Zentangle Classes

Watercolor Zentangle

This past Saturday, I taught a "Watercolor Zentangle" class at Monica's Quilt and Bead Creations.  We first started on a Bijou Tile doing a monotangle and moved on to the Renaissance Tile and used the Sakura Brown Micron Pen.

Here are two of my students showing off their tiles.

Zentangle Patterns:  Left Axlexa; Right Aquafleur & Poke Leaf

After we work on our Bjou and Renaissance Tile, we moved on to watercoloing.  First, we drew an eggshape onto watercolor papter, or mixed media paper (their choice).  Using Twinkling H20s, we added different colors to the inside of our eggs.  These we used as our strings and tangled different patterns in each shape.

TaDa!  Good job ladies!

Although it was a small intimate class, we all had lots of fun coloring and tangling.  

I wonder what they are going to do next???

52-Weeks of Book Binding, Journals and more...

Week Thirteen

For this week's post, I made a coloring book for Grown-Ups.  The book has fifty-five pages. Thirty-five of the coloring pages are printed on heavy cardstock, ten on watercolor paper and ten on mixed media paper.  The dimensions of the book are 8-1/2" X 11" and the cover is simply white paper wrapped around the book to protect the the book from getting damaged or dirty and is part of the binding.

Most of the coloring pages I used came from Dover and a few are from some I already had on hand.

I originally was going do bind the book using my Bind-It-All.  Since I already made a book using the spiral bound method, I decided to do something different.  As I was looking on the Internet to get some ideas, I came upon this YouTube video that showed how to glue your pages together.

So, I followed the instructions in the video.  Not having a jig, I used two pieces of wood and clamped my cover and pages together while I applied rubber cement to the binding part of the book.  You have to wait a few hours for the rubber cement to dry before you unclamp the book, but once dried, the book holds together well, as you can see below.

I am really looking forward to start coloring.  Since I printed my images on different types of paper, I can use what ever method I want to color my pictures.

Vintage Art Project

As a Design Team Member for Blue Twig Studio, I am sent products to test out and create, using these products.  This time around I was sent ExtravOrganza and Transfer Artist Paper (TAP).

This is what I created using the ExtravOrganza...

and for the Transfer Artist Paper (TAP), I created this...

For a complete tutorial on how to create both of these, go to Blue Twig Studio, here.

52-Weeks of Book Binding, Journals and more...

WEEK 12

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

So in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made this little ten page book.

Supplies: 10 sheets of decorative paper, two sheets of cardstock and 10 pieces of cardstock cut 8" X 2" for your hinges. Additional supplies: Paper cutter, bone folder, glue, needle and thread and an additional piece of decorative cardstock for cover you hinge.

Cut the 10 sheets of paper 8-1/2" X 10-5/8" and fold in half.  These are your pages.  Cut the cardstock 8-1/2" X 12" and fold in half.  These are your covers.  

Score your 2" X 8-1/2 inch pieces of carstock at 1" and fold in half.  Glue together.  Then with a pencil, lightly mark 1/4" from the fold.  This is your hinge

Take one of the pages and glue one of the hinges to the page up to the line with the fold outward.  Now glue your page together and to the backside of the hinge.  Do this for all your pages.  They should all look like the picture above.

Place a mark 1/2" from the top and bottom and in the center on all of your pages and covers. Punch holes at these marks, making sure that all the holes line-up.

Sewing the pages together.  

Thread your needle with about 18" of thread.  Go into the first hole of your front cover leaving a tail, and the first hole of your firs page.

Now go through the first hole of the cover and first page again and the first hole of the second page.  Check your tension and you sew your pages together, being careful not to pull too tightly, otherwise you will not be able to turn the pages.

Now go through the first hole of the first and second pages and the first hole of the third page. Go through the first hole of the second and third pages and through the first hole of the fourth page.  Go through the first hole of the third and fourth page and the first hole of the fifth page. Go through the first hole of the fourth and fifth pages and the first hole of the sixth page.  Go through the first hole of the fifth and sixth pages and through the first hole of the seventh page. Go through the first hole of the sixth and seventh pages and the first hole of the eighth page.  Go through the first hole of the seventh and eighth pages and through the first hole of the ninth page.  Go through the first hole of the eighth and ninth pages and the first hole of the tenth page. Go through the first hole of the ninth and tenth pages and through the first hole of the back cover.  Now go through the first hole of tenth page and back cover.  Now tie the two ends together in a knot (not too tight).  Repeat for the other two holes.  

Your binding should look similar to this when you are done.  Measure the side of the book and add 3/4" to each side. For example:  3/4" + side measurement + 3/4" = width total.  Cut your decorative cardstock the width total X 8-1/2" for the height.  Score at 3/4" on each side and fold.  Glue one 3/4" side to the front side of the cover and the other 3/4" side to the back of the cover.  See finished book for example.

