Posts

Showing posts from 2013

A Very Merry Christmas to All!

Image
A very Merry Christmas to all from sunny California! May we all remember all the reasons we have to celebrate this upcoming year...

Busy, But No Sunshine To Take Pictures!

Image
This is the year of the paper rose ornament. I wish the pictures would show all the twinkles from the glitter sparkling in the sunshine! This new job of mine takes me away from home from 7:45 - 5pm. That means the sun is only up with I'm at work. It also means that I can only take pictures on the weekends. This weekend is the first I've been home in about a month. Feels great! I love the pale lilac color of this one. It's quiet and ghostly. I ran out of pearlized pins so substituted with these ancient ones I got from a relative once upon a time. Probably Bakelite! They weren't quite long enough to hold the roses in place, so I had to use plain pins on the bottom/sides to keep them from falling off. Last, but not least - a pretty Easter-colored confection.

Look What's In the Shop Now!

Image
It's finished and I'm really pleased with it. The work of months and months and several people in addition to myself have made this possible. I love the way the shop looks. I hope my mom is proud of me!  This is the first design you learn. Simple!  Here is the intermediate design. Easy, too! And here's what it all leads to... I hope you will stop by the shop and take a look. It's not hard to learn and I'm always available for questions. Happy Thanksgiving week to you all! If I drank, I'd have one tonight in celebration!

Guess What Happens Next Week?

Image
One very fancy tutorial will be ready by next Tuesday. I, for one, will be very thankful.

News

Image
I started a new job at my library today. Although the work was all stuff I'd done before, I'd never had time to do it uninterrupted. For the past seven years, I've been working at branch libraries where I've been interrupted constantly. I know there are infrequent stretches of time where I've been able to work for maybe a half hour without being asked a question or something, but today was u.n.i.n.t.e.r.r.u.p.t.e.d. time. And I didn't know what to do with myself. I actually had to concentrate. Because of this, I am mentally exhausted. So, here. Look at a picture of a paper ball I made a few days ago. It's very pretty. But way too big to be on my Christmas tree. I must needs make a smaller one. And then about a billion more to give away as presents. :)

A Glimpse Into My Everyday

Image
A bit of work from my tutorial...

Circle Paper Ornaments

Image
With the husband being sick all day Sunday, I had the remote and the afternoon to myself. I finished watching A&E's Pride and Prejudice (a venture over time since I could only watch after the hubby went to bed) and got to see You've Got Mail from start to end without someone complaining about "bonnet movies." And I made these little things. I think they look quite lovely and will let me use up some of my scraps of patterned paper in a most satisfying way. The husband got better around 8pm so he and I watched Big Bang Theory (season 2) while the offspring was sick. Fortunately, he's better today and at school. We'll see if it lasts all day or not. He ate a small breakfast and told me very animatedly about the fun dream he had last night.When I told him it was time for school, he said he wasn't sure if he was sick or not. Wanting to nip the fakery in the bud, I told him the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. We'll see if he really was crying

Glitterific

Image
La la la! I love glitter! And a red one with gold-headed pins. And a surprising picture found on my camera. I never imagined my daughter was such a gifted photographer. I should let her play with the camera more often... 

Tiny Star

Image
  Look what I made out of curling ribbon? It took forever and I need reading glasses to make more of them, but I'm seeing earrings in my future! Kiff is sick so I have an unexpected gift of time today. Maybe I'll make a few more...  Cheers to everyone today. It's going to be over 80°F. Happy October?

Pretty Flowers All In a Row

Image
I am fortunate enough to have access to an Ellison die cutter at work. Using the spiral punch, I am able to take different books and make spirals out of the paper which I then use to create roses. I love how uniform they look here in my new square cookie tin (which I bought from Costco simply for the tin. I don't like the cookies). Next on my list o' things to do (besides work on my tutorial) is to glitter these fine ladies and make them into rose ball ornaments for Christmas...

