More journals

I'm working on decorated papers and fabric pages for three new journals for my etsy store. I love making the journals, seeing them evolve. I find by working on a few at a time I can mix and match the pages.

I'm thinking of offering some of my paintings as prints on my etsy and also making laser prints using sections of my decorated papers, for use in art making.






This is a print of one of my canvases, reduced in size. It's printed on archival paper and stitched behind acetate. I enjoy the combination of fabric and paper.






I've also added another pack of decorated papers to my etsy

Catching up and etsy

I seem to be constantly playing catch up at present.

The photo below is of some of the wonderful gifts I received from an art group get together, which was over a week ago now. Patsy, Dot, Julia and I met at Jacky's farm and had a wonderful lunch and get together. The beautiful beaded piece was from Dot using some of her lovely hand made felt.



We had a holiday today, Monday, to celebrate the Queen's birthday. I still haven't worked out why we have the holiday in June when her birthday is in April. I'm not complaining though, it gave me chance to decorate some more papers and add to my Etsy store.

This photo shows my area where I work to decorate the papers, it's not in my studio. I use the huge table I have for my workshops, it makes life so much easier.



These are some of the papers that go into my paper packs.




This is a laser print of one of my collages that has been scanned into photoshop and then I've changed the colour and added filters to it. This sheet comes in the pack too.




I've also added a small hand made journal, using my decorated papers, to my store. This has decorated pages and some original collages as well as fabric tags.




Finally I've added some more hand carved stamps.





I'd also like to thank Laura for giving me 'The Lovely Blog' award. Thanks so much Laura, it's much appreciated.

Stamps and paintings

This is another canvas collage I've just completed. I cut the flowers from two different pieces of my decorated papers. There's lots of layers built up on the canvas first. I never know what the finished piece will end up like. I just keep building the layers to see where it takes me. I think it's finished now, maybe.



I'm making an altered book to see how that goes in the exhibition. It's funny when I make one for myself it just happens, but when it's for someone else it never flows easily, maybe it's trying to create for someone else.



These are some Indian wooden blocks I bought just recently. The are very difficult to use with stamp pads. This is where the 'blue blocks' come in handy. I heated one up and used the blocks on both sides. One block gives you two stamps.
I used paint to stamp with this block.








I used stamp pads with the blue blocks.



This is the results of the painted wood block and the two below are the results of the reversed images on the blue blocks, used with a stamp pad.

Pins and Pages

These are some pins I've made for my exhibition, I still have to add text to the panel in the smaller one. I'm always looking for new things that I can utilize in my jewellery. These metal plates are usually used in book art but I like to work outside the square.



The papers above are ready to be decorated for my paper packs on Etsy and also for my journals. There are so many stages to go through before they are finished.




Theses are pages waiting to be assembled into the journal covers in my earlier post. I'm making two quite large journals with lots of pages and artwork.

Thanks also to Fannie for nominating me for the two awards that are in my side bar, it's very humbling to receive them again. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit, I feel I've made so many new friends and acquaintances since I started blogging and I've received so much inspiration from visiting your sites in return. Thanks everyone.

Photoshop filters

This is the scanned image.




I applied the watercolour paper filter and ended up with this.




This uses the note pad filter.




And this one's the photocopy filter


I've been playing around with some photo shop filters on a scanned image of some of my decorated papers. The papers are typical of the ones I sell on my etsy store. I scanned them into Photoshop and created a patchwork, then added filters to create these images. It's amazing what an individual filter can do. I use Photoshop everyday in my work, but very rarely get time to just play.

Slowly progressing

I can very slowly see the light at the end of the tunnel, still a fair way to go, but getting there. My decorated papers are finished and all cut to A4 size there are seventy two sheets altogether.
I've also managed to print out more business cards and package some of the earrings.
All of this is for the Artistic Journey retreat here in Melbourne which starts on the 15th May.





These are some of my finished (almost, they still need sealing) collage canvases, I still have a few more of these to complete.
My journals are almost done and I have the big task of turning all of the jewellery jumble in the last post into necklaces. I'm enjoying every minute of it as I can see progress on a daily basis, although my poor studio is screaming out for a tidy up again.
Oh well there's always tomorrow, or the day after.

A visitor to my studio

This darling little frog visited my studio last night along with three, not so welcome, huntsman spiders. We have had some rain just recently and the spiders come in to keep dry. I'm not sure how the frog got in, maybe when the door was open after the heat. He's now back outside in our pond.



This is my current jewellery project or should I say projects. I have a few pieces on the go at present.



These are some of the pages in my journal I'm making for my etsy store, it will have all decorated papers of different weights and sizes, as well as some of my altered art type pages. It's taking longer than I thought but I hope to have it finished soon.



These are some new papers I've been working on this weekend, they are now available on my Etsy




My drawer fetish continues. I found these again at The Warehouse, they are so useful as they open down, like the old hardware store drawers.

I'll be teaching another altered book workshop this coming Sunday, March 2nd at Hann Made Studio in Mentone, there are still places available if anyone is interested. The phone number is in my side bar.

Thanks to everyone who drops by my blog and to those who leave comments too, I really appreciate knowing there are people out there who take the time to check out what I'm up to. I try to reply either by email or visiting your blogs, but there are some people I'm unable to answer as there is no link, to those I say a collective thank you. Thanks also to those who visit my Etsy and especially to those who have purchased from me, you are all so very kind.

More decorated papers for Etsy

These are more decorated paper packs that I'll be putting on my Etsy store tonight. They feature ten hand decorated papers and five laser prints of my artwork and papers. Each pack comes with a bonus pack of small off cuts of my papers.
This is pack one above.



This is pack two, it has different laser prints. It also shows the bonus papers at the top.





These are typical of the hand decorated papers in the packs, no two are alike. The papers are suitable for card and journal making, for ATC backgrounds or for altered books, or wherever else you might like to use them.
Hope you can visit my store.