Summer Project

Butterfly Weed is one of my very favorite early summer plants to watch. I don't have one...but there's one in our neighborhood that I walk by almost every day. 

Every single stage is so special. The tight green buds turn to bright orange balls which open to fabulous flowers with tiny yellow centers. It makes my heart sing. 

I acquired a large watercolor pad from a friend and cut and folded a couple of concertina/accordion books a while back. I have several things in mind....but it was time to do something with one of them. Completely inspired by an Instagram post by Connie Fong I used my stencils to trace overlapping designs on one side.

I wondered whether I wanted to color....paint or doodle....so I decided to all three.  I'm also going to add collage and fabric elements. It's going to be a quiet...ongoing summer project.

This was a collage I did back 2024 for Color week of the Conscious Creativity Class with Philippa Stanton. I love it enough to revisit the wonky technique. 

Reinvented

I spent quite a bit of time savoring a patch or sunflowers this morning...but this was my favorite photo. I texted it to Alyson as I was walking...and we traded thoughts about our shared fondness for fall. 

Thank you for your kind words and support after yesterday's post. With time...she will be OK. Time and space...is what she needs.

Sometimes I have an idea that tickles me right down to my toes. (If the photos are distorted in the email version as they often are...I hope you link to the blog.)

I sent Becky a card several years ago that made just for her. I wish I had a photograph of the original card...but it was an artist's rendering of a grid of whimsical cats on chairs.  Becky loves both cats and chairs...so it was perfect in every way. When I was visiting this past April she had it displayed and commented how much she still loved it after all these years.

Knowing right at that moment what I wanted to do with it....I snuck the card into my bag. I know her well enough to know that she wouldn't mind.... hopefully.

So for Becky's birthday....I reinvented that fabulous card into a tiny accordion book. Today is her actual birthday....so this is the perfect day to share her little book.

I cut out all the cats and chairs and glued them onto the pages.

I chose some hefty cream paper that I used for printing quotes for my tag project because it folds well while working small. I had to glue two sheets together to make it long enough.

I dabbed all the folded edges with a distress ink from an almost dried up stamp pad to frame the pages.

I made the covers out of mat board and covered them with  cyanotype tissue prints using just a glue stick. It worked like a dream!

After some experimenting I ended up with a belly band from another cyanotype for a closure. This cyanotype is on paper that is hard to tear...so will hold up well while Becky slides it on and off.

Did I say I was tickled right down to my toes? 

I love this little reinvented book of joy....and Becky does too.

Happy Birthday Becky! Here's to another year to reinvent yourself!

Imagination

Paul serves as a Sunday worship minister at a small church in Scarborough. It's the perfect part time retirement gig and he really enjoys it. Easter is a big deal....maybe the most important Sunday of the whole year. 

This morning Paul reminded us that the Easter story requires us to use our imaginations to see what is possible. During these dark days we have to resurrect our imaginations and plant seeds of hope for a better world and remain dedicated to the practices of love and justice, of forgiveness and tender mercy, of courage and fortitude. 

I also got an Easter greeting from Kate today reassuring me that people from the UK have us in their thoughts as our country is in chaos.

She shared this photo of her granddaughter Izzy as they explored the bluebell fields in their E. Sussex countryside. I am smitten....not only with the bluebells...but also with sweet Izzy.

No imagination needed to see the beauty and blessing in this! Thanks Kate!

Sifting through my big bin of snippets stimulates my imagination. These little bits of this and that are like seeds of creativity. 

This time...I made a little accordion card layering up the snippets...or maybe I should say planting the seeds to create an out of the ordinary birthday card.

It started off as just an experiment to see if the concept would work. 

In the end I decided it was a keeper and I added some of my printed words of encouragement on every fold reminding us to imagine what's possible. 

It folds up nicely....

 ...and fits into a little origami box. A gift and a card all in one!

Happy Easter!

Delight

Tracie's theme for her booklet was delight!  

Time with my three sisters has been just a delight.

We spent quite a bit of time exchanging stories and reminiscing about growing up on the farm. We played cards....shared good food....and poked around LaVonn's small town of Evansville. Which, by the way....is just charming.

And now back to the booklets.....how delightful is Tracie's cover art!

 Her watercolor piece has a couple cut layers so some of the butterflies could be tucked in and behind the petals.  

So clever!....and I learned at our gathering that it was to cover up a mistake.  A very successful cover up it was!

I was third in line on Tracie's book....and it was during the time I was doing my Ounce of Joy project.  Since handling and sharing my snippets and connecting with readers brought me so much delight....I knew my page had to come from my scraps.

