Snow Day!

One of the best things about working in a school is the occasional snow day.While it's true that we have to make them up in June, when the snow is coming down and the roads are icy and the wind is howling, it's a little luxury to be able to sleep in or just curl up with a cup of tea in front of the wood stove. I love Netflix as much as the next guy, but after a while in front of the screen I start to get restless and I need to find an artistic diversion.

If it's not safe to drive to work, then I can't very well justify driving out to an art supply store, so I need to rely on the supplies I already have on hand. Yesterday I dug out my bags that contain vintage linens. I used a large doily and an embroidery hoop that I'd forgotten I had and I made myself another bohemian dream catcher. I've made them before, and someday when I start up my hippie commune, I'll have all the decorations ready to go.

The one on the left is the one I made most recently. 

I've also been working on a new art journal. It's an ocean themed one. I began it because last year we withdrew an ocean reference book from the library because the pages were falling out. I was unprocessing it, and when I removed the dust jacket, I saw that the hardcover underneath was beautiful.

It seemed like such a waste that it had been covered up for so many years, and I couldn't bear to put it in the recycling bin, so I rescued it. It wasn't a huge issue that some of the pages were falling out because whenever I begin an altered book art journal, I remove some of the pages anyways. (The books tend to 'swell up' when all the extra materials and glue are added, so removing some pages beforehand makes room for the expansion.)

Altered books are perhaps the easiest art project to create. It requires very little, and the amount of changes you make to the book are completely at the artist's discretion. For example, in this photographic double spread, I just added the little traffic sign- which I had snipped out of a magazine.

I thought it was perfect. Everytime I see these pages now, I expect a mermaid to swim by.

Both of these pages were also created by applying just one little scrap of paper to the image that was already in tact.

I used these two pages as kind of a personal scrapbook. The backgrounds are magazine ad's, and then I put the photos on them.

Old sheet music (from Salvation Army for 50 cents) is always fun to use, too.

Obviously, my time yesterday was well-spent.