You Know My Name (Look Up My Number)

I have that song on my Ipod. Sorry for the earworm. But it's a great song. :)

It's also perfect for today's reanimation, which uses the amazingly archaic phonebooks that continue to be delivered to my door. Yes, in 2013. Phonebooks.

Every time they show up, I recycle them into art. Not garbage. They are a wonderful source of nice, thin, collage-worthy paper with beautiful, finely detailed text.

Today's MIX-Ability challenge on Splitcoast - MIX6 is the keyword if you upload to our gallery - is to use gesso and newsprint - the most perfect combo in the world!

I used Trudy Sjolander's new release - Swirly Bird - since she is having her blog hop today! Her little bird looks so sweet tweeting people's phone numbers! :)

This was actually a really quick project. Here's what I did.

I painted one page of the phonebook with gesso and let it dry. Then I cut a 4 x 4 square to form the background. I rubbed this with Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence and Pacific Point ink from Stampin' Up! I used a sponge to dab white acrylic paint on this after it dried for the clouds.

I cut two more 4" wide strips of the gesso'd paper and hand cut the hills out of them. I sprayed these with Stephanie Barnard Banana and Spearmint sprays and then rubbed Memento Pear Tart ink over them. You just have to experiment until you get the color you like.

Then I dotted red acrylic paint on (I used Golden Fluid Acrylics for this) for flowers onto the hills.

The hardest part is waiting for everything to dry before collaging.

I put it all together with matte ModPodge. Word to the wise - I was using water based mediums so the Mod Podge will transfer those. However, if you just keep a wet paper towel handy you can keep any colors from bleeding permanently.

Want to see the rest of the hop?

Check out all this amazing talent!

Trudy Sjolander

Allie Gower

Sean Fetterman

 >>>>> Lydia Fiedler <<<<<

Leah Lucescu

Linda Lucas

Bev Gerard

Dina Kowal

Colleen Schaan

Carisa Zglobicki

Lisa Lara

Bonnie Garby

Suzanne Dean

Joe Rotella

Judy Rozema

Lori Craig

Trudy Sjolander

Happy reanimating!

All Washed Up

Got a toolbox in the garage that's filled with small pieces of hardware you'll never use? Or, do you have washers and hex keys and all sorts of stuff left over from those Ikea bookcases that you can't bear to toss?

Well make jewelry out of them!
I made these washer necklaces back in December for a special project and you'll just faint when you see how easy they were!

First, measure your washer and the hole in the center of it. Then find two circle punches about those two same sizes. Punch the smaller hole first, then center the larger punch around that hole and punch the larger circle.

Paint a thin layer of gel medium onto the washer and gently place your paper on the washer, smoothing it if necessary.

When that is dry - and gel medium dries quickly - seal the necklace with a clear dimensional glaze - I used Stampin' Up!'s Crystal Effects, or you could use Judikins Diamond glaze or something similar.

I used a japanese book page from a book I got at Half Price Books for one, and some designer paper from Stampin' Up! for the other.

You could make about a squillion of these for a dollar.

Since we have a handmade only rule for Christmas gifts in my family, I gave these to the girls for Christmas.

Give it a try! It's great recession jewelry!

Password Book Tutorial

I know - it was only the first project EVER on this blog, but finally I have a video tutorial for my Password Book!

And I'll be back later this week with an AMAZING transformation on an old dictionary, so don't stray too far...


Take care.

Speechless

This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. If you don't see a video player, click here.

Shimmery Russian Trees

I love my used Russian dictionary so much it's hard for me to use big pieces of it, so I went small with this one, but did something very fun for this week's 2S4Y.

First, I took a piece of the page and painted some Stampin' Up! shimmer paint on part of my dictionary page. It was sooo beautiful and didn't obscure the print, just made it all silvery and frosty.LOVE this look.

Then I took the three little trees fromDoodle Factory Into the Woods and stamped them on my silvery text and cut the tops out so I could paper piece them.


