More about my Teabag Book

OK... here are some more details of my teabag book...

You already saw the cover in my previous post.

The idea of doing a teabag book was inspired by this website. For those of you who know me at all, you can imagine that this project presented several immediate challenges for me. First off, I'm not a teabag kind of grrrrl. To use manufactured tea bags in this project seemed just... wrong to me. So I needed to find a way to use loose leaf tea for this project.

Hannah Grey to the rescue! I found these adorably dinky envelopes (ATC sized!) to use as the pages for my book.

Of course, the envelopes are white.... and there are few things less artistic than plain white paper/envelope/canvas ... well... you get the idea, right?

After attaching the envelopes to little cardstock stubbies to create the signatures for the book, I made simple ATCs (sans heavy embellishment, as I didn't want to add additional bulk to the book).

The two interfacing pages demonstrate the second challenge this project presented me... a handsewn binding. I am, by no stretch of the imagination... a seamstress... as one can see by my sad looking binding. At least it's sturdy. ha!

Which is why I decided the outer spine needed a fringe-y ribbon. It covered my shoddy stitchery... on the outside anyways... I just hope that the recipient (hi Teresa!) overlooks it. :)

Anyways... I hope that Teresa enjoys the book I made for this swap... it was a lot of fun to create this book!

~Anne

UHU Product Review!

I am WAYYYYY behind in doing this product review. I'd like to offer my apologies to UHU... as I received your product in the mail, I also had several other projects going at the same time, and things just piled up! Now that I feel caught up on my projects, I feel comfortable to talk about UHU Creativ Fabric Glue...Another part of my postponing this review is that I consider myself more of a paper artist -- fabric & fibers are more of an embellishment for me, rather than a medium. So, for this paper artist, I felt a little "lost" as to what I was going to use this glue for... but at the same time, excited, because it was an opportunity to try something that I probably wouldn't have normally considered using.

For my project, my yahoo group, EccentricPastiche, held a "teabag book swap" where we made little handmade books using unopened teabag envelopes as the pages, binding the book with a handsewn binding. I will talk more about this project in another blog entry, because this entry is to be dedicated to my review of the project itself. Here is a photo of my finished project.

The cover of the teabag book is needlefelted. Once I had sewn the pages into the center of the cover, I used the UHU Creativ Fabric Glue to adhere the fringe-y ribbon to the wool felt. The glue does take a while to dry, which tends to be frustrating for the impatient artist in me.

However, once it's dry, it's FABULOUS! The hold is superior to other methods I've used in the past to adhere ribbons to fabrics. (Note: I am NOT a seamstress, as those who know me can attest, so actually SEWING ribbons on to fabric is not a feasible option)

Once I adhered the ribbons to the wool felt, I used the glue around the edges of the felt to create a 'no fray' border around the felt. The purpose of this step was two-fold, first, while wool felt doesn't necessarily 'fray' the edges do tend to be a bit 'loose' on needlefelted wool. The glue line held the loose fibers around the edges to the rest of the felt. It also provided a stable 'surface' for my stitched edging to 'hang on' to.

Again, the border of glue took a while to dry, but once it was dry, it became PART of the fabric... the only way to remove it was to cut it off. The bond is permanent and strong.

To learn more about UHU products and projects you can make with them, visit this blog: http://www.mariafilosa.com/

Thank you to UHU for giving me this unique opportunity to try your product.

~Anne

Monday, July 16

OK, as promised, (and 20 minutes later, I would have been in to Tuesday!) here is Anita's Yellow Ochre & Tomato Red page......

This past week or so has been crazy for me, I hardly knew which day was which! I guess, in a way, that's a really good thing, since the Harry Potter movie was released last week and I haven't been able to see it yet -- generally, as a rule, we don't go see a movie on the week of release to avoid the obnoxious crowds, but hey, this is Harry Potter! -- so I am grateful for the distraction so that I wasn't moping about waiting to be able to see the film!

But, my wait will be over this week, we are going to go see it on Wednesday, barring any unforeseen problems! And... of course, when hubby gets home from work in the wee hours of Saturday morning, I shall have the BOOK!

YiPpEe!
~Anne

Sunday, July 15

Well, today is the day! This is the final day for the color infusion swap, and all my pages need to be in the mail tomorrow! I'm very excited to have been a part of this project.

There are 4 more pages for me to display... first, Ria's Glacier Blue, Eggplant & Silver page...

The whole Paris theme came together while I was working on it, I was looking through my colors (papers) and my images, and I found the irises, which I thought would work well on this page. And, then I was just inspired to add the Eiffel Tower, it just seemed to play so well with the irises. Who needs Paris in springtime?

