The Atelier

"Work, Eat, Sleep" by Kris Hankins

Most of my days seem to slip by much too quickly. And, many of my days are full of the same old mundane chores and activities.  I am fortunate that I have a fair amount of time that I can allot to enjoy my art.

For me, creating art is a total escape from the mundane. My world comes alive when I sit down in my studio. No two projects are ever the same. Life is fresh, ideas are exhilarating, and finished projects are rewarding.

 

To express how my life comes alive with art, I made this chipboard wall hanging for my studio. It hangs over my work table. It shows the difference in my days…the mundane versus the art filled days.

To make this wall hanging, I started off by inking up a piece of heavy chipboard with chalk inks. I used 4-5 colors to create a weathered-looking background.

 

On light yellow, green and blue card stock, I stamped the words "work", "sleep" and "eat" with chalk ink, using the Buzz and Bloom Rustic Alphabet stamp set. I cut these words into strips and attached them to the chipboard. I also hand-wrote some personal thoughts next to each word.
 

I took (3) 1" coordinating cardstock squares, and stamped them with a paisley print from the Buzz and Bloom Paisley Passion stamp set. I adhered the squares to the coordinating word strip, laying them at a slight angle. 

Next, I took Buzz and Bloom Chipboard Rustic Alphabet and spelled out the word ART. I inked each of the letters with white ink. I then over stamped each of them with random images from the Buzz and Bloom Pretty Things I, II, and III stamp sets. I used two stamp images and two shades of ink on each letter to give the letters more depth and interest.
 

I then attached the chipboard letters to the background. I layered them on top of each other, using pop dots where needed.  A little “bling” is always a good thing to add, so I added  square rhinestones to each letter. I added a large decorative flower, and some small rhinestones to the background. 

Next to this, I added some handwritten words that describe how I feel when I am in my studio doing art.  As final touches, I attached paper flowers, two strips of polka dotted ribbon to the background, and added two eyelets to the top of the wall hanging.  A ribbon hanger was attached through the eyelets.

 

"Wall Hanging" by Aida Haron

We are seeing many chipboard book products in interesting shapes and sizes which are so much fun to alter. I decided to turn a chipboard book into a wall hanging, inspired by a brilliant scrapper I know.

The chipboard book came ready with the punched holes. You can have more or fewer pages but I decided that four was sufficient for this project. Paint the back of each chipboard page, this being a purely for cosmetic reasons, not really necessary but it does give the project a finished look. Arrange contact sized photos on the pages to have a rough idea of the fit and to see if you need to use them all or subtract the number.

On the front of the chipboard page, glue on your patterned paper, then sandpaper and ink the edges.

Make separate tags, one for each page. I chose the Buzz and Bloom Tubby Jr Chipboard Alphabets forming the word ART. The alphabets were painted with an acrylic paint to match the aqua colour of the paper, then glued on to a small piece of patterned paper, then on to a small circle chipboard

Complete one tag for each page, making sure a running theme is maintained. In this case, I used paper flowers and flower shapes in similar colours. When using several tags for journaling spots, a running theme based on the similar colours, textures or style keeps the whole look consistant.

The general rule for scrapbooking is that only the focal photo is matted, However there are exceptions and for this project all the photos are matted. The reason being that the colored contact sized photos are small, and if clustered together (without matting) will be confusing to the eye. Connect each page with narrow ribbons and a loop of thicker ribbon at the top to hang the project. Arrange the tags on the left side, tying them to the main chipboard body with narrow ribbons. You may glue the tags down if you prefer. Add the photos.

Journaling is on strips which were printed on cardstock by the computer, cut into strips with a craft blade, then glued on to the pages.

I really enjoyed this project, and hope you too will make a wall hanging !

 

 

"Muse" by Philippa Barr

A day in the life of a paper artist? Well mine is filled with lists! I cannot function without my lists. I have a daily diary to keep track of appointments, deadlines, due bills, swimming lessons, due bills - well you get the picture. I also have a list by my bed so as I am drifting off to sleep, if I remember something that needs urgent attention, I can write it down and remember it. For my craft side, I also have lists, but these are printed out and just left on my desk. These lists are design team, publishing  and swap deadlines. So for my project this month, I decided to make a nice arty little folder to house my craft lists and deadlines.