German Stars

Image
This past weekend my family and I watched General Conference . It was the first time I'd taken notes for nearly every speaker. WOW! What a difference it makes! I can't wait to put the words into practice. It's overwhelming how much I learned about myself and how much I want to improve. And I figured out how to make these.  Find instructions here . It took a few tries, but it worked. And I bought my paper strips here . I've even bought a second batch of pink and white strips. Feeling girly...

Out o' Control (Again)

Image
My husband is about to ban me from doing tutorials. I have given myself a burden ( all of the tutorial - done comprehensively and perfectly ) and a deadline ( yesterday, a month ago, last year ) that are both impossible to meet. When I was in college, I was always overwhelmed with homework. My thought was always I could do so much better on this assignment if I just didn't have a deadline! And ideas? I was FULL of ideas as a student. I just didn't have time. And I was jealous of other people who had time to go out and have fun. (I secretly wondered if that was why I didn't find a spouse in college - too busy doing other things.) Now I am out of college - TWO colleges, in fact! I even have a job - TWO jobs, in fact! Both help my family function economically and keep us out of the poorhouse. You would think I'd finally have time , right? Well, I do, but there is a catch. I fill that time. With work. And deadlines. And impossible goals. Fun? What's that? T

Second Section Ready for Proofing!

Image
In order to avoid overwhelming my proofreaders, I am sending the tutorial out for review in sections. The first section was a simple shape - the heart I posted about last time. Today I finished up the second section where I teach how to fold a more complex shape. Next up is the Big Kahuna - the Read book , the mother of all folded books (in my opinion).

Sneak Peek of Free Form Shape Tutorial

Image
I will be teaching people how to turn a simple drawing into... ... a simply beautiful folded book. And that's just the first part. There's more! My next goal is to get section 2 finished. Did you know that sitting in a hard chair for two days working on a tutorial can do terrible things to your back? If I didn't have to go to work today, I might consider taking some Vicodin and laying down for a while... :)

Alas and a Lack of Tables

Image
I have allowed myself to be talked into having no tables in my house. It is a long sad tale and not very interesting except for the fact that I think I'm a chump. To make up for this lack of flat surfaces, I have become resourceful. My bed acts as a lovely place to put a tabletop when I need both a flat surface and good light. Anyway, here is a blurry shot of my setup of my workspace where I toiled on the fancy font tutorial all day Saturday. It actually made me a little sick to work on it for so long. I just got going and wasn't a grownup enough to make myself stop. As a consequence, my house didn't get clean and I didn't feel like I'd done anything good when I went to bed. Weird, huh? I guess it's all about balance. Wish me luck today. My camera is having troubles now, not wanting to focus. I'm going to say that the above picture is "artful" in its blurriness.It has nothing to do with the fact that I let SAND get in the camera when we went

Up and Running

Image
Growing up as the eldest child, I had a lot of responsibility. My mom probably didn't mean to warp me, but it happened over time that I never felt I could do anything for myself unless all of my chores were finished. About a month ago, I was invited to a meeting with the new librarian for the college I teach at. She introduced me to a whole new world of librarianship - academic librarianship. It's very different from my profession - public librarianship. As a result of the meeting, I realized that I needed to rewrite a whole bunch of my Information Competency curriculum. That meant I have had a chore that needed completing before I could do anything for myself, most notably, the free-form font tutorial. Unfortunately, I also needed a large block of time in which to write. It came when I took a week off for Kiff's first week of school. Yay for 1st grade! I finished rewriting the course materials last Friday and started the free form tutorial that night. I'm movi

Francksly Speaking

Image
I've been doing good things in my long blog absence! It's just too hot to be in the mood to do much, but after a couple of weeks vainly attempting to write the Free Form Folds tutorial, I decided to take a mental break and work on a book my sister asked me to make for a friend of hers. It's made using Segoe Script - a free font. It's easily readable and so pretty! In other news, I've been busier in the evenings now that I've taken up a martial art. Yeah, me. Girly-girl Heather is doing Kung Fu. My husband, Brian, is a Kung Fu Master (yesI'mPROUD) and I'm finally ready to be taught by him. I've been taking lessons now for a little more than a month and am getting more fit and more confident in my ability to defend myself. :)

Oh, the Pain!

