When things are not going as planned…

I have been working on two, no THREE, projects, all at various stages of doneness, and struggling. The prime one that I have been working on is constructed, but I fear I am falling into a rut with my arty details and am trying to break out of that rut. And it is NOT going to plan. I may need to take a little break and set it aside to work on another on of the three and see where it leads.

But not one to sit and ponder, I find the best jump-start is to do something tried and true. I was sitting at my desk and casting my eyes about my craft space and those eyes fell upon a stack of the little punch-out 3D sculptures that I love making. I had two of the set that I had not yet assembled (a bull’s head and an antelope) so I decided to make one of them using the gloss sprays to decorate it.

Of all the heads I have made, this one was the easiest to decorate! Just a quick spray (or five) with a variety of the gloss sprays, then a bit of drying time, a flip, a splatter and … DONE!

The assembly was quick as well

I knew I wanted the slice that contained the horns to stand out, so I made the plaque it sits on and the horn-slice in shade of yellow and cheddar, with some white splatters.

And the paper that lines my spray-box (cause those gloss sprays go EVERYWHERE) turned out pretty as well

I really love the lines from the punch-outs, although I might leave them in place next time and see if there is a good way to use them once they are coloured with the spray – I feel I missed an oppourtunity there! Here is a (slightly wonky) shot of the completed head

And the little trio one the door:

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It is a tricky location, especially now there is a bookshelf in the way of any natural light but you get the idea! I said I had only the antelope left to do but I think there is another one, maybe a… bear? not sure, and I think I just have to find it. Having done the deer using Gel prints and the elephant using that gorgeous Bombay Sapphire tissue paper, and now the bull with gloss sprays, I need to do the next one with something different. But WHAT?!

Day 71 – another that I quite like.

A colourful mini-book

Mini-books are my favourite things to make. I love finding, or creating, unique structures and I love composing all the pages and I love being able to use a longer quote. This quote one is one I have had in my back pocket for ages – possibly since my college history class. I love how it turned out!

The basic structure is very much like a couple of scrapbook-style minis I made many years ago. This one is still one of my all time favourites and the post has instructions for the basic structure. Then I made another one with slightly different dimensions. For this one I wanted the pages to be bigger so I changed it again. I began with an A3 sheet of carstock and sprayed it, as best I could, half and half, warm colours and cool.

Cutting it across the length into two and trimming the raggedy edges …

I backed each piece with black card. This did make for quite a thick piece for accordion folding but on the plus side it made a VERY sturdy structure to stand upright when opened!

From there it was just adding the images and the covers. I love how it turned out! Click the photos for a bit of a closer look if you like!

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And the cover:

So only the 100 Days page to add:

I really like this one! Been a while since I have said that wholeheartedly! I will be at day 75 soon and that is really going to be an accomplishment! I am hopeful I will make it to 100 for sure, and will begin considering my next 50 days project – that should be a breeze after doing the 100 days one!

WOYWW 621- ATC backs for the swap

Happy WOYWW to all my desk-hopping buddies! I am now fully vaccinated, and quite happy to be so, but my desk sat unloved and untidied for far too long because I had a thumping headache, a sore arm, and was SO tired. I really started to feel more myself by last night and did a good clear-up.

Still there is a before and after. The before is the debris from the weekend and a project that is now done. More on that possibly tomorrow.

And the after is from yesterday – I kinda ignored the whole chaotic mess on Monday, and did nothing but my 100 Days project.

Much of the debris from the project is in my collage fodder basket, and I will possibly use some of it to make my ATC for the swap. I went back and found the ATC backs I designed for the 6th Anniversary swap, and thought I should do a set for the 12th. It needed more than just changing the words cause Julia’s blog header has changed. For the 6th Anniversary I matched the colours to the blog, and wanted to do the same this time! I used my quite ancient, but still working, PSE and the colour-picker to get them just right

and designed three different option on on sheet. Hopefully you will find them useful. The image is just a .jpg – this PDF will print better and clearer. Do download it if you want.

