Turning scraps into Mini Books

What can you do with remnants of acrylic painted watercolor papers? That's what I wondered in March, as I began sorting these colorful strips by size.

And then last weekend, I had an answer:  fold them into little accordion books!

Free or Inexpensive Online Art & Craft Classes

 

Free

 

Strathmore –  a variety of drawing, painting, art journaling, bookbinding classes throughout the year; past classes are on YouTube

 

Dick Blick – the art store has all kinds of project ideas and live Facebook events

 

Laly Mille – painting, collage, art journaling with some free tutorials

 

Amy Maricle – variety of drawing and painting classes done each Friday afternoon and available for replay over the weekend

 

Ann Wood – hand sewing, assemblage patterns and tutorials

 

Darlene Oliva McElroy – “Relics of a Lost Civilization” hosted on Facebook using assemblage, mixed media, sewing, etc.

 

Nellie Wortman -- How to make a simple book and paint inside it

 

Lyn Belisle –  a few free classes in mixed media, bookbinding, assemblage classes

 

Gelli Arts – blog devoted to gelatin printmaking with lots of information and video tutorials

 

Mary Beth Shaw – Stencil Girl creator has free Tuesdays and Thursdays in September “What Day is It” streaming lunch sessions with playbacks as well as other videos available on Facebook

 

Roxanne Evans Stout – The Thread That Weaves and Nature Journaling II

 

 

Inexpensive

 

Alisa Burke –LOTS of classes, drawing, painting, photography, art journaling; starting from $15

 

Ann Wood – hand sewing, assemblage patterns and tutorials starting at $6

 

Lyn Belisle – mixed media, bookbinding, assemblage classes starting at $10

 

Sonya Gonzalez – painting, collage, mixed media all classes $1 each

 

 

Necklaces

 

Last weekend, after playing in my Boho Fabric Journal I was inspired to work with this face shard I've had for years, from Lyn Belisle. The base was a rectangle of crochet I made in color-changing yarn of purple, green, and teal colors. There were four holes in the fired clay face—one at top, two on one side, and one on the other. After lots of auditioning, rejecting, more auditions, more rejections, I was running out of time and made several decision. One section is braided yarn (left side), the other two have various beads—the thinner one is seed beads on Irish linen thread.

I made this necklace in June. The base was a neat metal piece that looks like it’s from India—I’ve had it for ages. I wired in the bells individually and even broke one of the holes while doing it—I’m not much a skilled jewelry-maker (and that’s OK!).

 

Each of these has a tribal feel to them. If you like that kind of style, check out a wonderful new online class from artist Darlene Olivia McElroy called “Relics of a Lost Civilization”. It’s a free class, open to everyone, on FaceBook. Before reading anything at the site, I already had a lot of ideas and inspiration.