Western Cedar Nib Holders From C.S.Hawkins

As some of you may know by now I am bound and determined to 'play' - teaching myself, at long last, some calligraphy. I have been trying a variety of different nibs & nib holders & I plan to post an article with photos of the various holders that I have been trying in the near future. These nib holders, however, deserve some special note. I wanted to try an oblique holder (the one on the bottom). I had heard that it makes some calligraphy easier and, eureka!, it does.

I was having a bit of a time deciding on what brand and what style; what shape and what size to order when I happened up C.S. Hawkins. She sent me an email in response to a query I had posted and the rest, as they say, is history that I can now hold in my hand. Cathy Sue makes holders, hand turned pens & pencil holders out of a variey of gorgeous woods. I wanted one made from my favorite Western Cedar because we have several "grandmother' trees in our yard and I have a special affection for these remarkable trees. Lo and behold ! She was able to special order some Western Cedar. These are special holders for and I hope I will one day do them justice. Check out Cathy Sue's great website and see some more of her beautiful creations! I'll have a post detailing the variety of pen holders I am trying soon!

Attar of Rose & Shea Butter Cream

Yesterday, for some odd reason, I decided that I needed/wanted to make some hand cream. I had had the ingredients spread out on the counter for a week & decided that I need to get to making the cream or pack the stuff away again. I wanted to try one of Vicki Welsh's recipes. She is the damsel that got me started on this soap-making, cream & lotion gorging delightful way some time ago. I have been interested in making crams & lotions for years, but it was Vicki's was soap recipes that got me back on track. Now it just seems normal to make these products for myself rather than go & buy them. I like richer creams- especially for my weary hands - than seem to be generally available , at least for anything less than a small fortune. I like Vicki's recipes because she has made them before - so I know they will work for me too. Vicki has simple directions on her website. If you follow them I don't think you can make a mistake!

Shea Butter Cream
(makes approx 10 ounces)

* .1 oz Citric Acid (yes, that's 1/10 of an ounce)
* .4 oz Glycerin or Hydrovance
* .35 oz Stearic Acid
* .35 oz Emulsifying Wax or Conditioning Emulsifyer
* 2 oz Shea Butter
* 6.7 oz (up to 8 oz for a thinner cream) Distilled Water (Distilled is important)
* Optional: .1 oz Allantoin

All of Vicki's recipes are hypo-allergenic and, since I wanted slight scent for this cream in place of the distilled water I used a floral Rose hydrosol & then I added pure Attar of Rose oil when I added the allantoin. My cream has a very soft, very light rose scent and, thanks thanks to a bit of alkanet root the color is a very pale pink. It's a perfect cream - light and fluffy, deeply healing and penetrating with no oily feel. Thanks to Vicki for her recipes and for getting back on the creams and lotions track!

I also made some some hand sanitizer yesterday to keep on hand in the office especially. It is similar to Purell but a bit less thick. Simply mix 2/3 cup of 90% alcohol with a generous thrid of a cup of aloe vera gel (next time I plan to use aloe vera gelly instead) and a scent of your choice. Mix and pour into squeeze or pump bottles. At first I was overpowered by the scent of the alcohol and was not at all impressed. Over night however, the scent that I had added became better integrated and now the scent of alcohol is very minimal. The aloe keeps the alcohol from being too drying on your skin - though a bit of luscious Attar of Rose and Shea Butter hand cream afterwards is really nice!

Two Ways To Happiness

I have started a series of these small mixed media pages which will showcase some of my favorite new J.Herbin inks - and experimenting with some of my new dip pens. The top photo uses J.Herbin Pearlescent Pink (for calligraphy) and J.Herbin Rose Cyclamen (for fountain pens and drawing). For the nibs I used a Brause nib in a great Brause holder - the holder allows for two ends - two nibs on one holder is a great idea!

This 'happiness' was made using a combination of J.Herbin and Sakura inks. Hopefully I will manage to get the 20 page series done - using a varity of Kanji and J.Herbin inks, Clairefontaine watercolor paper (my fav) and a wide variety of fabuous Brause nibs.

