Back to "School"

It’s Back to School time again, which fits with this “class” junkie! Besides taking classes, one of the things I like most is to teach classes, and I’m excited to have scheduled some classes this fall at Paper Zone.

The first class schedules is Artist Trading Cards 101, Saturday Sept 11, at 11:30. We’ll cover the basics of creating and trading these little pieces of Art. After the class (2:00) we’re holding an ATC trade with local artists. It should be great fun! Here’s an ATC I have on display at the store promoting the class.

Next it’s a Haunted House Chunky Book class, on October 2 from 11:30 – 2:30. We’re making “chunky” pages in a variety of house shapes, to either make a book or a table display. I’m having a blast making the “sample” pages. We have fun papers, stamps and embellishments in the store, and we’ll be using some of those as well as vintage papers and images. Here’s a couple simple pages I made with new scrapbook papers, punches and the 99 cent stamps.

Finally, I’m teaching Texture Technique’s on Saturday October 23rd, from 10:30 – 1:30. I’m most excited about this class! There are so many ways to create texture without adding “bulk”, and it will be fun to explore them. Warning! It will be a bit messy. 🙂 The backgrounds of these ATC’s show some of the techniques covered in the class.

Counting Crows

     

The challenge for a swap at atcsforall.com – create a mixed media ATC with crows and numbers.

Text and Vintage Photo ATCs

   

For a swap on atcsforall.com. These were fun. 🙂

Late Summer Redwing

I love sunflowers, and love the redwing blackbirds that nest at the pond behind the house. When we sit on the back deck in the evening, they are perched at the top of the Hawthorn trees calling back and forth to each other.

This page for my bird themed gothic arch book. Vintage sheet music, acrylic paint, paper napkin, copy of image from old bird book, sharpie, beeswax, inked edges

On it's way home

We’re just finishing a moleskine journal exchange that started last September. The final book I worked in is now on it’s way home. The theme was Autumn Colors.

To create this I applied gesso to the page and created a bit of texture in it with foam stamps and punchinella, let it dry, applied several layers of acrylic paints and “scrubbed” some off. I used paper napkin sunflowers glued to an old book page, then cut out. Stamped on the crows on a branch, glued on the red wing blackbird and words and sealed with soft gloss gel medium.

Now I’m waiting for mine to return. It’s two months behind at this point, the person who got it in June hasn’t completed it and it still has to go to Sweden and back before coming home. I’m keeping fingers crossed it makes it soon!

Chalk Art Festival

Every year our local Allied Arts holds the Bellingham Arts Festival and Chalk Art. Jason and I went down and wandered the streets watching the chalk artists create their incredible art. Here are a few of our favorites…