Sunday Thoughts

"It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else satisfies you."
-- St. Pope John Paul II

Books for Later

Here are some books I recently checked out.  Each has one or two techniques I liked.  I don’t have time to try them now, so I want to note them here.

Colored Pencil Collage: Nature Drawing and Painting for Mixed Media

By Kelly Hoerning

Beautiful color schemes, layering, and use of doilies.

Collage Couture: Techniques for Creating Fashionable Art

By Julie Nutting

One of my favorites!  It’s sort of fashion-meets-paper-dolls-meets-collage.  There’s also a great tutorial on drawing figures and faces.

Collage Discovery Workshop

Claudine Hellmuth

Making no-measure, simple bow frames from lath, plus inspiring pictures.

Pretty Little Things: Collage, Jewelry, Trinkets, Keepsakes

By Sally Jean Alexander

Lots of use of a soldering iron, except for one project.  Also, lots of use of glass.  I did like the “grab a slip of paper” collage project, wherein the papers said things like paint, smudge, magazine, photos, draw, etc.

Playing with Paper: Illuminating, Engineering, and Reimagining Paper Art

By Helen Hiebert

Lots of fun!  Someday I’d love to try the cardstock castle, the piano-hinge book and the pocket-book cover for holding a signature (out of fabric, I think).

Make Your Mark: Creative Ideas Using Markers, Paint Pens, Beach Pens, and More

By Lark Books

I liked the info on bleach pens, plus the tie-die markers-on-fabric projects.

Pintrest Perfect!

Flora Chang et al.

Love the one where you use a technique similar to making paper snowflakes for making paper flowers, plus some fun stuff under doodling, mixed media, and painted greeting cards.

College Discovery Workshop: Beyond the Unexpected

by Claudine Hellmuth

I would like to try some of her background techniques using dishwasher rinse aid, saran wrap, tape, tissue paper, and contact paper. 

Word Yahtzee

This was so much fun!

I want one, and I don't know if this game is made any more.

Thanks, Marcia for introducing me to Word Yahtzee!

Now can anyone find a way to make a 7-letter word out of the following?  (The diamond is equivalent to a blank in Scrabble.)

Christmas Cactus

Apparently, it is actually a Thanksgiving Cactus.  No joke.  You can tell by the leaves, and it did, in fact, bloom much closer to Thanksgiving than to Christmas.

I give it to you, my readers, as a lovely bit of bloom amid all the snows of winter....

Book of Note: Bibliocraft

This book was written by a librarian at the New York Metropolitan Library.  She collaborated with artists on projects wherein she would find books on whatever they were interested in -- 19th century children's book, typography, maps, bookplate, decorative bindings, etc.--and they would create projects inspired by the books.

The reason this book is cool is because she lists the Library of Congress subject headings for each topic, plus she provides the names of specialized digital collections.

BiblioCraft: The Modern Crafter’s Guide to Using Library Resources to Jumpstart Creative Projects
by Jessica Pigza

My Favorite Tile To Date

Cute!

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but some of my friends have unbelievably cute kids!