"The Virgin Queen's Daughter" by Ella March Chase

Despite the somewhat racy looking covers that these so called historical fiction 'romances' seem plagued to have, this book is a most enjoyable read for those of us who enjoy Tudor & Elizabethan history. Of course many of us have heard the rumor told that Elizabeth became pregnant at a young age my her step mother, Jane's, husband, Lord Thomas Seymour. Far stranger things happened during that time and I suspect that Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, becoming pregnant under such circumstances could possibly go a long way towards making the decisions of her later life even more understandable. Ella March Chase has done a remarkable job of fashioning a fabulously believable tale surrounding this timeless rumor and wites about what might have happened had Elizabeh, in fact, become pregnant and, in a not that unlikely turn of events, the child was surreptitiously spirited away to be raised in another family. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was sorry when it ended.

I hope there will be more great reads from this author!

Available from your fabulous local, independent, bookseller or from Amazon.

Consider The World Light

The page above was made using some of the "shibori dyed rice paper" I made, an image on organza, gold leaf and, of course inks. The poem reads:

Consider the world light,
and the spirit is not burdened;
consider myriad things slight,
and the mind is not confused.
Consider life and death equal,
and the intellect is not afraid;
consider change as sameness,
and clarity is not obscured.
Lao-Tzu

This is one of six ATC's that I recently made. The theme is Self-Portrait. Unfortunately I did not read the directions thoroughly enough to see realize that these will not fit the bill. So, if anyone has a card they would like to swap, let me know. They are not all exactly alike - the silks behind the image are somewhat different...but they are similar.

Saturday:: Gratefulness

It occurred to me the other morning that, although I give thanks for things to myself (meaning - or is it confirming - that I often talk to myself!) that I seldom write of the myriad things for which I give thanks. Every day my life is blessed - and every day I am grateful for the good things that have touched me.

Today, at the beginning of a Western Washington heatwave of prognosricator's historic size, I thought that I would express my gratefulness for all things cool. The coolness that falls on the land as the sun sets and night creeps in along i9n along the edges, the coolness that settles after the plants are watered at the end of a hot day, the bits of dew that cling to rose's petals - promise to somehow preserves the sweet scent for later.

Yes, I am grateful for small bits of coolness in an otherwise hot landscape. I love seeing how the forgs stay cool under the sheltering leaves of a large lamb's ear plant, the cat's laze under the rails of the deck chairs, we laze about in front of the fans. Yes, I will treasure any bits of cool I can find this week!

Just Recived: A Box Full Of Surprises!

I adore being surprised and, let's face it, the older we get the fewer real surprises seem to happen. This week, however, my inimitable post person, Jan, came up the steps & said "looks like you hit the jackpot" as she handed over a few books that I had ordered along with a box - a large box at that - from Karen at Exaclair. Although we had been discussing (via emails) some of the products in this box - the box itself came as a complete surprise. I am so excited that I can barely wait for the weekend so that I can play. I have a plan for trying out some of this booty - and, although it may take some time to execute, I think it will be a fun art experiment in the long run.

Above you can see the array of the sample packs of ink,

the fabulous nib holders, galss dip pen &

an assortment of high quality Brause calligraphy nibs.

What, you might wonder, could possible get an old gal's blood runnig hot & fast? Paper and inks of course ! Karen from my fav company, Exaclair, sent these fabulous sample boxes of the various inks that are among the company's offerings. There are pigmented inks, calligrapher's inks & pearlescent inks and they all arrive beautifully packaged in cute bottles. These sample packs arrived nestled among several bottles of J.Herbin fountain pen inks that have been on my radar (and Karen could not have that they were!) for some time now. They are reds! Reds! Reds! She sent me a glass dip pen,a tapered nib holder and the Brause nib holder that's in the photo below. I just had to take a photo of this adorable pen nib that is made in the a shape of a hand with the index finger being the nib point- is that great or what?! I have so much to learn and I am so glad of it!

Below is the "hand" shaped nib and a Brause nib holder.

