Mixed Media Journal Book (Pages 1 thru 3)

This tag was made using tissue napkin, stamps, embossing ink and powder, gesso, paper napkins, stencil, archival black ink, metal butterflies and distress crayons. 

This page was made with two stamps, tissue wrap, watercolor crayons, black archival ink.

The third page was made with a photo copy of my mother at age 4 and her big sister at age 6. I used texture paste, die cut flowers, big words, tissue paper and distress crayons. 

This chipboard book has six pages. 

Fifteen years ago, when I wanted to make a journal, I would buy old bound books, go to my bandsaw and cut the books into a shape or half of a heart and when the heart was open you would see a full heart. I shared these books with my mother and then we would spent all week working on our books. Some of the books, we glued 10 to 20 pages together.
One book, had a bunch of pages glued together with a deep rectangle cut-out in back of book. A tiny light could be turned on inside the book to showcase a translucent image over the cut-out.
Eight days ago, dear hubby and oldest granddaughter took me to my mothers home. We spent the week playing with our stamps and supplies. Like usual, I took more supplies that I needed. She doesn't have a car so we were bound to the house. We spent each day till we got tired playing with our stamping supplies. I worked on a few tags, made a few cards and then started working on my journal book. Most of the time was spent looking for supplies, discussing what to make next and so on...it was good to be with my mother again.

I'm home now getting things back in my stamping area and thought I would share these pages. 

Fabric Flowers

Buckram fabric flowers

Crinoline and Buckram fabric flowers

Buckram fabric flowers

The above flowers were made with gesso canvas

I've made a bunch of flowers since my shipment came with Spellbinder flower dies by Tammy Tutterow. I've used Dylusions sprays, fabric paints, distress paints, distress dabber paints.
The flowers range from 1.5" to 2.6"
These are just a few of the ones I have now. 

Childhood Memories

On Facebook someone asked; something you remember you did in childhood that a younger person wouldn't know about or hasn't done. There are just a few of the things I remember;

Occasionally we would go to town, my mother would give each of us kids 10 cents. That would be for anything we wanted to buy. (This was late 50's early 60's) I would get a small sack of candy it would last all the next week. My older sister and older brother would get a soft drink or milkshake at a drug store that had a soda fountain. My younger brother and sister would be with our mother. 

Sometimes I would save my money to buy my mother a piece of stoneware. Once, I bought a package of flower bulbs for my grandmother that lived down the road. (After I got married and had my own home, my grandmother gave me a start of bulbs…these bulbs are still lovely each spring.)

If we were still in town at lunch our mother would buy us large burgers; 5 for $1.00. In today prices they would be a least $4.00 to $6.00 each.  


Many times before going to town, I would go out in the woods to pick poke salad to sell in town at a grocery store, they would pay me 10 cents a pound. 


We would start our school year when it was hot weather and they would turn school out in fall for farmers to get their crops of cotton and peanuts in. We would go back to school after harvest.


We farmed peanuts. Weeds had to be removed around the peanuts; we did this with a hoe. When it was time to harvest our field of peanuts, my brother would use a tractor with disk to bring the peanuts to the top of the soil, the next weeks we were out in the hot sun using a pitchfork shaking out dirt and turning the peanuts over, this was done until they were dry. My oldest brother would pull a combine with a tractor, my oldest sister and I would be up on the combine to catch the peanuts coming out, my sister would hold a 50 lb toe sack until it was filled, she would pass it down to me to sew up. I used large needle with twine to make a bunny ear, sew in the middle and then another bunny ear and pull it off to fall on the ground. When we were through sacking up the peanuts, our dad drove a tractor pulling a long trailer down the rows and my brother would pick up the sacks of peanuts and then drive the trailer to the elevator to sell the peanuts about 10 miles away. 

That was a hot and dirty job. We took a quart jar of water for drinking water. It would be placed under a tree. 

My dad would farm us out to get other farmers crops in when we finished our crop of peanuts. 

Our mother would sew us a 10 ft. canvas toe sack with an over the shoulder handle, we would drag it behind us when the cotton was ready to pick. It was painful job picking cotton with bare hands. When our bags were full, we pulled them to the person that would pick it up and put it on big brass scales at the end of the rows, they would pay us 10 cents a pound. That was a hard way to make a little bit of money. In the evening our mother would have to sew a patch over the holes in the canvas sack. 


One year when we didn't farm peanuts, I got a job babysitting 5 children from daylight to dark, the parents left 5 gallons of milk on the counter for me to strain and put up in their icebox. The oldest child was 6, a 5 year old, a set of twins and a baby. That was one year I was happy for the time to go back to school. I was 16 years old. I made $60.00 that summer. With the money, I bought an electric blanket and some make-up. I still had a little money leftover. 

My mother was a very good seamstress, my oldest sister and I would pick a piece of clothing from a show windows then our mother would go down to Sharp's or Anthony's to buy fabric material. She would go home and without a pattern she would sew us a blouse or dress. I recall wearing a circle skirt with a poodle on it. One memory I have; picking out material from National Bella's Hess and ordering the material and mother making me one of a kind shirt. When I went to school, no one would believe my mother made my clothing. To this day, at age 91 my mother still sews although she no longer makes clothes. She makes crafty projects or fabric handbags. Mother still uses the sewing machine they bought the year I was born.