MIA - Back in Action!!

I know that I was MIA for a long time there, but I just decided that I'm going to try and catch up and start over with this blog. I have so many retired/abandoned blogs in my few google accounts, that it's not even funny. More than I ever should or could be able to keep up with. So I'm just making it a goal to keep up with three or four of them. I really wish that they were all on the same account, but they are actually spread all over the place. If anybody knows how to transfer blogs to another account, please let me know. I'm really wishing they were all together.

So, right about now I don't have any pictures to show you, but, later on today, I'll be working on figuring out what I'd like to put on here. I know that I have a lot of projects that I haven't done yet, and I'd really like to share with you. So give me a couple of days to figure out that type of thing, and then I'll get back to you!!

Collage-a-Thon

Hey guys! Sorry that I've been MIA here for a while, but things have been busy - school started up recently and I'm still trying to get into the swing of things - trying to find my creative self in the meantime. I've been exploring so many different mediums even since school started, and since time is pressed, I find myself trying to make shortcuts in my crafting - things that I can do to get the same look in a shorter amount of time. Sometime soon I'm expecting to post some pictures of some ATCs I've made - I'm still making an ATC a day, but just haven't gotten around to posting daily. Also, I've started a new business. I'll be working on putting some stuff up in my new Etsy shop today, but we'll see if I can find the time.

The shop itself is called onestopmixedmedia - basically a place that you should be able to go and get EVERYTHING you might need to start an art journal for yourself. Or any other kind of mixed media or collage for that matter. I'm going to be selling paper and collage kits full of papers (obviously!), embellishments, ephemera, etc. Also in the shop, once I can sell some paper kits and make some money to put back into the business, I'm going to start selling paint (in all colors), gesso (white, black, and clear), glues and adhesives that I love, pens and markers that I find work well, etc, etc, etc!

By now you may have wondered what the title of this post is all about - am I hosting a collage - a - thon? Nope, not me, but there is this other lady on the Milliande message boards that is having one. On that site to be honest with you. It sounds so fun, and I'm playing! It doesn't cost anything to do - it starts this Saturday at 1:00pm Eastern, and continues until 1:00pm the next day. I'm really excited for this - I'll probably do some work in my art journal - maybe do a couple ATCs, etc. I'll probably Ustream the whole time.

Speaking of Ustream, I just realized that I don't think I posted anything about Ustream on here yet. Sorry to get it to you so late guys!! Basically what's been going on is every day, supposedly at 5:30pm Eastern I go live on Ustream. Sometimes I'm way early (so much as a couple of hours) and sometimes I'm late (by 45 minutes or so) but I've been trying to broadcast each and every day. I get my creativity fix (I get to create in front of a live audience) and everybody else gets inspired!! Click here to go to my show page!!

The Great Paper Chase

I always have the hardest time finding new and interesting kinds of found paper. I found this idea on somebody else's blog (they did it about two years ago) and I thought it was really neat. If any of you lovely ladies (and handsome men :) ) have any found paper lying around your house that you don't really mind giving away and posting over here to me, I will, in return, make you a collage with some of the paper that you send and I'll ship it back to you, keeping what is left for myself. Everybody's happy - you get a piece of my art and I get more paper to add to my collection.

I'm looking for several different types of paper - I'm not necessarily looking for rare or very valuable ephemera. I like recent stuff as well as antique looking stuff. I do ask though, if you send new things, at least make them grungy and old LOOKING - like Graphic 45, Prima, and 7 Gypsies. But here is a little list of suggestions:

receipts & invoices
advertisements from magazines, comics, etc. (I love the little ads in the back pages)
pages from books, magazines, comics, ledgers & notebooks
patterned end papers from books would be great
labels & packaging
envelopes, letters, stamps & postcards
anything with handwriting on it, particularly old-fashioned pen & ink
anything without writing on it such as notepaper, graph paper, etc.
brown paper bags
paper that is aged, yellow, spotty, stained, even torn is fine
greeting cards & gift wrap
wallpaper
sheet music
maps
flyers, forms, theatre programs, etc.

Extra great would be ephemera from different cultures - China, Japan, India, Mexico, etc. Colourful, decorated paper is nice, but not essential - some of my favourite pieces are regular white paper that has aged to varying shades of yellow & brown.

Thanks so much!!

~Jordan

Art Journaling!!

