A little altered jewelry

Today I am going to share with you some of my jewelry. I collect old, and broken jewelry from car boot sales, antique and junk shops throughout the year. This I gather in a large set of old map draws until I require them. When creating my jewelry I like to add fabric and  found items which some would not consider worthy of being made into adornments. Such as games piece, old bottle, dolls, anything I feel like really.

Here is a picture of a good weekend gathering treasure. At the height of season I can attend three or four car boots sales in a weekend. I usually get there for seven-ish and it can all be over my midday, giving plenty of time for other activities, like dinning out, gardening, and attending craft groups. Life is so good. Back to the jewelry.All this stuff gets stored until I need it, well I cant make bricks without clay! Then, when winter hits and you don't want to be outside, I can have the fires burning and tea cup regularly replenished and play all day. like I said, life is good.

Delicious weekend finds.

Just so good.

Sometimes I will use clay to make pieces for my work. If I have a favorite cameo, for instance, I can make a case of it,  then make as many as I like using clay or indeed resin. I will show you some resin work another time.

The two roundels and the center piece are made of clay.

A close up of the clay, sorry about the picture, but you get the idea.

The brooch below is a brooch I wear when attending the York Embroidery Guild. All members have to create a badge with their names on as there are quite a lot of us, a hundred plus, and it helps the new members find the relevant people they need. This brooch is made up of quilted red fabric, lace, paper, scrim, stamped tea stained cotton, beads, charms, pen nib and a tiny antique dolls head.

So I don't forget who I am.

I will be wearing this at the Great Northern paper Extravaganzer, on the 7th of October. So please come and say hi if you see me.

Here are some other pieces on a similar them,

Combining all sorts of elements.

Plus some image transfer.

A bracelet,

and a pendent.

Now onto the Journals

They are all coming on in leaps and bounds now. I always find once you start it gets easier and easier to come up with ideas for art. You have to flex those artistic muscles. Just try to enjoy the process.

The altered book journal, and I  do have to make a horse for the craftydollybird group!

A funny face.

Big love.

And some sunshine.

One more from this journal,

Onto the page a month journal,

coming along nicely, and September nearly over!.

EDGAR BOOK,

I am very please with the progress of my altered book, which I have decided has to become a book on Edgar Allen Poe, one of my favorites.

Will I show you more, nevermore, nevermore.

OK, I will show you more next time.

Well I think I will call it a day for this session, I will show the other journal and the spooky book next week,
Artfully Yours, Jo

opps!, My mistake.

Back so soon, I did get Andrews blog address wrong, so sorry, http://cognoscienteblog.blogspot.co.uk/
I do hope I have got this right now, until next time, x Jo

old books

Halloween is fast approaching and I got the urge to have a spell book! Well you would, wouldn't you. So I faked up an old file, ring binder actually, and made pages out of old cardboard, What jolly fun I had, so of course this led to other aged files of various sizes. I have wanted to create a swatch of fabric samples for some time now and that's what I am going to use this large folder for. I shall take samples of all my fabrics and display them in this book all with an antique effect of course. Well that's the idea at the moment, but watch this space.

With tuppence for paper and string.

And a few thousand pounds of other craft material.

You can have a mess all over your house.

My sister came to see me when I was in the middle of this exercise and looked worried to say the least as to why I would have something pink in my house. She stated that she wouldn't ask what I was doing , just wait to see the finished project.What a wise woman she is, we could be related.

I do find it quite strange how ideas grow. All I wanted to do was create a spell book. This moved me onto a swatch book, and now I wish to make an Halloween altered book. So all these things are going on at once. I really need to buy a bigger house! But no, I shall not sell, but create a larger footprint!  I love this house and it just gets better. So back to the altered book, just love creating this. Haven't started the Halloween advent calender as yet, too keen on paper and paint at the moment.

Andrew, my gentleman friend, often arrives with tresure. Items cast aside by an uncaring world and placed in his path for redistrobusion to fellow artist and collectors. And last Friday was no exception. He turned up with an old book for me to play with. "Just what I wanted" I cried as the idea of the Halloween book was filling in my head. "Can I do what I like with it"? I always like to check, I case it's some family treasure I am only surpposed to look at. Once given the go ahead I could hardly contain my self.

One 1950;s children's book.

I had to take myself to the kitchen as the studio and the dinning room were full of stuff drying, then the fun could begin. I always remove any interesting plates from a book I am about to alter. These can then be used on other projects.

Let the gluing commence!

I am really enjoying this.

A spot of colour for the interior,

and the exterior

Tune in for the next installment.


The 365 journals are comming on in leaps and bounds now, I must say I do like the altered book one the most, as you get a lot more choice with your art, but they are all great fun and worth a go at. If you are learning, you are not wasting time. In my book, there are no rights and wrongs in art, the whole purpose is to express what you need to say. grow and learn new skills.

the altered book journal #3

Journal #2, up to date, phew!

Journal #1, it took me ages to cut all those shapes out! Preparing for October, oooow

My step daughter, Jessy came for a visit last weekend and introduced  me to Keri Smith. I have no idea how this woman has escaped my attention for so long. Keri has written quite a few books on creativity and the need to cast caution to the wind and let your creative juices flow forth. I don't know if I can be quite as uninhibited as Keri, but lets find out! WRECK THIS JOURNAL, has been out since 2007 and is just fabulous. Rather than tell you all about this book and others on a similar theme, go check her out. I am going to start, Wreck this journal and Finish this book, I will let you know how I get on.

Four of Keri Smiths books, brilliant.

October 6th and 7th for the great Northern Papercrafts Extravaganzer in Harrogate at the Yorkshire Event Center.  Well worth a visit. 10am til 4pm I believe, about £5 to get in.

