It's June 20th!!

Happy Father's Day to all dads no matter what form they take.

Techniques book

Recently I've been doing up these technique books - actually more of a technique journal. I'll play and experiment with different mediums and tools to see how something looks and how it changes if I try something new. My problem was that something that works on paper didn't work the same way on a different surface like canvas or acrylic so I made up this book that has different mediums as pages to try it out.


The text block is made of 5 signatures. One signature was made with one pre gessoed canvas leaf and one vinyl leaf, each sandwiched between 2 sheets of drawing weight cardstock. The text block was then stitched into a hand bound cover.

This one has black gessoed canvas


Canvas and Vinyl page. Vinyl lets me see what acrylic would look like but without the rigidity.

Tip: Don't use yarn when using the Secret Belgian Binding. It stretches too much and you end up getting frustrated and throwing things.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Day to anyone that takes care of anyone.

Roses glow

These were made using the Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers die and My Mind's Eye flocked paper and while I thought they were pretty cool before I glazed them, I really like how they turned out after being coated with UTEE. The UTEE thing has a bit of a learning curve, I've found. One of my peeps and I were playing with her mom's melting pot and almost a whole pound of UTEE to learn that

1. Work fast, this stuff cools quickly
2. Work fast, it scorches in the pot and turns yellow
3. Don't work too fast, it's really hot and burns are a bitch
4. Make sure you use the right setting on the pot
5. Don't use the heat gun to speed up the melting process, it makes a HUGE mess
6. Not everything looks good dipped in the stuff - felt for instance. Flocked paper leaves fuzzies behind too

Books, books and more books

So...I've been slack. Actually more like so busy I don't even have time to sleep. I think I've done 6 layouts since last summer? I've still managed to collect more stuff though and over the last couple weeks I've made the attempt to use my new toys AND try to reduce my stash by making books. I've been able to use up 4 whole paper collections, including the die cuts, use all my brand new Tim Holtz Sizzix dies, stabbed my fingers repeatedly AND spill an entire bottle of PVA glue across my table. Now it's time for show and tell...

Books with Japanese Stab Binding
I used My Mind's Eye Ooh La La collections for these and I stabbed fingers twice and broke 2 needles doing these.





Flat spine casing and hand sewn signatures

This one is the end result of an entire Basic Grey collection pack, 3 bloody fingertips and a whole cup of spilt PVA glue to clean up off the table and floor.

This was kinda fun, I played with the individual page edges and sizes. I want to use it for an art journal so I'm going to cut windows into some of the pages at a later date.






Last but not least, my Star Book.

I got my hot little paws on the new Tim Holtz dies from Sizzix and I was so geeked by them. I'm not a fan of die cuts, I actually have a hard time scrapping with them since I never think of using them but I'm in loooove with these. I especially like how the finished die cut edges turned out and Marah Johnaon's Chivalry line is to die for. All the edges, the flourishes and the flower are die cut from the collection. What I learned doing this one is that 8 points is too many, it gets too heavy for the book to support so when you hang it, it's bottom heavy and the star isn't symmetrical, that and if you have ink on your fingers while managing to stab yourself, you might end up with a permanent tattoo...

To Infinity and Beyond!!

HAHAHA, we just came back from the 3D double feature of Toy Story and Toy Story 2. You have to love a company that can produce movies where kids will sit and watch, totally engrossed for 4 hours. They even added in extra scenes through the movies, I have to admit I enjoyed it. Only thing is that I'm not completely sold in this 3-D thing. I really don't think it's all that, I mean, to me, these 3D movies just look like high end HD/Blu-ray movies. I think I was spoiled by the 3D spiderman ride at Universal because that really made you feel like things were coming to get you. These "3D" movies just don't have the same feel.

I have to share these...

These photos are crazy mad. My friend in Sydney sent them to me this morning. They woke up to find Sydney completely enveloped in a dust cloud. The dust storm originated in the Northern Territory and blew south to Sydney. That's like a dust storm in the Dakotas blowing south to Miami.

Been trying new things...

Well, I was inspired by a really good friend of mine to play with a blank canvas book. Only problem was that I couldn't actually get my hands on one so I decided to make mine. With about $2. worth of artist's canvas, about $1.50 in tabletop vinyl and a couple packs of grommets and interfacing that I had lying around anyway, I stitched one together. A bit of gesso, paint and glimmer mist later, I'm pretty happy with the results. Most of the embellishments are buttons, I really like that silver 3/4 profile facial button.



The bling on the cover is another new toy I got. I forget who it's by but it looks like a soldering iron and it heat sets the stones onto the fabric. It's very cool but really requires a bit of patience. It took a little longer than I was expecting to get the cover done.

My last cool purchase is my felter! After countlessly stabbing my fingers by hand felting, I happened across a bargain I couldn't pass. I've been playing with it and came up with these beauties. Oh, and the ribbon on the book cover is felted on as well.





I've also got some new papers that I'm working with now. Will post when done...

AARRRRGGGGGHH!!

Why can't there be just 1 @#$%&* version of Windows that can work??? I've just about had it with Vista!! &%&*($^ explorer keeps freezing so I can't even see my hard drive and apparently, the "fix" in the service pack is hit or miss. I won't ever find out because I refuse to install the little virus that they want to push to make sure that I have a "good" copy of Vista installed.

I seriously need to install Linux...

Presents!!!

Well, it wasn't as bad as I was led to believe.

I got my 2nd fridge which I'm really chuffed over :) I've been wanting one for a while now and yes I know it's more a "family" present, I get veto power over everything that goes in it.

Meanwhile, DD picked out this...



Which is a lot better than I was imagining, apparently something with faux fur was a close 2nd because "this feels really nice Dad"

DS came up with...




He's been wanting me to get a "slider station" ever since they started peddling them on TV. For those unfamiliar with the concept, check it out here. Beware, you're going to be yelled at so turn your speaker volume down. Dad, being a good dad, used the burger thing to make dinner that night because I was sleeping off the effects of drinking a blenderful of something frosty and adult flavoured :)

It was a VERY good day.