Hold Dear

Post ArtFest Fatbook

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I sure did. For some reason, it just felt like this weekend wasn't rushed. Friday night Glen and I went out to dinner for our date night. Saturday was house stuff, including picking some tomatoes from the garden.

Then Saturday evening Glen and I went over to our neighbor's house for a beverage (cranberry juice and vodka? Oh yeah!) and then we went to a late show and watched Hell Boy II. It was pretty entertaining. It was directed by Guillermo del Toro, the same director that did Pan's Labyrinth so that componet of it was super cool.

This weekend also included finishing up some charms (more on that next time!) and packaging up some orders from the shop. Ooooh! I'm having so much fun with that! Thank you thank you so much for your support. I absolutely love sharing and the plan is to get some more stuff posted this week!

This past week, the mailman has been bringing me lots of goodies. One of the things was the finished Post ArtFest Fatbook that Kristi hosted. Perfect timing that the arrival of this book coincided with ArtFest 2009 registration! I previously shared with you what my pages looked like. Here's the completed book...

So cool! Thank you Kristie! Here's what this little sweetie looks like on the shelf in my craft room with my other beautiful fatbooks and assorted books.

This little area makes me so happy!

Okay...I'm gonna sign off now. Much more to share but I'm gonna go hang out with my sweet man. He leaves for yet another two week trip tomorrow. Serious boo-hoo but we're fortunate he has a job. It really hasn't been that long since he was out of work for almost a year. So all in all, I have nothing to complain about. :-)

Done with Fatbooks!

I had TWO going on this past month and whew! that was a lot of work! I sure love getting that sweet big chunky book in the end but MAN!

The first one I finished up was a post-ArtFest fatbook! This one was hosted by the very fun and cool, Kristie, whom I met at ArtFest this past April. And if my memory serves me correctly, I do believe we bonded over Amaretto and Sprite? :-)

Mess of pages...the front...

...and the back.

Detail of front...

This is a gel medium transfer of a picture I took of myself the last morning of ArtFest. I LOVE this technique! I learned it in Misty Mawn's class at ArtFest. It has that same scratchy look similar to the pictures I made in a Polaroid transfer class I took a few years back.

Detail of back...

All the pages stood up on end...

Wouldn't this make a fabulous Moo card? Maybe for next year's ArtFest! :-)

Next fatbook I finished and mailed off just today was for Art and Soul. The theme of this book is Romancing the Sea - The Vintage Edition and it's being hosted by the super elegant Marian McBryde. I hesitated in joining in this swap because I didn't want to overload myself but Romancing the Sea? C'mon! How could I possibly pass up a gorgeous theme like that? And then when I saw Leslie's pages that she made for the Hampton Art and Soul, I was just so inspired -- Gosh! that girl is SO talented!!!! -- so I decided to join in!

This one needed 60 pages! I think that's a record! And I must be some kind of freak because for the fronts, I still made originals!

Here's a close up...

For the back, I did make color photocopies. Mainly because I liked the look of having my info in an old timey label and I didn't have 60 of these babies!

And a close up...

I also finished up my Viva Mexico charms so I'll show those to you in a few days. Only two more charm swaps to go and then I'm hanging up my "gotta join everything" days for awhile.

It's time to shift my focus back on me and rediscover what it feels like to create art just for me! I've forgotten what it is I do! :-)

Fatbooks...

I am so so so so happy! I joined in TWO different fatbook projects that were through the ArtFest Yahoo group and I got both of them done and mailed off before their due dates! What's going on with me? Getting things done before the drop dead due date? I'm starting to scare myself! :-)

One of the fatbooks was a fabric fatbook. Delicious! I only had to do 30 pages for this one (LOL!) I was excited for this particular swap because I've got a HUGE box of fabric scraps and remnants and I was anxious to dig in and start using them up!

The base of the page is that stripey fabric I bought at Goodwill about two or so years ago. You may recognize it from here and here!

Pages in progress...can you see Mr. Tubbo Bubbo's tail in the window sill. :-)

Here's a full frontal picture of Mr. Puffy. LOVE this kitty...he's since gone back to live with Miranda and the boy. I miss his little furry pudginess but at least I still get to visit him often. But I digress....

For the back of the fabric pages, I used an old German scrap picture of some gnomes frolicking on a mushroom. I love this little picture. The theme of this fatbook was open but it was suggested that we do something about what ArtFest means to me. The theme of ArtFest is "forest" and for me, aside from the whole art thing, ArtFest means seeing old friends and making new friends, ergo, "forest friends!"

