Weekly Inchie

This week's theme for Inchybyinch was to do something with the mail post. I had only one stamp to use for this and it was too big for an inchie so I made a couple of tiny envelopes and a letter to go into one of them. Enlarged here they look a bit sloppy so perhaps next time I'll work under a magnifying lamp when I want this much detail.

The background is some leftover background I made for my Christmas cards. I had a one inch strip so I cut it into several squares. I think it's generic enough that it will be used for some future inchies.

This week there is an added bonus besides the fun of making these inchies. Purple Faerie Paper Crafts has sponsored us and is offering some blank inchies and a rubber stamp to the name drawn from those who link back to Inchybyinch and Purple Faierie Paper Crafts. Sounds like a good deal to me. See what fun you'd have if you'd join us?

March TIF Done

I finally finished my March challenge as a fiber ATC. I even used the colors, at least as close to them as I could come. That meant using a metallic thread for the tree which worked out fine but when I tried zigzagging around the edge it just bound up on me and made a mess. I ripped it out and tried adding a binding but my new (and cheap) sewing machine didn't have a 1/4 " division even using the edge of the foot for guidance and I couldn't get any of the feet around the tree-base rocks. You can see the stitching where I tried and had to remove the stitching. (I have now wet it thoroughly and left it to dry. Hopefully this will remove the needle holes).

My moment in time comes from posting a picture of our tree just breaking into buds with a few green tips of leaves barely showing. I figure spring always happens in a blink of an eye. Sure enough, what was barely breaking out on March 1st is in full leaf as of March 31st!

I machine appliqued the layers together for our desert landscape. I machine embroidered the tree and then added brown and green #18 seed beads for the buds and opening leaves. I used OO nymo thread and a size 15 beading needle. I finally got to use some of my vintage teeny tiny beads. That was the highlight of this challenge! I also added cat's eye chips for my quartz rocks which are around the real tree. I finished it off with blanket stitch. After all the false starts and changes, I find I like the end result. It definitely took me further than I intended and was a big challenge too!

March TIF Announced

Sharon B. of In A Minute Ago blog has announced the challenge for March.

It is:

• Do you ever notice the little things, the small moments, the details in life? This months challenge is to do just that, pay attention to the tiny details. Sometimes the small things become emblematic for something larger. That is it! I am going to keep it brief.
  
  
  I was going to just share these pictures of a hint of spring coming on the dawn but now I am sharing them and also making them (or a detail of them to be more precise) my project for this month's challenge.
  
  
  I am thinking I can work in most if not all of the colors Sharon has chosen for this month also so for the first time I will be going for both sides of the coin! I'm not sure if this will be a beaded work, a floss embroidery, or a collage of some sort. I just now found out what the challenge was and knew immediately what the main idea was. Now I need to work out the details. I find it really helps to sleep on it so that is what I am going to do. Besides, I want to start my February BJP page first.

February TIF Done

I have finished my February TIF challenge. I
haven't yet made a dotee doll so chose this as the form I would use for this month. The challenge was to think about what we remember from days gone by and I took that to mean things that are not with us anymore. My conception is for two things that are gone from my life. One is letter writing. I might get an occasional card but I really don't get handwritten letters and haven't since before my dad died. The second is that I don't have my parents anymore. This is something everyone loses at some point so it doesn't have to do with modern times versus old times. It's universal but leaves a hole just the same.


I handled these themes in this doll form by printing off a letter from my mother dated about 30 years ago and some some scanned in envelopes addressed to my dad over the years onto ExtravOrganza. I also printed off a picture I took of some pencils and a pen. I layered the organza over a blue checkered fabric for the body and sewed up the doll on the right side. I wanted more color to show than was available in the printed images and cloth. I had to take the purple thread off a bobbin in order to put red thread on so I used the purple thread for hair adding some beads to the mix. Because the thread holding the pencil tassels looked weak, I added some needle weaving and red beads. I added the heart for my love for my parents.

I made some paper beads with the outside layer being some postage stamps I had saved and used them as part of the hanging loop.

I am quite happy with my little doll and she is now hanging from my peg board cupboard above my work desk.

Another TIF Update

I got another page done. This one took a bit more time for finding a picture of a jeep or truck from WWII that I could use than for any other reason.

