Karen's Muse and Musings

Love Is in the Air!

Just when you thought it was over and gone for the year, here I am posting a spread on Valentine's Day. It's my first spread in another player's book for the Holidays Altered Book round robin that I wrote about yesterday.

Above is the left side of my spread in Darya's book. She had started a book with a lighthearted style, and I tried to continue in that style, using coordinating scrapbook papers, diecuts and tiny buttons. The right side is shown below.

I love that image of the kissing couple, and I've been wanting to use it. On the right side, I made tiny envelopes (1.5" x 1" if they were closed) out of coordinating paper, sanded them, and placed tags inside. The tags say love, or more specifically "the love" in French, German and Italian.

Now that this project is complete, I have two more thankfully small projects to do, and then I have to get busy cleaning my studio. It's a crapalanche of the most extreme kind. Jasper is having a great time in here because there are so many papers, trinkets, paintbrushes, etc. to chew on. I have to pick up and make this place puppy-proof or I'm going to go insane. I can't wait to see what I find under the piles of stuff — maybe that rounded corner punch I was just needing but couldn't locate.

A New Altered Book

I'm participating in an altered book round robin with the CalendarGirlz group. In the past, we have purchased calendars to alter, but Kathy McElroy came up with an unique idea to alter a book with a holidays theme. The plan is to send our books around this year, and each player will do a spread for a holiday that occurs within their month. Each person chooses the holidays they want illustrated in their book. For instance, for January you could go with New Year's Day or choose Martin Luther King Day. February could be Valentine's Day or President's Day. You get the picture.

I'm behind in showing you my book. I had it done and mailed off on February 1st, but I've had so many art commitments lately that I just didn't find time to feature it here. Here is one of the divider pages for the months. They are all very similar.

Below is my spread for New Year's Day.

My absolute favorite thing about altered books is how they look standing up with the pages fanning out. Mine already stands up by itself — wondering what it will look like by the end of the year!

It has been a while since I've actually altered a book, and it has been so much fun that I wonder why I don't do it more often. Since this book was completed over a month ago, I have now finished my first spread in another player's book, and I will post photos of it tomorrow. Come back!

St. Cecilia

I just completed my skinny pages for the month of February. These pages are going to Lisa who likes cemetery images, saints, gothic anything, gargoyles, medieval, Renaissance images, angels, the Madonna/child, contrasts between the dark and the light, Marie Antoinette, historical royalty. So you can see that I had a lot to choose from, but I chose a saint and a medieval woman. The collage above features St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. It is said that while being put to death, she sang to God. Oh, that I would have the courage and the peace of mind to do that upon my death! The actual image of St. Cecilia above is from a painting by Guido Reni done in 1606. Isn't she beautiful? I love the porcelain quality of her skin and the rapturous look in her eyes. She lived and died in the 5th century, and the violin had not yet been developed, but who cares?

For the other side, I chose an image of a medieval shepherdess. I'm assuming she was a shepherdess because of the sheep and the shepherd's staff, but wasn't she well dressed for herding sheep? She's a scholarly shepherd too, reading a book while tending her flock.

It's the last weekend of the month, and I have several projects to mail off by Tuesday the 1st. So, it's on to the next one! Procrastination — isn't it a lovely thing?

Cosmic

cosmic |ˈkäzmik|
adjective
of or relating to the universe or cosmos, esp. as distinct from the earth : cosmic matter.
• inconceivably vast.

It's Every Inchie Monday again, and this week's theme is cosmic. I used Photoshop to digitally create my interpretation of the 2nd definition — inconceivably vast.

I've been asked what I intend to do with 52 inchies at the end of the year. I plan to mount them on a substrate to form a paper quilt and frame it.

Fishy!

That's the theme for the week at Every Inchie Monday. So far with this challenge, I've managed to avoid cutting out small pieces and making a true collage. Well, not this time, and I can tell you it's hard cutting out tiny pieces, especially when your eyes are growing older every day. Okay, enough complaining. Here is my fishy inchie.

So I cheated by letting my "dream cloud" hang out a bit. Do you think the inchie police will get me?

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Stone Angels

If you follow my blog, you probably know how much I love stone angels. So, when I had free choice of subject matter for my friend Debby's skinny pages, I gladly chose angels.

Our skinny pages are 4" x 8", and I find these proportions very easy to work with.

This round robin has been a long one, beginning in January 2010 and ending April 2011. Now that it's coming to a close, I have mixed feelings. I'm sad it's almost over, but I'm elated that soon my entire book will be complete, filled with artwork from my 15 friends who participated along with me. I'm also excited that in a couple of months I will be able to share all of the wonderful art within my book with you.

A New Kind of ATC

That would be a chunky wooden block ATC! My friend Aileen came up with the idea for a swap of these blocks with a Valentine theme, and I found that it is so much fun to be able to not only decorate two sides but six sides. I made two of these for my friend, Jean.

If you want to make some of these chunky ATCs, you can purchase the wooden blocks from Aileen at Outside the Margins. While you're at her site, check out the fabulous Color Mists.

RAK

I was delighted to receive this beautiful collage from my friend Trinka Seals. Trinka is unfortunately blogless — unfortunate for you, that is, because her artwork is fabulous. Thank you, Trinka. I love this whimsical piece.

Every Inchie Monday — Maudlin

MAUDLIN |ˈmôdlin|
adjective
self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness : the drink made her maudlin | a maudlin ballad. 

I must admit I thought I knew the meaning of this word, but I did not. I was thinking it meant something more like macabre, dark or sinister, so it's good to learn the correct meaning. It wasn't an easy word to illustrate, but I decided to go digitally this week and recycle a digital artwork I did a while back.

I love this stone angel, maudlin as she is. She is located at the historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

Every Inchie Monday — Powerful

Powerful is the theme this Monday, and what is more powerful than the range of human emotion? We  love, but we just as easily hate. We feel ecstatic joy, but we also feel wretched sorrow. We feel intense trust in our loved ones, but at times we also feel bitter jealousy.

Hopefully you are not hating anyone or feeling sorrowful today and will join us at Every Inchie Monday. It's a challenge to see what you can create and depict in 1 square inch, but it's a lot of fun too.