The rest of the card is made with specialty Stampin' Up! brushed metallic cardstock, Basic Grey patterned paper, a Stampin' Up! rubon, punches and ribbon.

Stamps: Doodle Factory Into the Woods, Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Paper: Basic Grey, Stampin' Up!
Accessories: Eyelet Border Punch, dimensionals, Square and Round punches

One of the things I really like about the DF images is the amount of white space they have - great for filling with patterned paper or security envelopes or book pages. Perfect reanimation stamps!!

Hope you're having a great Tuesday!

If You're Like My Family...

We went through this phase where we all bought the same books for everyone at Christmas. One year, everyone got 4 copies of The Firm. One year, Into Thin Air. One year, Little Green Men.

It was hilarious. We'd open copy 1, copy 2, copy 3. We'd redistribute to anyone that hadn't gotten the ubiquitous book of the year, but then still have extras.

If this has happened to you, I suggest you make cards out of the book(s). :)

Here's a little Christmas ditty made out of books as homage to the Blakley conundrum.
Stamps: Patterned Pines Ink: Perfect Plum Paper: Very Vanilla, Book Page Accessories: Glitter, Sponge

PS - We've solved this by eliminating all Christmas gifts that are not either regifted - something you already own, or handmade with things you have on hand. Best Christmases ever!!

What are your holiday traditions?

For Jaimie

Thank you for stopping by. If you are stopping by on the Spread the Love Blog Hop, since I'm pretty far down the list, you already know why you're here, and thank you so much for visiting me, and thank you to Denise and Erin - the wonderful women behind this.

If you came here another way, please click here for the first part of this story. I hope this hop inspires you to make a card and send it to Jaimie.

I chose a few things that might make a little girl happy. For the background, a reanimated Hardy Boys Mystery, which I was reading at about Jaimie's age. There's nothing like a good mystery to transport you to another place. Then, I added lots of pink, courtesy of Basic Grey's Indian Summer and Stampin' Up!'s Melon Mambo Ribbon.

The hedgie I chose for its symbolic contribution - most things that seem prickly on the outside can turn out to be sweet and soft and surprising on the inside. I hope that something awful turns into a positive and sweet life for little Jaimie.
This adorable image is from my new favorite Etsy seller - Niko Art. Nicole is an amazingly talented designer and her images are adorable and perfect. I hope it brings a smile.

If you want to help more, please visit the special blog that has been set up for this effort.

It's people like Denise and Erin that really put joy in creating art, and making sure that art connects us to people and not things.

Say your prayers for little Jaimie, and if you have time, send her a card.

Your next stop on the hop is the lovely and talented Amanda Newton.

If you'd like to start at the top of the hop, please click here to see Katharina's Card.

Treemendous

Fine - you want to turn trees into books? No problem - I'll turn them right back into trees when I'm done :)

Stamps: Into the Woods (Doodle Factory) Ink: India Paper: Basic Grey,
Accessories: Tangerine TangoRhinestone Brad (Fire), Stampin' Dimensionals, Distressing Tool

Grim(m) is Right!

I'm terrified of fairy tales.

The Brothers Grimm and other assorted HORROR writers (that's what most childrens' stories are, at least the fairy tale variety) pursued me through many a nightmare as a child.

I never understood why it was appropriate to read a child a story about a witch baking a brother and a sister in an oven, or a wolf eating a little girl in the woods, or assorted other hideous fates that awaited the mostly parentless tinies in the pages of these awful books.

I've heard the pointless rationalizations about how they were designed to keep children safe, but can we all agree that that is complete balderdash, and that the quite successful aim was, in fact, to give us all phobias?

Well bravo, Grimms. I'm still afraid.

I thought I would put together a few little creepy fairy tale ditties after discussing with a coworker how dark and dismal the subject matter most modern graphic designers choose is. Communication Arts magazine, which is really one of my favorite designer magazines, features some horridly dark illustrations.

I believe these designers were terrorized by fairy tales as children, and hence deserve our pity. ;).

