Projects: New Chunky Book from an Altered Book

During the past week, I have started a new project that I'm truly enjoying! I've started working on a chunky book made from a book that I've altered.

I've taken an old book that was originally about 200 pages long and I tore out every other page leaving less than 100 pages. I used a wide variety of alternating colors of acrylic paints and painted each page a different color than the previous page. I like "morphing" one color into the next so if I had a red page I would "morph" it into a red-orange, then orange, then a bright orange, then yellow, etc.

Now that I've finished painting the pages, I'm going back and randomly decorating the pages and preparing them to be written on. Below I've posted pictures of the pages that are finished except for my journaling. You'll see that each page has a section ready to be written on!

This page was painted with dark blue (almost black) acrylic paint. I tore some striped scrapbook paper and glued it in place to create the writing area. I used white pigment ink to stamp the bar-code images on the sides.

This page has a teal acrylic painted background with a lime green acrylic painted writing section. The word "Life" and the dragonfly were stamped in lime pigment ink and then painted over with acrylic paint. The edges are decorated with dashed lime acrylic paint and the lime square at the top displays a teal circle containing a dragonfly stamped in pigment ink.

Brook, my best friend and a crafty inspiration, came up with these pages and I love them! Deco tape adorns the edges of these two pages that have been painted in crimson acrylic paint. The tree was painted with white acrylic paint and the writing areas were painted in a pale pink acrylic paint. The two owls perched on the branches were first stamped on with white pigment ink and then painted with acrylic paint.

These pale purple and fuchsia acrylic painted pages have white acrylic painted writing areas and dashed borders. The bird and the flower were cut from scrapbooking cardstock.

Scrapbook border stickers edge this peach acrylic painted page that has a cardstock square and butterfly at the top and scrapbook paper for the writing area.

These are two of my favorite pages so far because of how they play off one another. Torn scrapbook paper creates these pages' writing areas and the backgrounds have been painted with crimson and orange acrylic paints. The stamps bordering the left page are vintage recognition stamps from a music class and the images decorating the right page are cut out from scrapbook paper.

I find this page very ironic because there is a car and cleaning fluid images paired with flowers! I used a section of vintage graph paper to make up the writing area on this page. The background is painted a teal blue with acrylic paints and is decorated with cardstock die-cuts.

Two vintage notebook pages make up the writing area of this page whose background is painted with crimson acrylic paint. The square in the bottom left has been cut from scrapbook paper and the cardstock die-cut has been glued in place.

Deco tape adorns the edges of this page, which has been painted in brown acrylic paint. The writing area was painted in a light blue acrylic paint. The flowers at the bottom were first stamped on and then painted with pale pink and pale green acrylic paint and I've glued on a die-cut cardstock watering can for decoration.

This is definitely a work in progress and I'll continue to post pictures of pages I create and the finished product! If anyone is interested in a detailed tutorial, just post a comment and I'll be sure to write one up! Thanks for reading!

Project: Fairy Tree of Life

I just wanted to take a quick moment to show off a project I did for a close friend of mine. Vikkie loves fairies, and that's putting it lightly; she's actually obsessed with them! I recently learned how to make the Tree of Life pendants and decided to put that technique to work on a much larger ornament-sized ring.

This Fairy Tree of Life is about 3-inches in diameter and used over 12-feet of wire. I used freshwater pearls, faceted glass beads, crystals, opalite glass beads, and two metal charms. You may also spot a glass butterfly in the tree and a few glass flowers too.

I learned how to make the Tree of Life pendants from this site: www.beadstudio.com If anyone is interested in a tutorial for my Trees, post the request in a comment and I'll be sure to create one ASAP. In the meantime, view the BeadStudio.com tutorial to get a basic idea of how they're made.

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: After this post was published, I did create my own tutorial.  Please check it out in the Tutorial: Wire-Wrapped Tree of Life Ornament post.

Supplies: Ephemera Resources

This post is for those of you who really enjoy paper-crafting, especially those that like to use vintage ephemera and/or make altered books.

I've found a couple people who sell lots of ephemera and similar items on eBay. However, if you contact them by e-mail and they'll actually put together a special package just for you! I spent $30 with each of them and received GREAT packages! Be sure to tell them Lisa Hazell recommended you! Here's their information:

SARAH - Her e-mail addy is sarahwest07@sbcglobal.net and her eBay store is here. She offers awesome vintage ephemera that is perfect for any paper-crafting project requiring vintage images! My package contained a huge amount of newspaper and magazine cut-outs and tear sheets, sheet music, original photos (including negatives and as old as 1903), vintage game pieces, keys, and much more! You can either purchase select lots from her eBay store or send her a detailed e-mail with what you're looking for and how much you want to spend (including S&H).

PAM - Her e-mail addy is pam@razzpizazz.com, her eBay store is here, and her website is www.razzpizazz.com. She sells books that are perfect for chunky books or altered journals and also has a lot of vintage items such as leaflets, maps, postcards, & sheet music. I received many hardback books in my shipment from her as well as maps, postcards (as old as 1908 and some international ones too), sheet music, vintage kid books, and more! You can either purchase select lots from her eBay store or website or you can send her a detailed e-mail with what you're looking for and how much you want to spend (including S&H).

