Tuesday Tips & Techniques: Playing with Paper Featuring Barb Owen!

Day 4 of My Vacation: 

Making Collage Papers with Barb Owen

Day four of my vacation in Missouri was spent as an art play date with Barb Owen.  I met artist and author of "Normal Doesn't Live Here Anymore", Barb, online about 3 years ago, and we became fast friends.  This was our first opportunity to meet each other face to face.  Needless to say, we were thrilled!

We played with several different methods of creating papers to use as backgrounds and in collage.  As a bonus, we also took a brief side trip using fire.  I'm happy to report that all of my fingers remain intact!

The UStream videos total about 3 hours, but I think you'll find our day entertaining and even maybe informative.  I'll be doing a tutorial for each of the processes in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, pour your favorite beverage, pull up a chair, and get ready to be inspired.

I've also included images of the goodies I received from Barb, images of the wonderful papers I made on our play date, and the pages from my travel journal that I created from our play date.  Thanks for a wonderful day, Barb.  I had a blast!  Be sure to check out the other great UStreams that Barb has recorded.  You won't believe how many creative ideas my creative sister shares!  Also, be sure to visit her blog: The Art and Soul of Barb Owen.  It's been a few weeks since she last posted, but I spoke with her yesterday and she assures me she'll be posting again very soon.  Right, Barb?



Video streaming by Ustream


Video streaming by Ustream
Barb streams live on Fridays at 2:00pm EST.  Stop in and tell her hello - there are a great group of creatives who visit there each week, and they'll all be glad to see you!

Goodies From Barb

Barb gave me the most lovely goodies when I visited.  This journal she gave me is amazing!  It's packed full of her homemade papers using the techniques we played with during my visit.

I can't stop rubbing the heart embellished spine filled with wonderful fibers of every color and texture. 

Barb also gave me pages of quotes.  Don't you just adore quotes?  I'm especially fond of the quote Barb gave me from her own book.  Isn't this old typewriter font great?

She gave me burnt brown paper embellishments that she made...

And these beautiful polymer clay embellishments.

Barb also gifted me a stack of ATC sized prints of her original artwork.  They're gorgeous!

The Papers I Made

I can't begin to tell you how much fun I had making these papers with Barb!  I only wish you could see how truly luscious and glittery they are - the camera (and my photography) just doesn't do them justice!  Here are the first papers we made using the resist technique with glue and Scribbles fabric paint.

These are the paste papers....

and these are the papers I made using the stamping technique using paper towels, acrylics, stamps and stencils.  SO much fun to do!

My Travel Journal Pages - Day 4

Here are my travel journal pages from my day with Barb.  They aren't 100% complete, but very close!  I used some of the paper that I made on our date, a couple burnt brown paper embellishments, the "holey tape" that Barb generously shared with me, and photos of our day that I printed from the computer.

I hope you've enjoyed today's Tuesday Tips and Techniques post.  We have a wonderful online community of creatives, and if you get the opportunity to meet some of your online friends in person, I hope you'll make the effort.  There's just nothing like being "face-to-face" after an electronic relationship!

See you next time.  You still have time to enter my giveaway if you haven't done so already.  Instructions are HERE.  Scroll to the bottom of the post to find out how to enter.

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Monday's Musings - Autumn

I feel the coolness of your breath 

Caress my skin -

Like a jilted lover's exit,

A cold embrace.

Morning sun adds warmth  

to willing branches -

Summer left overs , 

It does not touch my face.

Swirling, twirling through the sky

you make your presence known-

Summer makes it's exit left

as you command stage center.

A tragic comedy you are-

captivating audience in your tale,

cunningly you hide

the inevitable, gray winter.

Your steely touch caresses 

every surface that you touch-

Growing ripe with anticipation 

The mums await your cue -

Your drama in it's glory 

has influenced many an artist's brush-

indeed, my own.

Autumn - there's nothing quite like you.

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

P.S. There's still time to enter my giveaway!

The Fairies' Tea & Giveaway

I received a message-

It was left outside my door,

"Fairies' Tea" is all it said,

And told me little more.

I arrived at sunset

And I was just in time to see,

Fairies hanging flowers

From the branch of every tree.

They surrounded me with flowers,

On my head they placed a wreath,

And they sprinkled me with fairy dust

From my hair down to my feet.

The tea was quite delicious-

It was spicy, it was sweet.

and they served mine in a floral cup

I could forever keep.

They moved into a clearing 

Where the moon was shining bright,

And the fairies did their dance for me

Well into the night.

Thanks to Inspiration Avenue for hosting this fun blog hop!  Want to see more images from "The Fairies' Tea"?  Go HERE and scroll down the page where you'll see a list of all the participants and find links to their sites.

GIVEAWAY!

The fairies have been busy with travel this year, and they wanted me to share these Chinese joss papers with you! 

 Here's all you need to do to enter:

1. Follow my blog:  http://angeliasartjournals.blogspot.com/ (if you don't follow already)
2. Leave a comment on this post. (include an email or blog link so I can contact you if you win!)

