I’m so ready for Valentine’s Day, courtesy of my new stamper. Love it!

Yeah, maybe I will.

Here’s a tutorial (found via Craft magazine) on making polymer clay candy hearts (known to you parents out there as choking hazards).

Okay, Battlestar Season 4.0 has arrived. We are not going to complete watching this in time to watch the second half of season 4.0 in real time. So please — no spoilers!

This is a small notepad I worked up yesterday, designed to be refilled with a simple one-signature paper pad. I have gotten so much mileage out of that cover paper. It started out as a large print of geometric shapes I did at the Mass Art printmaking studio when I took the Drawing Marathon there in January 2002. It’s perfect as a cover stock for the simple softcover books. It creases so nicely, and holds up well. Need to get more. I think I need to go to Opus. . .

On another topic, check out the linoleum colours and patterns in this post on Robyn’s blog. The muted tones and the combinations, and of course the authentic distressing. Those birds. Beautiful. But really you should go see what Robyn makes, especially you fibre-loving people! These are older projects, but that cozy on the statue always stuck with me, and my appreciation has only grown with my ventures into knitting. (Hi Robyn! I tried to email you but keep getting permanent delivery errors! It’s nice to be linked up anyway.)

Searching for a card the other day, I stopped in at the Papery on Fort Street (across from the Bay Centre, if you haven’t been there). I saw these cards that were soooo far up my alley, well, a distasteful medical analogy is called for to describe it. I am so predictable. Throw some birds and cherry blossoms on there, and you are right in my wheelhouse. But it was the color combinations that sealed the deal. The name of the company that makes them is Waste Not Paper. I just looked them up on the web and it turns out they are a child company of Paper Source, which I don’t think has yet brought its yummy paper retailing evil genius to Canada, but do have a few locations in Massachusetts. I should have recognized the envelopes, and the color names (“pool” and “sage”). I miss Paper Source. I think they probably make huge margins on their products, but its one of those things where everything is so well-packaged and merchandised that you don’t mind shelling out. Plus, the price points are still fairly low, even if they are relatively high for what you are getting. I think they are kind of brilliant.

Here is an image that I accidentally created from a blurry photo of chocolate lilies I took the other day. Something about it I like.

I often have trouble making time for art & crafting projects, which is why I love my little sewn books. They are like little appetizers. So easy to play and experiment; just dip into the paper stash and go. No shopping required. No excuses. Just enough structure to let you get started without having to think your way out of having time to make something.

Some people keep their memories in journals and scrapbooks, but in my case they sometimes turn into journals and scrapbooks. A lot of my printing and collage experiments end up being returned to the stash to be incorporated into other projects, where they might come together with another scrap from another project from another time. These particular books use some of the materials from our wedding invitations — the linen book cord and the lokta paper.

I like the idea of storing the memories in the vessels themselves. It reminds me (obliquely, but it does) of that Steven Wright joke, where he says “I have an extensive collection of seashells, which I keep scattered on the beaches of the world.”

“Maybe you’ve seen it.”

Christmas cards are done, and ready to go in the mail. For the inside, I used greetings recycled from a batch of cards I picked up last year at the Salvation Army.

Some of the other card greetings are getting recycled as gift tags. Little pieces of collage are one of my favorite things to make. I like finding bits of my paper stash that look sort of seasonal and sparkly, even though they aren’t Christmas motifs as such.

Our place is now decked out for Christmas. We had a few neighbors over on Saturday, so we got everything gussied up. Its nice because we’ll be away for a bit before Christmas, so we’ll come home to our dog and a nice cozy house.

Hi there. I am almost to the end of my crazy September. I’m looking forward to catching up with a lot of things, and will be back with a longer post soon. Work has been taking up all the big chunks of time, but I’ve been sneaking in little projects, like the mini sewn books above, a little knitting, and even another batch of jam, which came out slightly more jam-like than the plum sauce I made. September seemed to come in one fell swoop, complete with crisp apples, chilly mornings, shorter days, and the changing palette of colors in the landscape.

September means we can take Sam to the beach again, which is one of his favorite adventures. Also, I think now that the equinox has come and gone, pie-baking is officially in season. I personally feel certain that an apple crisp is in my near future.

Starting new projects can be a slow and clumsy process. These are accordian books I made over the weekend, while working on an idea for a photo album/CD sleeve. Let’s say — just hypothetically — that a person was to take a whole mess of pictures at a family get-together and wanted to share the photos on a CD. But suppose said person wanted to send something a little more cosy and friendly than just a CD in a plastic sleeve. The idea is to create a little mini-photo album with a CD pocket in the back. These are still in process.

This one is just a regular accordian-fold book without the CD sleeve. Just something I wanted to work on, using some bits and pieces from my stash and some pages from a book I picked up on the “free” table at the library. Kind of a 3-D collage project.

I also worked on my card designs for the screenprinting project. I’m trying to work up at least a few print designs before I mix up my photo emulsion. I don’t want to have to throw away any expired emulsion, so the key will be to have a bunch of projects lined up and ready to go. Its slow going, though. Its hard to stay motivated when you’re working through some ideas that just aren’t really coming together. I just try to make incremental progress.

Meanwhile, in the garden, the peas are almost ready to eat. They are very active, twining their tendrils around the netting that has so far kept birds and bunnies out of our garden, climbing slowly but steadily. I guess that should inspire me, but instead I keep thinking I’m being outpaced by a vegetable.

I recently dipped my thrifting net at the Salvation Army and came up with some lovely drawing paper. Now, this stuff was Strathmore 100% recycled drawing paper before I repurposed it. So now I figure they must be, like, one THOUSAND percent recycled.

The cover stocks are not exactly recycled, but they are from my stash. The covers with the yellow colorway are made from a large abstract print I did in a class a few years ago, and have a lovely texture. The blue dotted paper is the only fairly new element, picked up at Opus this winter.

Truth be told, these are actually Couture knockoffs. Samantha Couture, that is: my former Ithaca, NY housemate and a talented printer and bookbinder. I reverse-engineered a softcover sketchbook she gave me years ago to work out the stitching in the binding. Thanks, Sam!