One Way of Looking at a Blackbird / Favorite Color Challenge at PIO

This week at the Pile It On Challenge, we want you to use your Favorite Color as the main color on your project. Just between you and me, their challenge coordinator picked this theme with the plan to use her favorite color, purple (that's me, CG!)

There are many reasons that this card is special to me; for one, not only is purple my & my husband's favorite color, it's the official color of our local [American] Football team, the Ravens. I don't care much about football, except for the fun of rooting for the home team, but I also attended the University of Baltimore, the unofficial home of the Edgar A. Poe Society (the author of the poem "The Raven" for which the team is named). Their Creative Writing program also focused on the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", so long story short, I used the first stanza of that poem: "Among twenty snowy mountains, / The only moving thing / Was the eye of the blackbird." I had a particular design in mind, so my husband helped me out by hand-writing the stanza on a piece of notebook paper.

excerpted from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens

click to enlarge - ohdeermekit.com

Freckled Fawn generously supplied our DT with some of their great goodies to work with, including Geotag paper clips (available in their September kit) and feather wood embellishments (available in their October kit). Their products are so delicious; you've got to join in at Pile It On, as one lucky participant will win a $20 gift card to ohdeermekit.com.

I was playing with the Geotag paper clips (available in their September kit) and feather wood embellishments (available in their October kit), and found that they made a cute little bird. I used adhesive pearls for the eye and the tummy. I heat-embossed the feathers with black embossing powder that had just a touch of glitter added.

I really wanted there to be twenty mountains, so I made them myself in SCAL and cut them on my electronic cutting machine using two patterned papers I had in my stash. I also made backing layers with a silver paper (Recollections). I added some silver, elastic ribbon, punched one corner with a Marvy punch.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Crafter's Cafe #31: Just a bit out there (I think this is definitely a unique project; it also has some 3D elements)
Crafting By Designs: Anything goes
Crafty Creations: Winged Things
Creative Craft Challenges #20: Anything Goes
LEJ Designs: Things With Wings
Paper Minutes: Bizarre, Strange & Weird (I think this is kind of bizarre!)
Sister Act Card Challenge #27: Anything Goes
Sweet Pea Stampers: Purple Power

Update: This was an honorable mention at Crafting By Designs!

Thank you for visiting,and hope you'll join us this week at Pile It On,

The Poem as the Book

I'm super honored to have been encouraged by Meredith to participate in her poetry project on her blog, Half Starts & Trails Ofss.

I discuss the making of this piano-hinge book, which I made around a poem by Jenny O'Grady written in response to a painting by Melissa Van der Kaay for The Light Ekphrastic.

I've truly enjoyed Meredith's posts so far this month (including a wonderful one by her mom), so be sure to take a break and check them out.

 
I haven't been able to find a super tutorial of piano-hinge binding online, but there are several books with instructions available at the giant craft and book stores. It's fairly simple, once you get the hang of it. It's a heck of a lot easier than copic binding!You can use almost anything to bind it with: wooden skewers, toothpicks, coffee stirrers, chopsticks, straws, even sticks. My house is full of straight things I got for free around town, usually one at a time so that I don't feel like I'm actually hoarding.
And thank you to my editor Joshua, who wrote my post's intro paragraph with a better understanding of my written voice than I was managing to, and also for taking the photos of the book.

*
Supplies: Core'dinations cardstocks, Southworth Résumé paper, bird punch by ekSuccess, wooden skewers (from grocery store), HP printer & ink, acetate, SCAL & Cricut, Adobe InDesign, bone folder, ZipDry glue

I put together this basic tutorial on how to "stamp" with your printer.

You can view my other piano hinge books here.

All of my mini-books are here.

Read my whole article about this book on Half Starts & Trail Offs.

Wing books 1 and 2

Some months ago I tired of using my own writing for mini-books, so I put a call for work out on FaceBook. I have a lot of creative-writing friends on there, so I was very pleasantly surprised to receive many poems from friends I didn't even know were writers! I'm always hearing people say I wish I were more creative, but in my experience there's no shortage of creativity in this world: and it's always life-affirming and just plain fantastic. One of the first people to contact me was my former co-worker at the University of Baltimore, Kapricia. We'd talked poetry in the past, but I had know idea how many words she had in her! She sent me two poems that I made into the first two books of what I hope will be a series (hint hint!): The Day I Fell in Love
It was a cold and rainy day,
she decided to come anyway.
I couldn’t hold back the pain
& tears, and Oh Yes! a lil fear.
I heard the doctor say
“Push, push, push my dear
I see her head,
she’s almost here,”
So I gave it a push
and heard her cry
what a relief I felt inside.
I held her in my arms,
looked in her eyes.
I couldn’t believe she was
ALL MINE!!

Kapricia Williams ©2010

---

Wings to Fly
I have my own
cheering squad.
They clap as I fly high,
like a bird across the sky.
I’m soaring, flipping and doing tumbles
as I pass you by.
You see you had me cooped up
in what I thought
was love,
but I was wrong, so I
FLEW THE COOP! . . .
See the claps are not for me to return,
but for God’s grace and giving strength
to fly above all things.
Give Him a hand!

Kapricia Williams ©2010

Other books from my "FaceBook Friend" project:
the Shuttlecock!
Phenomenal Lady (also with a poem by Ms. Williams)

Phenomenal Lady book

Last week I received one of my favorite kinds of instant messages: Want to make a book?