The deadline for entry is midnight EST., Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012

A winner will be selected at random on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed 

"The Fairies' Tea"

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Weekend Journal

My First Travel Journal Pages

It's been a lot more time intensive than I could foresee, but finally I've got a few completed pages to share with you.  I began by typing up our itinerary.  It's fortunate that all of my photos are dated and time stamped and uploaded to the computer in order.  When one does so many different things in such a short amount of time, it's difficult to piece it all back together after the fact!

Once I typed and printed the itinerary for Missouri, I cut it apart and and put it on the left side index page (I used a combination of red double stick tape, Mod Podge, and Gel Medium as adhesives) along with some Mizzou imagery.  Columbia, MO is a college town, and they're crazy about their Tigers.

DAY 1

My first pages were dedicated to the whole airport and flight experience.  I think I could start a new blog on that subject!

I like the vivid green of the luggage tags against the blue background.  I completed a vacation themed word search on the flight to St. Louis, so I tore the page out of my book and applied it to the background.

After we took our luggage out of the back of the car in Cleveland, I gave Madison a daughter a hug and bent down to retrieve my bags.  This embroidered heart patch was laying next to my bags - a good luck charm!

I tri-folded my boarding pass and adhered only the first section of it to my page, and wrote some blog- censored thoughts about going through security.

I've used Tim Holtz vacation stickers throughout my journal to record the day's date.  I've used a variety of other stickers for the day and/or month.

Here's the 2nd spread for our first day.  Remember how I told you whatever background color you choose seems to work?  That still amazes me as I work in this journal.

First stop - Denny's for breakfast.  Hey, a girl's gotta eat!  It's about a 2 hour trip from St. Louis airport to Columbia, and it was a nice break.  This is a Denny's magnet.  There were only two left on the table - one for me.  One for sis.  The other Denny's item is an empty sugar pack.

I started out hand writing all my little descriptive labels and using double stick tape.  I found that to be a huge pain, so I typed and printed out my thoughts and cut them out.  I applied Mod Podge to the page to adhere the labels.  Way easier.  Much more legible!   I didn't have a photo of La Siesta restaurant, so I just printed one off the Net.  I cut apart one of their business cards to make it fit on the page the way I liked.

Columbia is also a big ART town!  Also being a college town, there are boards up everywhere where posters and other advertisements are posted.  These posters for a local tattoo shop were everywhere so I'm sure they didn't miss a couple.

DAY 2
Aside from meals, Sunday was pretty much a "hang around the house and catch up" kind of day.  I loved it.
We went to Ernie's for breakfast (FABULOUS place!).  It's also a very popular place so there was quite a line to get in when we arrived.  No instant seating?  NO problem with an art gallery 2 doors down.  Most of the items on these pages are post cards, business cards and photos from Artlandish Gallery.

This is a photo I took of one of the beautiful, hand-felted, stuffed moons at the gallery.  I knew I was going to the Sawdust Festival in CA, so I refrained from buying any art in MO.  As it turns out, I only bought two greeting cards at the festival.  Hindsight....

We were hungry by the time breakfast reached the table, and when I saw those luscious pancakes I forgot I even had a camera with me.  I did manage to take a picture of Ernie's neon sign behind the counter before breakfast arrived.

 DAY 3
After a quick to Michael's so I could pick up some Mod Podge and craft paint, we took a 20 minute road trip to Boonville. (I just discovered I've been spellling it with an "e" as in Boone!)  The words that come to mind to describe Boonville are "quaint", "nostalgic", and "historic".

The highlight of our Boonville trip (besides eating lunch at the Riverside Cafe across the street from the Missouri river), was our visit to the recently restored Hotel Fredrick.  I bought this postcard in the lobby and picked up a few pamphlet freebies as well.

Since it was Monday, most of the cute galleries and artsy shops were closed.  Major BUMMER.  This store looked marvelous, and I've got it paper clipped to the little booklet between the 2 pages of this spread.

I hope this store is still there on our next visit (hopefully next year).  It's definitely on my "to do list" for MO.  I think I'll be using paper clips a lot in this journal.  I can't believe how many items I have.  Well, hoarder experienced, professional collector that I am, I guess I can believe it!

And what would a vacation be without a margarita at day's end?  Harpo's provided today's tasty beverage, and the food was pretty good too!

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at my first 3 days of vacation.  I'll post Day 4 on Tuesday as it's filled with tips and techniques.  That was my play date with the lovely Barb Owen.

VACATION PHOTOS

It was magical to awaken on Sunday morning to look out the kitchen window and see Suzie's morning glories in full bloom and spreading across the yard and into the trees.  I think I saw a fairy there.

Inside Ernie's

THE FAIRIES' TEA & GIVEAWAY

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for The Fairies' Tea.  It's going to be great fun, and I hear there's going to be a giveaway!

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE