Texas Antiques Week

Last month I went to Texas Antiques week - I had the day off from work, and I wanted to get out of the house so I decided last minute to head down there.  Here are some pictures of things I thought were picture worthy:

I need a Dr. Pepper Chandelier 

These pics were over $1000 each! Yikes.

Here are some pictures of what I go.... this pink shelf, which folds down flat when you need to store it:

The shelf currently has tons of art supplies on it!  I found some cool ephemera for art journaling:

I got those two metal birds for my Christmas tree.  I also got myself a new Selina Vaughn Bag:

Its quite large, but I got it for when I go away for a day or two and don't need an entire suitcase.  I love the orange inside!   I also got some homemade soap (I can never resist that! It always smells so good), and some cute earrings (which did not photograph well).   According to my Jawbone Up I walked about 9 miles that day!  I really had a good time though.

Book Binding Class

Last Sunday I went back to Flat Bed Press in Austin, TX for the second half of the class where I made monotype prints.  This time we did book binding!

I finally bound those large collage folios that I was making over the past few months.

The front and back covers are record jackets!  I just liked the art on them and thought it was a cool idea so I went with it!  Here is the front cover:

All of the pages:

The spine - with a Coptic stitch binding:

The back cover:

I bound all of my monotype prints into a journal too!  Here are some pictures:

I also learned how to do Japanese Stab Binding so that I could bind my handmade paper from the Peace Paper Project:

I still have more handmade paper that I need to bind into books but I ran out of time at the class.  If you are interested in making books, here is the reference that my teacher recommended:

Do you do book binding?  Do you make your own journals?  I would love to see some pictures! 

Collage Art Journal Folios

This weekend I finally finished the last three folios for a book I have been wanting to make for about two years now!  The folios are quite large... 12x22 so the finished page ends up being 12x11.  Here are front/back photos of the last three pages:

Come back tomorrow to see what I did with them!! 

Glitter ATCs

I recently participated in a glitter ATC swap... "glitter" was the only directive.  Here are some of my creations:

I thought this was fun; it was definitely a challenge to use glitter paper.  I suppose I could use actual glitter or glitter glue, but I got hooked on using glitter paper.  Glitter paper, is, by the way, VERY hard to glue onto.  But, I was very happy with my creations and I hope that whoever they end up with likes them!

Scrapbook Expo

Mom and I went to a scrapbook expo in February.  It was fun... we did some make and takes:

And I got Lots of goodies:

I used those flour sack towels for screen printing  (Which I posted about a few days ago!).  I have already used my envelope templates too - I made some cool envelops from some of my paper stash.  The military/patriotic stuff was mostly for work (especially the Air Force stuff because I am Army!!), but I also thought it would be good to have patriotic (red, white and blue) stuff for Memorial Day and 4th of July. I am not a scrapbook person but I always find something cool for my art adventures at scrapbook sales.  What is the coolest thing that you have found at a scrapbook expo?

Last Art Pics from JAN

A few more random art pictures from January.  A postcard that I made... love the saying on it...

 A spread in my Fitness Art Journal:

 a spread in my regular art journal:

 A Watercolor pencil mandala I did in my work art journal:

 Using random paint and some stencils in my work art journal:

 And using random paint at work on some sticky labels - essentially I made my own stickers!!

These photos conclude my art pictures form January.  I hope you enjoyed seeing all the catch-up photos!  Have a great day!!

More art!!

Today I have some miscellaneous art pictures for you.  I actually went through a short stamp making frenzy for a bit.  I made these Texas Stamps....

And I made address stamps for myself and my mom.  I lost the desire to carve after that, though I am sure it will return at some point.  

Here are some art journaling pictures:

This last picture shows a page where I really was just playing around, but I really like how it turned out.  Sometimes I think you get the best results when you just play and have no plan! Also, its a lot less stress that way and we can all use less stress, right?

Screen-printing Class

One of the things that has been keeping me busy is that I have been taking art classes here and there around Texas.  One of the first classes I took was Screen Printing in Austin at Jerry's Artarama.  Here are some photos from the class....

My screen (the one on the left) getting ready to be exposed on the light board:

 My screen (it has two designs).. before I printed with it for the first time... the pink stuff is ink, you know I had to get hot pink ink!!

 I made a lot of prints...they were all over the place:

 And some t-shirts... one design you can see in the picture above, hanging on the back of the chair.  The other is here below:

 Printing on shirts is harder than you might think!  I also made some prints in my art journal to document the process:

 And here is all of the supplies that I left the store with .... I only need to get one more thing and I can print from home, including making new screens!!  I really want to try it but I have not yet had a chance to get that last piece which is the base board that you attach the screen to (temporarily) for printing.

 Once I do some printing at home I will share the results with you guys!! Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great weekend!

Last of the January Postcards

Hello and welcome back to my art catch up.  A few more postcards for you today:

That wraps up my January postcards, except for all the Valentines Day postcards that I made.  Since they are all quite similar I am not going to share all those photos with you guys.  We will move on to something better!  Hope to see you tomorrow.