My mother never tired of telling us kids her marine stories. She would sing the songs she learned in boot camp and the only line I can remember now is "....and it'd take Lana Turner, to fill the front of mine" referring to the bust area of her uniform! She would tell us how all women marines were patted down before leaving base (through a women's only gate) to make sure they had their girdles on! My mom was gleeful when telling about taking the governor's off the jeeps so they could go as fast as they wanted and said she flew down the hills into San Diego on her trips there. She really only had good memories that I recall.

The background of this card is acrylic paint and acrylic medium mixed together, spread over the whole card and then combed through. I had a picture of just the shoulders and head of my mom in her uniform so added some arms and
legs. You won't find any finesse in those limbs but they serve. I put the jeep in for body/clothing as that was one of the things she so enjoyed. Then I used medium to glue some sequin stars on the page and ran a blue ink pad around all the edges.

TIF update

I've got another page done in my ATC book for the Take It Further Challenge. This page commemorates my mother's wedding day. She got married two weeks after my dad returned from WWII. Back then, you had to wear your military uniform at all times when you were in public so she didn't get to wear a white dress and veil. She got married in her marine uniform.



My mom and dad grew up knowing each other. My dad's best friend was my mom's brother. During the war my mother wrote to my dad occasionally but they never dated till he came home from battle. My dad took my mom to see a movie called "The Best Years of Our Lives". While waiting in line a plane flew overhead. My dad threw my mother to the ground and covered her with his own body as he had flashed back to bombers just then. Maybe that's what showed my mom he cared about her!



I took the white page and layered it with light turquoise tissue paper. Over that I placed a piece of my wedding veil since my mother never got one (she made mine). Then I added the hearts and cut-out image of my parents wedding portrait. Only the lace ended up showing up, not the veil material. Then I topped it with the wording and edged the card with chalk ink. I am happy with the way it turned out.

Hopefully, today I can make at least one of the other two pages I'd like to include in this book. Stay tuned!

Busy Day

Today was a busy, productive day for me.

I worked on many different projects for a change.

One of my new year's resolutions was to work from front to back in a good beadweaving how-to book to get my skills a little better all around. Today I started a bracelet in green and purple peyote. This is lesson one in the book Mastering Beadwork, A Comprehensive Guide to Off-loom Techniques by Carol Huber Cypher. I liked the pattern so that made it real easy to give my plan a try. I haven't looked ahead as I want it to be more like a real class.

I painted the faces on four sheets of paper stamped with this image of a woman. These are going to be used for cards I am making for my nieces business. I will be layering the hands and face over the base layer of the same stamp. She wanted some 3-D effect. Tomorrow I'll add more colors but it felt good to get so many copies done of just the face today.

As I did some of this work today, I thought of MaryTafoya's advice to get up and move about every so often and to sit so we don't strain our necks and backs. (She gave this advice at the beginning of the BJP). Needless to say, I thought of it when my neck started to hurt!

The decorative background paper started as a paper I stamped extra ink off of my face stamp onto. I added more stampings, chalk ink over paper strips, then tore up the paper strips and added them. I glazed over the whole thing and smushed plastic wrap over that while it was wet and then removed it to dry. Some more rubber stamping in gold and silver which needed embossing now that the paper was sealed with

glaze. I don't know whether I want to use this for ATC's or note cards but I'll get several out of it either way.

The red piece is for my TIF project. I need to add blue stars but the red is the basis for the marine page for my mother. Not a lot done on this page but a start is a start.

Last, but not least, I got some beading done on my BJP page for December. My eyes must not have been doing too well as I can see I should have added a bit of a darker green for the deeper shadows. I'm not going to change it now though. It's looking reasonably like the cookie jar in the photo under it.

That was my day of crafting. Hope your day went well too.

Another TIF Page

This is the second page to go in my ATC book for my mother. She was a very smart woman with a lot of common sense.

Since she used her head a lot I used a bigger copy of her head for her body/dress. I glazed over the print with black since she had to wear black or blue for her job (the one I remember most). I used the same printed tissue as on the cover and first page to make her flower brooch. A piece of blue wire became the blue pencil she held behind her ear. (Managers at May Co. back then were called blue pencils as they okayed things with them - you know, long before computers). I bought my mother a couple of large flower brooches when I got to go to Disneyland for field trips in junior high school. They gave her variety and brightened the two dresses she had.

