Five books in Five Days

Here are my five books in five days done at a Dan Essig Workshop at Bookworks in Asheville, NC. I actually got to use mica and papyrus as covers, an played with some absolutely fantastic papers from Cave Papers.

I'm happy, but very tired in this picture!

Here are the pictures of my ATC holder I made for a swap. This will be in the mail tomorrow to Annie Mackay in the U.K.

The black outside was stamped with a bleach mixture, then the same stamp was used with VersaMark and brushed with Perfect Pearls. Pages wee sewn in with a pamphlet stitch and ATC holders were taped on every page.

Home Again!

Two of the ATCs that I sent out for the JAM have returned home. The lady in the bottle ended up in Seattle,WA and the long haired beauty came home from Delaware. It's always fun to see where they end up and what ha been added to them...

Word and Image

This week was my second class with Annie Cicale at Bookworks. It has stretched me quite a bit. First I learned to fold a book in a Wave to Shore fold.  Then we studied Wabi-sabi - the uneven layouts of the ancient illuminated manuscripts and drafted our own  page layout. I ended up with 16 pages, or eight double page spreads. I picked a poem that would fit into the space then worked within the wabi-sabi layout.

The poem is by poet Po Chu-I:

I look at my shadow

over and over

in the lake;

I see no white face

only the white hair

I have lost my youth,

and shall never find it again.

Useless to stir the Lake-Water.

I worked very quickly and there some things I would do differently, but overall I am glad I finished it. We will critique it on Tuesday night - YIKES!

Close up of Allen Mountain

Here is a picture of what we woke up to this morning. The entire Swannanoa Valley is covered under a sheet of ice. That is Allen Mountain in front of us. See the picture below for details!

Happy Day Before Groundhog's Day

What an interesting first day of February! Our power went off at 5 am and came back on at 9:30 am. It seemed very strange until the clouds lifted  about 10:30 am and we could see the mountain range again. In the foreground, you can see that we have NO ICE at 3500 feet, but in the distance many feet below us, Black Mountain (left) and Swannanoa (right) were covered!

Joe Walsh "One Day at a Time"

Glue Resist Backgrounds

Step 2 in the Background Noise Challenge in Next Generation Stampers is GLUE RESIST. Using PVA glue, I glopped, scraped and smooshed glue on different backgrounds. Here are some of my favorite results from the challenge, but there wasn't a loser in the bunch. Some will work better as ATC backgrounds with only  smaller amounts showing through!

These are examples of more glue resist. I stamped hearts dipped in glue on glossy paper. The lighter one was plain white to start with and the darker one was a leftover sheet brayered with warm colors from my shining stones technique. I did Direct to Paper on Both with the same Agean Blue Ancient Page dye pad

Samples of the glue resist background noise challenge on different backgrounds.

Background Noise

I have started my Background Noise Journal with my first entry. Here are the directions and samples of my Shining Stones from my earlier post.

Slow Book Salon

I attended my first meeting of Slow Book Salon in Asheville, NC on Sunday, January 13, 2008. It was a book trade but since it was my first meeting I did not have anything to trade. BUT ... I did get to see some wonderful books! I thought I snapped lots of pictures of people and books, but when I got home I had two books on my camera. Must have gotten caught up in the excitement! 

Gloria is by Gaetana Friedman It's a simple pamphlet stitch but filled with wonderful pictures and journaling she did on every page.

The coptic stitch book is a blank book created by John Harton. The cover is an example of his fantastic Paste Paper!

A Book in a Box

A group of 7 people got together to make A Book in a Box at A Stamp Artist Place in Swannanoa, NC on Saturday, January 12th. Rajeania Snyder taught the class. Clara drove from Mills River , Cheryl from Knoxville, TN, and Kathleen from Mars Hill. Every book looked totally different. This is one I plan to make more of!

Cheryl and Priscilla are smiling with finished books. Chloe the cat is peaking over Priscilla's shoulder; she's such a camera hog!

1.12.08

Clara is almost finished with her book in a record time of 5 hours.

1.12.08

Cheryl works on her book in a box

1.12.08

What is ATC JAM?

Last year I began participating in ATC JAM, a three part round robin that has introduced me to new ATC makers from around the world. These are my Step One (three of each card) to be sent out to the next player. The 2nd person adds to all three cards and the third person does the same. The third person keeps one and mails the other two back to the 1st person. I usually send a new batch out when I return the originals. Would you like to play? Let me know in a comment. If you are in CCSwaps I have your address. If not, please email me your address privately.

Step 2

This is what step 2 in the ATC Jam looks like. I added elements to the originals  that came from France, and will pass the sets along to two new players. They will finish the set (keeping one for themselves) and return the other  two cards to the original player.

ATC JAM

These are the third and final stage of the ATCs ready to go back to their original owners in the state of Washington, USA and Ontario, Canada. I will include a new set with these to start the JAM all over again.

I couldn't wait...

Yesterday I created several backgrounds using the Shining Stones technique. TODAY I made some ATCs to swap. One of my New Year's resolutions is to use some of the supplies I already have. I found this Stamp Francisco angel at a yard sale for fifty cents a few years ago. I bought the saying (Stamper's Anonymous) last year and today I used them both.