Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I Made a Book!

I have always loved books, and have wanted to explore making them for a long time. I finally did it. Not quite what I would have imagined - ever - but I learned a lot, and had fun in the bargain, so it's all good.

One day while poking around Dina Wakley's blog, I came upon an on-line class called, 21 Secrets, An Art Journal On-line Playground from Dirty Footprint Studios. Since I seem to be the last person to jump on the art journal wagon I signed right up. From a list of 25 artists and projects I selected  Dale Anne Potter's Personal Acts of Kindness to start; it intrigued me exactly because we got to make a book.

In deference to Dale Anne, I'll just tell you the concept was to make seven postcards (think master board), each with a special word. We write the postcards to ourselves, citing reasons why we think the word applies to us. Once we get the post cards back, we tuck them away in their own little envelopes inside our little book, which then becomes a pick-me-up for those not so good days in the future when we might not be feeling our very best.

Here's some of the stuff I learned: 
  • toilet paper and multi medium are pretty cool when mixed together (aka the heart on the front)
  • less is more (still)
  • waxed bead thread is probably not the thing to use for binding
  • choosing things based solely on whether YOU like them is very freeing, not to mention fun
  • paper beads are really fun, albeit a bit time consuming to make
  • multi medium is an amazing product (just ordered a gallon of the stuff!)
Here's a tour of my project.

Front Cover 

  Fun with beads

 Back Cover....Multi-medium on Kraft Paper and Adirondack ink on top...feels like rubber. Way cool. 
 My postcards. I used chalk for the color; to tie them all together I used the same color chalk on the little Tim Holtz stamp: Art is a shadow of what a person is thinking.

My inside envelopes - some of the bits and bobs from my table found a home




Have a serious thing for tickets right now....

The inside back cover...a collage in progress

It was a great project...looking forward to diving into the next section of 21 Secrets!! 
 

1 comment:

  1. Sara this is beautiful work , gorgeous colours you have such a fabulous imagination Hugs Elaine

    ReplyDelete

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