Still blogging, sort of...

Hi,

Just checking in. I post most frequently to Instagram these days. Mainly because it's so easy and I don't like to take the time to say anything.  Mostly because I don't have anything to say or don't want to say anything.  But I'm not quite ready to let this blog die. So I'll just do a quick recap of some of the stuff I'm doing.

I've been doing art, art, and more art. Well, I'm not sure it's "art" so much as just me practicing with paint on paper or canvas. Playing with color combinations. Playing with paint mediums. Playing with techniques. Testing different papers and canvas. Just basically playing and experimenting with whatever I feel like each day.

In between watercolor and acrylic painting projects I've also done some small quilting projects:

And a couple major bookbinding projects:

 An I'm also learning how to do some basic chainmail weaves:

Thanks for reading.

Aileen

 

Summer Summary

Or "How To Be A Lazy Blogger".

So, I have been doing a few things over the last several months. But it's been a mixed bag of projects in different areas of interest.  So, because I haven't blogged about each odd craft thing I've been doing lately I decided to just post snapshots, maybe with a word or two, about each thing I worked on. 

Large Pojagi Cloth Panels.This large window gets direct sunlight several hours in the afternoon until sundown. Even with curtains behind the the pojagi panels there is still plenty of light coming through to play off the colors of the fabrics.

Small Pojagi panel. These were white on white fabrics stained with a diluted wash of acrylic ink which is permanent, still flexible and washable.

 

Mini Cloth Cover notebooks.

Mini (3 1/2" x 5 1/2") travelers style leather cover for Mini Notebooks.

A giant painting that I have been working on for a year and is not done yet! At least giant for me. It's actually only about 3' x 4' and the "canvas" is actually and old plywood crate lid. It's just one big experimental mess of color and texture. Fun.

 A couple little crochet bags from scraps of wool yarn.

 

A zipper pouch for pens and notebooks.

Some small artwork. A butterfly for an ArtSnacks Liquitex Cadmium Free art challenge.

Another butterfly for an ArtSnacks monthly challenge.

Some small painted canvas scraps to use as mini notebook covers.

One of the mini notebooks completed. The other two are ready for pages.

A big messy randomly painted cloth to cut up and use for more notebook covers.

 Still working on these.

And several watercolor "doodles" along the way.

Thanks for reading.
Aileen

Leather Blank Books

I'm back to doing book making and this week I made two.

1). A 2' x 2" mini memento book. 

Some leather patchwork and a pretty little key.

An interesting X's binding stitch.

And a few pages printed with mini photos of family members.

2). And a rugged looking  5" x 7" leather blank book suitable for a guy.

A simple and sturdy long stitch binding.

A mix of papers for the pages; white, color, graph, line, and maps.

Thanks for reading.

Aileen

A Medicine Bag and Other Little Things

I feel better now that I straightened up my craft room from the pre-Christmas crafting frenzy and can now move freely between the various stations I have set up in my hobby room. 

But I still have a couple leather projects sitting on my sewing table. This is the first of a couple of medicine bags I plan to make. I had never worked with leather before a couple months ago so this has been very much a trial-and-error exercise. Even the fringe I reattached four different ways because I didn't like how it was hanging. This wasn't the final version. After I took this photo I thought of another way to make the knots lie flat and in the same direction so I took all the fringe out and did it again.

This is another small leather journal but with a boo-boo. I cut a perfect cover for this little journal and it was laying on my work table when I accidentally clipped it with a scissors while cutting string. Yikes! Stupid me. I decided to use it anyway but with the added character of the extra repair stitches.

And another, improved crochet pouch for a mini leather journal. I love this yarn, it's a variegated cotton with wonderful colors. The pouch is all a tight single crochet except for some half-double and double stitches to form the curve on the flap.

 

And I did get the beads off my painting table so I have some collage work to get back to. I do have an area where I do bead and wire work but sometimes the thing I am currently working on temporarily encroaches into other areas. And once I get the leather projects off my sewing table I have some quilt projects I plan to work on. I guess my fantasy dream craft/hobby room is at least twice as big as the current one and has windows.

Thanks for reading.

Aileen

Post Christmas Regroup

Whew, the rush to get too many things done before Christmas is over. Now it's time to access the damage to my craft room and what is still on 'The List' to finish or forget. But my fingers have been very busy and this is what I've done in the past two weeks. 

These are what I call mini memento journals. They are the same size and design as the other mini journals I've been making recently but they have some preprinted pages inside with vintage family photos. 

I carefully formatted a file with these little photos in a grid based on the cut page size for these journals . That was the hard part. Printing out the pages and putting together the journal was easy after that. These were all bound with a cross-stitch pattern and the paper was tea stained and torn to give it a soft aged look.

I also made a couple more mini journals and some little journals that are not as tiny as the mini's.

These Mini's (above) are 2" x 2" but the Little's (below) are 3.5" x 3".  These were all bound with a simple long-stitch because they have more than 3 signatures each.

After finishing the journals I made a couple more earth power bead strands. There are 36 different gemstone beads in each strand with pyrite, quartz and amazonite anchoring the ends. I also put the beads on in alphabetical order beginning with Aventurine and ending with Unakite.

There are still a couple unfinished projects on the work table that I do plan to finish over the holidays. Then I have to back up to whatever I was into back in September before the "holidays" started directing my efforts.  

Thanks for reading. Have a Happy New Year!
Aileen

Beaded Snowflake Ornaments and Mini Gifts

Thanksgiving is over, the house is decorated for Christmas, most of the Christmas shopping is done, even some cookies have been made. That means it must be time to make some new ornaments and gifts. Nothing like getting motivated at the last minute to do projects I'd been planning for 12 months. 

I bought the wire snowflake forms these ornaments were made with last year! I did make one of the ornaments last year AFTER Christmas then moved on to do other things the rest of the year. This project has been waiting for me to get back to it for 12 months. These ornaments are a combination of 1950's vintage blown glass beads and new glass beads. 

And I'm still working on mini leather journals. This is the 5th one I've made and I went with fat and chunky and a simple long stitch binding this time. It also has tea stained hand torn pages of drawing paper. I learn something every time I make one of these.