Here is my 100 Days re-cap – I think the vaccine fog in my head has meant my design choices aren’t as good as usual. A couple of questionable pages here!

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And today’s, which I do actually like, although for maybe the first time I just stamped the letters, rather than stamping them then punching them out. As a result they are a little wonky and less clear then they should be. I might re-stamp them and overlay the punched letters.

So have a lovely day getting your arty fix from all the deskers! I know I’ll be hopping like mad today.

ATC Holder Folder – updated

Quite a while ago (2015 to be precise) I made a little folder to hold ATCs for swaps. The original was a well-known origami fold (although I’ve totally lost the memory of what that was LOL!) and, remembering it I went back to fold one to use to house my ATCs for my swap partner. As the ATCs were a bit lumpy and bumpy, and because I wanted to add in a few goodies as well, I knew I needed to make a bigger one. Sitting in my room, staring at all the scrapbooking papers going unused, I decided to use some of that to make the folder.

Interesting problem – this thing is folded, multiple thicknesses, and 90% of the double-sided scrapbooking paper I have is more like carstock, some thicker, some thinner, but definitely NOT paper weight. I found some Dovecraft paper that was about as thin as copier paper and used that. It worked pretty well – heavier weight card is likely to be too thick!

I needed the folder to fit an ATC, but still fit in an envelope for mailing – I think this satisfies all requirements!

Start with a 12 x 12 piece of double-sided paper.

Because of all the folds you can’t make a true directional paper work in all areas – stripes work fine, large bold prints like this work fine. Images like people or trees or anything that would look weird sideways or upside down is probably not the best choice! Alos, be sure to burnish all the folds really well for easy folding!

Mountain fold the piece in the middle of the longest side, then fold the two sides in to create an accordion fold:

Score a line at 1 inch and at 11 inches, and fold towards the mountain fold

Fold all four corners in so they meet the valley lines, like so:

Fold the sides in – you can see the difference in the options, beginning with the floral pattern UP or DOWN

The striped flaps = stripes on the pockets, floral flaps = floral on the pockets.

Score a line at 1 inch on either of the short ends, like so:

Fold it over towards the non-flap side. Burnish well. Now just fold up the other end, tuck the corners under the newly created small triangles, and burnish the bottom edge (about where my fingers hold it) flat with the bone folder

Once done you will have SIX pockets that will fit an ATC

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I added my extra goodies to two of the pockets – and you can see my first one was made from single sided paper, hence the white insides!

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And my other condition was met as well – this size easily fits into an A6 envelope for mailing, opened out:

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Overall I think this works a lot better than the 8×10 version for housing ATCs. Now I just want to design my ATC backs for the WOYWW swap – I’ve done them most years where I have participated so I might as well, even if I am the only one who uses them LOL! As tomorrow is WOYWW day, that seems the best day to add them for people to grab if they want them.

Day 68:

This one seems a little disjointed, although I really like the colours.

An ATC swap!

I am in a FB group (yeah, I know – still hate the place but what can ya do? It’s a private group so no cross-pollination to friends, friends of friends, strangers…) and another member there and I arranged an ATC swap. It has been AGES since I’ve done one, and with the WOYWW 12th anniversary ATC swap coming up it seemed a good idea to make a few, for practice. I used a piece where I had been playing with the gloss-spray-over-stencilled-gel medium technique I showed a few times (made at the same time I made the piece here, that grew into a page in my journal) and am quite annoyed – I was so sure Ihad grabbed a shot of the piece that I didn’t snap one before I built the ATCs and it became a very much hidden background! Grrr.

Here they are:

I really like them – the black die cuts were a cheapie Amazon purchase and I love them so much, the birdies and the circles were cut from the sheet that was under my stamped house when I gloss-sprayed it, and the tiny text is from a Tim Holtz Clippings book. I designed the backs (the text) so when printed I could stamp another Dina Wakley stamp over it.

