book, nice and fat. Thanks to everyone who swapped a page or pages with me.

Marie Antoinette Mail Art Book and ATCs

The results of lots of hard work by a lot of artists have paid off and come to fruition with the latest fat book by the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group, a private, juried group of 75 artists, of which I am proud to be one.

Rhonda Thomas hosted this lovely 4" x 4" book of all original art by 17 artists, who each made 17 pages, so that everyone would have a finished book. I am treasuring mine. You can see some of the pages above. Mine is the Marie with removeable masquerade mask. More about my hand-painted pages here.

The six artist trading cards are from the same group, a swap in which each person used rubber stamps to create Marie-related images. Other ATC swaps in the MAMA group have included "Marie cuties" and "Big Hair Maries." Still waiting for the spoils of that one to arrive.

I am presently in a charm bracelet round robin with that group: sending bracelets along to eight other people, adding charms as they arrive in my mail. Can't wait to get my finished bracelet back!

And I am also making a Marie torso for Terri Gordon as part of the Marie Halloween swaps going on. I already received my torso from Tristan Robin Blakeman. More about that here. One of my torsos is above as well as my charm bracelet.

C'est bien! Marie Antoinette book pages are done

Several days of staging went into these 17 hand-drawn, hand-painted all original 4" x 4" fat book pages for the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group collaborative book. As I explained in my other posts here and here, I first prepped the backgrounds and then I put in the faces with pencil and tissue paper and then acrylic paint and molding medium.

The last two days I drew in the facial features, painted those, highlighted the hair with silver leaf and gold leaf and glitter, added metal as well as rub-on curlicues, punched holes, set rivets and attached assorted fibers. I also signed and dated all the backs and silverleafed the edges.

Something still didn't feel 'right' or done until I came up with the idea for the mask/opera glasses, an accessory with which Marie Antoinette is often portrayed. I sprayed the tiny sticks gold. Designed and cut masks out of black construction paper, glued sets together with the stick in the middle, punched eye holes, added rhinestone and glitter pen embellishments and tied the mask stick to the fibers. Voila! Now Marie can go to the ball, and I can mail my pages off to Tennessee to our hostess, Rhonda. What a gorgeous book this is going to be!

Now, on to my paper mache project.

My mini paintings for a 'girly' swap

These original paintings by me- and much of the credit goes to the styles of Kelly Rae, Suzi Blu and Shonna Bucaroff- are 4" x 4," and I made them for a personal swap of "girly" style pages with Malin Walkeby of Sweden. I finished them up about 2 a.m. last Sunday before hitting the road for several days for work.

I had great fun doing them, having been doodling faces for weeks in my journal. When I saw Malin's faces and girls on Flickr, I knew we had to swap. She also encouraged me to join the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group, and I have 18 pages of 4 x 4 Maries to make soon for a fat book in that group.

The backgrounds of my pages were the first thing I made, actually using rubber stamp in and a blender brush. Then I added texture by stamping over punchinella. Next I drew my girls in pencil, then filled them out with watercolor crayons. Next, I painted titan buff acrylic right over the facial features I had just drawn. I finished off the facial features with gel pens and more watercolor crayons, using water to smooth. I added paper, brad and button accessories as well as some vintage embellishments: sheet music, book pages, assorted goodies and beaded lace. Finally I stamped on some messages, put my info on the backs and six hours later I was done.

I received Malin's wonderful pages last night when I got home from my multi-state trip, and I'll post those very soon.

I have lots of wonderful artsy (and wordsy) news to share-coming soon!

2008: All Bound Up Neatly

One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year -so I'm a little behind- is to bind all the fat book pages I've collected during the previous year, like the one-page-per-month, all-original-art 4" x 4" page swap from one of my art groups, Chubbyville; extra pages from Art & Soul, ZNE, Itty Bitty Book Club and other swaps, gifts and the like. It's fun to bind the year together from start to finish. I started with The Year of the Rat January page by Lois Paolo from Chubbyville and decided to use clear acrylic covers -okay, took the easy way out. Still I've got a beautiful book of all original art from my art friends for 2008.

