Mixed Media Pocket Travel Journal Video Tutorial by Jeannine Stein

This week Stefanie Girard at the Craftside blog posted a fun easy to follow tutorial on how to make

Mixed Media Pocket Travel Journal with a map.

a mixed media pocket travel journal, featuring author Jeannine Stein.

Jeannine Stein is known for her book Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books in which she teaches how to make mixed media books out of a variety of materials.

Her other book is  Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials which teaches basic book binding techniques and has some fun projects for the reader to make.  Re-Bound has 16 pages of patterns and templates, with excellent step-by-step directions that include hand drawn illustrations.  The book serves as a book binding primer for anyone who is new to book binding or just interested in the process.  Jeannine also includes some great repurposing book binding ideas that will inspire anyone to want to try their hand at making a book.

If you have ever wondered how to make a handmade book or just like working with paper, then the video posted today could just be the answer.  The video gives a short "How To Book Bind" tutorial that shows the viewer how easy it is to make a fun multi-media pocket travel journal with a pop out map (although you could substitute some other paper item in the place of the map).
 Note: if you look between Stefanie and Jeannine,

 you can see the cool re-purposed purple Guittards chocolate box book she made.




If you prefer written directions, Jeannine also wrote a great step-by-step tutorial of the pocket travel journal which Stefanie has also posted on the Craftside blog.   Below are some pics of other handmade books that Jeannine Stein has made.

So check out the video and leave comments to let the publisher know what types of videos you would like them to to put on YouTube (  I will forward any comments to the publisher).

Disclaimer :  No payment received for this post.  Stefanie and Jeannine are friends of mine who I think are really talented and create some pretty neat stuff.

A Review of the Create Mixed Media Retreat 2013 Artist Faire in Irvine, California

  This year's  Create Mixed Media Retreat was held on May 29 through June 2, 2013 in Orange County at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, California.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the "Create Mixed Media Retreat", it is a great event put on by the people from Interweave Press and Cloth Paper Scissors.  The Create Mixed Media Retreat events take place in various locations the U.S. and offers a variety of classes which can vary from making art journals to jewelry making.  They also have a great selection of technique based classes like art journaling methods, surface designs (including metal work), sewing, collage, polymer clay, power tools, and more.
  Joanne Sharpe (author of Cloth Paper Scissors Workshop Artful Lettering: Tools and Techniques for Discovering Your Style) taught a "Free Motion Tapestry" class where students learned to

Joanne Sharpe

design and create their own hand painted fabric.  They also got to learn some free motion sewing techniques that brought dimension to the finished pieces.  As you can see in the picture below, the pieces came out gorgeous.

Hand painted material by Joanne Sharpe

Lisa Englebrecht (author of Modern Calligraphy and Hand Lettering: A Mark-Making Workbook for Crafters, Cardmakers, and Journal Artists), also taught three classes at this venue.

Lisa Engelbrecht

Lisa taught a fun class on how to write on fabric and make some pretty terrific banners.  Some of the projects can be viewed on her flicker account.  She also taught a really cool "Hand Lettered" t-Shirt class.  The students got to create their inspiration t-shirt using the techniques that Lisa taught them in class.  In the past Lisa has also taught a variety of calligraphy classes and lettering techniques. Below is a video that is a sample of one of her writing technique demonstrations.



The third class she taught at this show, was a fun "Fascinator" class.

Sample Fascinator from Lisa Engelbrecht's class.

In this class the students learned the basics to designing their own Fascinators from a variety of materials, including feathers from sustainable farm grown flocks.  They were quite impressive to see in person (for pictures from her class, just check out Lisa's FB page to find a link).

Assorted materials and sample Fascinators for Lisa's class

They also have a great "Artist Faire" which is free to the public.  This is a great opportunity for the public to go and make purchases from a wide variety of art materials as well as work from the various artists in attendance.  One set of tables had four different authors in attendance, showing off their their artwork, crafts and books.

Amy Morinaka, Stefanie Girard, Jeannine Stein, and Lisa Englebrecht

I had a chance to talk to each author and take a few pictures of their work.  The first author is Amy

Morinaka, who's first book "Zakka Handmades: 24 Projects Sewn from Natural Fabrics to Help Organize, Adorn, and Simplify Your Life" was just released. For those who are unfamiliar with Zakka style, it is a fashion and home good designs style that has spread from Japan.  It specifically refers to hand-sewn items for the home, as well as simple clothing.  On her blog "Chick Chick Sewing", Amy has some great projects that vary from simple to advanced.  Like her book, the projects include some very clever and lovely designs made from some beautiful fabrics.

Amy Morinaka

Amy is an accountant who's love of fabric combine with her sewing abilities has inspired her to design some very fun projects for this book.

I also got to spend a few moments speaking with Jeannine Stein, the author of two books

(Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books and   Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials ). Recently, her work has also been featured in the "Pages"magazine from Cloth Paper Scissors.

Below is a beautiful examples of the many creative ways, Jeannine uses ephemeral to accent the handmade books she makes.

This is another great example of the books she makes with both new and recycled materials.

The next picture is of a recipe book she made from a recycled box of chocolates.

Here is a peek at the inside of the book.

