To glue or not to glue

I have long been fascinated with Mary's beautiful gluebooks at Green Paper,

so when I found that she was doing an online class

(with 3 other artists, no less!)

I jumped at the chance to see inside her

creation process and pick up some hints.

I love the simplicity and visual flow of Mary's layouts.

My first gluebook page:

The art that I create in what I loosely refer to as 'altered books'  is actually a hybrid of

gluebooks and altered books. 

By definition, a gluebook is made with only scissors, glue, photos and ephemera.

An altered book, taken to its full potential, contains a lot more

'altering' than what I usually do these days. 

 I did a lot more ripping, niching, and pockets in the beginning.

My style has evolved to somewhere in the middle.  Along with the graphics, I also incorporate some inking, painting, rubber stamping and some dimensional objects like buttons, ribbons, brads, and such.

It is good to break out of the comfort zone and try new things.

The Artful Pages class is just what I needed!

Sugar sweetie snuggy-wuggums

Benni

aka "Benni-fer"

aka "Ben-Ben"

"Miss Ben-Ben"

aka "Benjamima"

aka "Benni-boo"

This sweet baby was born in my parent's house, June 1996.

My mother named her and her brothers and sister before they were good and dry.

Barney

Benni

Rudy

Lil

Benni and Rudy came to live with me when they were 8 weeks old. Rudy stuck around until another  fluffy yellow feline took up residence and then he moved on.  :( Rudy was my golden boy.

But Benni.   Benni is my sweetie pie.

One day when she was still a wee kitten, I found her laying lifeless.  Limp.  Comatose.

I scooped her into a shoebox and drove like a mad woman to the vet with her in my lap.

The vet shot some honey down her throat with a syringe and she roused.

He explained that sometimes kittens just go and go and go until they literally drop.

Once he upped her blood sugar, she was fine.  I gave her another dose at home.

Scared the life out of me, and I was nervous for a while after that but it never happened again.

This is a paw that doesn't see a lot of earth or pavement.

This is why.

Miss Benni catching some zzz's in my suitcase o' fabric scraps.

Benni loves to be talked to.

She has the most beautiful expressive eyes. 

She can talk with them. 

And she can usually always get her way!

Blackbird

The primary materials used to create this layout:

distressed and stamped brown paper bag for the egg crown

black cardstock for the bird silhouette.

Other details:

Cut out images from The Graphics Fairy.

Borders: magazine scraps

Background:

rubberstamps with colored pencils.

Enjoy the pretty blackbirds in this video.

Random Points, Pennants, and Presents

A little friend from church was turning seventeen this week and I wanted to make her something.  The amazing part of this story is that I:

#1 actually thought of it in advance
#2 actually decided on something and
#3 actually finished it.

I know!!

I'll give you a moment to be impressed with that astonishing news.



And may I interject right here, purely for my own satisfaction, that I did  banners before they were cool.  Or hot, as the case may be.  Back in the day when I was trying to come up with an original idea for an art challenge, I dreamed up a pennant swap (here, here, and here) and looked high and low across the webisphere to find examples to show the participants what I had in mind, and only found a few.  Now they are everywhere! Do I think I started them?  Ha! Ha! Har! Har!--that's me laughing a preposterous snort--of course not!!  I just want to state for the record (my own personal one that no one else cares about) that I did banners when banners weren't cool.



Thank you for indulging me........... I feel so much better with that off my chest........My one and only claim to cutting edge and all......

And you are quite welcome for that song.  :)



Moving along...... I had bookmarked this little pretty the other day and used it for inspiration.

I knew I would be working with a pink and black palette. This is what I came up with.

I must say, the gift was well received.  My backup plan was to lop off the last three letters and just use it myself,  but I could tell right off I wasn't going to get a chance at it!  Enjoy, Lisanne!

“….but everybody’s doing it….”

I’m so unoriginal it hurts. But I do love to imitate a good thing when I see it.

This time it’s subway art, word art, typography art.  It’s everywhere!

I had to try my hand at it.  Anything done with Photoshop appeals to me.

So I came up with a little valentine ditty, reminiscent of those candy conversation hearts that we've all eaten since our mamas would let us.

If you like it, you are more than welcome to download it for your own use.
 Let me know what you do with it, m’kay?  I just might want to copy it. 

(click to enlarge)

I'm linking to these great parties:

Get Your Craft On

Just Something I Whipped Up

Someday Crafts

Valentines Galore Party