WOYWW #460: Brown Bag Journal (part 2)

I thought I'd better check in today, lest people forget I ever existed!  I've been settling into my new routine post homeschooling. My son has been back at school for almost two weeks now and he seems to have fitted in quite well. Although I have more free time now, with the school bus leaving at 7:30, I no longer have the luxury of a lie-in, even when I work afternoons. Inexplicably, even though I wouldn't have to get up until 6.30, I always wake up at stupid o'clock and have trouble going back to sleep, so I tend to get up at around 5 a.m. and sometimes even earlier. So here I am writing this WOYWW post at the crack of dawn.

I haven't been active in my craft room lately - I need to find my mojo - but I managed to snap this photo on Sunday. I was prepping some tea bags to be used as tiny canvases, but that's as far as I got with them. Oreo was keeping me company - you can see that his two white eyebrow whiskers have now begun to grow back!

Although I haven't created anything new recently, I still have some projects I made over Christmas that I'd never shared. Some of you might remember my paper bag journal from last year - I'm now ready to show you the flipside.  It was done in a similar fashion with lots of little scraps and images I had lying around, with not much planning or specific intention, therefore the pages may look a bit random.

I'm planning to make a flip-thorough at one point, but for now you'll have to content yourself with another video I'm sharing from Facebook (I hope that's OK!). It shows an easy technique of painting a realistic cat portrait. I might try this with Oreo if I can get his head through a canvas, but somehow I doubt it would be possible! Other cats seem to be a lot more laid back about these things.

If this made you smile, I've done my job today :)

Thanks for visiting - I'll be around later in the week - happy WOYWW!

UPDATE 22/06/2018
I have just now uploaded part 2 of my flipthrough - it only took me 3 months!

WOYWW #440: Journal from a paper bag

Good morning lovely crafty people around the world! Another Wednesday, another chance to snoop around each other's messy desks courtesy of WOYWW.

My first desk shot was taken on Friday night and the second on Sunday morning. I was very busy in-between working on a journal I made from a brown paper bag. This project was originally inspired by Renata Loree on Facebook. I have several of these paper bags saved, but never knew what to do with them - even though the idea is blindingly obvious: you just remove the handles and open up the seams to lay it flat, then gesso, paint and stencil both sides for a colourful background. There are different ways to fold this sheet into a journal. I chose to cut it along the length and made a simple accordion journal by sticking the two pieces together with masking tape.

Even though the paper bag was all scrunched up and wrinkly to start with, all those layers of paint made it lie flat and smooth in the end. Here's a photo of the painted background with the colours I used: yellow ochre, titanium buff, and quinacridone nickel azo gold. 

After folding my journal, I added different collage pieces: imagery from napkins and printouts, palette paper, stained doilies, drywall tape, printed tissue paper, raffle tickets, etc - whatever I could find in my scrap box and tied it all together with more paint. Each page is completed with some found poetry that I randomly cut out of a novel. It was just pure play - you can see that my pages became more colourful and varied towards the end as I left my inhibitions behind and decided that a journal doesn't necessarily need to be themed or follow a strict colour scheme.

Here are photos of all the pages and I also made a short video flip-through. Of course, there's also a flip-side to this journal, but that will be the subject of another post.

Update: you can find the flip side of my paperbag journal here.

In other news: Oreo now goes out of the house for short periods, but he never stays out for longer than 10-15 minutes. We definitely don't have to worry about him running away now - he knows this is his new home and he's just exploring his new territories outside. He was out long enough this morning to catch a mouse! I made sure he didn't bring it in the house. I think a cat flap is out of the question - otherwise we would be inundated with unwanted presents!  Here he is showing that he's well and truly settled in his new surroundings. 

I hope I managed to get back to everyone who left comments last week. I didn't have a chance to visit until later in the week. Hopefully, I will be able to do my rounds on time today. 

Happy WOYWW! 

I'm also linking this post to the Mini Album Makers Challenge blog, which is a monthly event hosted by the one and only Autumn Clark. Check out the link above if you want to see some amazing handmade journals!  There's still time to take part in the November challenge! 

Wanderlust Week #38: Altered brown bag envelope

It's been ages since I posted a Wanderlust project. Even though I've watched all the videos, I haven't always had time to complete the assignments. That's ok! I'm enjoying the freedom of taking online classes without the obligation to do each lesson every week. I still learn a lot just by watching the videos.

This week, however, I absolutely had to try Roben-Marie's brilliant idea of turning a brown paper bag into a colourful, funky envelope. Interestingly, just an hour before receiving the link to the video (without being aware of the course schedule) I was looking at one of those brown bags, thinking 'hmm, what can I do with this?' How is that for serendipity?

I'm not at liberty to share the entire step-by step process, but perhaps I'm allowed to post a few in-between shots to demonstrate how my layers built up.

collage papers

bits from my own artwork, plus gesso

black paint and white stencilling added for contrast

Here's the finished envelope, complete with stitching, doodling, stampin and some more colours added. I think I may have overdone it and lost most of my background, but hey, I had so much fun in the process!

After all these layers of collage and paint, the brown paper turned quite sturdy and it would be suitable to send in the mail as mail art. There could be other uses as well.  I think I will use mine to keep my leftover collage papers in it. I gessoed the inside so it looks neat. 

Thanks for visiting today! Wishing you a creative Sunday!