Story in Reversed Forward

Have you ever thought about writing a story, telling a tale. Maybe a made up one, maybe a true one from life. Something that happened, or something that we wish had happened. This last week I bought a package of various widths and sizes of paint brushes at the supply store. They aren't fancy; really, they are meant for kids. I thought if I brought them home for myself, maybe they'd get me started painting again, journaling in a notebook or something similar.


The term "journaling" makes it seem more formal and technical than it should be. I want to mess with color on paper, and maybe on cloth, and make fun images. Not knowing ahead of time what they will be, just splashes of color that begin to tell some kind of fun or sad or silly story.


I was thinking about the idea of the blog. If you were to write a story in a blog, would you have to write it in reverse? Because when you read a blog, you see the most recent thing first, and then go back in time. Backwards reading. From the present to the past to the deep long ago time.


So if you wanted to write a story in a blog, would you have to put the ending, and then the chapter before the ending, and so on, until the last thing you wrote was the beginning? So that when it was read in the blog, it would read in the right order? For some reason I've been thinking about this for days, trying to figure out how you could put a storytelling adventure into a blog, and have it read in the correct sequence when you were done.


If I was clever, I'd try to figure out a story that could be read in any order, sort of like pulling playing cards out of a deck, and have it still make sense. But depending on the order you read the cards, the story might come out with a different ending.Or if the story's pages had holes for putting into a 3-ring binder, the story could be changed, rearranged and added to all the time. Sort of like life feels like, sometimes.


Maybe the problem is words. If the story was told in images, in pictures, would it matter the same way what order you looked at them? If I'm honest, does it really matter what order things appear in, as long as we truly see them, and make the images part of our story ... ?

Quality Nickel Games

Here's another example of the spiral bound books I have been playing with. I have a good time finding the images and putting them together.


This one has a game spinner on the front and guess what? I added a real metal spinner that moves, so you can twirl it around just like when you're playing a board game.


On the back cover I put a picture of a dice. It's very playful and fun.


It has 17 pages mixed of my recycled handmade papers, cold pressed watercolor paper and stiff cardboard with old maps and newspaper print on them.


I like the way it lays flat when you open it. Some of the watercolor pages are half-sized, so you can see the pages on either side. When I was traveling I liked using half-sheets sometimes, so you could see part of the next page while you were drawing. Kind of a pop-up book idea.

I hope you like these little spiral-bound handmade books. I'm putting them in the ExpeditionD Etsy shop, if you want to see more photos.

Or to grab one that's caught your fancy!

Whiter and Brighter

I know I've been saying for a while that I want to put some new, different kinds of things into the ExpeditionD shop.

I'm thinking of it as a provisions store, the kind of place you go to for miscellaneous things. Like a general store. When I gave the Etsy shop the name "ExpeditionD" I was thinking of travel, archeology and excitement. Caravans in the desert, boats down the nile.

So this little spiral bound handmade book is the first of the new things I'm adding.

I love books and paper; I love to keep a travel journal when I go somewhere, and I keep all my little knick-knacks (tickets, little things from hotels and Bed and Breakfast places, Menus, matchbooks, all that stuff) glued into a travel book that I keep. Then later I can add drawings, photographs, anything like that.

I also like to make recipe books to give to people when they say they like something I cooked.


So this is sixteen pages of mixed things, with a pretty design and an oversized woodcut skeleton key on the front.

Some pages are heavy cardboard with pretty wallpaper designs on them, they're great for glueing things down with a glue stick.

There is cold pressed watercolor paper, for drawing with a pencil or doing a watercolor wash. I do that sometimes when I travel and finish the drawing later.


And pages of my own deckle cut handmade paper. Yes, I love to make handmade paper...

I saved a bunch of junk mail, envelopes and things like that, ground it up in the paper shredder and one warm day I made sheets of handmade paper out of it. The ultimate in recycling, when you look at the paper you can sometimes see the letters from the paper showing through. Fun!

I don't know if people will like these little books and some of the new things I plan to put in ExpeditionD. But I'll always have jewelry in the other shop. I just can't stop myself from working in lots of media.


I made the spiral binding myself - I wasn't sure how it would work but it's just great, it folds completely back on itself to lay flat, that's useful when drawing.

