Do what you like...

Yesterday was a glorious day to stay home and play with my books and paper! Well, after the grocery store, and the pet store and the recycle center, that is.  But it was a crisp, cold day, the perfect day to air out the pillows and feather bed beneath the blue skies with the sun shining bright.

And in between all the "required" busy-ness of the day, I devoted the better part of this day in my creative space, listening to Blind Faith on the turntable, DOIN' WHAT I LIKE!... tea dying papers and ribbons.  For this batch, I used plain old Lipton tea bags, with a few Raspberry ones tossed in just for kicks. It sure does smell good.  Different than the coffee dying frenzy I was on during the past week of crazy weather causing 2 power outages which I thoroughly enjoyed!

For added texture in some of my projects, I like to use tea or coffee stained medical gauze, and if you haven't tried dying industrial paper towels, you simply must! It has wonderful texture that shows up beautifully when stained or dyed.

This fabulous sheet is coffee dyed!  And yes, it has that crinkly sound after baking!

And this is the glorious underpaper, the baking sheet! 

My dyed paper stash...it smells wonderful! And I don't even drink coffee!

  

This gives me great JOY...along with the WIP, Hawaii; my junk journal/scrapbook of my trip to Waikiki to meet some beautiful island Ohana for the first time!

My lovely island Mama is on the cover!

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Soon I will have some of these fabulous papers and other items for junk journals up in my etsy shop...stay tuned! 

Happy New Year of Everything...

It's a brand new year, and I for one am fully engaged! The whirlwind of Christmas is a beautiful memory as we embrace a new day, a new month, a new year...

And this is my New Year 2017 studio share with you.  Hope you enjoy!

After some much needed shape-shifting before Christmas, this is my new studio space with incredible sunlight and a fabulous view of our woods in winter.  It is here, that the altered books and journals come to life. 

One finished journal tied up with a stick of palo santo wood, sitting next to a lovely cedar slice.  Two other covers lying in wait to be filled with some of this fabulous coffee stained paper.  One cover is a gorgeous upholstery sample and the other is a salvaged piece from an old purse.

These papers have been kept in a wooden box layered with sticks of palo santo wood and cedar slices, and with the smell of coffee lingering, it is such a fine combination to entice any journal experience.

Yes, it's a passion for paper...

Thank you for stopping by.  Here's wishing you all the very best for this New Year of 2017!  May it be full of great love and peace and JOY in abundance.  And as I burn the incense crows of Blessed Be, Prosperity and Friendship from my friend Nina of Happy Herbs Soap at Two Crow Cottage, I am mindful of this beautiful moment in time that is a new day, of a new month of a brand new year!

I am blessed and I am grateful...always!

Aloha!