Better than Blank

I've been making a series of blank books- I call them Better Than Blank Books. I used beautiful old drawing paper for the pages and made a quick machine sewn seam to put them together. The pages are decorated with paper scraps, fabric strips, ribbon, old ATCs and remnants of unsuccessful projects- anything that was laying around my studio. It is like a giant collage with each page adding to the whole. On the first stage of the project I created the coordinated page spreads. Now I am going back and adding doodles, quotes and finishing details to act as prompts. The final stage will be actually using the book as a journal. Each page will be a visual delight and there are no dreaded white pages in sight!

RED!

I love doing color studies. Creating a loose set of parameters can be a good way to push yourself out of your normal patterns. Above are the back and front of a journal about RED. It started by cutting up a bunch of pieced quilt tops I was never going to finish. Each was 7" by 9" wide and I quickly stitched them to cardstock pages just to get started. The sewing machine was threaded with red thread and things just took off from there. I scoured my studio and found the biggest pile of red wonderfulness then googled RED for some great facts and quotes. The whole 12 pages came together in a matter of days- no overthinking or planning, just fun and pure play!