Gelli Printing

This past week, I had so much fun taking a gelli printing class with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer at A Work Of Heart Studio in San Jose. Below is a picture of all the gelli prints I made in class.

Julie is a wonderful teacher and I learned so many new techniques. We printed on deli paper, which is great to use in your art journals.

The class was packed full. You don't want to miss the opportunity to take a class with Julie, because she's so popular!

 My friend, Ruby took the class with me.

Andrea, the studio owner, had drying racks that were so handy, I had to go out and buy one myself. I found one at Daiso (Japanese dollar store) that has 54 clips for only $6.

 It was a great class and it totally inspired me to go home and do more gelli printing.

Below are a couple pictures of my setup at home doing geli printing on deli paper.

 I hung the drying rack on my light fixture over my dining room table and it worked great.

And here's a couple of pages in my latest art journal. I used one of the deli sheets I made in Julie's class to make the page on the left.

In my next post, I'll show you my latest Paige dolls and more finished pages of my art journal.

And as a final note, you can see a couple of my projects in the latest issue Somerset Gallery Winter 2015.

I made the large paper doll on the right page. I used a coin envelope for her head and stuffed it with flowers.

I also made a canvas of tags, each stamped with a different Catherine Moore, Character Construction stamp. The entire surface is covered in beeswax.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Holiday!

Birthday Class With Wendy Addison

We had a special treat of having the amazing Wendy Addison teach a private class for my sisters, Lana and Diana's birthday this past weekend! Not only were we honored with her teaching, but we actually got to hold the class in her own studio - what a memorable day it was!

Below are a bunch of pictures of our wonderful day!

The gang.

Wendy's studio, Theater of Dreams, in Port Costa.

The bday girls.

Having coffee and tea in the morning in Wendy's lovely studio.

My sisters, Pat and Maryl.

Wendy telling us the story of how she came up with the Theater of Dreams.

Amazing angel puppet that dances to music.

Time to open gifts.

Necklace I made Lana for her bday.

Celebrating with champagne.

It was great to have Lana's husband, Steve, join us.

Wendy and her daughter, Monica.

Monica catered a delicious lunch for us!

We had a wonderful cake.

Wendy teaching us how to use her vintage letter press.

Selecting book covers from Wendy's vintage paper collection.

Making sure we don't catch our fingers in the letter press.

We handmade books with vintage papers and use the letter press for printing.

Steve, helping me set my press.

The book I made and the tags I pressed.

Pat, Wendy, Steve & Diana

Lana, Ulla, Bethany, and Vivian

My sister Maryl standing in front of hotel (build 1883) across from the studio.

Peak inside Wendy's studio.

What a treat it was to have a class with Wendy in her studio! Happy Birthday to my sister's Lana and Diana...another great bday celebration!

Made My Own Midori Notebook

If you're into planners, you've probably heard of the Midori Traveler's notebook. Traditionally, the midori notebook has a leather cover and is long and narrow in size. The unique feature of a midori notebook is that the inserts are customizable  and can be changed easily.

Below is the midori style notebook that I made. My cover is made out of  heavy fabric. The notebook closure is made from a piece of elastic, with a few charms added. My notebook measures 6" x 8".

Inside I made three signatures. As you can see, I made them the same style as the journal I made in Roben Marie Smith's class I took in October. You can see more photos of that journal in my Oct 12th blog post

Making smaller size pages made these much quicker to put together. Below are pictures of all the pages.

 These are just the background base designs.

 I'll be painting and stenciling over each page like I did in my RMS journal.

I enjoyed working on the RMS journal so much that once I completed it last week, I didn't know what else to work on. So I decided to make this one, but just smaller in size.

The advantage I'm going to have with this midori style notebook is that I'll be able to easily remove the pages and scan them for future use. Afterwards, I can always substitute other inserts.

The signatures are held in place with elastic. You simply slide them in and out - no sewing or binding required.

I can't wait to start working on painting each page!

As I mentioned earlier, I've since completed my RMS journal. Below are the completed pages I hadn't shown before.

 

 

 

 

Someday, I hope to shoot a video that will flip though my entire RMS journal. I'm also thinking of teaching how to make the midori notebook and my black and white scribbles that I use throughout the book, message me if you're interested.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!