Karen also included a box of a newer line from Clairefontaine called Pollen Papers. Pollen papers are available in rectangles, squares, rounds & in rainbow packs like mine. I am not sure why they settled on that name but when I look at the colors I think of flowers & pollens flying about (we won't consider the allergy stand point in this vision!)- making flowers of all colors and descriptions! Anyway, this is an awesome paper - super smooth & lovely to move your pen across! This rainbow box of colors makes writing notes or letters more fun - and you can pick a color that will especially please the recipient! I can't wait to work on my plan to showcase all of the great products! I am truly grateful that, for some unknowable reason, I have been chosen as an ad hoc "product explorer" for Exaclair. I have held their products in high esteem for quite some time before I connected with Karen and I am proud to be able to offer some of my very small, humble, art pieces as examplers using some of their fine, high-quality products. Thanks Karen! I can't wait to get to work with these inks and papers! The envelopes are self-seal to boot ! Yeah !

My Desk: Is It Messy or Creative Looking?!

I have been absent for a bit - and can't believe that I have not posted in over a week. Jeeze! A week ago Sunday I did some particularly heavy, and much needed, cleaning. Cleaning made me feel good; I gave away 5 large bags of clothes to our Thrift Emporium (which helps to support the local fire houses) and sorted through my piles of yarn - none of that was given away! I cleaned out a closet & stripped down a bathroom; scrubbed & sorted. Anyway, by Monday I was reminded why I can no longer overdue without payinig a price. I was in bed all day Monday in terrible pain & then spent the rest of the week struggling to return to center.Thanks to fibromyalgia and arthritis my life is sometimes spent balancing what I want to do versus what I can, reasonably expect to do without having to pay the "proverbial piper"! So that's enough about why I have been laying low. On the better things....

My desk is on overload! I have so many small projects that I want to either finish or start! Some might consider this desk messy, but I prefer to call it 'creative'! Actually, I tend towards liking a somewhat more tidy area, but sometimes I just love to look at the newest things I have to play with. Karen, my benefactor from Exaclair, just me a "blessings box" - I call it that because of all of the treats that she enclosed - blessings because I might not otherwise be able to play with them. There are enough new "toys" that I will be writing another post all about "the box". I have a great idea of how to showcase some of the treats that were enclosed - now I just need the time! As some of you who have followed my blog for a bit might remember I am a real fan of Clairefontaine's watercolor pads - most especially I am enamored with their there small 4"X 4" pad that I always try have with me. It is an odd size ,I know, but Writer's Bloc was kind enough to special order 10 of them for me - I should have just made it a dozen! I know that they have more though - so if your require any journals, art pads, pens or inks go check out this very amiable & helpful web site. These small sized pads are gems - with 20 pages of high quality 300g cold pressed watercolor paper they are terrific do mock ups of things that you may want to do in a series, they are handy enough to alays be able to have one in your pocket ot handbag - perfect for doodling through meetings or when you are waiting for an appointment/ Yes ! They are a perfect small pad - why else would I buy ten of them at a time?! I won't be gone so long now for awhile - I doubt that I will be doing any heavy cleaning for awhile! Hope that everyone is haveing a great week! Did you get to view the eclipse yesterday? I looked but did not see much from here!

New Experiments With Golden Digital Grounds & Vintage Kimono Silks

Aside from long needed, serious, cleaning this weekend I did manage to make a few cards from my further experiments with Golden Digital Gounds on silk organza and vintage kimono silks from Ah! Kimono. I have about 2 yards that of organza that I have prepared in a slightly different way that I hope to play with today. I have been able to make baby steps in trying some calligraphy on these as well. Boy! I may not have enough years left to be anything but a poor calligraphist! I am no where near done with my fascination for these Digital Grounds and, in fact, I have a new quilt in mind to make using this amazing product! Now - can someone help me find more time to do it in?!

Wandering About on Shaw Island

In the past I think that I have mentioned that I had never been on neighboring Shaw Island before I took the workshop with Master Dyer Joan Morris . It was such a pleasure to take a couple of short sight-seeing detours during lunch breaks! Yes, my friend Janet did actually have to drag me away from the work at hand - and I am so glad that she did !