In the end I removed the lines and just left it as a blank space for writing everywhere other than the Card __ of__ and the Date line.

I also did another version, harder to stamp correctly, that uses a smaller stamp and ends up as two blocks – def. requires a stamp positioner of some sort to get it right! The fit is tight …

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And it is possible to get it lined up pretty well, but I never did get it perfectly placed, even with the positioner.

So that got me thinking about another old project, the ATC holder folder. I had an idea fir making that … better, so I will sort out some photos and share that tomorrow. It is another thing that could be helpful for the WOYWW anniversary swap.

So it’s day 67. Why are the days between 50 and 75 dragging more slowly? It makes me even more convinced that a 50 day project is a far better for for me than another 100 days one is, but I WILL finish this one.

This one has a bit of a story – ok, not much of one, but for the first time I got a bit of muck from my inky fingers (stamping the letters for the word from the previous day) onto this page! So the placement was all about hiding that smudge

My new book is still quite flat, as I vary the bulk placement between the four corners and the middle. I think the difference between book One and book Two will be interesting to see at the end!

Day 66 – and OUCH!

So the jab was fine, kinda, but oh man is my arm sore! Might be because the jabber LEFT THE NEEDLE IN MY ARM as she casually flipped thru some papers. I mean really – is that a thing?

Anyway, that is the topic for the page I will make today, assuming I still feel ok, and today’s page is all about the vaccine. I was a little taken aback to find one of my knitting group ladies turns out to be an anti-vaxxer (at least in the sense that she refuses to have the vaccine) and she has left the group because everyone else has had (or is in the process of getting) the jab and said she couldn’t attend a meet-up unless she had had it. Among us there are two who are severely immune-compromised, one who has a sister with terminal cancer, two of us who have special needs kids who are at greater risk, a few who could be called elderly … she was quite incensed that she would not be allowed to come meet up with the rest of use as a non-vaccinated person, who also is not keen on masks. It was kinda a shock but the whole group pretty much unified behind the vaccine, wearing masks, getting test kits and staying safer to keep us all safe.

On to the page:

I am making a conscious effort to bring washi tape into the collages. I just have so MUCH. I did it once or twice before but I am now trying to keep it right there in the front of my mind!

Shot 2 done and Day 65!

I am scheduling this, so have no idea how I am feeling after my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. With luck I am feeling OK. But if not, I have pre-planned and as I am still a few days ahead on my 100 Days pages, I can add day 65 today and Day 66 tomorrow then hopefully be back on track by Monday. Of course if I get a call that I need to be up at the hospital for 3 or 4 days of infusions, that will scupper the whole thing. Let’s hope not.

Much happier with this one than yesterdays!

Yet another Art House

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I love 3D structures. And one of my favourite things is the folded houses from a long out of print book. I have made a few (Zombie Town, a steampunk version and the Teesha Moore version are two of them) and love them all.

I wanted to make a Dina-house, unofficially dubbed The House that Dina Built LOL! It really came together quite easily.

I once again have an A3 printer, so scanning the houses and printing them on heavy A3 sized card made the whole process a breeze – far better than trying to scan and print pieces and put them together OR measuring and marking the lines then cutting.

The flat template cleverly folds up into a house like so:

How to decorate it? The obvious choice for colouring was gloss spray. OMG. It turned out so pretty I hated to cover it up at all.

They really are magical, those sprays. If you look up to the folded house you can just about see the black lines inside – I extended the cut lines so the house was taller and needed to cover that up. I could have sprayed inside but so little of that would be on show it seemed a waste, so instead I covered the back with kraft paper. The added extra strength to it as well. And the kraft sets off the sprayed colour and the stark white of the stamped imaged so well.

I had my quote – where probably 90% of my projects begin – and found once again the stamps from the Be Willing Dina set gave me 100% of the letters I needed, and this time in the same size blocks, to complete the quote!

And from there it was just stamping and cutting and sticking. I love the stark B&W images on the colourful house!

