Memoirs: Maternal Grandparents

Posted on | May 19, 2010 | 6 Comments

These are the first few pages of my altered book journal which talks about my maternal grandmother.

On the left is a brief description of my grandmother’s family and on the right is a photo of my grandparents. Love this photo of them. This page spread is quite chunky – I used modeling paste to create the texture. I’ll try to take some photos of how to create texture using modeling paste this weekend when I work on the next few pages.

On this page spread, I did a collage about what I remember most about my grandmother. Whenever I would visit her, she was always in the kitchen cooking. I loved the food that she prepared. I also wrote a few things about her – mostly describing her when my mom was growing up. My aunt supplied the information.

It was interesting to see that while I was doing these pages, Mica and Rinoa were very curious to know who they (my grandparents) were as they saw the photos. They also couldn’t wait to see what else I put in the journal – they very much want to know more about my family history. I love it!

Memoirs: An Altered Book Journal

Posted on | May 16, 2010 | 2 Comments

I recently started an altered book project that will serve as a journal of my recollected childhood memories. I’m going to show you how I prep my pages and I invite you to play along with me by altering a book of your own. If you’ve never altered a book before, I promise you, it’s very easy, and more importantly, incredibly fun.

This is the book I’m using. I bought it at the library for 25¢. Check your public library. It’s a great resource for acquiring old, used, hardbound books. In my local library, they’re 25¢ or 5 for $1. I haven’t done anything to the cover yet but I do have some ideas on how I’m going to transform the cover. I’m just pumped to fill up the pages so I’m going to wait a while before I work on the cover.

When choosing a book to alter, there are a few things I consider. I make sure the condition and material of the cover is something I can work with. I check the size and weight of the book, and make sure I like how it feels in my hands. I also check the texture and thickness of the pages, and like the cover, I make sure they are pages I’d be happy to work on. What I particularly love about this book that I chose is how the edges of the pages are roughly cut, giving the book a handmade feel.

I glue every two pages together to make my pages thicker. And for every two pages that I glue, I tear out a page or two in between the two glued pages to compensate for the layers of photos, paints, and textures I’ll be adding to the pages. I hold a ruler by its edge along the spine while I tear out the pages to help keep the spine intact.

After my pages are glued, I’m ready for gesso. Gesso is a primer for painting. It resembles paint but is thinner and dries hard – making the pages stiffer. I use a palette knife to apply gesso to my pages. You can use a brush instead of a palette knife but I find that a palette knife keeps the surface smooth enough to write on while still leaving subtle textures on the pages. I’ll be doing a lot of writing so a smooth surface that won’t make my pen skip is very important.

I’m not worried if my pages do break away from the spine. I just restore the pages with a masking tape. Then I can treat the masking tape as another ‘layer’ on my page.

After the gesso dries, I create a simple background for my pages. First I color the entire page using watercolor crayon – a special type of crayon that is water-soluble. You can see on this page spread that gesso doesn’t completely cover the text of the book, which I like because the exposed text gives another ‘layer’ to the page.

After coloring the entire page with watercolor crayon, I squeeze some acrylic paint on a palette and spritz it with water to thin out the paint a little bit. I use a mini spray bottle (the one I have is called Mini Mister) to control the water I add to the paint because I don’t want to accidentally drown the paint with water.

I use a 3/4″ angle brush to apply the acrylic paint to the pages. While I’m painting, I spritz more water to the pages. This helps blend the crayon and paint and leaves a spattered effect on the pages.

This is the finished background page. It’s very simple because I know I can add more to it as I fill up the pages.

Like I mentioned, this altered book will be a journal of recollected memories and stories about my ancestors. This week, I’m focusing on my maternal grandparents. If you’ve decided to play along with me, here are some prompts for this week’s recollection to help you create your pages:

• Give a brief description of your maternal grandparents’ family history.
• What did you call your grandparents? Create a collage that best describes your grandparents or that reflects how you remember them.

Projects In Progress

Posted on | May 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

These are some of the projects I am currently working on.

A huge stack of photos waiting to be organized. Inspired by Stacy Julian’s Photo Freedom, I finally bought an index card cabinet to store my printed photos while they’re waiting for me to use them.

