Hodge Podge Journal with Rebecca Sower

My first class Saturday morning was the Hodge Podge Journal with the sweet and down to earth Rebecca Sower. She led us through papering our covers, building the collage and hardware, with interesting details such as the cheesecloth sandwich. We used her vintage 2 hole punch for the covers and the papers inside. Rebecca gave us much of the papers inside, including the nice weight watercolor papers. We were able to add any of our favorite papers to her provisions. I love the vintage bingo card from my roomie Sue

Odd bits are what makes the hodge podge quite unique.

I try to remind the girls I teach that there aren't any mistakes in art, just opportunities for being creative. I had punched the wrong end of my back cover. Now I have a cute bit of lace on that end!

I was able to finish most of this in class (I only had to add the ribbons to the rings when I got home). I plan on using this piece for an art journal. Thanks Rebecca!

Flea Finds and a Growing Inspiration Board

I'm a little behind with my Jenni Bowlin BPS challenges- but I did finally get to go to my very first flea market last Sunday. We didn't have much time, but I did find a few treasures there, and also a few while browsing antique shops while on vacation. I got the two very large dictionaries for a whole dollar. A few bird postcards, and antique key, a vintage music book, milkcaps, a button card with a bird print, a few old photos, a mini ledger, an antique Cosmopolitan magazine, and a "Book of Knowledge" that features great old pages on language, science, art, maps, and so much more (a $4 steal). Sum total was less than $30.

Also updating my Inspiration Board - with one of my "Experiments" that I chose to keep, and a Haunted Moon Ribbon tag.

I have a piece of chicken wire just waiting to be painted black and a frame all ready for it- they may fit these pieces better. Just have to get it made!

Fini!

I had a huge list of small projects that I really wanted to finish. Got to a number of them last week while waiting for my next big etsy inspiration. First off is my hot cocoa banner, using the pieces I shared with you a few months ago, plus other letters made by dear friends of mine.

Hot!
Cocoa! My husband thinks the garland looks like marshmallows. Guess that works out perfectly! (Although I bought it cause I thought it looked like snow!)

Then I played with some vintage paper and glitter to come up with these pretty flowers. Look for tutorials soon!

Lastly, I had purchased a small planner to carry around, but alas, having waited til mid January I was left with not many pretty options. So being already covered in glue, I painted the paper insert (it originally had coffee mugs!) and glued and sewed on some music paper, digital images, blue swiss dot and pink crepe paper to make this one of a kind piece.

Course the paint made the paper a little stiff and it won't lay flat yet. (By the way, the small words say "artsy queen".

I have a few more projects on my list, but onto that tutorial!

Generally French

My wishlist has almost always include one of these gorgeous decorating boxes from the French General
I finally broke down and made my first purchase:The holiday decorating box! (I believe it is currently referred to as the Star Bright box). This compact box holds a surprising amount of heart palpitating goodness. Here is the first layer

After unearthing all the trims and notions containers, the second layer filled with dresden, feathers and stamen. The silver underneath is a type of cloth/tissue I will savour as long as it holds out.

Removing the beautiful cloth layers to reveal pretty papers and old labels. What fun it will be to create with this lovely box of notions!

Playing with glue

Been busy playing with crepe and glue again. I've been so inspired by all the flowers and rosettes I've seen on blogs and etsy I tried a few of my own. The little orange posies on the vintage book pages are very close in design to the pretties made by Eve
The crepe flowers are a combination of types I've seen from many artists and the ribbon flowers are my own design. And they use a LOT of glue dots. I vow from now on to never run out of glue dots, Zip-dry, and crepe paper.