You can see my 2007 book here and here and all the pictures of my fat book pages to date in my Flickr set here. It sure seems like the 12 months between these two books went awfully fast. I have some incredible, one-of-a-kind books that I never tire of looking through, with themes like Halloween, Marie Antoinette, pink, Blythe, Birds, Dolls, prom dresses and more.

Arte du Blythe Fat Book Auction Live Now for A Place to Bark

The "Blythe and Friends" book, pictured above, contains 25 hand-made, front and back, 4" x 4" original mixed media art pages as well as handmade front and back covers, from artists in nine states and three countries. The book was created by the Arte du Blythe group on Yahoo, which was founded by Shoshanah Jennings of Hannah Grey Curiosities & Drygoods (http://www.hannahgrey.com/) and Heather Simpson-Bluhm of Bluhm Studios (http://www.bluhmstudios.com/), both based in California. The book was hosted by me, the group administrator, here in Indiana. It features work by well-known and published artists such as Vicky Breslin, Debbie Metti, Angela Hoffman, Chelise Stroud-Hery (founder of ZNE), Shelly Mundel, Maija Lepore, Heather Simpson-Bluhm, and Shoshanah Jennings. Artists from the United States, Canada, and Israel sent submissions.The book is a paper arts lover's dream or is perfect for a lover of Blythe, animals, dolls and/or good deeds.A Place to Bark and Meow is mixed media artist Bernie Berlin's no-kill animal rescue in Tennessee. Bernie Berlin's blog is http://aplacetobark.blogspot.com/. As she herself says, "I run a full-time dog rescue, taking in the dogs that have been abandoned, abused or police confiscated. I foster, retrain, transport & adopt. Cats are also welcome at my rescue. I am drawn to the unwanted, unloved and misunderstood. I am hoping to educate and effect change for the animals that do not have a voice of their own."

A Place to Bark and Meow was one of the five top national finalists in last year's Parade magazine charity profile/fund-raiser. To date 2,453 people have donated $44,527 to AP2B, but the needs are constant as Bernie travels to other states to rescue abandoned, abused and injured animals, rehabilitating them (often with costly veterinary bills and medicines) and then placing them in loving homes. Bernie currently specializes in Faberge-style eggs and is the author of the popular Artist Trading Card Workshop. She will send a special surprise to be enclosed with the 'fat book' for the winner.

To bid, simply leave a comment at this link or click on the headline above.

Special thanks to Scrapbook Royalty and its head tiara, the darling Elena Etcheverry, Traveling Princess, for hosting this auction.

Sunday, Storms, Sweets, Siblings and Swaps

You might wonder about this hodge podge of photos. You might ask how I will possibly tie them together. Loosely, is the answer. The terrible weather pretty much all weekend did not dampen my creativity. In fact, I was already in the basement working on pages for the ZNE http://zneart.com/ Zaftig fat book for the annual convention http://znecon.com/, so I didn't even have to stop what I was doing to take shelter, as advised by radio and television. The sky looked quite creepy, as evidenced above, both Saturday and Sunday. But no matter, as I was still smiling from the clear blue skies and fresh air of northern Michigan, having arrived back home Friday night after 600 miles, 18 holes of golf and several hours of meetings, all at the Grand Lodge at Boyne Mountain, near Petosky, MI, at the far end of the lower peninsula.

My very first sight, walking into the house, was Larry (and his twin sibling, Lester), apparently quite happy to see me. I think he is saying, "hi, mom!" Or, he is yawning, which would indicate boredom (surely not) or sleepiness (well, okay, probably).

Art had to wait until Sunday as there was a wedding to attend on Saturday. However, I still managed to get 30 pages done, all originals, using my "sweet treats" kit that had just arrived from http://www.paulaskitclub.com/. The pages are 4" x 4". I'll get a completed book back with 25 different pages when I go to the convention in August.