If you would like me to make one for you with just watercolor paper in it for a journal, let me know! Or something with a theme - I will be adding more things later, I just couldn't wait to share this one with you.

Tiny Book of Good Wishes

Some years ago, I learned how to make star books. I love bookbinding!

I made a book for my daughter with her childhood paper mementos in it, and a star type book with photos of her great and great-great grandparents' photos in it.


This book is a tiny mini star book size that I'm sending as special holiday cards. When open they fan out to create a star shape that can be hung on the tree as an ornament.


This one is going to my daughter for her new baby's Christmas. It has vintage holiday card designs inside, I am hoping she'll like it. The baby can't play with it yet, but hopefully it will be a special memory keeper for the future, Christmas times to come.


I want to make a bunch more - and if you want to make some too, I'll be posting the instructions here after my offering to the Art Bead Scene blog for the 10th day of Christmas post.



They're 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" square on the outside, but they could be made even smaller.

It just depends on how much patience you have!



This one has a cover with a design from the Book of Kells with a faux gem on it, in pink of course! And lots of Christmas greetings for the little girl grandbaby.



So keep an eye on the Art Bead Scene blog, and then come back here for all the instructions and step by step photos.

A perfect project for a cold, blustery day!

Sunday School Flashback

Remembering childhood days, it came back to me when I found this piece of spiritual art that reminds me of the images in church classes on Sunday mornings.

The faded image, with sweet colors and a special kind of vintage look.

I made this focal bead with the idea in mind that it would make a lovely bracelet, but it also could be used for a choker. Or as something totally unrelated to jewelry, like the jewel on the cover of a hand bound book or family photo album.


The resin covering the vintage image took on a sparkling effect as it cured. I don't always know when it will do it, but it seems just right for this particular image.

It's subtle and sweet, a trip back to old times and days gone by.

Velvet Portfolio

A while back I talked about the necklace I created in memory of my aunt, my mother's sister, and blogged about it in an earlier post. I knew that my first class at Artfest would be to create a book with Nina Bagley, and I decided that it would be a memory book of sorts for my mother, about her sister.

I made up some components, some you've seen in photos on the blog. Also crocheted some lace in short lengths, and gathered up some of my hand dyed fabrics and stitched, quilted cloth.


This book is not formal or fancy, I wanted it to have the look and spirit of the old style padded photo or souvenir albums my grandmother used to have. Some were covered in velvet and had silver lettering on them, with black heavy paper sheets inside for putting your photos and writing onto, describing the people and places.


The word 'IMAGINE' on the front was part of the trades and ephemera I got when I arrived at Artfest. As well as including some of my own handmade items in the book, I wanted it to be a remembrance of people and places where it was made, so many of the ribbons, beads and other items used in it were given to me at Artfest.


The lace that wraps the cover was made by me, the fabric is my hand dyed cloth. Some of it was torn instead of cut, to have a raggedy, worn look and to symbolize the tearing of the fabric of life.


My aunt and my mother are religious, church-going folks, and on the first day at Artfest someone gave me a package that had a church offering envelope in it. I used the words from it, applying them to the page to indicate that my aunt is an angel now, walking the streets of gold, as the hymn lyrics say.


I took a photo of my mother's family (my mom had not been born yet, that is her sister and brother in the photo) and put an angel wing on her sister's photo, the idea being to imagine her as an angel - thus the word 'IMAGINE' on the front, a scrap of cloth given to me in a trade.

I had never used mica before, so I took song lyric paper and encased it in mica and hinged it as a page in the book, to indicate the psalms and hymns being sung during services.


I added the 'CARPE DIEM' charm with a silver angel dangle on it that I made onto a page decorated with clocks, there are clock faces and measuring yardsticks on both pages to remind me of the short time of life


and to make the most of each day. The photo was taken in a churchyard in Scotland, with the lovely angelic carved stones, marking the people who passed through that place in ages past.


I will make a preservation / presentation box for the book, add the necklace I made earlier, and send to my mother, to remind her of her sister.


I really, really hope she will like them both.

For a peek at the class photos where this book was started, pop over to the Artfest blog.

