Green Paper

Baker's Dozen: Lesley Venable's Altered Book Cover

Artist Class is proud to add yet another fabulous artist to the roster - Lesley Venable!

Lesley is a self taught mixed media artist who lives in Virginia with her husband, Tom, and a furry family of six.  She’s been published in several of the Somerset Magazines and the Artitude Zine and has taught at Art & Soul in Hampton and Oregon as well at Art-Is-You in Connecticut.

Lesley is currently scheduled to teach at Art & Soul, The Fernery, KC Willis’ Studio Retreats, Artiscape, Lisa LaRosa’s Retreat and Art-Is-You in 2010.

Lesley says, “I love working with all things vintage…the textures, the smell, the colors…they all invoke within me a desire to include them in my art.  I am an avid collector of all things old and love finding those beautiful gems to pass on to others through our online shoppe.”

Lesley will show us how she takes a simple book cover and creates a beautiful wall hanging by adding vintage papers, gesso stamping, fluid chalk inking and a tape transfer of a vintage image.  The finishing touches include a spattering of crystal glitter and a ribbon or lace for hanging.

Please join me in welcoming Lesley to Artist Class!

Lesley’s blog address is: http://www.flatwoodsfolkart.typepad.com

And her shop is:   www.flatwoodsfolkart.com

Marilyn Butler's itty bitty book pages

My friend, Marilyn Butler, is in an itty-bitty-book page swap and created some great circus themed pages. She used a Logomachy card image as the signature portion of the back of each. 

I never even realized there were circus themed Logomachy cards, but there they are - and they're perfect for this project. 

Marilyn has graciously agreed to let me share her pages with you - beautiful! Please share your creations with me when you use any of my free or purchased images, I love to feature them and add them to the Your Art album.

Dress Ornaments

I played a bit yesterday and made some holiday ornaments with some K&Co paper from last year and some of the paper doll dress templates that Karla Nathan made for Artist Class.

 
I'm a little early on the ornaments considering how many other things I have on my plate right now. But they were a lot of fun to do, just  to play and to blow some fresh air into my brain.

 
Aren't they cute? They sparkle so nicely, I have to decide where to display them until it's time for the tree.

Time Flies

Well, we're almost finished with the first week of Artist Class, with 3 projects posted and another scheduled for tomorrow.  So far, we've had tutorials from...

Tammy Sprinkle

Nerissa Alford

and Sandy Babb

Karla Nathan's fun project is tomorrow.

There are still plenty of projects left - 3 weeks worth, then the blog is accessible through February!

Perfect timing to make holiday gifts, get your Etsy shop inspired for Cyber Monday, and have enough projects left over to dispell the gloom of January & February.

There's info about each of the artists, the projects, and some of the bonuses, right HERE.

I hope you'll join us.

Art & Commerce

A few days ago, I picked out my box for Tammy Sprinkle's Homage to a Loved One piece that I'm doing for Artist Class.

I'm pleased because I found a use for one of these boxes!

 
They look good, right? Depth is a little shallow, but they're obviously solid...Why would it be so hard to find a use for them? Because of what's inside...

Those are wooden forms in the bottom of each- designed to hold little glass parts vials like these:

A challenge, right? Well, here's what I have so far:

 That's a picture of my Grandmother and my Father in front of a seashore backdrop. I used that inspiration and added some tiny shells in the partitions like a shadow box or printer's drawer. I also added sea glass along the bottom left. (thanks to my friend Gisele for sending these pieces from her beach walks)

The whole piece isn't done yet, and the outside needs a lot of work, but I didn't want anyone in Artist Class to think I was a complete slacker.

I promise that I've been busy! Here's one of my projects from yesterday:

 
Those are dozens of discs I've recorded with images and packaged for sale at Silver Bella. I'm bringing 4 kinds: the Logomachy images, the French Holy cards, the graphics & text collection, and the French dictionary images.

If you won't be at Silver Bella, you can get the downloadable versions HERE. The discs are normally in my Etsy and eBay store, but not right now.

See? Not a complete slacker.

And now for something completely different...

Artist Class started today and is going swimmingly. Thanks to everybody who signed up today - they reminded me to announce that registration is still open, and there's plenty of time to do the projects - the site will be open through February!

We've started with Tammy Sprinkle's Homage to a Loved One assemblage and wait until you see mine...well it's not finished yet. I had a lot of work to do today!

Silver Bella Vendor Faire is in 3 weeks! Eek! Want to see some of what I'm putting together? Here you go...

Sweet baby shoes, old Paris postcards, antique Victorian Logomachy  cards, numbered glass vials, Flinch cards, telephone lineman measuring tape, drawer file holders...

An antique Camelot game, early Old Maid Flapper cards, a full set of 1949 word flash cards... 

Brass livestock tags, old keys, Bingo card assortments...

Victorian scrap, trading cards, calling cards...

 

I love sorting through all this stuff, and packing it up. It's so fun to have Victorian scrap spread all over the dining room table..the oddest things make us happy, don't they?

I'm really trying to focus on portable things - easy to tuck into a suitcase. I have a lot of classic mixed media supplies, but still plenty of obscure and one-of-a-kind items - I'll show you some of those next time.

Martha Kohley's Celebration Cake

Is this gorgeous or what?

The beautiful Celebration Cake is another of the Artist Class projects, this one by Martha Kohley of Vintage Trifles. I am so anxious to get to this one...a cake made out of books and covered with Vintage lace? I have died and gone to Heaven.

Martha's a terrific artist - and her tutorial makes it look so easy, you will be amazed!

Artist Class begins on Sunday. There's still plenty of time to register, and the blog will be available through February, so you'll have loads of time to do every project...at least once!

The site is open to the public for one more day, and you can see the entire list of artists and the list of projects they're presenting. 

Click HERE to go to the site.  I can't wait to see you there!

Artist Class goes Digital

I'm so thrilled to announce that Artist Class is adding a beautiful digital tutorial by Joy Ott. Joy's going to show us some tips and tricks using digital software to make ATCs. She'll use elements and backgrounds from my French Dictionary illustrations download, and is including a digital mini kit you can use. 

 

Don't do digital? There are still great images to print, cut out and glue!

I hope you'll join us in Artist Class - it starts on Sunday!

Robin Kesner's Pockets Full of Treasures

Robin Kesner is one of the lucky people attending Silver Bella this year, and she's designed her own memory album from a vintage record album book. She calls her book Pockets Full of Treasures and will tuck all of her souveniers, mementos, Moo cards, and business cards into the pockets she's created.

The book would also be perfect to store Christmas cards and would make a great scrapbook  - I keep thinking about storing all of those loose school papers too precious to toss.  I convinced Robin to share her process with us in Artist Class and she's prepared a great tutorial - including mistakes & how to fix them (I'll need that part).

I hope you can join us!

Creating Your Own Pretty Fabric Lined Box

I hope you're keeping track of the amazing roster of artists who are presenting Artist Class projects. Today I'm thrilled to announce that Lori Karla of My Faerie Window will be joining us. Lori is sharing a project to create a gorgeous Fabric-Lined Box, perfect for your treasured keepsakes.

Registrations are still open, the first project debuts in one week. I hope to see you there!