Purses, purses galore

Yes, it’s true, I’m making excuses for using my gorgeous laces. I do love working with vintage lace, ribbons, silks. Yummy.

I made two small drawstring purses. It would really have helped if I’d had a pattern. Through my mistakes, I can see how it needs to be built. I’m getting there.

This second one is made with a beautiful yellow raw silk, being a dress that I found in the $1 rack at the thrift store. I used a doily, dyed another one, and painted some pearl lace from a wedding gown. The pin at the front and the yellow button at the back are recycled from the thrift store too.

This is my carpet bag, or hobo bag. It’s a drawstring closure, probably not the most useful way to close it! I use doilies around the opening, and a build up of doilies and silky fabric, all recycled for decoration. The big plaque in the middle is a Michael’s special at $2.99. Looks rich, doesn’t it?

And finally, my faithful sidekick, Mr Paul lounging in the middle of the sweet peas, looking mighty serious.

Provence, toujours Provence

I made a Provence book for my friend who went to spend 2 weeks there.

I used reproductions of Cezanne art that I printed on canvas, then repainted. It was much fun. I didn’t have any of the very typical fabrics from Provence, so I just printed them on fabrics… Voila!

Two new books are out

It sounds like I just got published… I’ve actually finished two journal type books. Those are more journals than usual, since they have quite a few blank pages destined for journaling or scrapbooking.

The first book, very lacey:

The next book is made around original canvas paintings. It’s quite colorful, and it too has many blank pages for journaling:

Lots of Exquisiteness

It seems Mother Nature doesn’t care that it’s been below normal temperatures here in Western Canada, or that Spring never did arrive. She still goes about her business and produces exquisiteness…

Can you tell I adore roses?

Now to my watercolors…

A steampunk lace book

Haaa, I feel better. I had this book nagging me to be made. I love the ‘steampunk’ theme, but I’m never too sure how to approach it.

It seems that lace and steampunk would go well.

I am grateful to all the people who allowed me to use their ideas or their artwork images in my book:

-Ingrid Dijkers for the fabulous gear page, and the beads page

-I took the floating girl page from Lynne Perella’s book, Artists Journal

- I used two small domino images from Artchix, and bigger images from Deviant

-I used, at last, my Tim Holtz masks. )

- I used my own cabinet cards, as well as lace paper, antique jewelry, vintage lace and ribbons,

 This right page was an accident. I used a tissu paper that completely disappeared under the gel medium, so I ended up covering it with gold paint from Kroma in Vancouver, and it looks rather amazing now.

 

There are more photos of it on my Etsy site.

Now back to painting, but I really want to make another book on Paris, then one on Provence, then…

So  much fun, so little time!

Another lace book

Here is my latest. You can drool, but don’t covet, it’s already found a home. It’s going to France, where all the cabinet cards come from.

I just discovered that it’s not that easy to photograph lace, because it doesn’t have much contrast.

When I started this book, I worried it wouldn’t be ‘thick enough’. I had 3 signatures of 4 double pages each. They look like nothing on my studio table. But after a week of painting and filling up with lace, I had to remove one of the signatures, because the book was becoming really outrageous. It’s still 3 inches thick, and full of lusciousness.

You be the judge!