Some of the pages for my next junk journal, which just to warn you, is very addicting. Once you make one, you’ll never stop. No paper is safe anymore.

An altered book journal I’m working on about my family and ancestry. Troy saw how fun it is and started his own altered book project.

My next sewing project after the Insa Skirt – the Feliz Dress. This one is giving me major pains but it’s on its way to being finished.

I should be busy for a while, don’t you think?

Friday Art: Tale of the Heartbroken Potters

Posted on | May 10, 2010 | 1 Comment

Two weeks ago, Troy took a half day off work to participate in Friday Art Day. We had a tub of air dry clay stowed away, so Troy taught the girls the basics of clay pottery. They wedged and wedged, over and over until the clay was free of bubbles. Then they learned the coiling technique and started working on their bowls. Regardless of the outcome, their scoring and welding techniques were actually pretty good for their first time.

Rinoa rolled …

and shaped her clay into a pot.

And so did Mica.

But alas, the joy of pottery. We blame the air dry clay.

They’re not too discouraged though. They’re willing to try again next time. Learn from mistakes. That’s what matters.

Junk Journal #1 – Naked

Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 5 Comments

Here are glimpses of the bare pages of my junk journal. The journal consists of 3 signatures with 6 pages each. To see how the pages look with content, check my previous post: Junk Journal #1.

I used pages from a Canon catalog that I got from a photography workshop I attended, so you’ll notice several pages with photos of lenses. I also used pages from a Montreal city guide – that’s where the map came from. Both of them were in my recycling bin already before I decided to use them.

Paper bags and pages from old books also found their way in my journal. Here they are stitched together to create the length I need.

On the right, I created a flap where I can insert ’stuff’ in – like photos or journal pages or mementos.

This page is made from a security envelope. You know what they are, right? I’m sure you get a lot of those from the mail. I’ve collected them for a year now just because I discovered that some of the patterns inside are actually interesting. I was thinking of using them in my collages but Mary Ann’s idea of using them in journal pages is wonderful. I almost didn’t use this particular one because it was torn. But like I mentioned in my previous post, I’m trying to break away from my o.c. tendencies for perfection so I just let it happen. It does give character to the page.

Here’s Mica working on her journal cover.

And here’s what the covers look like. The left is mine and the right is Mica’s. Mica obviously went wilder than I did. I like it. I don’t have enclosures yet. I might just add a velcro on the flap or go with Mary Ann’s idea of a wrap- around tie. We’ll see. I don’t want to finalize it until I’m done filling up my journal because I want to see how bulky it will get.

I hope this has inspired you to make one. (And if you do, I’d love to see them.) Just the idea of working with materials that are bound to go in your recycling bin should get your creative juices flowing – lol! Imagine how you’ll be helping the earth and ‘creating’ at the same time.

Junk Journal #1

Posted on | April 21, 2010 | 4 Comments

I always feel good every time I am able to repurpose things. And this is one of those ‘feel good’ projects. I call it a junk journal because the base pages are made from junk mail, old catalogs, used books and magazines, and any material really that is destined to be thrown away.

I got the idea for this project from Mary Ann Moss’ Remains of the Day class. It’s the first book I made from total junk and aside from recycling, the main goal here was to break away from my tendency for organization and perfection (kind of an exercise in liberation) – and this project definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Mica and I each created one to serve as our travel journals on our trip to California. Here’s a glimpse of mine …

I started filling up the journal days before our trip. I wanted to document some things that we did in preparation for our vacation like going to the salon for a haircut. That’s Rinoa in the photo getting her hair chopped off. I used remnant pages of small, old notebooks for some of my writing and just glued them on the base page.

One thing I realized is that snapshot photos work well in my junk journal. I don’t care that they’re not perfect since they’re going to be shabbified anyway. (I know shabbify is not a word.)

On the left page is a narrow insert I made with a piece of scrapbook paper and this is where I tucked in my cousin’s wedding invitation. (The trip, after all, was mainly about the wedding.)