Click on image to make bigger.

So here are the pages all done diddely done! I was very happy with how the "clouds" turned out!

Oh and while I had the sewing machine out, I finally hemmed the curtains I made for our bathroom. I made them before Christmas and hung 'em up unhemmed. Um, that was a mistake. :-)

Okay so on to fatbook number two! I forgot if there was a theme for this one but I just went with the whole forest thing again. Since we had to make 60 pages for this one, I decided very early on that I was not going to do all originals. I just knew that would be too much for me.

For this page, I just went with doing some doodles and creature drawings.

I colored it in with water color pencils and then made LOTS of color photocopies, I tried to punch up the colors with some Pebeo china paint pens I had. They seemed to work really well on the cardstock and kept their brilliance. I'll have to remember that. Oh and the little fern has some Stickles glitter on it.

I had to FORCE myself to keep the back simple! I made several prototypes where I colored the trees more or glittered them up or flocked them but it just always seemed to look cheesey or over the top. So I went with simple.

I added a bit of fibers just to give the pages a little more interest and called it good!

Okay...it's a gettin' late so I'd better go jammy up and drink my Kava. Oh, Glen and I went to a movie tonight. After all was said and done, we ended up needing to stay in town since my car was in the shop. We went to a local theater and watched Semi-Pro. VERY funny and VERY crude. Glen and I were both pretty tired from the week so this was the perfect mindless, stupid, laugh out loud funny movie for our Friday date night!

fatbooks.

Hi there! I've missed you! I wasn't able to visit with you too much these last few days because we couldn't get our internet connection to work. Turns out...okay, this is a little embarrassing...the "standby" button on the modem had accidentally been pressed! Whoops! Glen figured this out but only after calling our internet provider. He he he... oh well...at least now I can get back to spending some time with you!!!

Okay, so I seriously could do a post every single day this week with all the things I want to show you...and I just may! Lots of projects and lots of sweet, sweet mail love has been coming my way and I want to share every last drop with you! I'm anxious to get you caught up so with everything that has happened these last few weeks so I get around to showing the project I made in a class I took today! (I have a GREAT husband, don't I?) I drove out to the Thistle Patch Studio in Forest Grove and took a felted Christmas stocking class. This class was SO much fun and I'm really happy with how my stocking turned out. I have a few pix to show you of my stocking as well as shots from the studio. Gorgeous gorgeous eye candy!

Today I'd like to share the pictures of the two fatbooks I participated in from Art and Soul. These were my first fatbooks and now that I've received them, I am SO happy I signed up for the ArtFest fatbooks! They are unbelieveably gorgeous and I can't wait to clear a shelf in my little studio to display these babies!

Here is the Heart Fatbook which was hosted by the fun and delightful Elise. I was SO tickled because Elise was in Lisa Call's PMC Charms and Bracelet class and so I got to hang and visit with her all day. Elise is also the host of the Round Robin I joined that will be starting at the end of November.

On to the pictures already!

The front of the book. Elise hand bound the books with this goregous copper wire. I just LOVE it! Here are a few views...

So just in case you're wondering why these are called fatbooks...well, it's because they are too fat from all the chunky, funky good bits to close! Isn't it gorgeous?!

I showed you my pages before (go here if you'd like to see them again). Here are a few pages from other artists...

This beautiful page is by Lisa Martinez.

This amazing page is by Diana Frey...

This gorgeous page is by Christy Novak...

The theme of the other fatbook I participated in was "ArtiTextural Home...the Fabric of Our Society." This one was hosted by Marian and it is equally as gorgeous. I am officially submitting my observation that it is impossible for a group of artists to get together and create a fatbook that is anything less than spectacular!

Here are some pictures of this one starting with the cover...

And then a few other views...

This one closes a little more than the Heart Fatbook, but that's only because it was bound a lot looser. Still pretty chunky!

If you'd like to see the pages that I made for this book again you can go here. Here are a few pages from other artists...

This beautiful page is by Linda Schultz.

This gorgeous page is Margaret Rodgers.

And then this page is by Tracie Lyn Huskamp. Oh so lovely.

So are you eyeballs all filled up for now? I am so in love with these books. Everytime I go through them, I find more detail. SO many talented artists participated in these fatbooks and I'm SO happy to have these! They will be treasured for many many years!!!!

Okay, so lots more to come these next few days so please be sure to come back soon!

Take care and please give my love to the kids! :-)