New journal

This is a small journal that I was commissioned to make a month ago. When I say small, it's smaller than my usual size in dimensions but still very chunky. I'm in the process of making the cover and them assembling it. These are just a few images of the journal.

Seth, over at his blog The Last Page, has a weekly studio viewing happening and last Sunday Seth very kindly featured an image from my studio, you can see others too if you take a visit.

What's in my store

I've added some new stamps and prints to my Etsy store. The mosaic image is the overall view of what's in there, then the other images are my latest stamps. I'll also be adding a small journal later in the week. Taking photos and processing them for Etsy is very time consuming, but well worthwhile.

And finally I couldn't resist taking a photo of this colourful selection in my kitchen window, the window actually looks down into my studio, but luckily you can't see the mess from here. The orchids are out of our garden, grown in pots under trees.

Sun prints

For some time now I've admired the work being produced by Elizabeth and her students making sun prints. This past weekend when our art group had a get together Julia suggested we give it a go, we weren't quite sure what we were doing so it wasn't a raging success, but then Julia found some instructions on the internet and guess what, I had some of the paints in my never ending stash. On Sunday I spent most of the day in my out door studio (the deck off my indoor studio), making sun prints and carving stamps from foam with my wood burning tool, this is definitely a job to be done outside, I even wear a mask as I'm sure the fumes would be very toxic. Below are the results.

My 'summer studio'.

I used a variety of masks including gum leaves, lace, paper doilies and felt mats.

These are the stamps.

Now back to the journal making.

Envelopes

Some of you know I have obsessions with re-using things in everyday life, well envelopes are one of those things. I've been using them in my junk journals for awhile now and I also make little sketches using markers, cut out the sketches then add them to my journals. I've now started making sketches around the windows of the envelopes to create frames for my next journal.

This one has been added to one of my journals.

I scanned this one into my computer and added a piece of lined paper behind it so that I had somewhere to write in the envelope window.

I've also been getting some pages finished in an altered book round robin that our art group's running. These are pages in Dot's book. As you can see they're all about colour.

Lastly, I had to show this fabulous quilt that one of my students made. Jaz is doing a university course in textile design and this was one of her pieces she submitted. She printed a lot of the fabric herself, especially all of the text and photographic images. It's wonderful to see in real life. Jaz has a flicker site here if you would like to see more of her work, she has some fabulous textile designs she's printed.

a close up of some of the detail.

As much as I could get in one go, again Jaz has more on her flicker site.

original art cards

I've been making some original fabric, collage cards from tiny pieces of fabric that I have left over when making my journals. They are now in my Etsy store. I love working and stitching these small pieces of art. The layers are built up and machine stitched, then I hand embellish them with beads, sequins and things from my jewellery treasure trove. The whole piece is then machine stitched to cream card stock. They come with a cream envelope, but they can also be framed and hung as pieces of original art.

Now back to making more journals.

On a very sad note, Stacey Apeitos, the lovely lady who started Paperific here in Melbourne lost her battle with cancer last week, she will be sadly missed.

More journal pages

Here are some more pages in the journal for sale on my Etsy store, it's hard to show them all in one post as there are over 170 pages.

This features lots of free hand machine stitching.

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments in the previous post, they are much appreciated.