catch up and dotee dolls!

ohmygoodness, it's been a while! i've been so busy, it's just been ridiculous!

after my last post, i had some bad health weeks (as usual), went to a wedding which wore me out immensely, and then started on a super intensive secret project that basically had me sleeping and sewing for two weeks straight! i was supposed to leave for a holiday last tuesday, but due to exhaustion and stress and a whole bunch of family stuff (my poor little sister was in a car accident 3 days before we were supposed to leave! she's okay, just sore), it was canceled. i'm sad that i'm not going but wow, what a relief at the same time! that gave me time to finish up round 2 of the dotee swap, which i was late for, and now i can finally breathe again! and start catching up on here and on craftster!

since i've just finished the dotees for round 2 of that swap, it's about time i posted the ones i made for round 1!

i have to say i wasn't completely happy with these ones (i love the ones i made for round 2 way more!). they were fun, but i think i tried to make the shapes too wacky...

the faces were all made with iron on transfers ironed onto white felt. i chose the felt because i wanted something non-fraying, and it worked really well. before i printed the faces, i changed the colour tones in photoshop to match them to the fabric colour, and i love the effect.

the two blue ones -



(this face is from an old ad - i think it's deborah kerr, though that was just a fluke!)


(the face for this one came from a bunch of old photos than Jane Doe sent me - she was my favourite!)

the green ones



(this face came from vintage photos purchased from thepaperfleamarket.com )


and the red ones



(this face came from vintage photos purchased from thepaperfleamarket.com as well, i ended up with a few photos of this girl! the flowers are vintage beads purchased on etsy)


this one was my favourite! it's most my style i guess. and i looooove the red velvet i used, it's the same stuff i used for the sacred he(art) chunky page.

the last of the tip in pages!

this page was for the same person who received the nesting doll vinyl atc - i knew she loves nesting dolls as much as i do, so i couldn't resist making her tip in page themed around them as well!

the background is strips of a russian/german dictionary. i'm not super happy with the faces on the dolls... i think they look juvenile. the flash card in the upper right is russian/english. it flips up, so that you can see the definition "antique"

and the back, which i really like, because you can see the strips better, along with all the shades of brown.


this page came together really randomly, but i really like it. i painted the background, and then realized that i'd put too much texture in it, it would be hard to finish the page. so i started thinking about images that would flow with the texture, and would match the colours, and i remembered that the recipient loves mermaids. the mermaid is a vintage nude that i turned green, and her tail is vintage vinyl. and the letters were a fluke, i bought them the day before i made this page, with nothing planned for them.



the back is very simple. layers of green and blue paint, with a green design stamped on. i like it, though it does seem really simple. the thicker parts of the green paint weren't completely dry when i painted over with the blue, and the colours blended really nicely.

this page makes me really happy, even if it is rather simple... i LOVE the woman in the photo, i have a whole series of her saved, they're fabulous!

(i want to emboss EVERYTHING now! and i really hate my big bite crop-o-dile, it seriously screwed up those grommets... damn, stupid expensive piece of crap!)

(i love flocking too)

this one was an angel page for someone whose partner flaked part way through the swap

the little birdie is cut out of various shades of textured "handmade" style paper

the back paper is the same as the bird's wings, and i used a mask to leave the bird/branch image. i'm slightly obsessed with makeup sponges, they just work so well for things like this! i used makeup sponges on the page above as well, to tone down the paper on the back.


(THESE grommets look good because i used the smaller crop-o-dile!)

microfiche, with staZon ink (red, grey, white)
it says "check your numbers" in red on the microfiche and then it says "lucky" in white on the green piece. there are dark grey antique style glasses printed on the microfiche, and lots of red little numbers.

this was my very last tip in page, though i didn't realize it at the time. it's a rather fitting last page though, because i love it! i'm sad that the swap's over though... we've been doing it since october! i need to gather up all the pages i've received, finish my cover, and put my whole book together....

tip in pages and recipe cards!

look at me, posting during the day! amazing!

