The Fabulous Mary Engelbreit

by Linda | Mar 1, 2010 | my creative journal

Even if you don’t recognize the name Mary Engelbreit, you would probably instantly recognize her work upon seeing it. She has been in the art industry for a long time and her work is all over. I have loved her illustrations since childhood, ever since receiving one of her lovely illustrated greeting cards. Her work is not only cute and sweet looking, but also always carries a great message.  Wise words of wisdom or a life lesson type of saying and subject. I’ve always been inspired and in awe of every little thing that was Mary Engelbreit. She started out like most artists – a child who just loved to draw. Now she is a famous and successful illustrator with her artwork in books, calendars, greeting cards, home accents and much more. People refer to her as a trailblazer and pioneer in art licensing, an industry in which I am excited about and working towards joining.

All artwork copyright Mary Engelbreit

I hope her work can inspire you as it always does me…her artwork is especially happy inducing this gloomy Monday.

Journal Winners and More

by Linda | Feb 24, 2010 | my creative journal

Hello lovelies – Happy Wednesday!  Thank you so much to everyone who entered my journal giveaway, I am so surprised and honored by the volume of responses.  I hope the winners will enjoy using their new journal sketchbooks…

Congratulations to Emily and Jen C.! You’ll each get one of the journals at random (more suspense!) Please email me your mailing addresses so I can ship them off – linda [at] tortagialla [dot] com.  For those of you who didn’t win, no worries.  Art journaling is really fun or just doodling, whatever you feel like creating and really it’s as simple as stapling a bunch of papers together.  If you don’t want to make your own though, I do have exciting news. I just listed my first journal for sale onto Etsy – my very special silver leather covered art journal!

Although I am still a beginner in bookbinding and have seen many masterpieces that are so refined here in Italy, I am still happy to create these little handmade journals myself.  Totally handmade in every sense, every single one different and special in its own way.  I also love thinking how wonderful it is to create something for someone else to create inside of!  The multitude of ideas and thoughts that will go in these journals…that’s pretty darn awesome.

So why do I think it’s so special?  Besides the fact that I made it…tee hee… all of the pages are individually sewn together, instead of the common signatures (bunches of paper folded). This one has 30 spreads, so the binding is sort of loosey goosey. See the difference when you push it around from the photo above and below?

However, I bind all the pages individually so they can all lie flat for ease of use as well as for the space it creates between each page.  See below how the journal looks like an empty photo album from top view?  You know what happens when you put photos into the album?  It lines up perfectly and doesn’t poof up…so that’s another cool thing.  The spine height gives you room to collage, add ephemera and use layers of medium with everything still fitting inside nicely.

I also put some elements in the inside front and back covers.  I always liked how composition books had a place to write your name or journals that have little encouragement quotes inside.

I’m happy with the results of using leather in this way for the covers, but I still have some more experiments to perform and lots of leather to go through.  I just got a sample of a pinkish coralish colored leather today, sooooo cute! It’s funny that companies here have to throw away their leather pieces that are inconsistent or too small to make purses, shoes, etc.  Those scraps are actually precious to me because they are unique…and really we shouldn’t waste leather…or anything!

Blog It Forward…My Personal Inspiration

by Linda | Feb 22, 2010 | my creative journal

Yay! I am participating in sfgirlbybay’s blog it forward and it’s my turn to share a bit about what inspires my art, craft and musings.  Thank you to tiny-ass apartment for passing the torch to me.

I am originally from Los Angeles, a total SoCal valley girl for the first 20+ years of my life. Long story short, I was ultimately driven by love to quit my soul-draining corporate job and pursue my dreams in a new land.  I moved to the Tuscan hills of Italy, got married to my love and now living my dream.  I design, craft and create art…and really loving my new life! Yup, I know it sounds a bit like those mushy love abroad, cliché life changing movie plots, but it’s really my life and through this blog I share it with all of you!

My experiences in this foreign environment inspires me every single day.  I am constantly learning new things about the history and culture of Italian life. It’s amazingly uplifting to be presented with a different way of thinking and living. Some ideas are refreshing, others can be annoying but overall it’s an eye-opening way of living.  In the end, I choose how I want to live, meshing my new learnings with my existing culture. Everything inspires me… or perhaps I should say, anything can inspire me, because it’s how I decide to interpret what I see and experience.  From the landscape, to cool bikes to crafting with my 4-year old niece to random textures and patterns to the details of nature… all of it…

You can check out my Flickr stream for more random photos. I hope you enjoyed a little look into my dolce vita! Thanks for stopping by and I now pass the torch onward to two brunettes who will post tomorrow.  Enjoy and be inspired – by anything!