This is the inside of the book, showing the hinges, and binding.  My pages are ready to decorate and journal.  

Mult-Purpose Cloth Coasters

As a Design Team Member for Blue Twig Studios I receive different products that I get to play with and find different creative ways to use them.

Last month I received some Multi-Purpose Cloth (MPC).  This is what I came up with.  I chose a design and transfered it onto the cloth using graphite paper.  Once my design was transfered, I painted  my dsign with Lumiere Paints.  Then I outlined the design using a permanent marking pen.  For the complet tutorial to make these, go to Blue Twig Studios here.

The cloth is great to work with.  The paint does not seep through, you can sew on it and since it is non woven there is no need for hemming.  Have fun with this and enjoy.  Let's see what you can come up with.

ARTbar

A play day at the ARTbar today.  

Today was all about Stippling & Pointillism.

It was just as much fun as our stippled hearts, except this time we took it a step further.  We moved from 

"Stippling" to "Pointillism".

Another heart, using melted crayons and touching the soft crayon tips to our paper creating not only our design, 

but texture too.

52-Weeks of Book Binding, Journals and more...

Week Eleven

MY PAPER DOLL BOOK

For this week's post, I made a "Paper Doll Book".  

To make the book, first choose a paper bag with handles at the top.  Make sure that the bag you choose is big enough to accommodate your pages.

Choose what type of paper bags you want to use for the pages.  I used paper sandwich bags, because that is what I already had, but you can use whatever type of bag you want.

Cut from the bag, a front and back cover.  You'll be cutting the covers the same width as your pages, but make the height a bit taller.  Mine were about 1/4" taller.

To attach the pages to the bag, you will use a hinge binding. 

Cut cardstock the same width as your pages by 2".  Score at 1" and fold in half.

Glue one side of your hinge to the front cover and the other side to your page.  Fold your page over.  Now glue another hinge with one side to the previous page and the other side to the next page.  Continue until all pages are glue to the hinges.  For the back cover, glue one of the hinges to the previous page and the other side to the back cover.

NOTE:  Try to line-up he bottom edge as evenly as possible.

When you are done, your book should look something like this from the side.

I added a cover over my binding, covered the front and back covers with decorative papers and added a paper doll to the front cover.

Now comes the fun part.  Choosing what paper dolls to put into your book.  I have an assortment here.  Some I purchased, some were down loadable printables, some I had and others, friends gave me from their own stash.

Once I decided which ones I wanted, I sorted them out and put them into their individual bags.  Then I cut up some decorative paper to put into one of my bags, just in case I want to make extra cothing, et cetera.

In another bag, I put in some brads, strings and popsicle sticks.

I put a title on the fron cover, "My Paper Doll Book".

And Voila!  All done.  Now all I need is a pair of scissors and I am ready to play.

52-Weeks of Book Binding, Journals and more...

Here we are already at WEEK 10.

March is my Birthday month, and the name Deborah (my first name) means "BEE".

So, for this month's post, in honor of my name, I created "MY HONEYBEE BOOK".

The supplies for the book were few.  Cardstock with a printed honeycomb pattern.  A paper bag, gold cardstock 8-1/2" X 11", and of course some paper for the inside.

Using the honeycomb printed cardstock as my template, I cut out some honeycombs shapes on the bag, as you see here.  When I cut out all the honeycombs that I wanted, I glued the paper bag onto the cardstock.

I cut some paper to fit my book and stapled the pages to the book.  I decided stapling would be my choice this time around for my binding method.

I used cream colored paper to kind of, sort of, match the theme of my book.

  I used a gold metallic pen to go around the cutout honeycomb shapes and drew in more.  I cut out a bee and glued it to my book, thus creating the "BEE" part of the Honey BEE title.

"MY HONEYBEE BOOK"

ARTbar

Spent the whole day yesterday at the ARTbar creating and having fun.  

In the morning we warmed up with a Zentangle Tile. 

I decided to do mine on a paint chip, but to my dismay, it did not turn out quite like I would hope.  

Assunta, Dex, Eye-Wa, Tagh

Because of the slick surface of the paint chip, the ink kept smearing.  The paint chip did not grab the ink like regular Zentangle Tiles, making it difficult to fill in the dark areas.  I think, had I used a regular Zentangle Tile, it would have turned out better.

In the afternoon we created ZenDangles and Monograms.

This was so much fun to do, it was hard to know when to stop.

You can't see it, but I used metallic and glitter pens and pencils, and metallic paints to color my dangles, tangles and patterns.  I think no matter how many times you do one of these, no two would be alike.  I really enjoyed creating the Monogram.  Wasn't quite sure how a "D" would like, but I kind of like it.

This would be something fun to do while waiting at the doctors office.