Kapricia, also the author for my Wing Book Series, gave me this poem to work with:

"Remember what I told you"
she would shout and say
"We must always be ladies
even at when play."
Kapricia Williams ©2010

I was further influenced by her comment: "When you know better you do better. I love the phenomenal women in my life that showed me to act like a lady, be a lady, speak lady like and some day you too will be a phenomenal WOMAN!!" I know that we both grew up influenced by Maya Angelou, and I defy you to read her poem "Phenomenal Woman" without feeling a surge of power! So I added the title "Phenomenal Lady" as a little shout-out to our shared inspiration.

Having been raised as a lady (however fruitlessly), I really felt this poem! In my experience, such advice was given when the little lady was voicing her opinion... I immediately thought of the wonderful Tantrum images from Mo's Digital Pencil and used this project as an excuse to buy Two Tasha from the set. I contrasted that image with the sweet ballerina from Mo's Kiesha's Curtain Call, and finished the book with four color of tulle.


Digi stamps: Kiesha's Curtain Call and Two Tasha by Mo's Digital Pencil

View all of my mini books here.

"the Shuttlecock!" the Book

Since starting my love affair with making books, people have been very generous in sharing work and ideas with me. One of the poems sent to me for possible book-usage was from a kid I grew up with in Southern Spain. We were the children of civilian employees for the military presence there; I'm so very lucky to be in touch with many of those I grew up with (say what you might about FaceBook, it's been great for me!)

He shared several wonderful poems with me, but the one that just screamed book was "the Shuttlecock!", a memoir of sorts. It captures in words what I've never really been able to express:

the Shuttlecock!
by Chris Wallace

Childhood dreams could never come true.
I’ve already lived in a castle, gilded by runes.
I’ve already sailed the straights that separate
the Moors from the Iberian side of the shore.
I’ve been under the floors where Anne Frank cried.
I’ve stood on Golgotha’s ground where Jesus’ body died.
I’ve touched the iron curtain of hate
dripping with blood from the rusty gate.
I bought a Coke outside a 5000 year old ruin.
I climbed to the top of the world’s largest dune.
I drove through Catalonia to get to Pompeii.
I was lost in Barcelona for two and one half days.
The green fields of Ireland felt so home to me,
almost more than any other place I’ve seen.
And there are too many places left to mention.
So many experiences from Pisa to the London Dungeon;
But they all seem too far away,
the remains of some forgotten day.
I don’t want to forget that time and place
that now only floats in inner space.
Maybe, one day I can take you there
and we can create something new out of thinning air.

I played with several ideas for this book, but I just couldn't get past making it an actual shuttlecock. Finding the image was more difficult than I had anticipated; I ended importing a photo into SCAL and deleting the elements I didn't want cut. The pages are a series of strips; I edged everything with Antique Linen distress ink. My favorite part is how it closes completely flat, yet opens out completely.

Author's note: "The uncapitalized "the" and capitalized "S" is intentional. It's an homage to open source programming variable naming conventions." Love that!

“Vere novo”

The other day, a friend from high school posted a poem, “Vere novo”/"The Genesis of Butterflies" by Victor Hugo, in the original French and was kind enough to post the English translation for me and my American Mouth. Hmm, I thought, maybe this is a sign to make a mini-book.

Later that evening, I found that I had won a prize of $12 worth of digis from Just Some Lines through the CDAC 5000 Members Blogger Contest (WOW, thank you!), and the first image I saw was her Butterfly on Flower Paper Cutwork design (PCW).

O don't you love it when a project just comes together‽

I've always wanted to make a book that reads in one language when held one way and in another language when held the other. I wouldn't want to do this with a long book, but eight one-sided pages were easy enough to lay out InDesign. And, of course, it had to be a piano-hinge book.

See Me Roar

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with the incredible inspiration out there in the craft-blogosphere, but doubt is part of creativity. The other part is sucking it up and just creating, darn it.

I knew I wanted to use the lovely paisley stamp my husband picked up for me before I got completely distracted by Christmas, and for some reason the not-so-my-style color combo at the Play Date Cafe really spoke to me. I colored the stamps with watercolor pencils,my new favorite trick. I only used a red and a yellow pencil for the paisleys...I'm so tickled with how the watercolors make each unique.

For more inspiration, I took the Card Cupids challenge of Anything Goes and broke out a poem that a FaceBook friend sent me some time ago. (Girl you're so awesome! Thank you!)

Since I haven't used my sewing machine in some time and actually have to work the pedal with my hand, I went ahead and eyeballed the stitching right onto the printed poem. Cannot believe this worked! Then I edged the card and paisley paper (which I've been hoarding for just this kind of occasion) with a light pink marker. I did the same to make a message card for the inside.

I'm really enjoying making off-center gate fold cards, or whatever you'd call this. I backed the front paisley with decorative paper to make the inside view a little prettier.
Inspiration:
Play Date Cafe Challenge #62
Card Cupids Challenge #5: Anything Goes

Supplies: Rubber stamp by Stampabilities, Royal watercolor pencils & brush, StazOn ink, Core'dinations cardstock, Classic Paisley Pink Polka paper by the Paper Studio, sewing machine & thread, ZipDry glue, HP printer & ink, Tim Holtz scissors, papercutter with decorative blades, Copic marker RV21 & blender, Folkard™ font

"American Mouth"

Full text of this poem is available here.

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