To twist that all together, I took the pages of that magazine and an old used book to create three little scenes for you.

Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and Alice in Wonderland.I cut the pieces freehand, and collaged them with the book pages to 4X4 canvases with matte Gel Medium, thanks to some instruction, found here, by Claudine Hellmuth.

After cutting, I just laid them out on the canvas one by one to help me cut the next piece and make it fit in the scene.Something about collage takes me back to my childhood, so this project was the perfect mix of memories for a Sunday...

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to look behind you.

Petersburg, 2011

Wouldn't that be cool?

I may get to do just that. We will see. St. Petersburg is a place of my dreams that is for sure.

So today I reanimated one of my old Russian dictionaries. I probably have 20 of them. It was okay to dedicate one to the fires of art, yes?

I started by making some "water" out of a reanimated security envelope. The insides of these are crazy cool.

If you want to use a lot of the real estate of these, use a heat gun to neatly undo the seals where it is stuck together. Just heat them up and the glue will let go. Then cut it up as needed. I just needed a little stripe.

I punched squares from my Russian dictionary and rounded their corners. I sponged them with brown ink to age them.

Then I stamped little fishies from the Stampin' Up! Just Beachy set and colored them with gel pens.

I outlined them in white to pop them off the page a bit.

I added some of the new dotty Stampin' Up! ribbon and voila - quick and easy double Reanimation.

Lots of paper in the world. Use it, don't buy it! :)

Memorial Day

I prepared this card for today's 2Sketches4You Challenge!It's a hero for all our fallen heroes today. Handsome and brave. Loved and missed.

The stamp set is the Super Parents Doodle Factory set, and I loved the sketch, because it once again gave me an opportunity to do thought bubbles.

Just a girl, dreaming of her boy. As they do :)

I used as a background a page from a Fantastic Four compilation comic book that I got at Half Price Books. I cut extra talk bubbles out to add along the edge of the main circle.

I colored both characters with Copics and then added the rub-on dots for a Lichtenstein effect.

Comics are one of my favorite places to find beautiful use of red, white and blue together.

To see the rest of the Starving Artistamps' team's submissions for the challenge, click here. To see the 2Sketches blog entries in the challenge, click here.

Take time today to remember America's fallen heroes as you enjoy your freedoms. They gave so much.

God Bless America.

Wonder Mom!

I found this awesome book of WonderWoman comic covers at Half Price books for basically nothing.Do you know how inexpensive making your backgrounds out of used books is? Consider designer paper for 50 cents a sheet, and books for 50 cents a book!

It was the purrrrfect backdrop for my Super Mom for Mother's day.
The image is from the new Doodle Factory set "Super Parents". The card base is Basic Black, and I colored her with copics, chose a good cover from the book to use as a backdrop and punched a few circles for accents.

Do You Get It?

See if you get what I did on this card.

The paper is retired Stampin' Up! DSP and the little bear is from Doodle Factory's new Oh Baby! set. I stamped him on a reanimated Hardy Boys mystery. when I opened it to rip a page out, a 1950 wheat penny fell out of it.

Cool.

I colored him with pure color pencils.
The reanimated book pages take pencil sooo nicely because they are a little rough.

So do you get it?

If you do, leave a comment. ;)

You can Read my Heart

You know how some people just can?

Well this is more from my Nancy Drew book from the very first post. I'm still having a great time with the pages from that book.

To make this 3D heart, I just used a punch to punch out a bunch of hearts. I folded them carefully in half. It's very important to have the edges lined up to get a nice crisp and even look.

While each heart is folded, adhere it to the next folded heart until you have a 3D heart. You can make it as full or as spare as you want - just use more or fewer hearts.

When you're done, adhere the two edges to your card.

I used more of the pages for the background, and I also punched a teeny orange heart for the very center heart.

I thought that if there was someone reading someone's heart, then there really needed to be two. :)

The background paper is Stampin' Up!'s Urban Oasis, and the base is Tangerine Tango. The greeting is in Tangerine Tango from Best Yet.

