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.

Disclaimer

Easy Craft Ideas Revisted.

This week, I decided to share some informational videos to watch crafting videos made by Craftside for fun quick and easy craft project ideas.

In the following "Look Learn & Create video", learn how to make felted flowers with Craftside blogger/author/craftster Stefanie Girard, author of "Sweater Surgery", from some 
recycled sweaters.  The recycled sweater felted flowers can be used for jewelry, pins and other great accents.

Another great video from Craftside, is a video featuring Lisa Engelbrecht, (author of "Modern Calligraphy" and "Modern Mark Making")

demonstrating some fun and easy calligraphy techniques.  Her lettering can vary from the more modern art letters to traditional calligraphy letters.  She also shows how to use traditional and non traditional inks and paints to use for art lettering.

In this particular episode Lisa Engelbrecht shows how to use the Martha Stewart Glue pens to create fun art letters with foils and glitter.




and in the video below,  that I took of her at my local art supply store, she demonstrates using various inks to create fun art letters and make cool designs.  Her ink work is fabulous and fun to watch.




Have fun week creating.

Disclaimer

On the set of "Plaid TV" with Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza

Steve Piacenza, Stefanie Girard, Cathie Filian and me at the CHA Winter show

My friend, Stefanie Girard, got to film an episode of "Plaid TV"  with Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza. 

Steve Piacenza and Cathie Filian of Plaid TV

She did an fun episode titled "How to Make a Wind Chime with Garden Tools" that combined a project

and technique from her book "Sweater Surgery" (from Quarry Press) with a project from Steve Piacenza

Steve Piacenza and Stefanie Girard on set at Plaid TV

and his arsenal of Plaid products.  I went along to help Stefanie with her makeup since I had just got my new HD Makeup kit and needed a venue to test it out on.  The show is filmed in high definition so it provided me with a great opportunity to see if the makeup worked or not.  It also gave me this sneak

peek as to how this show is filmed. Below is a Cathie Filian, who is checking the lighting

on the set before they start filming. A lot of time and effort goes into filming each Plaid TV segment.

They spend time checking and rechecking the directions, the project and the materials so

Steve Piacenza, Stefanie Girard and Cathie Filian reviewing the project.

that the viewer gets the best possible finished product to enjoy.

Between segments, Steve took out a moment to model one of the "Hot Glue Gun" finger protectors that Cathie Filian and he invented.

Steve wants to help you prevent hot glue gun burns

As for Stefanie's project, it was too much fun.  See the flower on the bird house, it is made from a recycled sweater that had been felted.  Then Stefanie used her Sizzix "Big Shot"to die cut flower petals

and turned into the sweater into a flower.  The flowers became a cool decoration for a fun bird house chime.

If you have not had a chance to go online and watch these episodes, you are in for a treat.  The projects
vary to cover a large area of interest

and audience based.  On the day I was there I got a quick peak at some their projects.   On one table I saw fabulous easy kids projects that would appeal to young children.  On a different table, there were projects that made me want to run out to the local craft store and stock up on plaid products.  They also have projects posted on the web site to inspire you through the upcoming holiday season.
As for the episode itself, well here it is for your viewing enjoyment.




What are your crafting plans for the upcoming holidays?  We would love to know what types of projects our readers enjoy making and reading more about.


Disclosure

Product Review of "The Card Album"

I enjoy finding new and interesting storage products for my finished projects.  It is even better when the
product has problem solving applications like the "Card Album".  At first glance, it is not very impressive looking.  However, Stefanie Girard (designer & patent holder), who is a friend of mine, is pretty patient so she took the time to explained how the Card Album worked and the reason for the  design.

The Card Album

The Card Album was created for people like me who like to make their own cards.  In the past when I made a card I would stick in a file or in a drawer.  More often than not, the handmade card would get squished, bent, or even misplaced.  To avoid this type of dissapointment, Stefanie Girard (author of

"Sweater Surgery" )  created a special elastibind construction on the "Card Album" to hold greeting cards and other projects for crafters and artists alike.

She wanted to create an organized solution for folks to be able to store their handmade greeting cards with having them become damaged or misplaced.   She also recycles envelopes and uses them in these

binders to hold an assortment of different items.

View of how the Card Album holds cards.

The Card Album holds up to 24 of 5x7 cards even if you have a variety of different sized handmade cards.  I likehow easily this systems allows me to keep my cards organized and accessable.  You insert

View of back pocket and banding on the Card Album

the finished or even unfinished card through the band and its stays in place until you need it again.

Showing the album holding 5x7 cards

The fun did not stop there, when I attended a "Card Album" decorating class at the winter CHA show, we decorated the outside of these cool card albums with die cuts, stickers, buttons and other ephemera. Since the decorative craft class was offered at the CHA show there was an amazing assortment of items (both cool tools, fun decorative embellishments, and other tidbits) available to use.

Stefanie showed us how we can uses our altered art supplies, scrapbooking supplies, etc. to decorate the outside of the Card Album  to reflect our own artistic style.  If you can not attend one her classes, she does have a blog (The Card Album Blog) where she often posts card making ideas.

Rubber stamps work great on these.  The stamped image, on the above Card Album is done using "StazOn" ink which works great on so many surfaces.

The next album I decorated I wanted to have a halloween theme.  I found some cool templates on the "Martha Stewart" crafting site to use.  I printed out the witch silhoutte and used it as a template to cut out the witch using some card stock.  The templates have some really convenient measurements so you can adjust the print to the size you need (on your computer).

Witch Silhoutte from Martha Stewart crafts

Then I used a glue stick to attach the witch to the book cover.  It stayed on really well which surprised

me since glue stick glue does not always hold well on plastic.  I also used my Martha Stewart punch around the page "crackle" punch to outline the cover.  I love her punches and will use them in any craft I can.

It was a simple craft project that did not take a lot of time or supplies.  I only used items that I had on hand and I was pleased that it came out just the way I wanted it to.  Now I can store my halloween theme cards in this book.  Below is the  second book I decorated to hold more cards.

I have a tendency to save the special cards that friends have made me over the years.  Each one holds a special memory for me and I  treasure these mementos. The card album offers me a great way to store these cards, yet have easy access to them when I want to look through my collections.

All in all, I really like this Card Album. Stefanie was happy to sell me a few to hold my  favorite treasures.  At a price of $9.95 it is an affordable way to display and hold both my own handmade cards and those so given to me.



Do you make handmade cards? What are some of your favorite cards that you have received?  Do you store these treasures or do you re-use them in crafting?


Disclosure