Since I've been working on paper-crafts lately, I've needed some specific images and fonts for my projects. For fonts, I highly recommend www.dafont.com. I've found some great image sites that I think you'll like, although most of the images are vintage. Here's the list of image sites:

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/
http://www.public-domain-image.com/ http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/
http://antiqueclipart.com/
http://www.lacetoleather.com/VictorianGraphics.html
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/songsheets/
http://karenswhimsy.com/royalty-free-images.htm
http://www.bouletfermat.com/backgrounds/antique_maps.html
http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/
http://www.silentladies.com/Ladies.html
http://www.magazineart.org/
http://advertising.harpweek.com/

I hope these ephemera resources help you with your paper-crafting projects!! Let me know if you order from Sarah or Pam and if you're just as thrilled with your orders as I was with mine! Also, feel free to reply to this post with any other image sites you may know about! I would love to know about a new site or even a few new sites!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Projects: Altered Puzzles

I've been a busy little crafter lately and I'm loving it! Besides starting an international crafting group with some friends, I've also been doing a bunch of projects on my own!

First let me tell you about this group we're starting because you may want to do the same thing with your crafty friends! We've named ourselves the Crafty Goddesses and will eventually have a website; for now, we're using Skype, Google Groups and Flickr to communicate with one-another. Our small group conducts crafting experiments, where we each receive a package of identical supplies, make items out of them, and then we compare each-other's projects and styles. We hold group and individual swaps and swap series. We also pen-pal in various pagan ciphers, such as Theban and Ogham. (Anyone who is interested in joining our group should

contact me at virgotigergirl@gmail.com because membership is by invitation only. There is a waiting period and a basic membership requirement that must be met before officially becoming a "Crafty Goddess".)

After discovering the artwork of Georgina Ferrans, aka PhizzyChick, I've become inspired to try all kinds of new paper-crafting projects! When I saw her altered jigsaw puzzles and instructions on her Flickr page, I just had to try making some of my own! Luckily, when I went to A.C. Moore they just happened to have packs of 4 kiddie puzzles for only $1.00!! I stocked up on them and bought about 5 packages!

My first attempt, was okay. I love blue, especially dark blue, so that's what I used as my primary color. I quickly learned why all of PhizzyChick's puzzles used paler colors as a base color. Looking at my first altered puzzle, you'll notice that I had to use silver paint (acrylic paint and alcohol inks to be exact) to brighten up the project. I attached a snowflake sequin with a mini silver brad and embossed the word CURIOSITY on one of the middle pieces. I used deco-tape on the bottom piece, decoupaged 2 Norwegian stamps on the right-hand piece, glued a clear plastic dragonfly on a corner piece, and glued 2 bats to the single silver one. The rest of the pieces were either stamped and then painted or just doodled on. (Sorry about the blurry pictures, I couldn't find my camera so I used my phone.)

Now my second altered puzzle is coming along a bit better than the first because I'm using lighter colors. This one is missing two pieces because I'm not done with them yet, but I still wanted to show my progress and the difference between the first darker one and the second lighter one. I decided to more clearly decorate the border of this one and I think it turned out pretty nice!

Starting in the upper left corner (1-10), here's how I decorated these pieces: (1) added a green border and used a sharpie to create a dotted edge, (2) attached a green star with a silver mini brad and glued on another star-shaped sequin and then painted on a few smaller stars, (3) painted a dashed edge, stamped a flying dragonfly and then accented it with hand-painted black ink, (4) missing, (5) attached 2 pieces of deco tape diagonally and added a black Sharpie border, (6) decoupaged a piece of sheet music to the puzzle piece and then dyed it with watered down blue acrylic paint, (7) added a section of a scrapbooking border sticker and then stamped the rest of the piece with black pigment ink and a spiral stamp, (8) stamped and then painted this piece with acrylic paints, (9) missing, (10) decoupaged a section of an old road map and will be adding a purple border to this piece. Whew, that was a lot!

Again, I used PhizzyChick's tutorial on her Flickr page and was inspired by her works of art. If you would like ME to post a detailed tutorial on this blog, please let me know and I'll do my best to post one!

Tutorial: Polymer Clay Fairy Doors

Step 1: Collect all supplies...

-Pigment powders

-Woodgrain Polymer Clay (see tutorial below)

- Black Polymer Clay

-Wax Paper

-Texture Plates

-Pasta machine or rolling pin

-Polymer clay carving tools

Step 2: Massage clay to soften it until it is the desired consistency. Do not over soften the clay.

Step 3: Roll out clay into a sheet and press the texture plate into the sheet of clay. Make sure you put enough pressure on the plate so that the image is properly transferred.

Step 4: Peel off texture plate and cut the desired shaped door into the clay using your carving tool.

Step 5: Dip finger into Pearl Ex pigment powder and gently rub on top of door, trying not to get the powder into the textured sections.

Step 6: Use a different color to paint the inside of the textured sections. I recommend using a darker color for this part.