This is the Shaw Islandf Library (on top) and their Historical Socity (original cabin below). The library looks deceptively small from this photo but it continues to wind it's way through towards the back and, while still a small country library, looks like it is quite adequate. We are all very grateful to have Inter-Library Loan access here since it brings to world to us through our libraries!

This Reef Net Boat is right in front of the library - and there is a nice plaque that explains the history of the boat.
Ah! Here is the school house! Now this, to me, would have been a dream school. This building too looks deceptively small - but it winds around towards the back also. There is a lot more exploring I would like to do on Shaw Island one day - perhaps I will be lucky enough to have to return for another workshop with Joan Morris !

Some More Digital Print Playtime

This little frame was made from paper and a napkin that attracted me -

from a meeting I attended last week. It was perfect for this!

My enthusiasm continues unabated for adventures with Golden Digital Grounds. I have made about dozen new prints on silk organza and chiffon; here are just a few from the weekends play. Not all are ready yet as cards or anything - but they will be soon!

This is a print on silk chiffon -

you can see how thin it is - and easy to write on as well .

AS always you can double click on the photos for my clarity.

The image below is printed on bleached Harem Cloth printed

on a thin acrylic base of Golden clear tar gel.

I altered my all time favorite poster (probably because I was there at too young an age, admittedly, and wish I still had the ticket stub!) This was printed on Cotton Voile from Dharmatrading - where I got all of my fabrics

New Hand Cream and Lip Balm Formulas

This weekend I needed to replenish my supply of hand cream and lip balm. I have found that making my allows me to have creams that are just the way I want them. I like a hand cream that is very rich & soothing for my always too dry hands, healing and easy to make. This recipe is 'borrowed' from many different sites that refer to "Elaine White's book " that I presume to be:
" Super Formulas, Arts and Crafts: How to Make More Than 360 Useful Products That Contain Honey and Beeswax ". This is one wonderful 'barrier' hand cream! Long lasting, ultra rich (as the name suggests!) and easy to make! Perfect for me!

Ultra-Rich Skin Cream (This is from Elaine White's book)

• 2 1/2 ounces (weight) beeswax
• 2-4 ounces (weight) anhydrous lanolin
• 2/3 cup baby oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon borax (sodium borate, Chemically Pure, from pharmacy)
• Fragrant essential oil or your choice (optional)

Borax is sold with laundry detergents, but chemically pure borax, which is required for cosmetics, is sold by drug stores and "Chem lab" (see Appendix A). Lanolin is sold by drug stores. In a microwave or double boiler, melt the oil, lanolin and beeswax to 160 degrees F. Heat the borax and water in a separate container to 160 degrees F. Be sure the borax is dissolved and the wax is melted. Add the water mixture to the oil mixture while stirring briskly. When white cream forms, stir slowly until the mixture cools to 100 degrees F. Pour it into small, wide-mouth jars.
Oil Substitutions: Use a variety of oils as long as their combination equals 2/3 cup. Baby oil is simply mineral oil plus fragrance. The cream can be colored pink by replacing a small amount of the mineral oil with "Alkanet Colored Oil"

Super Smooth!

I also needed some lip balm and found the following recipe at a favorite shop for soap & cream making supplies - Majestic Mountain Sage. This is c a real winner! I love it!

CoCoMint Lip Balm
from Majestic Mountain Sage

Ingredients:

.25 ounces Beeswax
.33 ounces Shea Butter, refined
.33 ounces Coco Butter
.40 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
2 mL Vitiman E (I opened two capsules of 1000 mg each)
10 drops Peppermint Essential Oil

Instructions:

Weigh all ingredients, then melt the oils and beeswax in microwave. Add the essential oil and pour into prepared containers. Let them cool, then cap. This quantity fills 4 (MMS) lip balm tubes and 3 (MMS) lip balm jars .

