• Art - Blog - Creativity

    A Stitch in Time

    June 1, 2020 - By 

    If this is your first visit to my blog, WELCOME! I’m Halle and I’m so glad you stopped by! Fun facts about my name: it’s pronounced Holly, it’s Norwegian, actually is spelled Hålle, with an accent mark…just because my parents wanted me to correct every person I ever came into contact with. 

    I am honored to be hosting for the second time on Art Journal Journey …thankfully in June again. I work with middle school children with special needs by day and am wife, mom, artist, and blogger by night. I am addicted to paper, fabric, and collage.  

    I have chosen A Stitch in Time for the theme this month. For this theme, you can choose whether you want to include an element of stitching, of time, or get crazy and include both! I hope you enjoy this theme as much as I will.

    This type of art journal page is one of my favorite kinds to create. A loose-leaf page that will end up adhered to a page in a binder. Working with loose sheets gives so much flexibility. The edges don’t need to be even, you can punch holes, set brads or eyelets, or stitch anywhere you want.

    Originally this stack of fabric, book text, tissue paper, and gold sheer ribbon was only glued under the found text. It just needed a little something more. Had this not been a loose-leaf page it would have been impossible for me to machine stitch at this point.  The stitching added the little touch that was needed.

    Since this page was quickly becoming very vintage-y (yes, I’m making up words now… it’s my blog, so I can do that). Ok, where was I…ah yes, the vintage feel needed an old clock face. I’ve had a small stack vellum industrial gauges and clock faces in my stash for a long time. I’ve always struggled to use them. This piece was small enough to run through my small Xyron to make it into a sticker. Problem solved.

    There are so many elements and textures going on with this page. I love how it turned out. This almost feels like a kitchen sink page…you know…I threw everything at it but the kitchen sink. I think that works sometimes as long as the elements make sense together.

    So be free…make pages with uneven edges, add swirls of baling wire, cut up old slides. Stamp, paint, glue, fabric, thread, lace, stickers…use whatever inspires you at the moment.

    Won’t you join me for A Stitch in Time on Art Journal Journey?

    Art Journal Journey
  • Blog - Crafts - Creativity

    Building a card stash

    May 25, 2020 - By 

    As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been sending more cards. This, in turn, depletes my stash. Over the past week, I’ve been having fun creating some new designs using some scraps as well as previously created card bases.

    I have an index card box full of precut layering pieces for cards. This comes in handy for quick card making. I also have a wooden cigar box filled with mini collages for cards or journal pages. Doing some of the mindless prep work ahead of time leaves more time for the creative process and doesn’t interrupt the flow of ideas.

    I am also starting to pre-make some sentiment pieces. I grabbed my tag and mason jar punches to start. The mason jar is so darn cute. The punch itself is a bit finicky. It jams almost every single time. UGH!!!!

    I am willing to put up with it though because…look how cute this is!!!! After I stamped the pale seafoam green I realized that it was beginning to look like an old-fashioned blue mason. I used a cosmetic sponge to shade in two colors of blue dye-based ink. Then rubbed the top of the jar on a gray pigment ink pad to act as the zinc lid.

    I used foam tape to lift it off the page so I could add some sticker flowers to the jar. So fun!

    I can 100% guarantee that you’ll be seeing more cards and postcards. They are really quite addictive to create.

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Butterflies everywhere

    May 17, 2020 - By 

    I’ve been sending so many more cards and little care packages since the stay-at-home order began. I had to order more stamps and really needed to make some new cards to replenish my stash.

    These are my favorite type of cards. Little bits of scraps, snippets from magazines and whatever else finds its way into my scrap bin.

    In 2015, I wrote an article for Sew Somerset describing my process for mini-collages such as these. I now see them all over YouTube in the junk journal community. They call them clusters.

    Without even realizing it, most of my recent creations featured butterflies.

    collage postcard collection

    Even most of these collage postcards I made for my MIL.

    One even found its way onto one of the tags I made from the off cuts of the postcards.

    Maybe I just have mom on my mind. She was nuts about butterflies. They always make me think of her.