Thursday, July 13, 2006

Memory Cabinets

I found these great little cabinets at Michaels recently on clearance. I showed them to the owner of the stamp store where I teach and she loved them so we got a bunch for an up coming class. I was inspired by the last Somerset Studio issue and just had to do some altered cabinets. So far, this is what I've come up with. I'm not sure how I'm going to structure this class but I'm sure it will be fun.

This one is my all white wedding them one. I have several great vintage wedding photos that I wanted to use. I also finally got to use some of that great old lace that my friend L. gave me. Yeah!


I love this new Crackle Medium that I used here. It works so well and very fast. No more waiting around overnight to see if something crackles. I'm sure I'll be using this a lot.

For this one, I wanted something darker to frame the main image of this cute little girl. It's my fairy in a box design. :) The cabinets are about 5 1/2" tall and were raw wood.


I painted the one with a wine color acrylic and let it dry. Then I went over it with a black glaze and wiped it off while it was still wet. It really looks like old wood.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

My "Things"

This is my book for the "Things" round robin. I decided to do an Asian Travel theme for this book. I've wanted to do Asian for a while but hadn't gotten around to it. This gives me a jump start on the book.

Here is my intro page. Yes, I know I spelled Asia wrong... I picked up the wrong stamp... Anyway, I'll fix it when my book comes home. I added molding paste all around the edges of the pages and the map and then painted with blue acrylics. This page has the mailing route and my info.

Here is my sign-in page. I sewed fabric onto scrapbook paper to make the pockets for the tags and the big pocket on the left for my theme description.

Here you can see my sign-in tag and the theme pocket.

I only had time to do one spread before I had to send the book out. I decided to do one based on some Hindu images I have so that the other players would remember that Asia is not only Japan and China, but it is also India and Indonesia and much more. I tipped in a pouch that came with some incense to the center of this spread. I put a tag/book mark in the pouch.


The other sided of the pouch. I had this great postcard of a Hindu temple that a friend sent me from India years ago. I scanned the postcard and then printed it out on tissue paper. I inked or painted the book red and then put the tissue image down. I added silver rub on all around the edges and around the main image. I'm looking forward to getting my book back so I can play in it more.

More "Things"

Here are the spreads I did in Cheryl's book. She had a sort of a vintage floral theme going on with her spreads so I tried to keep my stuff in the same vein.

This spread came together really well. The back ground is napkin and the yellow fuzzy stuff at the bottom is dryer sheet. I add copper Twinkling H2Os around the figure and then some copper rub-on around the rest of the page. I love the texture and depth that napkin gives a page. It is my favorite technique right now.

One of the "things" that Cheryl sent was a small foam stamp. I used it on this page with my fresco technique. I sent that stamp on with the book. It will be interesting to see how other people use it in their own way. The flowers on this spread are silk hydrangea parts. I add more gold Twinkling H2Os on the petals and around the page. The flowers were a lot of fun but I feel like this spread needs something else...

The other things Cheryl sent me were some blue tickets, like you buy for raffles, and this piece of shipping tape with "the Deuce" written on it. These things were really bright and didn't go with my vintage theme at all so I collaged them with a bunch of different ephemera pages and scrapbook paper. Then I washed the whole thing with blue and white acrylic paint. I had this nice little heart going on in the center but I over worked it a bit and lost the heart. I think this spread needs something also but I'm not sure what...

Things Round Robin

Here are some spreads that I've done for an online round robin. The title of the RR is Things because every time we send a book on to the next person, we also send at least three "things" with it that the person must use in their spreads. The point is to challenge ourselves by working with materials that are different that our normal.

My Mom is also playing in this RR (actually, she is the one who invited me to join) and this is the spread I did in her book.


She choose a board book and no theme. Cheryl sent me the book and with it she sent: the hand painted paper with silver stars, the cheese cloth, painted fiber and the molded faces. I created the flowers with cut tissue paper and coffee filters that I dyed with food coloring. I got that idea from a couple of Lisa Vollrath Monthly Muse articles. The Monthly Muse is a great little digital publication that Lisa puts out with lots of articles and some great clipart. Posted by Picasa