Step 7: Use a different color to paint the inside of the textured sections. I recommend using a darker color for this part.

Step 8: Using the woodgrain clay design, cut planks of "wood" and create a door step that is a suitable size in comparison to the door.

Step 9: Place all pieces onto a baking sheet that has been covered in foil. Bake at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 40 minutes, or 30 minutes per 6mm.

Step 10: Sand down rough edges on both the bottom of the door and the base. When done sanding, wipe off the dust that's been created from sanding.

Step 11: Glue door to base and hold in place till dry.

DONE!

Tutorial: Polymer Clay Woodgrain

Step 1: Get four different colors of brown polymer clay, preferably dark brown, brown, light brown, and cream. These colors can vary depending on the type of look you're going for.

Step 2: Roll out each color into a cane (or worm as they called it when you were little).

Step 3: Put the four pieces together into one large cane and gently twist until it looks like the image. Roll it into a tight cane.

Step 4: Roll, stretch fold, roll, stretch, fold, etc. until the woodgrain is the desired appearance for your project.

Step 5: Use a pasta machine or rolling pin to roll the cane into a plank of "wood".

Step 6: Use your woodgrain canes and planks in various projects. Bake at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes per 6mm of thickness.

Tutorial: Leather Scrap Wrap Bracelet

Inspired by the bracelets worn by Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Step 1:

Collect all supplies needed for this project in order to begin creating the individual sections of the bracelet.

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Step 2:

Start by cutting your leather scraps into strips approximately 1/3" - 1" wide and about 8" - 9" long, tapering the ends to a tip that is about 1/4" wide. See image. Creating a tip at the ends of each strip of leather will allow the metal beads to fit over the leather.

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Step 3:

Fold the end over at about 1" away from the end of the strip and glue it in place, leaving a loop at the end for the jump ring to fit through. Either slip a metal bead over the end or use wire to wrap the end. See image. Repeat for the remaining 5 ends of your leather strips.

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Step 4:

Now it's time to prepare the other sections of the bracelet.

Place a crimp bead at the end of your beading wire and crimp in place, again leaving a loop with enough room for your jump ring to fit through the end. Add your choice of beads; I like wood, stone, or bone for more masculine bracelets and pearls or crystal for more feminine ones. The section of beads should only be about 2" - 3" long. Crimp a crimp bead at the other end of the wire to create a connection for your jump ring and to secure the beads in place. See image.

Use the craft wire and fabric glue to create a loop at the end of your leather cord and repeat on the other end. See image. This strip should be approximately 5" - 6" in length.

Select a chain that goes with the desired look of the bracelet and cut a piece of chain about 5" long.

The bracelet will tie together using two pieces of cotton cording. Cut 2 strips of cord about 5" long. Fold the end over and use the craft wire and fabric glue to create a loop at the only one end of each piece. As always, make sure the loop is big enough for your jump rings to fit through. See image.

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Step 5:

Using jump rings, connect all of the pieces together in this order:
1. cotton cord
2. wide leather strip
3. bead strand
4. leather cord
5. medium leather strip
6. chain
7. thin leather strip
8. cotton cord

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Step 6:

Here's how to wrap the bracelet comfortably around your wrist.

- Hold the cotton cord end of the thicker side of the bracelet with the thumb of the hand that will be wearing the bracelet (usually the right).
- Place a marker or thick pen against your wrist - this sounds weird, but it will keep you from wrapping the bracelet too tightly around your wrist.
- Now begin to tightly wrap the bracelet around your wrist, again starting with the thicker end of the bracelet.
- Tie the bracelet in place, tuck ends under bracelet, and remove the marker/pen.

This will most likely take a couple tries to get just right, but when you do, you're going to love it!

Projects: Jewelry & Polymer Clay

I just wanted to take a minute to show off some recent projects I've worked on.

Fairy Ring Bracelet

Fairy Ring Neclace

Fairy Ring Earrings & Ring

I made this Fairy Ring Jewelry Set by request for a private swap on Swap-Bot.  I've used moonstone, amethyst, and blue chalcedony gemstones as the primary components and have included dainty fairy charms and other silver accents.  The ring of the necklace is reversible; one side shows leaves, the other shows flowers.  The ring is fully adjustable and made of memory wire.

My 1st Polymer Clay Fairy Door (not complete)

My 2nd & 3rd Fairy Doors (not complete)

I wanted to try making polymer clay Fairy Doors and this is the result.  I used black polymer clay painted with Pearl Ex Pigment Powders for the doors, brown or grey polymer clay for the frames, silver poly clay for the hinges and door knobs, and glass pebbles for the windows; texture plates added the designs to the doors.  I'll post a tutorial in the near future for this project.

Unisex Leather Wrap Bracelet

This Unisex Leather Wrap Bracelet was inspired by the wrap bracelets worn by Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.  I made it from scrap leather pieces, which were cut into strips and attached to other components such as a strand of wooden beads, a chain, and a leather cord.  It's been accented with silver beads at each connection.  I'm currently working on black, navy blue, and light blue versions of this bracelet.  If anyone is interested, I can post a how-to for this project as well.