I wove together skinny strips of cut-offs from previous projects...

and tucked in a little handwritten "delight."

During such troubled times this quote seemed especially appropriate....

it has always resonated with me.

Tracie's completed booklet:

Tracie's quote:

"The true delight is in the finding 

rather than the knowing."  Isaac Asimov

Becky's page...and her quote:

Becky had just been to Florida and was 

celebrating the delight she found at the beach.

"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and 

the winds long to play with your hair."  Kahlil Gibran

Brenda's page....and her quote:

This a view Brenda painted of her spring garden...which brings her delight.

"Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion." Lorraine Anderson

Trees...

....with a nod to blue.

I had a wonderful day with my sisters.....and I may share more about that another day....but it's getting late.  And the silhouette of this tree against the lovely evening sky is the perfect lead in to Becky's accordion book.

Becky's booklet was the first one that came to me....and her theme was trees....with a nod to blue.  Right up my alley.

Becky created a lovely cover with a stenciled tree all decked out in punched petals for leaves. I learned that the punched petals originally came from me during one of her visits....that was fun!  I've always loved this quote!

After a sleepless night thinking obsessing about trees.....I landed on a stitched watercolor.  

I just jumped in stitching outlines of trees....using this decorative stitch on my machine for one side of the tree. In hindsight I wish I would have lightly sketched out my design first.

I stitched a few branch lines to connect the trees...creating a stained glass effect.  Then I started watercoloring the spaces with various shades of blues.

So far so good. I was glad I used dark blue thread rather than black.

There were lots of starts and stops with the stitching.  I pulled all the threads to the back...and taped them down with washi tape because I didn't want any knots. It's a mess....but it all lays nice and flat.

I added a little watercolor texture to the trees.....a few white snow dots...and fused some fabric swatches with subtle words on it to give some interest to the snowy ground. (I did the piece in the winter) I protected the piece with release paper when fusing down the fabric.

I was pretty happy with the result....

I thought it fit the theme of trees...with a nod to blue pretty well.

I used a similar design for my quote page....but used colored pencil this time.  

My quote came from the book Forest Bathing Retreat, Find Wholeness in the Company of Trees by Hannah Fries

"In an ongoing journey, this reaching out, and out again. And the universe with all its patterns and chaos and myriad threads of connection, is both terrifying and wondrous. Take a page from the trees: focus on being both rooted in the earth and searching among the stars."  Hannah Fries 

Here are all the blue trees.

Tracie's page...and her quote:

"Preserve and cherish the Pale blue dot...

the only home we've ever known." Carl Sagan

Brenda's page....and her inspiration.

Inspired by the work of Konstantin Dimopoulos, "The Blue Trees" 

project was featured in more than 14 cities around the world.

Patterns

This afternoon....I switched gears and I'll be spending a few days with my sisters. I love it when we're together.  But for this post...I want to start sharing our little accordion books.

Brenda, Becky, Tracie and I were pretty excited to get the boolets back to their original owners.  We had such a good time catching up...talking about art...and all things joy.  AND.....we've already figured out what our next share is going to be.

These pages in my booklet were done way back in January....but I couldn't write about them until now.  

My theme was "patterns"...and my pages are a little wild and crazy.  For my cover I used layers of fused patterned fabric strips topped off with trees from some fun fabric I was using at the time.  

"PATTERNS" at the top was doodled using markers...then cut out and mounted on the background.

This quote is one of my all time favorites!

"They snickered at her life full of many patterns....but she smiled knowing she was only being true to herself."

I planned out my lettering using tracing paper....and I finally squeezed it all in after 2 or 3 tries.  Then I wrote it out in pencil....and went over that with a permanent pen and erased the pencil lines.

Then I got busy with the watercolors and my paint pens.

My pages are colorful and wild....but I was only being true to myself.

My pages are back to back in the accordion booklet....and this is what it looks like when it's opened up....all ready for the next artists.

My booklet has traveled around the circle all winter...and I saw the finished booklet for the first time tonight.  Everyone had a different approach....and the pages flow beautifully.  

This is the quote/word side.

Becky's page.....and her pattern thoughts:

1.  A drawing or shape used to show how to make something.

2. A particular way in which something usually happens or is done.

3. Any regularly repeated arrangement, especially a design made from repeated lines, shapes or colors on a surface.

Tracie's page...and her quote:

"The real function of art is to change mental patterns 

making new thoughts possible."  Jean Duhuffe

Brenda's page....and her quote.

"If patterns exist in our seemingly patternless lived - and they do - then the law of harmony insists that the most harmonious of all patterns, circles within circles will most often assert itself."  Dean Koontz