Flowers Magic FREE class

Grateful for school holidays which are now at an end for me. I've had a good mix of jobs and play, and one of my joys recently has been participating in another free class called Flowers Magic hosted by Francesca Nunes : July 22-August 10. This is a very photo-heavy post so I can capture my discoveries for you and for me to look back on.

You can still sign up HERE.

I gathered some papers

and made my raw journal

Then I added my floral ingredients - it's Winter here in New Zealand so while I managed to find some Camellias and a couple of old rose blooms as I deadheaded them, I also included red cabbage, onion skins, and leafy fruit teas. One learning is that I decided to use some frozen berries. Unfortunately I didn't defrost them! Luckily they were placed at the back of my book but made it very wet and meant that a few of the end pages and back cover tore away. 

I undid the stitching and this is my collection of pages

All is not lost. Once dry, I mended my torn pages by stitching sari ribbon to repair the outer spine 

and glued some organza ribbon to reinforce the inside

I repaired the last pages by gluing extra handmade papers to make the hinge fold (the green handmade paper showing below) and then re-stitched my book. 

Bonus of re-stitching was that I was also able to include some of the fabric in which I'd wrapped the bundle. The wool didn't transfer any colour, but you can see the fabric only had some cleaned off paint to start, and bottom right you can see how it changed. I had sprinkled some rose petals in at the end.

It's most fun to see the before and after photos for the pages - these are my favourites but I must admit I love them all.

The fabric I used in the centre of my book had water-reactive dye on it so some of that transferred to my binding thread and to other pages and is another addition which I love. 

I think if I ever do this again, I will just do loose papers and bind them together at the end. What a joy this is to me. 

Red cabbage on Tracing paper - so delightfully crinkly ♥

You can see what other people are doing HERE on Insta. And you still have time to join HERE and find out how to do this, even if you don't attempt the other art journal lessons.

I can't wait to start working on the pages and adding my own spin to this book with lots of lovely elements, including some of these bits from my dyeing play in Fodder School with Aimee Bishop.

Hope you have a joyful and creative weekend. 

Even more free online classes!

I've been on school holidays and was excited to have the opportunity to create some abstract landscapes in a free class with Laly Mille (sorry now closed).

I love how they turned out and very happy that I managed to leave some white space. I still need to frame them, but here they are individually

Check out student work from that class HERE.

Another free class just started is Flowers Magic hosted by Francesca Nunes : July 22-August 10. 

You can still sign up HERE. Includes eco printing with flowers, nature ink powders, and mixed media techniques. I gathered some papers

and I've made my raw journal

You can see what other people are doing HERE on Insta.

Some Free Fodder challenge play

The Free Fodder Challenge is now up and running and content will be available until 27 July unless you sign up for Fodder School 2 in which case you get to keep all of it as part of the new year-long experience! 

Our first offering was Lucie Duclos making a Peace Catcher. Of course I couldn't resist adding some machine stitching and extra beads. Can't decide which side is my favourite!

The second was with Drew Steinbrecher and I decided to combine ideas from his lesson with our current July offering in Fodder School from the fabulous Roxanne Padgett since they were both lessons with the gelli plate and encouraging us to cut our own stencils. These are the papers that happened using a limited colour palette

Really happy with how these all turned out. Then I was intrigued by Jane Chipp's lesson. Buttons which I transformed from this

to this

They're not the best quality photos but they're of my grandparents, my mum and my great grandmother so I am very happy and will try this again. 

More info about the teachers and you can still sign up for the free challenge HERE. One of the things I really love about the fodder challenge is how many of the projects can be combined. I'll share more about that soon.

Early Bird Registration for the year-long experience that is Fodder School 2 is now available only until 22 July when the price goes up. You get to keep all the free challenge lessons as well if you join this.

I am on school holidays, so I'm going to leave those lessons for now so I can enjoy another free online experience with Laly Mille (open now and available to view until 22nd July)

You can still join if you're quick - might see you there.