Success.

My leap of faith saved me. The construction technique worked and now I have another bit of knowledge to help me on my artistic way.



Now I can address the envelope and pop this little thing into the mail system (snail) and think about how to utilize my new found construction technique.

Thanks for popping in and we'll see you soon I hope! *smiles* Norma

leap of faith

I am at a point in the construction of a used tea bag paper book that I am making for a friend. It is all ready to be put together in the final format. All illustrations have been transferred by the gel medium method, all quotes inserted, all sketches complete.


Here are two pages side by side.


The entire book from two perspectives.



Normally, artwork in person is much much nicer. But because picmonkey is such a great photo editing program the photos look better than in person. The gel tranfers are foggy and I know that to get them sharp I will have to coat them with more gel. Here is the leap of faith~THE GEL MAY RUIN MY BOOK! The pages may curl permanently, the gel may run over to other pages and ruin them, the watercolor may run horribly and ruin my sketches. Who knows? I've never done this before. So guess what? I am going to do it anyway. I just wanted to show you the beautiful little book now, in case this is the best I ever get from it. We shall see...

Fingers crossed! *smiles* Norma

On my work desk today...[WOYWW147]

I'm making a used tea bag paper book for a friend. Here's a peek at one page:


Here's the tea bag as I am working on it. When folded the book has a front and back cover with two sheets (four pages) within:


While I work I am being watched by the 'crew' ~ these puppets are my best critics!


This is what they see when they look down so seriously. My workspace. My favourite materials it seems, are india ink, coloured pencils, watercolor and used tea bag paper.


Thanks for dropping in. For more views of other's work desks, have a peek at Julia's blog, What Is On Your Workdesk Wednesday. See you soon, I hope! *smiles* Norma

Teeny Tiny Book

Sitting in my mail box today was an interesting envelope that I knew must be from Kim Henkel. I'd been aware that the tiny treasure was coming my way and my heart skipped a beat when I saw it sitting there. I carefully opened it to find:


A teeny tiny accordion art book that measures 7/8" wide by 1 and 1/4" tall when closed. It has four leaves and ties shut with the tiniest strip of cotton. On one side there is a message "place to grow" and the other "grow your seeds." Kim made a gift tag that is an art piece in itself. It's painted both sides with a lovely uplifting message. There is a gorgeous art card with envelope as well which I'll keep for myself as it too, is an art piece.


Here it is standing. I love this delicate treasure.



Kim is an outstanding artist. Her blog "Letting in the Light" will have you deliciously taking in her gorgeous original art. I count myself lucky to call her a friend.

Failed art tag

Sometimes one has to continue on to the bitter end when one is working on a piece that they know is a failure. Because there are lessons to be learned in the process. My bird tag is such. Here is the finished tag. I am so sick of looking at it due to having laboured for hours over it, that I've now given it away. Someone's fresh eyes will enjoy it and be able to use it as a tag.


I'm not going to go in to the many troublesome spots (boring) but will say that the tag was meant to stand on its' own and doesn't. For this shot, I am holding it in situ.


I took a picture at this point in construction as only one mistake is present. I thought I'd better get a shot in case I wreck the piece completely. As it turns out the tag didn't work for a number of reasons, but I do love the sweetness of the sprite riding the swallow to some unknown destination.



Thanks for dropping by! See you soon, I hope. Wonderful day to all of you, *smiles* Norma

Swallow and Altered Rolodex Wheel [WOYWW144]

Well I am just starting my tag for TAG TUESDAY (thankfully we can post up until next Tuesday), and so I decided to show that but then I noticed my beloved rolodex art wheel which contains altered rolodex cards. It is time for me to be making a new batch of cards so I can swap again and get a new flush of art cards to put into my wheel.
Here I have traced the outline of the swallow and transferred it to my art paper. About half the time I draw the image by my own hand, and half the time I use the transfer process (for partial images or the entire image, depending). For this design I transferred the entire outline as my tag design requires an exact crisp edge.


Here is my altered rolodex art wheel in situ.


Flip the art card and you see this:


Another flip and you will see this:



Thanks for dropping by. To see more fun interesting inspiring art work surfaces, drop in to What is On Your Work Desk Wednesday, Julia Dunnit's fabby blog.

Fairy Postcard from Switzerland

Sadly, this is a mug shot supposedly of Samuel. It seems she got into some mischief.


I'll let the postcard itself tell the sob story. It reads:

"Oh my fairy, I am downtrodden. I was staying with Renata in a cheese factory. I'm in Switzerland now. I got in to some very serious trouble. We were playing hide-'n-seek in the swiss cheese room and got caught on the security camera. It wasn't me actually in the shot but I couldn't deny it because I was in fact playing too. I got kicked out and have to leave the country. I am so ashamed. I could cry. I love you, Samuel."

Thanks for dropping by. To see more fun postcards in the Postcard Challenge 2012, pop by here.

Making a paper rope from one used tea bag

I'm playing today. Here is what I made:


One tea bag was sliced into strips, leaving the top and bottom intact. Working on the back of a chunk of carpet, I began rolling the strips gently. I wet my fingertips slightly to get a grip. Here you can see that the whole piece has the beginning of a roll going on.


Now I am beginning to concentrate on the individual strips. You can see 3 of the strips have been done individually.


Once all of the strips have been rolled individually it is time to slice the top and bottom bits clear through to separate the strips into one long piece. Each strip segment has unrolled paper where they join. Roll these to get as smooth a length of paper rope as you can. In the end, I got a 41" length. I'll play with this rope in future art pieces.


I will need to figure out how to encourage the paper to stay in place once rolled. The joining bits of paper unrolled quite a lot. I might try rolling the whole piece again using a sugar and water solution, or spray starch, or something. Time to put the thinking cap on.

So if you want to play with paper rope, hopefully this post gave you a start! Thanks for stopping in, and I hope to see you soon, *smiles* Norma