Nice alternative to all the pink, yes?

Counting Sheep!

Well - this one is being polite, and he's NOT counting. Because no one needs a counting sheep on his/her birthday, right? But you might need a fuzzy, soft blue Doodle Factory sheep (Basel) who does not care how old you are - he loves you!

So... do you remember the Password Book from the blog launch? Remember the inside of the book?
Well as I told you, I love reanimating the INSIDE of old books. The table of contents are particularly interesting.

This table of contents had both Roman numerals and numbers , which were great for my "counting" theme. I punched those out with a 3/4" circle punch and arranged them behind the scallop my sheep was stamped on.

The "wool" is some baby blue Flower Soft. I just got a sample of this product. It's from England, and it is REALLY fun to work with. I've seen some beautiful samples with it and need to play some more so I can show you.

The black and white patterned paper was sale paper at Hobby Lobby. The card base is kraft, and the blue strip is Stampin' Up! Brocade Blue. I decorated the card by piercing it and using white and black pens for additional detail.

The greeting is cut from the pages of my mystery.I created this little ditty for the Stamp Something birthday challenge on their blog, so head over and check out the other entries!!

The Mystery of the Forgotten Password

Welcome to the maiden voyage of Project Reanimate. Hope you enjoy the journey.Let's start the new year with a mystery we all have in common. Got a bunch of passwords? Can't remember any of them? Outsmarted yourself with password strength, symbols, caps, lower case, obscure numeric combinations - and a different one for each of your favorite 100 websites?

Welcome to the 2K whatevers. We've all got such high security none of us can access any of our stuff anymore.

You know what works all the time? Paper. Paper never becomes inaccessible, or locks your account after three attempts to remember your mother in law's favorite high school football team.

Solve your modern dilemma by reanimating an old mystery. My fave? Well who better to keep your passwords safe than Nancy Drew, of course?!!

She's your ticket to total recall.

Get yourself a used hardback book. I love Half Price Books, because you can get fun old books for a buck or less, but feel free to grab one off the shelf next to your bed. Next, get yourself a refill from one of those refillable journals. I was all set to bind my own book, yada yada, but these are great because they are pre-bound and have covers that are perfection for adhering to the inside of your book. No need to re-create the wheel here.
Examine the book carefully. They're bound differently, and your deconstruction should be tailored to the book.

This book had kind of a classic combo - sewn binding, plus glue and paper plates that adhered it to the shell.

These are easy to separate because the spine of the pages isn't attached to the spine of the cover.
Just take a craft knife and cut the book free by slicing the sides of the actual book part away from the cover.
Don't you worry about the inside of this book - this will make OODLES of cards and gifts. Don't you dare throw it away. I can't wait to use mine!!Here's what your newly freed cover will look like. All primed and ready to go.Now, put the journal inside the cover to check the fit.
Mine was the perfect height, but 3/4" too wide. I used a ruler and a craft knife to trim the pages - it gave them a distressed, uneven look that an old book has. If you want a more polished look, your local office supply store has trimming machines that will slice off whatever you need for a very low price!

Take some of your favorite old white glue - nothing fancy, and slather it all over both the inside of your cover and on the outside of the journal, being careful not to get any on the pages.

I used a sponge to smooth it out after I added the glue. This blue one is from the $1 spot at Target, and I just cut it up to get a bunch of usable pieces.

Carefully insert the journal refill once your glue is distributed, making sure it's aligned, and that the journal covers are secured to the inside of the front and back cover.

Here's the hardest part. Wait. Put it under some heavy books and leave it for 8 + hours until the glue is totally dry. This will ensure a long life.

When it's dry, embellish the inside as desired. I stamped the alphabet inside, so that the passwords could be arranged by website name. First, I counted the pages and divided by 26 - I got 5 pages per letter, which is really 10 with front & back.
I hope you enjoyed this mysterious reanimation! This is a quick and easy gift for anyone living in our modern world.

If you would like to see my paper arts blog, please visit Understand Blue.

See you soon!