Image
*snark alert: This would have been worse if they were able to spell! All the same, I AM bummed! I thought this would have been the perfect venue for my book art. I can't help but think about the Sound of Music and the words in the song about when a door closes, another window opens. I wonder if that will be the case here... In other news, I'm working on my Free Form Folds tutorial... The introduction is done as well as a few other pages. I'm struggling with words right now! I can show people how to do things, but writing the instructions? YIKES! Prayers for the loosening of my tongue would be much appreciated! :)

Wedding Bouquet

Image
After weeks - yes, WEEKS of agonizing over this, I've finally finished my friend's wedding bouquet. Gina is a librarian who used to work in my library system. I visited her branch in Fresno one day while I attended a professional meeting. There was a beautiful display of a book turning into a butterfly (the pages were ripped out and, one by one, looked more and more butterfly-like). I called the library later to find out who'd done the artwork and was given Gina's email address. From there, we've shared book art, funny library stories and I've followed her blog and some of her life. She's since moved on to greater library systems and is now getting hitched to a great guy.  We've never met in person. When she asked me to do this, I accepted without thinking. And then, I thought about it and HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. Text pages, map pages and purple. Oh, and gold. I made lots of little flowers to figure out what to make and decided on the

This is What Happens When...

Image
... you sit at the computer more than you sit at your art table... She thinks it's her own private sleeping place...

Wedding Flowers

Image
A librarian friend asked me to make her wedding bouquet. I've never done this before so I'm a bit nervous. She wants purple and maps. I'm going to make most of the flowers out of text with accents of map flowers and bursts of purple. It's nighttime now so the picture isn't prof quality. I made postcards for my visiting teachers this month out of more stamps. I'd love to get something like this in the mail!

Jacob's Dream

Image
Before I added the words.  I've been worrying this drawing for a few days now. When I first read the story of Jacob's dream (Genesis 28), I couldn't figure out what to do - ladders, wrestling with angels, etc. The part that talks about a house is after Jacob wakes up and says that the place he is in is God's place. After I added the words. I wish I could redo the words to a lighter color.  So I decided to paint a desert (because that's where I *imagine* Jacob to have been (with stones for his pillows) and use the words of the scripture to draw a house. If you think about it, God is everywhere and we just need to remember that. Today was Kenneth's last day of Kindergarten. I took a picture of him in the same clothes and show the first and last day's pictures side by side. He's grown!!!

Back in the Saddle Again

Image
I'm trying something different with my scripture study. It's gotten a bit boring reading the same things over and over (don't judge!), so I'm looking up the word 'house' in the index and looking at the associated scripture(s), seeing if I can make a picture/painting out of them. This is the first one: Genesis 7:1 1 And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. It's kinda sweet, isn't it? It looks like an illustration for  nursery decor or a card. :)

Watercolors in Very Bright Light

Image
A VERY busy weekend - going to the temple for the first time in MONTHS. Anyway, dibs and dabs of time to paint. I tried painting very early in the morning, but the sun casts harsh shadows and I found that I couldn't do anything! My hand kept blocking my painting as I tried to work. In a nutshell, this week's work has focused on getting back to a plainer, clearer form of painting, like I used to do with only clear watercolors.  Fewer layers. This one actually had a lot of white in it, so it didn't *really* follow the rule. I tried using yellow and alizirin crimson in the sky. The sky's a bit muddy, but I think it's okay... Another thing I never did with my original watercolors was experiment/use so many blooms. I see now how much I like them. It busies it up a lot - hmmm.... This started out to be a book painting. Then it turned into trees. I'm not sure - it looks a bit contrived. I need to work on folded books again! I'm getting lo