Out With the Old: Some Unshared Projects From 2014

Hello!  I was organizing some photos the other day, as I was tucking 2014 into bed, and realized I had some projects that I hadn't shared here!  Would you like to have a look-see at some of my favorites?

Mini Albums

I love this mini album I made to record memories of a trip to visit my dear friend Christine in Denver. I adore the rustic piano hinge binding that I made using twigs that I gathered from the birch tree in my front yard.

Another dear mini album is the one I made for my dad for his 70th birthday.  Yeah, the cover doesn't really match the style of the interior pages, but I'm ok with that.  The focus of this project was to express the love I have for my dad, and I think that I conveyed that pretty well.

While presenting in front of a whole lot of family, I didn't want to provide explanation for this "Do Not Poke the Bear" card from Cocoa Daisy.  But, growing up my dad always referred to my mom as "The Bear", and during those smarmy teenage years he would often coach me not to provoke her with my attitude.  :)

Art Journal

I worked quite a bit in my art journal this year, and most everything in it was black and white work. I practiced sketching and shading, and I doodled and journaled.  

Scrapbook Layouts

Here are a handful of layouts to peruse.  I think all the seasons of the past year are represented, though chronological scrapping is not my thing.  My guides are emotion, nostalgia, and pretty paper.

I love that these kids truly love each other.
I hear them say it to each other all the time.

Love this bouquet of dried sage flowers picked up on a local walk.

Blaze loves the beach! It's nice to finally have a kid that enjoys it as much as I do.

Documented Bliss*
*Mine, not hers.

Jillian's costume from Halloween 2013 finally scrapped

Dorking out, just because it keeps me entertained.

Aw, sweet little ol' me.

Off-the-Page Projects

We started 2014 off with a fun commissioned project for our new local scrapbook store.  Anna, one of the other design team members, Mike and I worked together to build a huge magnetic chalkboard for the store's grand opening.  It was so fun to work on this project with Mike.  I must say, as difficult as they were, I truly miss those years where we worked side by side creating and running his bike company.  :)

Photo by Tonya Wade

 Here is a cute little gifty inviting a friend to Tea for Two.  I love that I had a couple of teabags from Trader Joe's whose tags perfectly matched the paper I used.  It's Ginger Pear White Tea, if you are interested.  Pretty good with a vanilla and white chocolate biscotti.

This was a failed attempt to do some free-motion sewing, challenged by the One Little Word blog to create something inspired by the word "aspire".  I didn't continue the piece, annoyed by puckering, impatience, and lack of stabilizer.  But I enjoyed the practice, and will keep at it.

In the meantime I finished these pillows for our sofa, which I hand-emboidered with the artsy look of free-motion sewing.  Mike drew the dogs for me and I traced them onto the fabric along with the words "sit" and "stay".  I crocheted a scalloped trim, and hope they send a welcoming invitation to our guests.

 Aw, here is Blaze modeling how to use one properly.  :)

This is another commissioned piece made for a teacher's retirement.  The kids later added their thumbprints as foliage to the tree.  

I love these little Halloween trees!  My favorite part are the tree stumps made from wine corks.  I painted the corks black and scribbled on them with gold glitter glue--totally looks like bark!!

Also, for the love of all things pumpkin, I crafted these wire pumpkins and tacked them to canvases.  One canvas I painted orange, and the other I left primed white.  I rather like both of them!

Here is another wine cork craft.  I made these cute place cards as a design team project for Craft Envy.  Just a simple circle folded into a rectangle and slipped into a slit cut into the cork.  

And finally, a gingerbread luminaria, which has been on my bucket list for a dozen or more years.  I had seen them in a Sunset magazine long ago, tried, failed, and have long lost the magazine.  I was able to come up with a great "construction" gingerbread recipe online that made for much more predictable and sturdy pieces.

So, there you have it, assuming someone actually made it to the end of tis monstrous post!  It is my intention to share more regularly in 2015.  I will be sure to put out more manageable sized chunks of content.  No one should have to take a potty break in the middle of a blog post!!

Thanks for stopping by!

50 Things - The Covers And The Binding

My 50 Things is my first "from scratch" mini book, meaning it wasn't a kit with a set number of pages, a package of embellishments to use, etc.  As far as those kinds of kits go, I've only put together one.  It was a Teresa Collins memory album kit, and I put it together as a design team project for Remember When.  I admit it was a bit daunting - scary, even - being assigned this mini book, and I turned it into a colossal, very personal endeavor.  And, I fell in love with the mini book concept.  (I haven't been able to share that Teresa Collins album with you yet, but when I get the okay from Remember When, I certainly will!)

So, I thought I knew what I was doing when I cut fifty 4x6 inch sheets of patterned paper and got to work on creating my 50 little pages.  "According to my research" (a quote from "The Magic School Bus") the norm in the world of minis seems to be using these binder rings to secure all of the pages together.  I designed each page keeping in mind that I would be punching 2 holes on the one side, and stitching 2 back-to-back pages together to form a pocket for inserting a tag with notes on my accomplishments as each was completed.

The stack, once layered with papers and embellishments was HUGE!  I would need 4 inch diameter binder rings (do they even make them that big?), which meant I could likely wear the book as a bracelet even with all the pages in it!  NOT the look I was going for...

One of the blogs I like to follow is Jenny Petricek's Starting Over Studio.  I remembered her talking about a class she took learning to bind her own journals, and poked around the web looking for alternative ways to put my book together.  That led me to a great tutorial by Jamie Butler, and a solution!

Since my double pagers were separate from each other, I cut some strips of leftover patterned paper to join each pair into a folded spread, then measured and pierced hold down the center, pre-drilling, so to speak, so I could sew through each to create a binding.

I still wanted those pockets, though.  I stitched across the bottom of each set (each "signature"), hoping I'd still be able to feed a needle through the pierced fold.  And, of course when I get an inspired idea I want to DO IT NOW, so I had to improvise with supplies as my local hunt for book binding supplies was unfruitful.  I used 6-ply embroidery thread and a beading needle.  The needle was a bit flex-y, but it held the floss securely and was long enough for me to wrangle it into the tight corner of my stitched closed signature.  I used some scraps of old blue jeans for the binding tape, and also for a decorative touch, and followed Jamie's instructions for stitching through each signature, across each tape, and knotting through the previous signature to secure before moving on to the next.

After all the pages were bound, I stitched up the outside edges to seal each pocket.  That was a bit challenging, but I just didn't see another way to get what I wanted the way I wanted it.  Perhaps some further engineering for next time, but the stitching gives a finished look to the edges.  I felt that sealing with tape or glue would lead to the pages getting peeled apart down the road.

Finally, the covers.  I cut pieces from a cardboard box that were just a bit bigger than my pages, gessoed, and decorated the front and back outsides.  I used Fabri-Tac to glue the binding tape to the covers, and also a ribbon on front and back so that I could tie the book shut.

I covered up that mess with patterned paper and then decorated the inside covers.  I made one last pocket in the back that will hold a Master List of my 50 things that I can check off as I go!

Binding this album was really fun, I love the results, and I will definitely be doing it again-perhaps with a little better pre-planning on the construction side of things.  It feels like such an accomplishment, and I can't even tell you how awesome it feels to flip the sewn-bound pages back and forth!

So, what do you think?  Will you give book-binding a try?

Thanks for visiting!