Altered Heart Mini-Book!

Okay, okay, I'll admit it, just in case this looks familiar. This is a re-run from last year, but I thought it appropriate to share again for Valentine's day weekend. It's a little heart-shaped book, and the pages are punched cereal box by a Marvy-Uchida jumbo punch (but not a punch brand I recommend, BTW! In my experience, they break pretty consistently. Go with Paper Shapers!!!)

This pic is clickable to enlarge and see more details of the pages. This little book remains one of my favorite little things that I have around. So I hope you don't mind it's a re-run!

Sadly, I've got nothing new to post... I've been in a pretty ridiculous funk for the last couple weeks. Just been feeling crazy-anxious, and I'm not 100% certain why. I'm trying really hard to push past it, but sometimes it's just tough. I'm tapering off my painkillers, so maybe I'm feeling a touch of withdrawals? No idea. Anyway, maybe I aughta join a swap or something to get inspired. Or catch up on my blogroll, since I'm totally behind. At any rate, life is generally good, just not as crafty as I want. Happy weekend, and have a good Valentine's Day. Go eat some fancy chocolates, I know I will :)

Kokopelli Book Shrine

Here's what I've been working on!!! It's a book shrine featuring kokopelli. I have a friend who was an enormous help during my early recovery, bringing me all sorts of things, doing Christmas shopping for me, etc. She has a liking for the little kokopelli dude, so I wanted to make her something unique to say thank you.

You know those books with hiding places cut into them? It's the same idea, but after I cut a big hole in the middle of the book, I glued the page edges together to make a solid compartment. Then I just painted and glued in what you see. The kokopelli is cut from sandpaper :)

I got the old book on the library sale shelf... It was a book about some people in China, but the color is kinda sandy, terra-cotta-ish and kinda Southwestern, right? I painted another little kokopelli to put on the front of the book.

Here's an in progress shot before I had all of the dry grasses and things glued in. I was tempted to stop here, because the night scene was just so serene.... But that wasn't the plan. Anyhoo, I hope you're all having a great weekend. Good night!

Sketchbook Scans

Well shoot, I thought I'd be posting more than once per week by now! Here I am, fiiiiinally posting some sketchbook project scans. Towards the end, I had to resort to using a lot of cut out art prints. I felt like I was cheating a little bit, but afterall, it IS my artwork, and I needed to meet the deadline. Meh. Oh well. So this first one is my seafood page, fish, octopus, etc.

This one was fast and simple, flower doodles and watercolor. The sleeping dog that looks like a pink poo is a doodle with color pencil.

I ran out of canned air, and had to make that red tree with a straw and my own breath. About passed out. but it turned out acceptable :) Then I doodled all those animals on the right, including a guinea pig, owl, giraffe, and bonus if you spot the moogle.

As hard as I tried, I wasn't able to finish EVERY spread, but the right side of this one was a favorite. The couch is cut out of an IKEA catalog (Oh, to have an IKEA nearby). Anyhoo, I hope you enjoyed these pages! No word yet if my sketchbook has made it safely to New York, but they have a lot of books to process....

I've been feeling good, then bad, then good. The trouble is doing much too much when I feel good, then feeling bad the next day. Like my dad reminded me over the phone, no one said surgery recovery would be easy. The key is BALANCE!!! Thank you again to everybody's nice encouraging words! And oh hey, some NEW followers?! (Hello to you!) That made my week.

Soon to come, a book shrine and a giveaway soon! I found some rad brand NEW papercrafting supplies at the Goodwill this week, and I thought I'd share the wealth. Til next time, HAPPY WEDNESDAY!