If you like steam-punk artifacts, check out this blog, cognoscientecomblogspot.co.uk
It's Andrews blog and I haven't got a link as yet as he only started it on Monday, but it is worth a look. It has photo's of some of his creations and himself and Maisie all dressed up and playing at the seaside!

OK, my lovelies, that's it for this week, I will post again next Wednesday, or Thursday. If I have got Andrews address wrong I will correct it ASAP, artfully yours Jo, x

Twelve days in, and counting

I am really enjoying these 365 journals. From now on the large,  full month a double page journal will be known as journal 1. The 6 x 12, landscape journal will be known as number 2. And last, but so far the most fun, the altered book journal will be known as number 3. That should all make sense I hope.

Journal number 1, really pleased with this.

Close up, just enough room for a comment on the day.

Journal number 1, is, I think the easiest to work on. The page layout is created at the beginning of the month, and then you just add your comments and extra decorations as you go. Adding more background and doodles as you feel the urge.

Journal number 2.

Close up.

Journal number 2, I am creating like a cross between, mini ATC's and a card collecting book, reminisent of the ones you used to get with teabags! I like this quite a bit as you get to create the book then lots of mini pieces of art to go with each day. Lots of fun, and it inspires ideas for the normal ATC's for any swaps we may want to do.

Poor old neglected book

Not anymore, given a new lease of life. 

I don't know if Henry James would agree!

But he might like the birdy!

Don't worry, I am not going to show you every page, Just one more.

That's all you are getting of these pages until next week.

Journal number 3, This is really fun as I am using double page spread, journal entry on one side and journal art on the other. Or all over the double page. So you get a lot more freedom to choose I guess. More scope for more art and that has always going to be a good thing.  Looking forward to decorating Octobers pages!

These journal are all fabulous to work on yet very different in execution. I cannot recommend enough your having ago and seeing what you come up with, experiment and enjoy.

For those of you who are interested I managed to get a better photo of Gerty,

She is lovely, but look at all the mess she has made.

I am out of here, "The morning is waining and time is precious to me". It is the 14th of September and I haven't started my Halloween advent calendar yet! Will I get it made in time for the first of Halloween? Lets see. x

365 journal

Recently someone showed me in passing, and I can't remember who it was, their 365 journal. I was excited by the idea, but up to my eyeballs in other projects, so it had to wait. Well the waiting is over and I have started mine. I don't know any of the ethos behind these journals, or where they have come from but they do look rather fun.
I came up with three ideas, No 1, the large double page spread, with the whole month on one page. No 2, the landscape 6 x 12 inches, as many pages as it takes. And  No 3, the page a day, altered book journal.  Then I hit the dilemma, which to do, I like the sound of all of them! But  fear not, I have got it, I am going to do all three! I hope to show you my progress as I go.

Hideous empty white pages!

Not anymore, half a day with some ink and masks and they are a thing of beauty and a joy forever!

As I took the time to show you a picture or my poor deceased cats, I thought I really should show you the lovely living ones. It is a glorious day today so of course the cats are all sunning themselves on the lodge roof, all that is, except, Lucifer. Named because he is a little devil, but I love him, and he is busy sleeping on my bed, he is 2. Then there is Gertrude and Jekyll. They are brother and sister and must be 5 or 6 years old by now.

He is gorgeous and he knows it. Another charity case, someone didn't want him.

That's Lucifer above and the black and white one next is Jekyll,

I love this boy.

And the next one is Gerty, Jekyll's sister she is very much an out door cat, and only really talks to me. She is nice, but can be hard going.

Gerty, eating and making a right old mess of it.

Right I am going to get on with these 365 journal, as I am playing catch up a tad. Started them yesterday, and want to get them up to date. They will have to be academic journals as they are starting in September, I'm not waiting till January to play with these, I will keep you posted.

Monthly therapy session

Hello everyone, here I am a day after my wonderful day out with Craftydollybirds. For those of you who do not know, dollybirds if an off shoot of the York Embroiderers Guild.  I haven't been with either very long,(about two years) but I love them! As the name would suggest the group was formed mainly because these ladies wanted to explore doll making in more depth, but then have moved on to explore just about anything crafty. The knowledge and skills in this group is truly amazing and the generosity of sharing and teaching each other gives one hope in the human race. We meet once a month and it truly is my monthly therapy session. Recently we have been concentrating our efforts on two collaboration. One, There was an old........., who swallowed a fly. This will be revealed next month, and number two, The House the Dollybirds built, which was revealed yesterday. I will tell you all about number one next month.  For the house swap there were eight members taking part, I being one of them. It started with the first person making the gable ends. Then it moves on to the next who makes the walls, next the roof, and so on until a house, with interior and exterior, an occupant and his companion were made. Just short of a year was taken. With the house traveled a journal, what great fun that was.

This is the house and occupants that were made for me, fabulous, thank you ladies.

Wouldn't it be great to live on streets like these?

I don't seem to have any photos of the journals, but I will gets my hands on some next time.

ARTEFACT ATC GROUP

ATC by the ladies in the Artefact group

Now onto my lovely ladies in the Artifact A.T.C. Club, (artist trading cards). We swap card once a month via snail mail. I aim to do this at the beginning of every month but I am dreadful at getting them out on time, must do better!

ATC my me, for Artefact group

I you would like to join the ATC swap email me. A new list of themes will be coming out soon, which you can either work to or choose your own.

Onto a rather sad note, yesterday, Florence, one of my four cats died she was just short of fifteen,

Florence in the court yard

Cat in a bag!

Three past cats, Florence, Mesha pinni and Dickens

That's it for today folk, bye. x