And a look at some of the ephermal kits she had on hand.

The kit below has some cool recycled materials from books, labels, and more.

Stefanie Girard, who blogs for Craftside blogger and Craft Gossip (recycled crafts), was also on hand.

 If you have never visited the "Craftside" blog or the "Sweater Surgery" blog, you are in for a treat.  Stefanie often posts some tutorials and other tidbits from the new books that are being released.

Stefanie Girard, is also the author of the book "Sweater Surgery: How to Make New Things with Old Sweaters".  In her book, everything is made from recycled sweaters with a fun variety of projects like the messenger bag below and the cute red cowboy boots for infants (behind the purse).

If you like learning new technique from some great teachers then I highly recommend the "Create Mixed Media Retreat".  Check their website to find out when one is coming to your area.

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A review of the Spring Glitterfest 2012 Craft and Handmade Gifts Show

     Nothing says "Spring" better than a cool craft show featuring a fun selection of handmade spring craft and decor pieces.  There were also vendor selling a fabulous selection of crafting supplies, glitter, and other merchandise to tempt folks who like to make their craft projects.
     I love spring and all the excitement associated with it.  So in between planting seeds, replacing plants and designing a new garden, I found time to attend the Spring Glitterfest craft and handmade gifts event.  It was held at the Elks Lodge in Santa Ana, California (which is about 15 minutes away from Disneyland).  The show offers parking at the Elks Lodge or you can park at the store and take a tram to the show site.

    There is a wide offering of merchandise available at the Spring Glitterfest show.  The organizers take care to plan the show floor with care so that you can enjoy the various "eye candy" in a fun and relaxed atmosphere without getting overwhelmed nor over crowded. Since I reviewed the Fall 2011 Glitterfest Event, I thought I would concentrate on introducing you to just a few of the many talented artists who sell their hand crafted art work at this particular show.
   My first stop was the Craftside publishing booth, to visit with my friend Stefanie Girard.  She was giving away some really really cool journals and sketching pads to show visitors.  The Craftside booth also had a great display of some of their more popular craft books for folks to enjoy.   This gave me a chance to look through some of Craftside's newest craft books and see what types of projects they offered.  Something I really cannot do while shopping on Amazon.

Craft book authors Karen and Ann Mitchell,  who are well known for their wonderful jewelry designs

which they sell under the name Ankara Designs were also at the Craftside booth sharing their talents with guests and teaching them how to make jewelry.

The Mitchell sisters are also known for their polymer clay designs and have demonstrated various polymer clay design techniques on cable shows like "Carol Duvall", and other "how to" segments.

The Mitchell sisters are the authors of the new book "Bead Jewelry 101" which teaches the reader how to master basic jewelry making skills and techniques.

They did a "Make &Take" (at the Craftside booth) that taught folks how to make a cute pair of

earrings from paper and other inexpensive jewelry making supplies.  This was an easy craft project that was also an inexpensive craft project for folks to make.  This same project would also make a great upcycle project just by using materials you already have on hand.  You can also use parts from an old necklace and give it a more updated look.

Earrings made from a punched paper leaf.

Visitors of all ages enjoyed making this particular project.

My next stop was the "Ink Stained Book Arts" booth, where I had a chance to talk to Jeanine Stein.  Her most recent book is called "Re-Bound" and is centered on creating fabulous books from recycled and repurposed materials.

She had some very cool hand bound books for sale that were made from unique materials, the book below is made from recycled cowboy chaps.

I loved the hand bound books that she made from Vintage Photographs and frames.  This one is made using a modified long stitch binding that allows for the contents to be viewed easily.

Jeanine also teaches classes in book and paper arts. She also did a "Make & Take" at this show that featured a simple binding technique like the one in the photo below.

She also made a hand bound journal using the advertisement cards for the Glitterfest show and heavy weight paper.

Here is another peek at some of the fabulous items she was selling at the show.

If you look carefully you can see that she makes books from a large variety of materials, including some journals made from vintage french lotto cards.  As a person who collects vintage books and ephemera, I just love her creativity and the beautiful journals and books.

Here is what I went home with, a beautifully bound book made from natural repurposed materials.

For a bit of whimsy, I decided to stop off and take a peek at the wonderful hand sculpted work by David H. Everett.  

His booth featured his "Chicken Lips" line of whimsical art. These amazing creations are made from paper-mache.

The detail in these pieces is incredible.  I have worked with paper-mache and can appreciate the amount of creativity and talent that he puts into each of his creations.  He actually hand sculpts each and every paper-mache figure that he creates.  Then he covers the base material in gesso. Once the gesso dries, he hand paints each figure giving them their individual personalities and features.  If you want to learn more about his creations, he has a fun blog where he shares his musings and his newest creations.  I am

a huge fan of his halloween line and am looking forward to seeing what he creates for the upcoming 2012 fall season.   The Glitterfest Spring 2012 show offered so many different types of handmade and vintage art that it would take too much space to cover it all here.  I highly recommend checking the show out if you are in the Orange County area.  You can also find similar shows in your own area by doing a local google search.


Do you have any favorite craft shows or events that you like to attend? Leave a comment to share it.

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