Saturday, April 21, 2012

Crafternoons and Crafterevenings

Last week at this time, my mother and I were knee-deep in art supplies, making the best use possible of our brief time together. 

We started her visit by trading arty gifts with one another.  She brought me three new rubber stamps for my ever-expanding collection, and I got her a waterbrush and an inexpensive set of pan watercolors to play around with while she was here. 

We set up our workshop in the dining room:
Mom is now a waterbrush convert!

She's been doing her own altered Rolodex project at home:  She glues a business card to one side of the Rolodex, and then creates a thematically-linked collage on the other side!  So, of course, we had to spend some time on Rolodex cards together, using our newly acquired stamp stash:
My mom is getting a little tired of me taking these photos of her, leaning over various projects, but I just can't resist!

You'll noticed we moved our base of operations to the breakfast area, because the dining room is so totally dim at night.
I know I'm not the only one who loves a good pic of yummy art supplies--a painty palette, beautiful stamps, bright watercolors.

Here is one side of the Rolodex cards I created:
And here is the other side:
Mom and I did a swap; she took the blue card above and I chose this one from her collection:
I also shared with her the strategy of using gel medium to adhere napkins to journal pages for a lovely translucent effect, and showed her the butterfly page from my Gift from the Sea journal.  That sent us to the party store to buy a huge stash of inexpensive napkins to play with in our journals:
Here, mom used a gorgeous yellow and white napkin as a background, then cut out flip-flop images from another napkin over the top of it.  She used pen to outline the shoes for a better effect.  I took one of my famous "Mom at the work table" photos, but didn't take a pic of her page!  I'll share some of my "napkin art journal pages" in a future post.

She was also interested in the paperbag journals I made for my girls using a link I found on April Cole's blog to a tutorial for making little notebooks out of paper lunch bags.  So, of course, we had to make some of our own:
My mom had the idea of using some of our paper napkins to decorate the covers of our little notebooks.

It would be such a fabulous thing if we lived nearer to one another and didn't have to watch our time together so carefully.  But as it was,we had four lovely days to amuse ourselves with the girls, enjoy excursions like Briggs Auction and Morris Arboretum, and PLAY-PLAY-PLAY with whatever creative idea caught our fancy. 

I'm already ready for her next visit!

13 comments:

Dolly B said...

How lovely that you can share this time together with a common passion. Love the paper bag books , they look fabulous
Cheers
Mary

uncustomary said...

Ahhh! Love the Rolodex cards! Absolutely lovely.

Kym said...

That is so nice that you and your mom share art time together. Wonderful for both of you I'm sure.

The Snail Mailer said...

I'm quite jealous that you and your Mum share similar interests. Me and my Mum are polar opposites when it comes to interests and hobbies. I love the stamp cards you created!

Beansieleigh said...

Oh wow... LOVE all your work here! The little journals are really sweet, and I love how you made your Rolodex cards! I bought an old, but unused Rolodex file last year at a rummage sale, thinking I could now participate in Rolodex card swaps; but THEN I realized I had an old model/size that was not current to the standard size that the swaps were dictating. My cards are bigger... So-oooo, now I just plan on working on it for myself, and figured it would be fun to decorate/embellish each little card to somehow reflect the person/business of each card individually. I haven't found time to start this little project yet, but hopefully sometime soon! (0; Hope you're enjoying your weekend! ~tina

laurie said...

what a treat it must be to spend time with a loved one who likes to create along side you! it looks like you accomplished quite a lot in the time you were together.

Carin Winkelman said...

Seems like you had a wonderful time together. Nothing beats sharing creative endeavours. I love the paper bag books!

Janet said...

It must be such fun to have creative time with your mom. I always think it's more fun when you can share a fun experience with someone else. Plus you get to swap art. I love all the Rolodex cards.

Anne said...

All of you are so right -- it's the best time ever to spend such creative time with my dear daughter.
Besides the crafting aspect, we have such warm chats about life in general, ideas, opinions -- and how long it will actually take her to get me brave enough to try a new medium! I'm already anxious to head back.

Joyfulploys said...

It's wonderful that you and your mother love to share art ideas, etc. She looks so content...and the Rolodex cards are wonderful!
Mary

Jo Murray said...

You two are so lucky to share a love of making art. What a wonderful time you are having together.

Parabolic Muse said...

Okay, you tell mom that it's required that you take photos of her crafting. That's just how it is. Like, the sky is blue.

I love those stamp rolodex cards! I put stamps all over something and sent it out. I don't remember what it was or where it went, but it was important!

Now, as for paper napkins... are you kidding?! Aside from paper towels, that's a major decoupage material for me! Don't get me started. In fact, you've inspired me to use one on my next altered plastic Easter egg.

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