I also made a few artist trading cards for a swap with a fellow Flickr-ite. 'ATheeC' has the cutest babushka or Russian nesting doll cards on flickr. Here's a link to one that is coming my way http://www.flickr.com/photos/atheec-martine/2587084422/. Posted here are some that I am sending to her.

Home Sweet Home or By The Sea?

Home Sweet Home or By The Sea? I'll take them both! Maybe someday my home sweet home will be by the sea. I'm a bit fond of Myrtle Beach. The sweet houses, top, are the 11 luscious receipts from Jeri Aaron's House Row Swap http://artfulgathering.typepad.com. I made my artist's dozen to send while in Myrtle Beach, in fact, on vacation in April and blogged about them here http://lillysoflondonish.blogspot.com/2008/04/thinking-about-home.html.

I had almost forgotten about them when my package arrived from Jeri. I received great houses, from (top row, L-R) Virginia Madison, Jan Love, Sue Day, Kim Newberg (a fellow shabby sister), Susie Cazier and Anita Edmonds. In the bottom row (L-R) are Gloria H?, Gwynn Thoma, Susan Tidwell, Liane Ceglar and Gerdie Fisher. Many recipients are talking about adding hinges to make a folding screen-type display or mantle piece. Sounds like a great idea to me. I can't bear to put these away and not display them. For more eye candy and more houses, Jeri's blog is really a treat. Visit her older posts, too!

The 'By the Sea' page is a 4 x 4 I made tonight for the Chubbyville group all original page swap, hosted by Debbie Metti. I will mail this one off and get a different one in return. I am keeping all my monthly original receipts and other random 4 x 4's, and I will bind them into a book at the end of the year. My "Song of the Sea" page has a removable tag that can be used as a book mark. I attached the copper starfish charm and seashell with silk cord, after drilling a hole in the shell (and burning up a drill bit). Who knew seashells were so hard? I guess that explains how they survive for thousands of years. See you by the sea........

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Here are some pics of pages from myself and other artists and of the collating process of the fat books I volunteered to bind and distribute for two groups: ZNE Artists and Poets http://www.znepoetry.com/ and Arte Du Blythe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Arte_du_Blythe/.

I talked about the Blythe book here http://bly-me.blogspot.com/2008/05/blythe-and-animals-for-cause.html. It is progressing nicely. After all of the pages have arrived, the books will be wire bound and within, a full set of pages between handmade covers returned to each participant. So, that's 392 pages to collate plus covers! The final books also include embellishments, beads, yarn, fibers etc for the spine, pages and covers, so it has been quite a project for everyone- not to mention everyone who wished to participate created 28 or more original pages. That was a daunting task in itself. But as you will soon see when the finished book is shown in a future post, it will have been well worth it.

Why is it called a 'fat book'? The books are a chunky four inches by four inches square and each page is very textural. Embellishments to the edges may dangle off, raise up, etc., making the book a three-dimensional piece of amazement.

Even more exciting is the fact that one book will be auctioned off to benefit A Place to Bark http://aplacetobark.blogspot.com/, a no-kill animal rescue facility in Tennessee run by the very capable Bernie Berlin, herself a published artist.
I will be taking a class from Bernie in August in California at http://www.znecon.com/ and plan to ask Bernie to sign the book for the lucky auction winner. Watch for more info right here about that auction.

The ZNE Artists and Poets book is a collection of self-portraits from nine artists, plus handmade covers of Mulberry paper by Laurie Blau-Marshall, Washington, of Living Out Loud http://loudlife-laurieblaumarshall.blogspot.com/; Cathy Minerva of Georgia and also embellishments by Stacey Merrill and Jodi Barone of Vines, http://www.wildvines.blogspot.com/, the group moderator. Allison Berringer of http://musingsofnosilla.blogspot.com/ and Hope/Harvestorm also created group logos or blog buttons that are featured in the book.

So, as you can see, it was truly a collaborative effort. That explains why I was glad to spend tonight in my kitchen with 535 four inch squares spread all over everywhere during the collating process! I'll probably be seeing them in my sleep.