Hey guys! I've been looking around the internet for inspiration and fun things to do in my art journal and I came across this AMAZING site with some prompts that are so fun! You can visit the first day here: http://sarahwhitmire.blogspot.com/2008/07/s-journaling.html I recommend that you go read them if you are even so much as slightly interested in anything related to art journaling, scrapbooking, or paper crafting, I would go and visit that site. The prompts are amazing. I started yesterday and am really enjoying the process. They were daily prompts but now I'm just doing them in clumps. Soon enough I'll have a bunch of finished pages to show you guys - I've been working on a bunch of pages at one time - I really think that I like that process a lot better because I don' t get bored. I'm very fidgety and if I don't have different colors at the same time it just doesn't work for me.

Project Modern

So I've been designing my quilt for Project Modern. I don't have anything actually sewn yet - I still have to get the fabric, but I do have it all sketched out in my notebook. I pulled all of my inspiration from bottle of body was - you know; the kind that you use in the shower. My quilt is going to be light pink fading into a dark red with orange in between. It then has HUGE black outlines of flowers all over the quilt, mixed in with a couple of smaller filled in flower shapes. I really like the way that it looks. Another thing that I was considering was using chocolate brown as a border - just a thin one to pull off the scrappy look. I think that I'll hand quilt it with diagonal lines - very simple in both directions...

Some Progress

Hey all! Within the last couple of days, I've been quilting, sewing, and making ATCs. Like I was talking about in the last post, I've joined several quilt alongs, challenges, and a pledge related to quilting. The first thing I'd like to talk about is my hexagon quilt. It is a charm quilt, which means that every piece is different - each and every fabric used to make a hexagon or even a partial hexagon is going to be unique if I can possibly do so. Here is what I have sewn together so far:



A close up:



And here is a flower that I stitched together to add:



That's that... if ANYBODY wants to send me sewing scraps to add to this quilt, I would be very grateful - It's so hard to find enough scraps to finish this quilt!

The next project that I'd like to show you is my free motion quilt along top that I made. Here is the quilt before I trimmed it up:



And here it is after it was trimmed:



All I need to do now is to find a fabric to use for the backing and then make the quilt sandwich. I also have to buy the darning foot - it's 10 dollars, so I'm hoping I can find SOMEWAY to afford it, but I guess we'll just have to see.

The last thing I'd like to make you guys aware of is my improv quilt - I joined this challenge where for every mile you log into this government exercise site you earn one piece of fabric to use in your quilt. Here are all of the materials that I have chosen to use thus far with the miles I have logged.



The fabric with the leaves on it is the main fabric that inspired the whole quilt, and the one with the pumpkins on it is the second main fabric. With just those two simple prints, an entire idea for a quilt was born. I actually started working on some blocks yesterday and will continue to work on them throughout today. Tomorrow I will probably post my progress. See you guys later!

I'm Back...

But now I've turned to another page of my creative endeavours. I don't know what it is about the coming of fall, but whatever it is, I am always drawn away from my regular ways of scrapbooking and pulled towards the warmth and coziness of quilting and crocheting, knitting and cooking. I've joined several new groups and quilt - alongs, as you can plainly see in the sidebar of my blog, and a couple of them are starting in September. I also took a pledge - a process pledge. Here is the pledge:

I, Jordan, pledge to talk more about my processes, even when I can’t quite put them into words or be sure I’m being totally clear. I’m going to put my thinking and my gut feelings out there.

And I'm going to do just that. I'm going to blog and I'm going to do it more often - about my works in progresses and the projects that I'm just not quite sure that I like. Even the ones that I hate during the process, I'm going to post; and I'm going to tell all of you what I'm feeling about that particular thing.

I have also joined a free motion quilting quilt-along... I've always been somewhat intimidated by free motion; I love the look, but I'm still scared of it. As I was browsing Flickr a couple of days ago I found this... and as I looked into it, I found that it wasn't as intimidating as it initially seemed. I'm still wondering, somewhat unsure of myself, but I know that everything you do and want to do needs practice, and that practice makes perfect - or at least somewhat better! I'm going to put together a simple top to practice my free motion on. The blog suggests using strips in a couple of different sizes to accomplish this, but I think I'm going to use some of my scraps - different sized squares, rectangles, triangles, and pehaps one or two strips to make a quilt the same size as they are using. I don't think I'm going to use a pattern - I might sketch a bit in my sketchbook this afternoon to see what I can come up with, but I know that it's not going to be something over the top. I'll probably use bigger scraps than I usually use so the top can come together at least fairly quickly - what do you guys think? Also another thing I've been considering is to piece the top too...