Art Journalling!

So I'm hosting a brown paper bag art journal swap (whew what a mouth full) , over at swap-bot. They're so inexpensive and easy to make. I've finished two pages so far. Really four. I also went ahead and made four more journals for personal use, but with lots of pages. Here's a tutorial if you want to give it a try. You can sew down the middle if you want. I stapled because me and the sewing machine aren't the best of friends. Have fun!

Zine On!

What is a zine?
A zine (pronounced “zeen,” like “magazine”) is a self-published, small circulation, non-commercial booklet or magazine, usually produced by one person or a few individuals. Zines come in all shapes, sizes, topics, and formats. Most zines are photocopied, but they can also be printed offset, like a magazine or newspaper. Zines range from handwritten and sloppy to cut-and-paste (text pasted on top of background images) to artsy with handmade touches to produced on a computer with a professional looking layout. Zines may incorporate screenprinting, linoleum cuts, and hand-stitched bindings. Most zines have print runs of a couple dozen to a few hundred copies.
In a zine, you might find typos, improper grammar, and brilliant or radical or just plain honest ideas that you don’t normally see in Time, Newsweek, or People. A zine can be about whatever subject its creator decides upon, or it may contain a variety of subjects and writing styles within the same issue. Zines can include personal essays, political discussions, fiction, craft or do-it-yourself advice, articles about music or movies, comics, poetry, reviews – anything under the sun, really. Zines are personal and idiosyncratic. The best thing about zines is this: There are no rules.



I'm hosting a zine swap over at swap-bot and here's my finished Frida Zine. I am officially "ZINE OBSESSED"! There's a lot more work involved in making one than I anticipated however they're super cool. You can even have it published. Ever wanted to try making one your self? Here's a tutorial and here's a template
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Freezer Paper Stenciling

So I found this cool diy tutorial on how to do freezer paper stencils. It's kind of a fake out home-made screen printing technique. (as if ANY of that made sense) Eclectic Chica hosted a Frida Kahlo party for her 9 year old daughter, and she made her very own gift bags for all the girls. I would have never guessed that these were made using nothing more than a stencil, paint and freezer paper. Here's the tutorial and here's the template. I plan on trying my hand at this as soon as I get a day off.