More Magic With Golden Digital Grounds

I've been continuing my playtime with Golden Digital Grounds and am finding them utterly addicting. I keep thinking about new things I want to try making with them. I am also having a fine 'ole time experimenting with using 'skins' & 'no skins'. This is a playground I may not ever want to leave I fear!

"Be Peace" was made by using two coats of Golden Digital Ground For Non-Porous Surfaces on a layer of silk organza. I printed an image of a photo that I had taken some years ago. I hand- lettered the words, layered the organza onto a piece of vintage kimono silk, added a post card back & then sewed around the card. I used a 30 wt thread on this card . My favorite thread for this purpose is Sulky Blendables 12 wt thread. That being said I am going to go on a hunt for something similar weight from my fav companies, Superior Threads & Wonderfil threads. Maybe I just love this specific Sulky thread and that's a good thing too!

One of the interesting things about this method - not using an acrylic skin underneath - is the organza has an almost holographic effect and changes colors depening on the way the light hits it!

These are my next experiments - ready for printing. Top is cotton voile coated with Digital Ground For Non-Porus Surfaces on a skin of matte medium, the piece in the middle is bleached harem cloth with Digital Gound Matte White on a skin of self leveling gel medium & the bottom piece is silk chiffon coathed in Digital Ground For Non-Porus Surfaces on a very thin skin of clear tar gel.

Go here for Golden digital ground information.
Go here for Golden acrylic mediums information.

In the photo above you can see how sheer the chiffon will be (front)- and the voile not far behind (on the top) in sheerness. The harem cloth (middle) with white digital ground will be opaque rather than having a transparent quality.

Up close on the cotton voile - double click for up close look

Here (above) you can see chiffon over voile

How thin this skin is with the chiffon!

I have to go and print now! I am also trying some other light fabrics with the Digital Ground For Non-Porous Surface - which has become my favorite of all! Hopefully tomorrow I will have some more experiments to share with you!

Signs of The Season & Kreativ Blogger

PS: If you double click on the photos of the poppy there are some amazing intricacies!

This time of year I find endless fascination in the ways that nature unfurls itself. It's truly a wonder to me. In honor of nature's great & glorious mysteries here are a few of 'her' beauties!

My friend Stacy has some of her amazing works on display at the Long Beach quilt show. Stacy has a style all her own that just enchants me. She has nominated me for this Kreativ Blogger award and, coming from someone I admire so much, it is an honor!

The associated rules are to name seven things you like & to nominate seven other blogs for the award, thus spreading the love. Here goes:

I like:

1. The comfort of friendship
2. The susserous of birds
3. The feel of misty, cool air on my skin
4. A cat's sonorous purr
5. The quiet of midnight
6. The sounds of a rushing brook or stream
7. Looking at my art supplies!

7 Blogs to give awards to! (I could only narrow to 10 ... and that was difficult to do!)

here goes:

Sarah
Vicky
Michelle Ward
Kathy
Judy Coates-Perez
Sandy
Gerrie Congdon
Robin
Terry
Amy at Passages To The Past

Topsy Turvey Update

Just a quick interruption, between more 'art-supply' posts, to update y'all about the tomato growing season chez moi. These photos were taken 5 days ago and the little lovelies have grown quite a bit since! It would be most unlikely for very many folks here to have this size fruits on the vine - so to speak- at this point in the summer; we are just still pretty cool for these sun and heat loving plants. At this point, I am giving a "thumbs up" to these Topsy Turvey growers. The Roma's are sending shoots up-ward and there are lots of blossoms on those shoots too. The Early Girls are still directed down-ward but the growth is lush. What I really need to go and get is some tomato food I think. I am thinking that this really may be tomoto growing at it's easiest. Next year, if they are still being made, I want to add a coiuple more of the growers - one more for tomatoes and one for a pepper plant.

Happy weekend to all and ,to those of us here in the States, let's remember how very important the philosophy & tenants of our independance really are.

Above: These are Roma's and there are a LOT of them!
They are in a bit more shade that the Early Girls.

Below: These are Early Girl's ( I think )- a beefsteak variety if I am not mistaken.
There are many small tomatoes beginning to grow. These truly were the "early girls"!