Garden Altered Book - Nesting spread

I'm having great fun with this Garden Altered Book. I thought I would have a go at depicting a couple of the birds in my garden - for posterity! I painted the background (already whitened) with very watery acrylic paints in golden yellow first then while still wet added sploshes of magenta, then some yellowy green (no blue) When dry, I drew the brown bird with a pigma pen, and then the nest and branches, then I used very watered down brown paints to colour them in. The leaves are a piece of fabric made from newspaper stitched to muslin then painted several times. I then stitched the shapes randomly, cut them out and stuck them down. The bluetit box is painted tyvek, shrivelled with an iron, and the bird I traced onto tissue paper, stuck it down with watery pva, then washed it over with the yellow watery paint. I even had a go with stencilling along the top edge!
The Recipe I borrowed from Juanita Olson's Recipe Card in Issue 14 of Cloth Paper Scissors - I do hope she doesn't mind!
I really must give the book cover some consideration .............

Garden Altered Book - Bluebell spread

Further to my previous post, I have been playing around with the Bluebell page. I decided the painting of the bluebell wood over both pages was too overpowering, even though I painted over it with some pearl paint, so I painted it all out and started again.... I then painted a similar Bluebell Wood but only over a half page. Click on the pic. to read the writing underneath. The bluebell on the right hand side is actually a pressed flower with grasses. I can't really decide what to fill the empty space with yet, but will come back to it. I also have to decorate the 'inchies' when I find the right embellishments.....
I have an awful lot of little bits of paper in all my Cloth Paper Scissors and Quilting Arts Mags. that are earmarked for me to try stuff out, and the spread below is one of these ....
This is a pressed flower, the Musk Mallow, and I had a go at the article written by Elli Woodsford in Issue 3 of Cloth Paper Scissors. She uses silk cocoon strippings to trap the pressed flowers. I now have to think of something for the other page!

My Garden Altered Book - second spread - Foxgloves

Right then - here we have Foxgloves, from my garden. The page on the left is all pressed flowers, and the patterns inside each little 'challice' show up beautifully. I don't know how long they will stay though, I don't know anything about pressed flowers and preserving the colour or softness. Maybe in a month or so they will have dried up and fallen off. There must be something I can buy, to coat them with......
On the right hand page is a foxglove 'challice' I made from silk, and Foxy's dancing slippers are, of course, inspired by Annette Emms. She is blogging now, and you can find her here. Wonderful stuff!

Last month I pressed a Bluebell, I have loads in my garden - the native type. Also have some spaniards, but wouldn't dream of throwing them out.....

Anyway, I've started a spread for the Bluebell by painting this. It isn't finished yet, and I only want it to be a 'background' so will have to soften it somehow. I'll post again when I'm finished. Oh! decisions, decisions!!

My Garden Altered Book - First spread

Well, this is my first page in my Garden Altered book, from my last post. I think I will probably stick to wild flowers that are in my garden, for the moment anyway. I have lots of them - some people call them weeds - but as they say, weeds are only wild flowers growing in the wrong place. This seems to have taken me ages, and even now not all the spaces are filled, so I will probably go back to it. I haven't quite made up my mind for the second spread yet ..............

Click on the picture to make the poem bigger so you can read it.

Altered Books for sketchbooks

I've been promising myself for some time to make an effort and start using a sketchbook, instead of all those scraps of paper pinned to my workboard! Some time last year I started to play with altered books, using a child's board book as a beginning, again promising myself further experiment, at a later date. Recently, I came across an article by Jean Littlejohn in the Sept/Oct 2007 Issue of Cloth Paper Scissors about altering recycled books into sketchbooks. Above are five books I have been messing about with (literally) - four of them I am hoping will become sketchbooks I can draw, write and paint in, as all I have done is stick pages together, after tearing out quite a few at even intervals, then painting them several times with watered down emulsion paint. The taller one with some colour showing is a bit different, as I stuck some scraps of different papers over the pages with watered down pva glue...........
and then I painted it a couple of times with the emulsion paint. This was a bit of a gamble as the pages were quite shiny (the others books were quite mat paper, almost like newspaper, and very absorbent) I have worked through the whole book in this manner, and am quite pleased with the result.

The cover of the book, as you can see, is also very shiny, but any words showing through, on the pages, when I have finished with it may well be appropriate, as everything there is to do with gardens! I shall eventually make one of those beautiful (I hope!) tactile stitched covers for it, no doubt.
I have started putting colour on some of the first few pages, this one being the Contents page, at the beginning. As you can see, I am very optimistic as to how I am going to fill the pages, but with any luck the list of Contents should inspire me if I run out of ideas!


These are the colours of the next few pages into the book - lots still to go. It is wonderful how the textures show up, once you add just a little colour. All the colour so far is just watered down acrylic paint, but once I get going, anything goes! I'll post again, once I have done something interesting, and I'll also post about the other 'smooth' sketchbooks, waiting for their splattering of magic.

Calendar Girl Postcards

This is the inspiration for the May postcards for the Calendar Girls. Doreen in Australia has made this beautiful card for me this month, using
her embellishing machine to create the wonderful background of felt and silk and chiffon. The flower is of paper with a brad shaped heart for the centre. I love the way she has used little footprints for the leaves (see the text on the calendar sheet above) Thanks Doreen, it is just gorgeous. (It arrived this morning and looks even better than the picture)
Here is the card I have made for Lynda in Essex this month. I used newspaper for

the background, which I stuck with watered down pva glue to some old sheeting, having torn the newspaper into small bits first! I then painted it with watered down emulsion paint, then twice with an orange dye, scratching up the surface with a wire brush in between, which didn't do much really, due to the emulsion paint having sealed the surface too well!! I then copied the flower shape freehand onto some tissue, placed some silk on the front of the card, stitched the tissue onto the back of the card creating the design on the front, tore the tissue away, and proceeded to stitch more of the front, finally trimming away the silk close to the stitching leaving the daisy shape. The centre is a piece of dyed silk rod. I then touched up the petals with a little pearl paint to add a bit of lustre!

I added the text to some more silk, having dyed it orange. then stitched it to the card and frayed the edges.

I do hope you like what I made for you Lynda.

If you click on the Calendar Girls logo on the right hand side of my Blog it will take you to our Blog, where you can see all the other cards the ladies have made for each other so far this year. Also there is a link there for each member's Blog.

My friend Dot

I have blogged several postcards and ATCs my friend Dot has sent me, always saying how creative she is, and that I really wish she would start blogging - well she has! Dot recently sent me this beautiful postcard, and she has blogged about the paper fabric she made from which she produced this card, and I can actually identify which bit she used (the rest is destined for a book cover) Please visit her here and encourage her - all the help you can give her will be gratefully received.


I also received these two beautiful ATCs from Simone this morning. They are absolutely gorgeous Simone - thankyou so much. The ATCs below are those I have made to swap and are now on their way to Simone.
I do hope she likes them.