I started out with a small binder kit and followed the kit instructions to put it all together, except for the binder rings. I put the folder aside while doing the decorating.

First I cut two pieces of calico, each large enough for the front and back covers and to be able to wrap around the inside. I made a 'dish' out of foil and put a small amount of water in the 'dish' and then floated some alcohol inks on top of the water. Working quickly so they didn't mix and become muddy, I laid the calico over the water to pick up the dyes, then hung them outside to dry. I used a foil 'dish' so as not to stain anything I had. I used this technique to get a more muted effect of the dyes. Using them direct on the calico would have created a deeper, more intensive colour.

Once they were dry, I cut a smaller piece of felt to back the front calico piece with. I positioned a few bits of ribbon and other fabrics and just let the sewing machine go randomly all over the piece. The felt backing gave a bit of a quilting effect.

The bird was cut out and also backed with felt before sewing onto the cover. I then used a fine black pen to emphasize the bird and his wing. All buttons were handsewn on.

The Buzz & Bloom chipboard pieces were coloured with chalk ink and the Long Corner Flourish 'nest' was wrapped with purple nylon cord before gluing to the cover.

Both the front and back covers were then glued to the chipboard binder and I used patterned paper to cover the insides. I wrapped the spine with book binding tape to cover the join and finished off by adding the binder mechanics inside.

"A Day in the Life of a Paper Artist" by Keri Brooks-LaClair

This is the project I have been looking for!! To be able to express to my family, and the world, that even though I am obsessed with all things paper, the time I have to work with it is overshadowed greatly by my daily responsibilities!

It was so funny when I saw the subject of this month's Buzz and Bloom project, because I had just posted a message on a forum about how frustrated I get when people constantly look at my work, and say "I don't have time for that!" or "I have too much IMPORTANT stuff to do, to scrapbook!" or my favorite, "I'm just too busy!". Like I'm not? I finally got to the point where I just say, " I make time." And that is exactly what I do! I get supper in the oven, bring the timer with me, and head upstairs to my Scrap Cave. It is amazing what you can do in 30-60 minutes time! I print pictures a bunch at a time, and then I don't have to waste time sitting in front of the computer photo editing every time I want to complete a layout. I try to hand journal, not only to make it more personal, but to cut back on the time I run back and forth to the computer to print things out, size them, reprint them, make sure they fit, etc. etc. etc. I make the time, because I want my son to have these books someday, and know exactly WHO people were, and HOW MUCH everyone loved him. I want him to have a photo reference of events and occurances, and exactly what happened. There are so many reasons to scrapbook, but the one and only one that should matter is this: I do it because I want to!

The Buzz and Bloom products I used for this layout are:

 Buzz and Bloom Unmounted Stamps: Wonderful
Buzz and Bloom Rustic Chipboard Alphabet

For my project I decided on a two page layout, as one 12x12 page could not possibly hold everything that I do in a day!

* I took pictures of all the things I do on a typical day, and printed them out as small 1 3/4 inch squares. I mounted them all in one big rectangle, and added a larger photo of me, mounted on cardstock. When I finished mounting the square photos, I had three empty spaces, so I stamped them in brown ink with Buzz and Bloom's Wonderful images.   

* I made up a journaling block, to reflect all of the names and titles I go by in a day's time. I wrote them all down, and embellished with a tab that says "alias" on the side. I stamped another image from Buzz and Bloom's Wonderful UM set.

* I finished off several of the components of my pages with a spiral notebook punch, to give it a genuine paper feel.

*For the other side of the layout, I took four pictures of my "cave." I didn't bother picking it up, cause 99% of the time, this is how it looks. Taking time to clean takes time away from actual creation time!

*I made a collage type title, a bit of this, a bit of that. My main focus was on the word DAY, which I made using Buzz and Blooms Rustic Chipboard Alphabet. I covered them with paper, cut them out, and lightly sanded the edges. For the smaller words in the title, I used smaller sized rubons. I wanted LIFE and PAPER ARTIST to stand out, so I made them a bit larger.

