Monthly Archives: March 2013

In Production Mode

For the last two weeks I’ve been on vacation, visiting my family.  The first week I was house and pet sitting while they had a spring break vacation.  Even though I had my laptop with me, I knew  I would be bored with just a dog and a cat for company for a whole week.  Before I left home, I was busy choosing papers and ribbons and then cutting the paper and board for a bunch of new Jacob’s Ladders.  I’m very glad I did! Along with reading several books and the twice daily dog walking, the ladders kept me very busy.  I commandeered a table in the kitchen that had good lighting, much to the dismay of the cat who thought she owned that spot. Every morning I played with my ladders.

Here’s the proof:

TexasGroupI’m getting much better at not making mistakes on the ribbons — or at least, I know how to fix them when I go over instead of under!

I had great fun in choosing the papers before I started.  I have music, recipes, art prints and even the Bible. Here are some close-ups of some of the “steps”.

I have another music ladder completed except for the last step.  I miscounted the number of boards. About half of these ladders will be for sale on Etsy.

I also visited the local art supply store, just to see.  Of course I bought a bit of paper to play with.  I made, or rather started some soft-cover books with long stitch bindings.  I’ll save those for my next blog!  I still am owning a blog on the process of masking marbling.  I hope to get to that soon.

 

 

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Filed under Boxes and Towers, Craft design, Marbled Paper

Maps of the Mind, Marbled, of course

Maps are some of my favorite recycled papers to marble.  I try to use colors that complement the areas of the map – browns and rust for desserts, blues and greens over the oceans – as well as harmonize with any printed colors.  As with much in marbling, you can plan a lot, but the paints seem to have a will of their own in the end and that’s the element I find so fascinating.  The little drop of white that centers itself right over a town or the purple swirl that almost follows a coastline  or the yellow streak of marbling that happens to disappear on top of a printed red and magically appear again to lead to a river or mountain is always a surprise.

Here are a few maps I’ve marbled in the past.

In my last marbling session I did a bunch of pages from an atlas.  Because of the way books are made, when disbound the pages are not consecutive, so I had gazetteer pages facing map pages.  I had originally planned to use both pages for ladders,  but I like the maps so much that I don’t want to cut them up.  Here are some of the pages.

I’ve used my marbled maps in numerous projects: books, towers, portfolios, almost everything I make, I’ve tried it with maps.

The map covered towers have been very popular, especially when I use local maps.  Eventually I will map some map ladders, but right now I’m “laddered-out” as you will see in my next blog!

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Filed under Craft design, Marbled Paper