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This was another option for the main quote but I prefer the Da Vinci one:

So there you have it. Another fun project. I have to turn my head towards ATCs. I now have both a swap and the WOYWW 12th anniversary trade to consider.

Day 64 – I will say it is dragging a little now. I am trying to experiment with placement a bit to keep things fresh! But not totally happy with this one. I am celebrating the news my daughter has been awarded an additional year of education, a big WIN, so what is behind the page is what I am happy about!

Today is my second Covid jab so I am thinking I will be taking another weekend a bit easy – everyone says jab 2 comes with more side effects so making the decision to give myself a break in advance takes any pressure off. I will be doing my 100 days pages at the very least, but no promises of anything else!

Fixing an art journal page – removing wet glue

So while I liked the page with the Pensive Face, I didn’t love it. I really wanted to make it more balanced but had stuck down the stamped figures (what I perceived as the real problems with the composition) with wet glue and it was simply NOT coming up cleanly. The left page was less of a problem than the right – I knew I could layer a few more images on the left

but I had to remove the figure on the right to relocate it to the outside corner.

Knowing that acrylic paint is basically waterproof when dry, and as it had been more than a day since I finished the page, I was VERY brave and spritzed some water right over the image. Using a palette knife I gently scraped off the figure

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then spritzed on some more water to gently wipe away any glue residue. I re-stamped the image and relocated it where I wanted it to be and added a couple more images to the left page. I was able to peel up just the barest edge of the one already on the page, then trimmed the new image so I could tuck just the barest edge of THAT under thew stuck-down one.

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It all worked out in the end! The original:

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and the improved version.

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Happier with it for sure! I might have added a larger face on each side behind the figures you see, filling the middle of the page a bit, probably stamped on to tissue paper, but I am not going to mess with it further. I will just remember the experience the next time I make a page LOL!

Day 63:

Rather restrained and minimalist this day. Maybe I am burning out on the project a little? Still not missed a day yet. But I have made enough of a dent in the stash I was hoping to use up. Face facts: I will NEVER use it all up.

{sigh}

Dose Two tomorrow so I might just allow myself a longer break over the weekend. I’ll add my 100 Days pages for sure, but maybe nothing else. I’ll see how I feel.

WOYWW 620 – time is flying!Happy

Happy WOYWW!

OMG. Cannot believe the passage of time as it rockets by. It’s been a busy couple of (school holiday) weeks around Chez Walters. The good news is I finally got my second dose appointment via text – Friday! Yay! Although my poor friend sent me a photo of her red and sore arm after HER second dose so there is that. Not going to stop me getting it. I cannot WAIT to be as fully protected as possible, till the booster jab. It also won’t keep me from exercising precaution when I do eventually go out and about.

Desk. EEK. I was in a frenzy of creativity and at the end of yesterday my desk looked like…this:

Just stuff everywhere. A wider view would show it is so much worse that the shot I snapped. The page is the one I shared yesterday. I have managed to fix a couple of the issues I mentioned and will share that tomorrow – along with how I did it. No more cursing wet glue! It took all the afternoon to sort the chaos out and I am happy to say at the end of it my desk was a lot more usable:

And my so called messy desk is about as pristine as it gets too!

Plus a rare shot of my computer space, with a Stephen King book playing on Audible, a piece of art by my daughter, and nothing else very interesting on view

I am still steaming ahead on the 100 Days project so here is the week’s re-cap for you:

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And, of course, today’s page!

I seem to have slipped into a series of tiny words LOL! Still enjoying the process and the writing, but am still on the fence – to continue or not? I think in the end the project is more about forcing yourself to create every day and like I keep saying, I have 100 other ideas for X Day projects. I am not on the fence that my next one will be a 50 Days one. The shorter time frame will let me do more in a year and reduce the chance of me losing interest. I like that compromise!

Now, I have to think about the true WOYWW anniversary Julia mentioned – ATCs and post card will be needed, so I’d better get thinking…