The background was colored with blue pencil markings from a blue pencil left from the days she worked. I couldn't

believe it when I found the pencil in a few leftover items my father had saved of hers after she died (many years ago at age 56). I smeared a little black chalk on the background as it was too bright and stamped stars all over which were heat embossed with gold. They didn't stamp well on the glossy surface but I like how they don't dominate, just add a bit to the background.

You'll notice her hands are behind her back. Think of women back then whose "hands were tied" when it came to moving ahead.

My writing is atrocious and I always make mistakes. Next book I make I'll plan better and mark out the sections so I can type what I want to say. I'll bet I could say more in the same space that way too. Well, my paper figures are crudely done so my writing fits in anyhow.

I was very proud of my mother. People listened to her. They liked and respected her. I can't do half what my mother did.

TIF update

I have the cover done except for the binding which will be a spiral wrapped hopefully, around this blue pencil (I'll tell you why on one of my pages).


I am happy with the way the cover turned out but almost wasn't as the red Sharpie penwork started to smear when I added acrylic medium to glue on the tissue edging. I should have known better as others on the BJP have mentioned the red sharpie wasn't colorfast but I got caught up in what I was doing and didn't think about it till too late. It didn't smear so much that it ruined it; perhaps I shouldn't have said anything as it would have seemed like part of my "plan". LOL on that one!


First I gessoed two pieces of cardboard I had cut for the covers. I tore around one picture of my mom and edged it with Color Box's chalk ink. I used markers to do the checkerboard (and should have stayed with the Marvy ones for the red - you are now WARNED). A dryer sheet was dabbed with paint, dried and torn to fit a corner with a tad to go somewhere else. Then I glued the picture, dryer sheet bits and a part of one of my mother's old earrings to the front. My email address and web name were glued to the back.


I painted the inside of the covers with yellow acrylic paint to which I added pearl white. Then I toothbrush flicked some red paint across. When dry I added a purple glaze which was mostly rubbed off right away. I added flowers punched out from another section of the print tissue paper and rubber stamped butterflies on each half.


I wanted to use the same tissue for the edges as I did for my first page on the heart/body but I didn't want it to disappear on the background as tissue has a tendency to do when glue is applied so first I glued the printed tissue to plain white tissue. When it was dry I cut my strips and glued them with medium over the edges. I like how it turned out.

TIF update

I was really getting worried as, once I had set my
heart on an ATC book of paper dolls, I found I couldn't come up with a good figure. Finally I decided to skip the idea of a real looking figure and use the spirit of my mom instead.

So my first page of the book is of my mother's heart. On the front side I used chalk to color the white page (which is from the blank part of the photo paper as I only printed heads on part of it). Then I stamped music notes and a butterfly on top. I cut out a heart and covered it with tissue paper and placed threads under it (left from making my Christmas cards for arms and legs. The blue thread seems to have a permanent kink in it which I decided fit the image perfectly.


On the backside I wrote how I felt my mom's heart fit the image I made.

I felt good when I finished this page. It wasn't realistic and it started out with a real struggle but I like how it flowed once
I got started. I hope my other pages flow like this one and that it isn't a one time only deal.

The reason I worry is because I can't recall just making art for it's own sake before this past year after I joined the BJP. I have always been a Necessary Artist - if I needed something, I made it and if I didn't I didn't make it. So this challenge I have entered is a real challenge for me in more than one way!

TIF Planning

I finally found 3 photos of my mother that I can use to give a face to my paper dolls. I woke up last night realizing I hadn't thought about the face but only about the personas I saw in my mom. I started to panic thinking perhaps this challenge would be too much. I think I am starting to breathe again.

I cut some thin corrugated cardboard into ATC sized pieces as I am hoping to turn this into an ATC book. I printed out some faces but they are too big so need to do it again. At least I have started.

Now I need to decide if I will do all the dolls in black and white to go with her pictures or add some color to the pictures and make the dolls in color. Enough for today; I am still getting over a cold I got from the grandkids and I have other projects that are plenty behind that need some work too.

Take It Further Challenge

I have joined the Take It Further Challenge I found on Sharon B's In a Minute Ago page. This month she asked us to use the concept of admiration for someone as the idea for "something" out of paper or fiber.

I think I am going to do a piece on my mother. I've never done anything on her before. I've beaded a page for my father for the Bead Journal Project but not for my mother as yet. I think I am going to use paper for this project. In fact, I think I will make paper dolls to show the many things she was during her somewhat short life (she died at age 56). Hmmm, now just to work out the fine points and get started.