* And last but certainly not least in my book, I distressed the heck out of everything!

I guess the main thing I have learned in the past little while, that was made even more clear to me doing this project, is that if a thing is important enough to you, you will make time for it. That rings true with scrapbooking, paper crafts in general, and also life!

"growth" by Terri Hayes

Our challenge was to create something based on the idea "a day in the life of a paper artist." When I first heard this challenge, I thought I would create a page that described a typical day. Since I have actually created pages like that before, I decided to go in a slightly different direction. 

From the time I first saw Buzz and Bloom's Tubby Alphabet in chipboard, I have wanted to use them as a mini album. They are a perfect size for this! I used them to spell out a word that was representative of a typical day in my life...I chose the word growth. The word resonated for me for two reasons: I am so aware of how fast my children are growing, and growth is something I aim for on a daily basis.

These were the steps I followed to create the mini album:

1. I covered the chipboard letters with cardstock.
2. I covered large tags with paper, and punched a hole at the top.
3. I inked each letter.
4. I used the a Buzz and Bloom Garden Sketchbook flower stamp to add a few flowers to each letter.
5. I journaled on each letter. For each letter, I selected a topic that began with the letter and then highlighted that word using the circle stamp also from the Buzz and Bloom Garden Sketchbook set.
6. I adhered the letters to the tags.
7. I added a few embellishments.
8. I placed the tags on a metal ring, and added ribbon to the ring.
9. I haven't done this yet, but I am going to place some of my favorite photos on the back sides of the tags which are now blank.   

On my first page I talked about growth.

The second page discusses my (daily) routine; the rest of the pages focus on one and only (moments), wonder, thinking and hope and the role these play in my everyday life.

 

This was such a fun project, and I now have a mini album that is totally unique.

"Today" by Alli Paterson

This was a great assignment that really made me think about what it is that makes up my day and where and when do I actually do my creating. The first thing that came to mind was the car - during the week I am in and out of the car all day, getting ready to go somewhere or waiting to go and pick someone up from somewhere. After the car I made buildings to represent the different places we go - home, school, centre sessions, work and home again. So those are all the things I HAVE to do. What makes it all bearable? My gorgeous boys and my art. Riley my 3 year old just loved the poppet of himself. He would come and watch what I was doing, talked about the clothes, and when it was all finished he was quite excited that he and I were waving. I like to make myself available to them even if I'm 'working' on something as they are what gives me my subjects and my inspiration.

Buzz and Bloom products -
              Paisley Chipboard Flower
              Tubby Alphabet
              Paisley Flower stamp from the Paisley passion stamp set

Other products -
            2 x 40cmx50cm canvas
            paint
            patterned paper scraps

1. Make a sketch
2. Gather your props. I roughly sketched out my trees and houses and cut them out of patterned paper. I used part of the paisley flower chipboard as part of the tree and the bits I trimmed off made great birds.
3. Make your poppet people. I collected our heads and made them similar sizes. After printing and cutting them out I fashioned clothes from cardstock and patterned paper. I drew everything freehand to give it a slightly jumbled, less than perfect look.
4. Transfer your sketch to your canvas. I used pencil and left the pencil lines visible after the paint wash had been applied. I used 1 part paint to 3 parts water for my paint wash and applied it with a large brush.
5. The road most traveled - the road represents what we must do, so I have done quite bold words, repeated several times. The road is widest at home and narrows into the distance with a twist or turn for interest.

Putting it together

    6. Using modge podge I liberally covered the up side of the tubby chipboard alphabet and stuck them    onto patterned paper. Once they were dry, I cut them out and sanded the edges.

    7. Using texture paste I indiscriminately blobbed bits here and there and spread them out and added dots with the end of a paintbrush. Then when it was dry, I painted it a similar colour to the patterned paper.

    8. I stuck down the houses, car, trees and family, placing a book under the canvas and using a brayer to make sure they stuck well.

    9. I printed out my words and phrases and cut them up, inked them and stuck them down.

    10. I first stuck down the T, D and Y of my today, put them under pressure while they dried and then stuck down the O and A so they overlapped the other letters.