FAUX WASHI TAPES For a long time I didn't really know what to do with washi tapes, and what I'd seen online of people using them hadn't impressed me much - not that I had looked much beyond their use in decorating planners etc. Once I got into the serious mixed media stuff…
EMBELLISHED SKETCHBOOK To go with the Box of Delights that I made for my friend Caroline on the ArtKula forum, I made a small sketchbook. I have a few sheets left from an A3 pad of Daler Rowney hot-pressed watercolour paper. This is pretty heavy-weight and I've been using it for my detailed…
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER - MAKING USE OF PACKAGING I recently searched online for some black striped washi tape which I have seen several people using, and which seems quite hard to find. Eventually I came across an online shop called Curiouser and Curiouser - the name itself was enough to make me want…
POUCHES AND PAPERCLIPS FROM TOILET PAPER ROLLS Continuing with my album elements project, I have made a collection of items from the cores of toilet paper rolls. I recently came across a YouTube video and learnt how to emboss the toilet rolls and make tiny pouches out of them. As I folded and…
DIVIDE AND RULE - ISLAMIC ART No - that isn't a political statement - it's an art project using some exciting new drawing equipment! Divide and Rule Some time ago I came across a YouTube short, showing an exciting collection of specialist drawing materials. I was intrigued, and visited the site, "Divide and…
OVAL WINDOW POCKET WITH PULL-OUT TAGS - CORRECTED AND COMPLETED When I first worked on this element, I intended to make a pull-out tag for both the larger oval window and the smaller round one, but forgot the latter. I thought it would be too late to do anything about it as I…
2025 - END OF YEAR REVIEW It's been a relatively quiet year, all told. Not a great deal to report on our normal activities. Most of my activity this year has been art-related. Studio changes I got some great new shelving units for the studio and reorganised things to make life a lot…
DIGITISING MY MIXED MEDIA PAPERS To get more use out of my recently created papers, I decided to scan them and digitise them. I really liked the detail shots I took of the papers, and decided to digitise these too. For a different and somewhat cleaner look, I made the rather rash decision…
TEA, INK, RUST AND PAINT After tea-dyeing some fabric, I had a lot of the tea left over, so I decided to dye some more paper. I've got a box full of old printer paper pieces which I originally intended to shred, as they are old bank statements and other sensitive information. Then…
JUNK JOURNAL - MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE PART 23 Binding At last I have reached the point when I can bind this book! I have chosen to use a 5-hole pamphlet stitch binding rather than the standard 3-hole, because I wanted to be sure that all the different sized pages would be firmly…