Charming Lady Thoughts

Many Sweet Thoughts, Many Sweet Faces

Made these charms using pages from a vintage book, cutting the words as I found them on the page. Sentences meant to tell another story, converted to tell the thoughts I saw in the pictures instead. I had the words first, clipped from a page torn from an old shabby book, nothing special. Just found a page with words on only one side of the paper.

I cut the glass, wrapped with copper foil, and started soldering them together, adding the loops for hanging. And decorative wire on some, framing on others. This one has the words 'this is a love letter' on the reverse side, with a vintage photo of a mother and child's faces on the front. It's hard to tell, but the image behind the words on the reverse side is the mother's hand, holding a bouquet of flowers.

Found the drilled stick pearls and couldn't wait to use them for a special piece, and this seemed just right. It's a long dangle but very delicate looking, even with the darkened steel wire wrapping.


This one has a very somber-looking woman with the words 'her passions' encased in a theatre-like frame, surrounded by wire and with one of my fused glass gems as the dangle.

This one is open for you to make up your own story. What are her passions, what is she thinking? On the other s

ide is a label from a vintage lotion bottle design. Is she passionate about life, about her looks, about comfort?

The glass dangle has dichroic sparkle embedded in a translucent glass gem, you can see through it but it has a sparkle and gleam. It will pick up any colors is is put up against, which facinates me.

In the time when the portrait was painted, women didn't have a lot of options in society, only to be wives and mothers or possibly a vocation with the church or with nursing. Is she considering what she would pursue, what her passions would be, if she was completely free?

Speaking of wives and mothers, this next one celebrates the bond between a mom and baby.


I've had the long pink glass beads with the gold trim for a long time, just waiting for the right project to use them.
I made this rectanglar charm of a baby in the bassinette with mom in pink, and I knew it needed those two pink glass beads. I combined it with some of my hand dyed costume pearls, to make a complete necklace.

The other side has an image from a vintage friendship card, with roses forming a heart shape. The metal casings on all of these charms has been darkened, and then textured to enhance the look of the silver solder.

I made the clasp for the necklace with the darkened steel wire, hooked on the side of the necklace to one of the large loops of the beads. It's simple and reminds me of the type of clasp you see on jewelry from the 1930's, just a simple hook and eye.

Do you think the fact that I have a new baby granddaughter has something to do with these images of moms and babies on the charms?

Altered Sketchbook

Novel Sketch Ideas

This is a page out of a more well-developed collage image, use it sometimes for handmade boxes.

Earlier, mentioned the twenty-five cent novel purchased from the library, and the sketches for the 'Specimen 08-50' piece. Thought scanning some pages to show how the piece starts, the development and thought process might be good to share here.



The novel was in bad shape, so there's no guilt involved in writing and drawing all in its pages. It's not such a good story either, so its refreshing to apply whiteout and use a gluestick to cover some of the writing. Then it's just a page for writing. Capturing those elusive ideas before they vanish. They seem to have a fast expiration period.



There's sometimes a hesitation to write or sketch in a pristine, blank white page sketchbook. The feeling that 'this is for posterity' or some other sense of marring the perfect clean white page with drawings that might not be right enough.

With this method, the page is already marred, has someone else's writing on it and it has been primed for a new purpose. It's very freeing, lots of writing surfaces that are easy to carry around, already 'aged' because the paper is old, and if the drawing doesn't work out, it's easy to rip the page right out. And kind of fun.

The first sketch on the left above was initial ideas about using the sheet brass to make the box, how the hanging loops might be attached, where the soldering might go and closing the lid with the glass.

Often the sketches are to capture shapes, or combinations of materials.

Have a little zippered pouch of pens, pencils and my favorite tool for this type of sketching. Found it by accident and just love using it. It's a Pigma Brush with archival permanent black ink. It's like a flexible felt-tip marker, that acts like a paintbrush full of ink when marks are made with it. Thick and thin lines are easy, and it really flows. It's made by Sakura, can probably be found in any art supply store.

For thinner lines, using a Pilot Fine Tip.

The sketches are just that, rough drawings to capture the elusive ideas. The notes are important because the drawings are done so quickly they have no detail and later they don't provide enough information by themselves.

How do you keep your notes?