Tea & Coffee Bags...from the girl who saves everything

I had been over at Kim Henkel's blog and had seen that she'd done some interesting things with tea bags and leaves and such. Not knowing exactly what her process was I decided to do a little experimenting on my own. I'd been saving tea bags lately for the paper and wanted to harvest a few petals from our wildflower mix outside.

I grabbed the nearest paper on my table which happened to be an envelope and Mod- Podged the petals to the bags and applied them to the envelope. 

I was delighted with the results. Now I'm flat out of used teabags!

Too bad because it was fun making this.

Now for some fabric postcards made with coffee bags~

Please note that wonky stitching is part of my style and I take great pains to not have it look too perfect...

You understand, I know

I save interesting coffee labels. This is from across the border in Mexico.

Combate coffee is roasted with sugar making for a rich brew. Now that I've all but quit coffee I won't be getting so many bags anymore. I panicked a bit when they quit making this beautiful label and I had sent my only empty bag off to the UK in one of my swaps.

Thankfully I found another on a different trip a little deeper into Mexico later on.

Ubiquitous American coffee.

Unfortunately we have to set foot in Walmart for this kind up here in Alaska.

I've pretty much swerved my husband's pedestrian taste in coffee over to gourmet at this point anyway so we don't pick up this kind so often anymore.

Ah, the Vietnamese weasel coffee, purported to have passed through a weasel's digestive system but I haven't seen the provenance on that and it quite possibly could be a false claim. 

Great marketing for someone like me. I must say that the adventure in Hanoi on my own searching for it was quite worth it.

I'm not sure where we picked up this coffee but I got the African fabric swatch at a little shop in North Carolina last year with the sweetest little assortment of  other fabric squares.

Sari silk, sequins and citrus bag

Thai rice bag

I stitched this rice bag to a cereal box. It will become a journal.

I picked up some Mexican oilcloth last winter in Magdelena de Kino and thought it would be nice for some journals as well.

I enjoyed my day back in the mixed media studio are taking a bit of a break from lampworking before my trip back east. 

Now it really should be called "Where the Hell is my Worktable Wednesday?" because it looks as if a bomb went off in there with paper and fabric and thread everywhere.

...Well I am productive at least!

Neighborly Swaps

I love to do swaps from time to time and have been admiring the work of Kim Henkel. There do seem to be a plethora of bloggers and artists named Kim, I have noticed!
 You may be surprised to lean that she is one of my nearest neighbor blogging buddies aside from  Fairbanks Artist in The Arctic's Amy Komar. Near is a relative word here in the North country, Kim is a mere 545 miles or 877 km from me and lives practically on the same road as me although in a different country. The road is called The Alcan (Alaska-Canada) Highway. In fact I have to drive through her town of Haines Junction to get "Outside" (the other states)

I proposed a journal swap

This is what I received from Kim in the mail last week although it would have been faster by car than the post since it apparently had to go through a circuitous postal route through a couple of other major cities in our respective countries to reach me.

 The interior was the backside of repurposed posters sewn together.

 I like to do a little mail art from time to time.

 This is the journal I sent her made from a cereal box and muslin.

( I borrowed the pic from her post since I must not have scanned this one)

 A bit of glimmer mist through vintage lace.

The other pages have various stampings and vintage images glued in.

Then I got involved in the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap and got this lovely postcard from Lauren at Lozalicious in Adelaide, Australia. ( definitely not on the same highway!)

My postcard went of to someone else in England. I forgot to record that as well and was also lame enough to forget the theme of the swap which was B L O O M although I think there was one flower on it but an even more prominent watermelon. Have you ever done that? Oh well it happens.

Journal making with cereal boxes and muslin.

This was done on an already bound Russian book that they were withdrawing from the library.

I took out half of the pages within so that I'll have space to collage on the remaining pages.

This is a smallish journal about 4 inches square from a tissue box.

I found that the more texture with the muslin, the more fun I had painting it.

I love those Lumiere paints!

 The lavender dots changed everything.

Exterior of my first try at journal making.

Bible school publication and Chinese image

Antique coloring book image and handmade Balinese paper

Ode to an ocotillo

Exterior

Interior and pre-made scrapbook page

Using up the paints at the end of the day for a page

An inside that I decided to make an outside

Interior of a journal~ vintage book image and Balinese playing card

Alcohol inks and paint

From a small tissue box and Bible school image

After I was given a lovely homemade journal when visiting my blog friend Corrine from Dosfishes, I was inspired to try my hand at her method of using old cereal boxes and painting gessoed muslin as a covering for some homemade journals.

It was fun for me as I haven't played with much painting in my artistic journey and it was very freeing to play with colors and layers and patterns. Also very messy too.

What I find fascinating is that even with different mediums I can recognize my characteristic style somehow.

I have a goodly collection of vintage imagery and papers to highlight the interiors so it's been fun compiling them to fill these journals.

These still will take a few more embellishments before they're finished but I wanted to show you all what I've been up to before I pack up the studio and head south.

In the works are some lampwork and copper paper clips for the journal pages that I hope to share with you once I am happy with how they come out!