Inchie Quilts...

Hello Everyone...

Inchie Quilts... well, that's what I'm calling them, anyways... A while ago, one of the members of my yahoo group suggested that the group host a paper quilt swap. I was very intrigued, because, well, I love paper, and I loved the various eye candy samples she sent my way. Not long after that, another member suggested that the group host an inchies swap. That got me thinking (this can be dangerous sometimes) and I thought about combining the two -- paper quilts and inchies.
You may remember my previous inchies post, these are the inchies that I submitted, along with 16 1 inch squares of patterned paper, for this swap. After I got my package of swapped out inchies and squares of paper, I started working on my quilts...

I made two 4x4 quilts... here's the first...

and the second...

these were incredibly fun to make... and has definitely piqued my interest in creating more inchies... and more quilts!

~Anne

True Colors Journal

Hey Everyone:

Last year, I purchased the book "True Colors" by Kathryn Bold. I purchased this book primarily because I was involved in a swap that was inspired by the book, and since I hadn't heard of it before this, I wanted to know what I was supposed to do for this swap. Well, I so enjoyed the swap, and the artwork I created during that time, as well as the artwork I got back from the swap, that I decided that I would host a similar round robin.

My colors for this swap are chocolate brown, lime green, and teal/peacock blue. I found this really gorgeous paisley paper, so I decided to keep my cover very simple and allow the paper be the primary focus of it...

The first journal I've received in this round robin belonged to Liisa... and she chose light, icy tones of blue with one feature color (of my choosing) for her color palette. Her journal is quite large, 10x10, and since my scanner bed is only about 8 1/2 x 11, I wasn't able to capture the entire page... so you only get a glimpse of what I've created for her... this is a portion of the left side of the spread...

And here is a portion of the right side of the spread...

When I first received her journal, I wasn't sure which feature color I was going to select... but, when I went shopping, I found these amazing papers with the icy blue, and brown featured prominently, so I decided to go with that. Strangely enough, and as I reported in the journal entry... brown has been a very popular color with me lately... it seems that I'm always choosing it! I'm not sure why. It's not even a favorite color of mine, and a few years ago, I would have told you that I didn't really care for it much... but in the past year or so, I've noticed that I've really grown a fondness for it.

I'm really happy with my spread, I hope that Liisa is too... the brown presence in her book is a bit more than a splash, I hope that's ok...

~Anne

Another Altered Book Spread!

Hello Everyone:

I've been a bit behind on getting art work that I owe out to those I owe it to... but I think I'm finally caught up and I feel like I can finally start committing to some new projects. (Shh... I can't say that too loud in case my hubby is listening. He will say "You're never going to work on that garage, are you??? LOL)

Anyways... I had Cheryl's altered book for quite some time, I actually received it just before the move, and unfortunately I didn't have time to work on it then because I was in the process of packing and organizing the move with movers, etc... so I just didn't have the time to be able to even think about art... much less the energy (or even the art supplies as I needed to pack them up!) So I've had this book for quite some time, and I actually started working on it shortly after we got moved in and settled, but, I just was never satisfied with the direction I was taking the artwork.

So I would start over. If Cheryl looks at the spine of the book, she will see that I went through quite a few pages to not only stabilize the surface to work on, but, also because when I wasn't happy with what I had done, some of the pages were sacrificed... sorry about that, Cheryl!!! I do hope she isn't upset with me about that.

Anyway, after working and reworking, I finally developed something I could be happy with... and if you look closely at the spread, you can see all the many layers within... and that inspired me to sketch the rose that I then cut out and added to the spread... because roses are also multi-layered, I figured that the multiple layers of the spread just seemed to fit in with the idea of a rose.

This is the first spread:

And this is the second spread...

I hand stitched the beading on the edge of the paper. I just felt like it needed a little sparkle and these little beads were so pretty.

Anyways... I hope that Cheryl likes the work I put in to her book...

~Anne

More Decos...

Well, just one more deco, actually. . .

This is one of the pages that I created for Betsey's "Owl" deco.

I wasn't really sure what I'd create for this deco, the theme, however simple, seemed to confound me. I didn't have any readily available owl images, and I'd never attempted drawing an owl freehand. However, A few weeks ago, I was simply doodling and among my doodles was a paisley shape, and as I started to doodle into the shape, it occurred to me that it is a basic shape of an earless/hornless owl. So, my original idea was to create a paper-pieced "Paisley Owl" but none of the owls I was piecing together really spoke to me, they were all just a bit too cutesy for my liking.

In the meantime, at a local stamp store sale (sadly, they've gone out of business!) I found a really cool owl stamp, so I decided that I'd use that in my layout for Betsey's deco. Then, as I sat, contemplating how I'd create the layout (I had a bit of a challenge, because my two pages for the deco were separated by a 2-sided, open-faced layout... so I actually created "two" layouts as opposed to 1 2-page layout) so that the two pages would look somewhat cohesive and yet would be able to stand alone. As I sat there thinking about how I was going to work it all out, I "saw" an owl out of this piece of felt on my work table. It was just a plain, small rectangular piece of felt, but, I could see an owl in it... so I started cutting... and the above spread was born. It's really a very simple page, yet it's complete. I am really happy with how it turned out, and I hope that Betsey is too.

The second page was a poem about a wise old owl that I found by an unknown author, written on a similar background with white gel ink. I am pretty satisfied with it.

Now... I'm deco-less again...

~Anne