It Started With Elmer's

I took a class in scrapbooking, because I have brothers who are from 13 years older than I am, to 20 years older than I am. Our parents had passed away, and in the course of going through my closets to find old clothes for the thrift store, I came across a box of old family photos. Well, I thought it would be wonderful to make a heritage scrapbook for each of my older brothers.

The three scrapbooks I made seemed to turn out really well! Here are a couple of the scrapbooked spreads from those albums:

My father's and my mother's pages.

The growing family! (My brothers and sisters, with me in pink.)



What I didn't expect was that I'd love the experience of scrapbooking so much that I would feel really let down after the scrapbooks were finished. The process had been highly satisfying. I loved the textures of the papers and vellums, the versatility of the materials, and working with colors and layouts. I realized I wanted to make something else. So, I scrapbooked the early years of my relationship with my partner. In the course of the project, I learned more about backgrounds, stickers, manipulating photos, embellisments, and papers. It was really rewarding.

I wanted to try something less heritage, and even more creative. I'd been looking at some altered books and journals on the internet, and I wanted to try my hand at making my own journal. But I was still afraid to deal with any subject that was too personal. So, I decided to make a journal of the solar system. And this was around the time when Pluto's planethood was being called into question by some 'scientific' upstarts, so by the time my journal was almost finished, I could devote a page to our ex-planet Pluto. I have always loved learning about our planets so it was great fun.

Here are a couple of small pictures of my first journal, which I called Worlds Away. I still know next to nothing about pixels and posting photos, so they are, unfortunately, tiny.

I've been a writer all my life, but writing had never captured my focus like these exercises, whatever they were called, had done. The projects become meditative experiences. Every new idea feeds the imagination with another new idea! And beyond that, the results are immediately accessible to anyone with whom I feel brave enough to share them. I love the accessibility of this visual art form. I've always had an affinity for art, but never felt I could draw well enough to make a go of it.

In the course of surfing the web for more information about paper crafting and collage, looking for images of art pieces that resonated for me, I found an artist who introduced me to her art-sharing group, and now I'm merrily collaging in my free time, and learning ideas and techniques from other artists. It's one of the most fabulous things! Who says life doesn't begin at 50? You people in your late forties just have no clue what's really going on!

Here are some examples of the first pieces I made for swapping with the group:

The Monrovia Dawn series of artist trading cards (ATCs).

These are two of the techniques from Bernie Berlin's Artist Trading Card Workshop, which was the theme of one of our swaps. On the top is the babywipe technique; under that is the craft foam technique.

Here are copper-themed 'chunky' pages. A chunky book is a 4x4 book of pages bound by rings, with covers that are themselves works of art.

After a few swaps for projects themed by others in the group, I felt I wanted to try my hand at a collage canvas for myself. I decided upon a canvas for Diana, Goddess of the Moon, Goddess of the Hunt, and all-around Goddess of the keg party:

After which, I was feeling SO brave, I made a shadowbox jigsaw puzzle for a friend's birthday present.

Altering a jigsaw puzzle is awesome! Now I just want to alter everything! I'm thinking of an entire series featuring paper-towel tubes.

Next up: Chris plays with paint and water.