and you can actually tell that it's daytime, because the sun is out! it's been sunny for about 3 or 4 days now, and it is SO refreshing, god, i hate the rain! spring is definitely coming, the rhubarb is coming up, there's a yellow rose blooming my backyard, i can go outside in just a sweater... oh, i'm so excited for summer. i need warmth. i'm such a cat, there's nothing i love better than curling up in a patch of sunlight for a nap!

so i've got a bunch of stuff to catch up on, i've had multiple tip in pages arrive since i posted last, as well as a chunky 4x4 page. and i realized i never posted the recipe cards i made in december.

the first tip in page
i started with a catalogue card for a book titled "one two buckle my shoe"

(the scan washed it out a bit)
i used a neat background paper that had kids playing, words from a kids primer, polkadots, and an overall wash to blend it all together. i carved stamps for the numbers 1-5 and stamped them all over the background. i scanned vintage buckles, then printed them out and cut them out. i coated them with glossy accents (LOVE that stuff), so that they'd look shiny, like real plastic. then i threaded ribbon through them and glued it on.

the back is more of the same, a piece of the catalogue card and more buckles with ribbon.

(though the scan isn't quite as washed out)

i really loved how the buckles turned out.

another tip in page

the picture of the women is from thepaperfleamarket.com, though i scanned it and adjusted it in photoshop to make it sepia toned before printin it out again the right size. my idea was that they're sitting around reminiscing about a family vacation, hence the "remember when" twill tape. the writing is actually on acetate, but it needed a backing to show up, so it's glued to some white cardstock. i bought this acetate that you can print on using an ink jet, and i'm really not liking it. it works cool, but it's got a wierd texture that makes me unhappy!


the back was stamped with the water technique before everything was glued together, and then i added the vintage bus ticket and the camera stamp. the writing at the top is a packing tape transfer, i've been playing around with those a bit.

it was really time consuming - dyeing all the twill, ironing all the twill, weaving all the twill, etc! (the twill was dyed using dylon hot "coffee" - the darker was left in longer) plus just figuring out how to do the slides between the layers, etc. but i do really like it. the slides came from stifflersmom a long time ago, and i finally got an excuse to use some of them!


and the recipe cards i made! i quite like them, they're pretty simple, so as to not distract from the recipe, but cool nonethless. note that i REALLY don't cook, i'm quite a klutz in the kitchen, but these are family recipes that i quite adore.
i scanned them and printed them out on cardstock for the swap.










i'll post the chunky page in a few minutes... there are A LOT of pictures of it!

More documentary themed tip in page pictures!

the fabulous phizzychick (who, by the way, was very nerve wracking to create a page for, cause she's just way too talented for her own good), said i could post the photos she took of the tip in page i sent her.

see how the light shines through? these pictures are fantastic! (i'm also pretty jealous of the sunlight, to tell you the truth. i'm tired of rain!)




i really want to play around with more pages like this, with the see through bits. i have lots more film strips, as well as a ton of slides, and some old negatives (though i'm not sure i wantto give those up...) it's so fun, and adds an interesting dynamic to the page. my other goal is to start adding movement to my pages, whether through pop-ups or pull tabs or pockets or whatever. i'm so in love with this swap, it just pushes me more and more.

tip in page

one of my tip in pages was received today, and i am SOOO excited to share it! i really adore this page, it was so hard to give up.


i was thinking about documentaries, and how they "tell a story, entertain us, teach us, and preserve our history" and how if we don't continue making them, our history will be lost (hence the watch gears, time passing). i got the film strips a few weeks ago (at urban source), they're fun cause they're narrower film than the ones i usually get.

the raised swirlies are the result of glossy accents (LOVE that stuff!), and the swirlies themselves are rubber stamps that i stamped with multiple shades of brown and black ink, then spritzed with a spraybottle before stamping, to give it a watercoloury look. it's my favourite technique at the moment (the one the owner of the upstart crow showed me). and i have no clue what the background paper is, but it's some sort of circular chart, covered in numbers, that i found at ruby dog's.

