Art journal,

This was hand bound with coptic stitch, I used some stencils from Ed Roths new book, but most of the writing inside is freehanded, a combination of backgrounds, some linocut prints and scrapbooking papers. And some random images from the web.

I added some envelopes and skinny pages (so new pages can be stuck in) into the binding.

Rainbow tags

I have been working on these tags on and off for ages. They are just an exploration of colour, So I did a rainbow (I've just realised that indigo is missing from these pix!) plus black and white.

The tags are about 5 inches tall and 3.5 across on a base of cardboard.

These are the different colours

The tags are eventually going into this alteredbook. I received the book as part of a craft swap from the always awesome http://www.craftster.org/. a few of the pages were already altered by the artist, but leaving plenty of them for me to work on, so far I have only one done!...the black page.

Mexican kitsch

I love mexican style. I love shrines (as you might have guessed by now!) I love exubrance and bright colours and fun in artwork. I also love dios de los muertos. So I couldnt pass up the recent craftster.org swap on mexican kitsch.

This is what I sent my partner. She requested an altered book. I made this one by starting with a childs board book that had a plastic squeeker toy glued to the back page, I pulled out the toy and used fimo, polymer clay to make a skull, each page was then altered with a different mexican theme, day of the dead, frida, mexican wrestling, religious imagery

I also made her some lucha libre mask paintings, and a virgin of guadalupe bag. The bag is a simple square bottomed tote, with the virgin fabric sewn on. Let me know if you want to see a tutorial for this type of bag, it is very fast to sew up and can be made in a range of sizes.