We promised Mica and Rinoa that we were going to watch Alice in Wonderland before we leave for California and the left side of this page spread documents the day we saw it. A plastic sleeve holds photos of the Mad Hatter and a few other characters.

Another thing we did that day was shop for things we needed for the trip – like a new carry-on luggage for me and walking shoes for Mica. I filled up the page with the movie ticket stubs and tags from the items we bought.

I included some plastic page protectors in the journal and this one on the right side houses the menu card from my cousin’s wedding. I was filling up my journal in chronological order and, at first, it bugged me that the menu card is placed way before I even document about the wedding day. In the end, I just let it go. (As I mentioned, this is an exercise on rebelling against my tendency for order.)

Almost every page has numbers to represent the date. The numbers are just something I printed and punched out. The names of the days are from an old American Girl planner that Mica had. A lot of the mementos I kept, I just stapled on the pages.

On the left side is a pocket page that houses some journal pages. On the right side is a printout of our flight information. The printout was so clean and white, so one morning, I used that page as a coaster for my coffee mug – that way I’ll have ring stains on the page.

Okay, my intention was to fill up this travel journal everyday during the trip – kind of documenting the events as they happen. I was doing good the first few days but I soon realized I’m not that kind of person. I’d rather wait until I get home and work in the comfort of my space. What I did, though, was write a lot on paper during the trip. This way I don’t forget anything, especially how I felt during certain times/events.

On the left is another pocket page. I’m going to insert some photos there.

I didn’t want to overfill every page so this one I kept simple.

Paperclips also work well in attaching souvenirs to the journal pages.

This one shows how security envelopes were used in the making of the junk journal.

And there you go. Tomorrow, I’ll show you what the bare pages of the junk journal look like. I figured I’ll show the filled-up pages first because if I showed the bare pages first, you might think “What the heck is she going to do with this?”

Easter Greetings

Posted on | April 13, 2010 | No Comments

Just catching up on some posts here. I know it’s late but I promised Troy I’d share the Easter cards that Mica and Rinoa made …

This one is from Rinoa (5 years old).

And this one is from Mica (12 years old).

And the idea for this project came here – an awesome site if you’re looking for art project for kids.

Friday Art: Basic Color Theory

Posted on | April 12, 2010 | No Comments

I have this book, Collage Lab by Bee Shay, which is an invaluable resource for my mixed media explorations and experimentations. What’s even more fun is that I can do the experiments with Mica and Rinoa. It’s never too early to train them to push the boundaries of their creative expression.

I’m starting them with color theory. Last Friday, we each did a color wheel and a simple experiment to explore color relationships.

I find that this is also a good exercise to get them comfortable with handling a brush – and of course, with mixing colors.

The left half is part of Rinoa’s color wheel and the right half is part of Mica’s. On the outermost right are sample swatches we did to study color relationships – like how surrounding colors affect a focal color.

The Insa Skirt

Posted on | April 5, 2010 | 5 Comments

My weekend sewing project – the Insa Skirt from Sewing Clothes Kids Love. This is a two-layer skirt, with the upperskirt bunched up in several places with elastics to give the skirt a textured, romantic flare.

This is also the first wearable garment I’ve ever created. I’m quite happy with it.

And so is my little munchkin …

Best thing is that this skirt is perfect for twirling which Rinoa can’t stop doing.

That Gritty Look

Posted on | March 29, 2010 | 2 Comments

In one of the training videos I was watching while organizing my recent vacation photos last weekend, Scott Kelby showed how to create this cool gritty post processing look that’s popular in commercial photography nowadays. I tried this technique on some of the photos from the wedding.

This is the unretouched photo of my cousin ML. (Photo taken by Troy Redington.)

This is the image after applying the gritty effect in Lightroom.

This is the unretouched photo of my other cousin DJ. DJ and ML are brothers, by the way. I know, their parents had this obsession with acronyms. (Photo also taken by Troy Redington.)

And this is the image after applying the gritty effect in Lightroom.

There you go, instant print ad models. (Oh, did I mention how I absolutely love these two cousins of mine?) If you’re interested, Scott Kelby shows how to do this gritty look here.

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