Next, here's Red's Orange, Yellow, Pink & a touch of Red page.

These colors proved a challenge for me. About 2 months ago, I found this gorgeous fabric that worked PERFECTLY within these colors... I rushed home with it, and stiffened it to make it like paper. Then as I started to work on it, I realized how busy the background was, that it just swallowed up anything else I put on there... which -- obviously -- wasn't what I wanted... back to the drawing board...

My next thought was to cut the fabric in such a way that I could use it as an accent on the page rather than as the background... this idea I loved, except for one thing, I botched up the background to make it just as busy as the previous one -- different, but still too much, and not what I wanted at all.

At this point, I was ready to go the simple route. I grabbed some watercolor paper and laid down a simple two tone background, I like the way the yellow and orange worked together. I'm quite happy with this page now! I hope that Red likes it too!

Next, here's Kerry's Blue & Burnt Umber page......

When she first announced her colors, she said the "blue that was popular now" -- I had no idea what that meant! LOL Fortunately I wasn't alone, and others (as well as myself) asked for elaboration... and she sent a color swatch. The color appeared to be a teal-blue to me... so that's what I went for. I hope Kerry is happy with the color too. It's a bit brighter and more blue than most teals I'm accustomed to (my colors for this Infusion swap are Teal and Grey with my preference of teal being more of the greenish teal color) ... but I like the way the Burnt Umber plays with the color... it almost makes the teal more alive.

Anyways, here's hoping these colors work alright for her... you probably can't see it in this image, but I wrote my journaling for Kerry's page on the postcard ... it's a quote from one of my favorite songs from Korn, "Coming Undone."

That's all for tonight, I will post Anita's page tomorrow! :)

~Anne

July 13, 2007

Here's some more pages from the Infusion of color swap... First, Jo's Burgundy & Deep Moss Green page. . .

For Jo's page, I quoted the Genesis song "Home by the Sea" -- one of my all time favorite song... I love the haunting tone to it. The images I chose for this piece made me think of the song when I would work on it. I hope Jo likes!

Here is Jeri's Canteloupe & Honeydew page. . .

For Jeri's page, I chose lyrics from the song Locomotive from my all time favorite band, Guns N Roses. I don't know that the lyrics necessarily inspired me while I was working on this piece, but I really love them and felt they worked well with it.

And finally, Susan's Violet & Yellow-Green page. . .

This page started out as a "Traci Bautista" inspired work, but, as I continued to work on it, I found myself developing on that into something a bit different. I really enjoyed the challenge of these colors. I hope Susan enjoys the page I've made for her.

Hopefully I'll post more tomorrow night, if not, then I'll post the rest on Sunday, before I mail them all out! This has been fun!

~Anne

July 10, 2007

It's been a while since I've posted... So I figured this was long overdue!


I do have some artwork to share with you. First, I have Teresa's Raspberry & Tangerine page I made for the Infusion of Color swap. Here's side one:

the scan of the page is not so great, because it really seems to concentrate the colors, and minimizes the impact of the tangerine addition. The colors are very bold and bright, almost more than I'm used to working with -- I think that's one reason why this page gave me so much difficulty, I'm used to working with more muted tones.

Because Teresa chose tangerine as one of her colors, every time I started to think about this page, the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" kept playing in my head... which is why I decided to use the song as my journal writing for this page.

Side 2......

I am happy with how these turned out, I loved working with the bright tones, I loved the challenge, even though it took me a while to get 'round to working on it!

Here's hoping that Teresa is as fond of it as I...

Let's see, something else I've been working on ~ Charms! These charms are for a "Black & White" charm swap, which required us to use only -- black and white! Here's a scan of the charm I made for this swap...

Note to self: One thing I noticed after scanning this charm is that my scanner glass is dirty! Must clean it! Ack!

This is actually Version 2 of this charm... I had made the original set of charms on smaller lalique tags, but, after I finished them, I was not content with them, I feared the back needed 'something' -- so I then decided to paint the backs of the tags with black india ink. This was a mistake, because it darkened the whole charm, and the paisley lost it's ~flair~ so, I grabbed this other set of lalique tages I had in my stash, and recreated the charm... these are a bit larger, although not too large for the swap. I hope that they are enjoyed by the others in the swap.

Well, that's all for now. I hopefully will be able to post tomorrow with pictures of the Burgundy & dark moss green page I made for Jo & the Yellow, Orange, Pink & Red page I made for Red for the Infusion of Color Swap... Thanks for reading along!

~Anne