New year...new beginnings!

With the new year came lots of conversation about the recording of things...memories, thoughts, dreams, resolutions, etc. What better way to keep track of all those things in our heads than a hand made book? These small accordion style books proved to be both fun to make and easy to adapt to artist's individual needs.

The artists chose colorful handmade paper as the background for their covers. After attaching the paper to the card stock with glue sticks, they assembled the books with the accordion pages. Each artist personalized the covers with collage items, bobbles and beads. It was fascinating to watch different personalities emerge with unique and creative expression.

Artists had long been asking for art to take home (we often use their art to decorate the building) and this project couldn't be more perfect!

Year of the Horse

As we go galloping into the new year, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to make one of my favorite projects...Chinese lanterns. Even though there are so many beautiful hand made and scrapbooking papers available, I wanted to expand our horizons and have the artists craft their own.

We started by painting large pieces of water color paper with acrylic paint. This step on its own is such a great tactile project that can be used for so many art pieces. We added gold paint to the opposite side of the paper (the inside of the lanterns) to create the illusion of a glow. Some artists added dragon motif designs to adorn their lanterns and simply adhered this to the dried acrylic surface with decoupage paste.

Each step could be modified for individual needs and many artist's helped others at their table. The group dynamics were quite heartwarming!