there are three layers, the background on the front, the page itself, and the background on the back. i laid out the film strips, figured out how much overlap was required to keep themn in place, and then i carefully cut the layers all the same (except i had to cut the back twice because i ALWAYS forget that the binding is switched to the right on the back!).

and then i glued just the edges of the film strips to the page, and covered the edges with the background paper. you can see through them everywhere except where the photo and the "what's her story" strip are on the back.


the girl on the back is a copy of a vintage photo JaneDoe sent me from Australia, and i love her. i kinda think she's wearing a school uniform, but i'm not sure. i want to know what her story is!

the recipient of the page took some better pictures, that actually show how you can see through the page, i'll ask her if i can swipe them and post them here.

more halloween goodies! stationary! images! vintage pics!

i signed up the 2nd halloween weekend swap last week, and i made a few fun things.

my partner wanted a cape for her wizard costume, and i managed to get a good enough deal on the fabric that i could actually afford to make it! i quite like the fabric actually, it has a really nice drape to it, and it's fairly sturdy.


(note my left over pj fabric pinned to the dressform for contrast! it's so damn bright!)


i didn't bother lining it, since she only needed it for a costume, so i just serged all the edges and hemed it. it was really hard to give up!

i also made her a halloween apron, since she likes to entertain. i used cotton halloween fabric for the main part, which is 45" wide, and gathered into the waistband. the ruffle is black cotton fabric with a swirly pattern, and was hell to gather! i don't know what the problem was, but my basting threads were breaking constantly. the fabric is fairly thick for cotton.



but i was so happy with how it turned out! so cute!

and then i also sent a long a little spider stuffy made of vinyl. it was just super quick, 20-30 minutes, but it's cute. i've been wanting to make vinyl stuffies, but hadn't gotten around to it.



i spent some time playing around with the bits and pieces i received on monday, and hauled out my own goodies as well. i made myself some stationary!

i made a version of it on tuesday morning, but i wasn't totally happy with it, and then i didn't think and deconstructed it before i could scan it. so i recreated it, adding a bit, and scanned it so that i can print out copies whenever i want without worrying about where the original is. i'll probably print it in black and white mostly, but it looks cool either way.


it's got a piece of microfiche, bingo cards, a plastic fan, an old card from flowers, bits of old greeting cards (i love the ones with the fake lace around the edges!), a couple of religious charms, some tickets, a little balsa wood tag, sushi grass, a piece of a bridge tablet, and bunch of the little pieces from the ephemeral mailbox museum. i really love it.

i centred it perfectly so that all i'll need to do is cut down the middle to have two sheets to write on. today i found a really awesome copy place pretty close to my house, where colour copies are only $0.26, and b&w are $0.05, and both are printed on a really nice weight of paper. i got a bunch of colour copies made for now, though i'll switch to b&w eventually.

i've also been totally obsessed with my scanner lately! i've been scanning old family photos, partially in preparation for a project my mom's doing for the party tomorrow, and party because my grandmother sent home a shoebox full of pictures in august, and we need to return them in november.

my scanner is one of my favourite things ever, i can do so many cool things with it! the other day i started scanning images of old wallpaper from the book "Off the Wall; Wonderful Wall Coverings of the Twentieth Century". these are a few of my favourites.


(aren't the deer fabulous? i adore them!)

i bought the book a couple of years ago on clearance, thinking one day i'll get a scanner and i'll be able to use them! i want to use them in paper stuff obviously, but i also want to try printing them on transfer paper and ironing them onto fabric to sew with.

and then a few days later i started scanning old photos. when i was in manitoba this summer i bought a stack of photos about 3" high for $5.00, and then about 10 more at $1 each from an antique store. i've been intending to scan them, but it's taken me a while to get my butt in gear! i've scanned 148 pics so far, and i'm not even near half way done. there were also about 10 negatives in the packet, and they're super fun too.
these are some of my favourites so far.

i love this couple

and then a few of the negatives. after i scanned them, i used photoshop to invert them so that i could see what the actual pictures looked like.



(doesn't the baby look like the abominable snowman? so cute!)

i have a couple other packages worth of projects to post, but i'll save them for another day, this is long enough!