Journal Sketchbook Giveaway

by Linda | Feb 17, 2010 | my creative journal

Hello dearies!

Since I have no purpose for the journals I made I thought I would give them away to my lovely blog readers.  Anyone need a journal sketchbook for some art making?  I used materials I have lying around the house, so there might be wear and tear on the corners, but otherwise all blank pages ready for your creativity.  Check out my post yesterday for more pictures and details. There are two up for grabs…I’ll send them anywhere in the world.

Just comment below saying which one you want.  Or if either one is okay just say that and you’ll be put in both groups for the random drawing next week.  Enjoy!

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Some mistakes in bookbinding

by Linda | Feb 16, 2010 | my creative journal

Hello everyone!  I wanted to share some progress in my journal making and bookbinding adventures…namely, some mistakes and major boo boos!  I was able to finish two journals, but learning a lot along the way.

First, I made this shabby chic journal, pattern paper from scrapbooking to make the covers with some heavier weight cream colored paper inside.  I stitched this page by page, so every page could lay out flat completely.  However, using embroidery thread and a loose hand, it became really loose as you can see in the photo and I don’t think the decorative element shows with such soft thread.  Inside I also printed a titled but made a mistake with the term “create fearlessly” as I meant it to go on the last page, oops!  Well, the rest of the pages are blank, so maybe it’ll provide funky inspiration regardless!

The second journal also has similar pattern paper covers and on second thought I will try to find some thicker type of board for covers.  This one has cream paper as well, but regular copy paper weight with 8 signatures, so lots of pages for sketching and such.  I also used natural fiber linen string, which I think looks much better…more structure and stitching design showing in the binding.  However, I also had tension issues with this as well, some places looser, some places tighter!

So now I am going to try and make a sort of remains of the day type of journal from some cardboard covers and random papers I have lying around.  Better bound than spread all over my room definitely.  Not sure what to do with these journals though…I already have too many started and doodled in…eek!

Laura Berger Artwork

by Linda | Feb 15, 2010 | my creative journal

When I first started getting into the blogging and exploring the art/craft community online I found the work of Laura Berger and have been following her blog ever since. I really admire her illustration and painting style…it has a digital graphic feel, but done by hand and has that handdrawn cozy feel to it as well. Her work is whimiscal and thoughtful at the same time, you just feel attracted to it.  All very inspiring and happy…hope you have a great Monday with all this lovely inspiration.

Images Copyright Laura Berger

Double Happiness Celebration Today

by Linda | Feb 14, 2010 | my creative journal

More Journal Making and Messy Work

by Linda | Feb 11, 2010 | my creative journal

Hello everyone!

I thought I would share my creative workspace today, so here are some views of the messy state of my room. I’m still working on my novice bookbinding skills, making more journals and trying to figure out how to use the leather I have – spreading glue all over my desk of course.  I’m also experimenting with messy acrylic paintings, on the desk and on the floor…no more space left!

Bookbinding experiments and ideas

by Linda | Feb 4, 2010 | my creative journal

Happy Thursday to everyone!  I am working on an artsy baby journal for a friend of mine and wanted to share a bit of my novice bookbinding learnings through the process.  At times I feel like a kindergartner, because I’ve managed to make everything a bit sticky from the glue magically invading and spreading all over my creative workspace!  Other notable learnings?

• Choose sturdy material – board for the covers and heavier weight paper for the pages
• Use a glue brush and wash it out before it hardens
• Glue spread onto the heavier surface seems to work better, less bubbles
• Precut, prepunch, pre-everything to size before moving to the glue phase…ooops
• Don’t try to punch through 12 heavy pages at the same time
• Measure out more than enough string for sewing, so you don’t have to add more mid-sewing

I also realized how much precision really matters for certain details of the finished project. For example, cut too close or too far and you get imperfect corners for the covers.  Maybe I shouldn’t eyeball it!

The photo above also shows my experiment of using regular cardboard for the cover material, which is cool for the thickness, but very porous and seemingly easy to puncture and damage. It also didn’t help that my recycled shopping bag was totally wrinkled for this cover, but I liked the colors and pattern a lot.  I created a bunch of different covers to experiment with the materials I have lying around the house. The itty bitty one you see below in the center is leather wrapped around a board and threaded together.  That little prototype is really sparking ideas!

I’m not really that picky when it comes to creating art journals, but for a gift I want it to be as nice as possible.  I did my best and here is the final product and inner pages.  It’s a bit loose because I stitched each page separately to keep it flat and easy to spread out and draw on.  Although I initially didn’t want super girly colors, it ended up sort of strawberry shortcake themed and I think it’s great for a baby girl!

Off to finish off my experiments and make more journals…for what I’m not sure yet…