Done! At Last!

About a hundred million years ago, Kellie, in one of my swap groups, sent me an envelope of miscellaneous ephemera and whatnot, and challenged me to make something with it. Earlier, I showed what I had in progress. When I woke up this morning, I knew it had to be done today, and here it is. You can't see the lining, but I did put one in using scraps from another project. This is a very sturdy bag because the fabric I used on the outside is upholstery fabric given to me by my friend Gwen. My friend, Laurie K. gave me the metal label thingy, and I got the giant piece of plastic from used packaging. Maybe I should have made the bag green. So about all it cost me was some time, thread and the ribbon on top.

Altered Books, One

One. One as in the one before the second one, having nothing to do with the order in which they were made. This used to be a less than half inch thick book written in a language I do not comprehend. I removed the spine, punched holes in the front and back covers, went to my rescued papers stash, cut up about an inch and a half's worth of goodies, and bound them inside the covers. This stirred up a bunch of ideas I can barely wait to get to soon.

Altered Books, Two

This used to be a ledger. I took it to Kelly Kilmer's class at Frenzy Stamper last weekend where all the students gutted their books and made new spines for them. I broke the rules, even though Kelly doesn't really have any, and I just reinforced mine. Then we painted pages, tore them to whatever size we wanted, and sewed them in. OK. We were encouraged to add other things in when we sewed, and Kelly didn't have to ask me twice. Jeane called me a paper engineer, and I went crazy doing what I was told this time. I made pockets, fold out pages, and added all kinds of fun stuff: paper, tape, etc. After I got home, I added more to all the white pages I had sewn in. I will continue to add on to the pages when I do art and or journaling on these pages. Right now, I am working in my Kelly journal I made when Jeane and I flew to LA last summer to take her class.

Hoot Found a Home

The first Hoot found a home, but that is far from being the end of the family. This little guy is now looking for a place. I made him and this new flower book of recycled papers today after spending nearly the entire day playing in the studio.
I am still moving around a few things as I see how the new setup is working. I made a space that I am now calling the journal table, in hopes that I will journal more. I know I journal more when I need to get things out. So in a way it is good that I haven't done much journaling in a year, because that means life is pretty darn good. But I want to get in the habit of just recording my thinking, so here is another attempt.
I also worked on another journal for future use for quite a while today, but more about that later.
Update: : Little Guy will be off to MASSACHUSETTS 6-6.09.

Another New Fabric Journal - The Sister Book for Etsy

This is the sister of a book I posted before. They are not identical twins. For some reason, it just took me longer to get this one done. When I work on two books at the same time and they have a lot in common, I call them sister journals. I will be posting this one later today in my etsy shop, and keeping the sister. It's hard to let go of some of my work, so I'm finding a very happy medium. UPDATE: 7:00 P.M. This item was removed from my etsy store for a privately arranged sale, but I do plan to make more sometime in the future.

A Sneak Peek - New Items for Etsy

flower sold
Little Hoot - sold
Little Birdie - sold



Later today, I will have several new things for sale in my etsy shop. Most are part of the rescued papers series which means they have all kinds of different papers inside to make them fun.The ones I put in before are nearly all gone.
I will also be putting up two of my journals that I posted before, the dress journal and the baby journal with the flowers beside it.
It takes a while to get them all written up. I wish I had a secretary who loved posting things for me while I just sat at the sewing machine. Wouldn't that be grand?

Time to Brag About MY Kid

Ok, you know how proud moms are. They go on and on about what their kid can do like nobody else's ever did whatever it is, and the world rotates around said kid, even when they are out hanging another star to go with the moon they probably supposedly hung, too, right? Well, my kid actually has done something worth mentioning that only 12 other mothers on the planet can claim. Jeane is a finalist in the Cloth Paper Scissors Readers' Skeletons in Your Closet Challenge. You can see these amazing creations here along with Jeane's blog about them and read more about it in the CPS blog here. How could these not be picked to be in the magazine? Let's all send positive vibes out into the universe so we see them in print!
XOHEARTP, JEANE (more than ever!) MH

Metal Rolodex Swap

The monthly Rolodex swaps are still in full swing. This month they had to be at least 50% metal. I decided that with the exception of glue, all the rest would be metal. I cut up old soda cans, ran them through my crimper in different directions, taped the top and sides where hands might get cut looking at them in the Rolodex machine, used my Rolodex punch to make the grooves in the bottom, and glued down metal found objects and a metal word sticker. It is amazing to me how different they look just being from two different brands of cans.

A Peek Inside Studio 23

As I mentioned previously, I have been doing some moving around in the studio. I wanted to have the fabric related items I used in my mixed media work in the same room as the rest of my mixed media stuff. Here is most of the newly redone part that took a week of my spare time. Now I have a new fabric and fiber wall to go with my paper wall, a jewelry table and misc. stuff supply wall, a stamp wall, and a bookbinding wall. I know that is five walls, but that is how the room was built. When I bought it, the floorplan indicated that it was supposed to be an additional living room in the upstairs, but this is my idea of living, so I did what had to be done.
The top photo shows the fabric I have designated for mixed media. The green pull out boxes have fabric stuff, too, but it is either things such as net, old doilies, and lace that don't stack well and look good that way, or scraps that are too small to fold neatly. It also shows my little thread collection that has been rearranged since the photo for my blog header was taken.
The bottom picture is of my ribbon and tape that I sew with. I mounted five curtain rods on the wall and hung it on there. Rewrapping all of that from the cards I had it on in shoeboxes is what took FOREVER.

Maybe I should have started this by saying, My name is Jane Eileen, and I am a ribbonaholic, or something like that, but that sounds too much like an apology, and I am not sorry about it. Warning for Jeane: This is what happens when you see a little sewing box and think it would be fun to have a new hobby or add a little dimension to your work. I'm not saying don't do it. I just want you to know what you could be getting yourself into.

Pinch Me, Please.

Kelly Kilmer, my art daughter, emailed me today and asked if what she had seen somewhere was my art. I clicked to the link she so kindly provided, and there it was, MY (voice cracking) art journal that is going to be a feature article in Sew Somerset. No one told me it was going to be on the cover, just that I was getting a six page spread and I was writing the article. They sent the pages of proofs recently, and I was happy then, but this is a whole 'nother story. It is due out June 1, so I guess we all will soon know. WHOOOOWHEEEE, I am a happy girl.

I am in the middle of redoing my studio. I had all my sewing stuff in a sewing room, but I wasn't happy walking down the hall between the sewing room and studio when I was doing mixed media, so I moved my big easy chair and all my books to the sewing room and now I have a library and a studio instead. It is a pretty big mess still with things piled in transition spots, but I am making progress. I might stick a few reveal photos on my blog. I am anxious to get done because it has been over a week since I made anything, and it is really bothering me. Seeing this makes it worse. I need to hear that machine purring!