The flow of creativity

I am ever so thankful for all the teasures from paper swaps.
I love to browse through my paper stacks from all over the world and use bits and bites here and there in my collages.



My daughter and I had a crafty sunday yesterday, our studio was filled with sun and creativity and that's a wonderful feeling.



Svea now makes her collages with more consciousness. This piece is called "the mother" and she refers to the fact, that I am sometimes a little bit over-protecting, that's why she calls me "mother of sorrows".


I love what one can do with tea, ink and old letterpress stamps.



I am still doing a "wtj" ("wreck this journal"). This is #8. To work in a wtj just gives me the feeling to play, to take it easy, to loose myself in a creativity flow without censoring.





Talking about paper swap: last call for the April swap, who wants to join?! Just send me an e-mail!

Shades of brown, signs of decay

Did some photographing in my garden today, I love all these shades of brown, light green and papergrey there are.













Decay everywhere, but who cares. Perfection is boring. Wabi Sabi is inspiring.

A book to become ONE with

About a week ago I found a picture on Flickr, showing a book.
I did not know the book, but in some strange way I had the feeling, I must found out, what it is about.
I could only read „One- living and loving it“ and I googled it.
So I found out, it’s an Australian book and unfortunately not available in Germany. I asked amazon.de, but no way to buy it from here.
My bibliophil instinct told me, that I MUST have it, although I did not really know, what it’s about. Well, internet is a great thing, if you want to find out what it’s all about and so I looked for the author: Victoria Alexander, found her blog and left her a message.
And she was e-mailing me straight back. Very nice!
Later that day, I really was amazed by another e-mail, coming from Scott White, the sales director of Murdoch publishing in Sydney (where „One“ has been published), he told me, that I will be able to order „One“ soon from amazon.uk and we had a lovely e-mail chat about this and that during that day.
And once again, I thought: „How nice Australian people are!“ (Everybody says so and they are right.)
And yesterday was the day: I’ve got my copy of „One“ and it really took my breath away.

This is the most beautiful book, I have ever seen! It talks to all senses, it’s a real tactile blowoff, an eye candy, speaking in a voice that comes from the heart, it has lovely little secrets (like that little bag at the end or some hidden messages in envelopes inside), it has an unusual design (e.g. pages with a wavy cut), lovely layered pictures etc.. The more I browsed through, the more I became pleased with my purchase.



And the topic? It’s about being „one“, being one with yourself, finding out who you really are, not letting anybody tell you, that you are an unfinished half without a partner at your side. It’s also about the world and its people being one. In fact that’s what I always feel about the internet, this was invented to connect people, to make this planet a lovely neighbourhood, to become „one“.
This book has also given me a break from watching the shocking news about the Japanese earthquake and worrying about having another Tschernobyl in the world. And I am grateful for that.

So I want to say thank you Victoria, you really have done a great job and I love the way you put the pictures together and the way you are writing.
And I want to say thank you Scott for leading me to purchase it, Murdoch publishing made this a real gem! And I hope, one day it will be translated into German, because we Germans are great book lovers and I know this will be a real success here.

On moor, sheep, wool and yarn

Northern Germany, Friesland and Ostfriesland has got lovely moor areas.


And a lovely local sheep breed: Ostfriesisches Milchschaf.


With a lovely wool.


I added linen, colored merino and gotland sheep wool to it. Doesn't it look like a painting?
I made this homespun yarn out of it.


It's now available at my Etsy shop. Please take a look.


Photo of the sheep by EwigLernender.

Paper Swap in April

You can sign in now: lawendula@googlemail.com

I hope YOU will be in!

A lack of color isn't a lack of beauty

My garden today.

Paper Swap in March: The scavenger hunt

This is a very special paper swap in March: The Scavenger Hunt.

It's a challenge, but don't be afraid, it's so much fun!



You can sign in now! Please send an e-mail to lawendula@googlemail.com
Looking forward to have you in!

My erosion bundle

It was in January 2010 when I started my erosion bundle, a project invented by Kris Henderson.

I decided to play it bit longer than usual and left the bundle on the tree for one year and one month.
I fell off to the ground during a winter snow storm and was covered with snow for a few weeks.

And then my daughter has found it and so we opened it.




Because it was wrapped in felt, it was all in a very good condition. Let’s see what I will make of it, I’m not sure yet.

But this is for sure: I will try another bundle soon.

Paper Swap (Past and future)

I am looking back on more than a year paper swaping all around the world! It all started in fall 2009, when I wanted to make a project, that was both simple and thrilling. And I thought, it must be nice to exchange papers with people from other countries, because something most artists have in common is that they need paper, the basic for all kind of creativity.
And it worked out fine, people were (are!) generous, made contact, exchanged in huge amounts, some have won friends for a lifetime, some have come out of the closet, some have been in it only once, some became real paper swap addicts. And they all did a very good job!

So here we are with our paper swap #14 to come!
And this is a look back on the past swaps.

It was:

Paper Swap in October 2009
Tags in November 2009
Cards in January 2010

Crazy Swap in February 2010
ABC and numbers in March
Mini Books in April

Colors in May
Art failures in June
Then we had a summer break
Vintage in September

Embellishment in October
Mail and postage in November
Wrapping and boxes in December
Fresh start in January 2011
And the next will be Magazines and newspapers in February

Followed by

Scavenger hunt (a very special one) on March, 7 2011

Scripts & Scribbles: doodles, scribbles, lettering, handwriting on April, 4 2011

Paper back swap (another special one) in May 2011

Culture and events (flyers, (event-)postcards, brochures, guides, invitations etc.) in June 2011

Juli/August: Paper Swap holiday (no swaps during that time)

In September 2011: Wild at art (express yourself on paper without censoring)

In October 2011: Every day papers (collect your every day stuff: grocery lists, bills, receits)

In November 2011: Circles, spots and dots

And December 2011: Signs, pictogramms, symbols

(Changes may be likely)

And if YOU want to be a part of it, just sign in at
Lawendula@googlemail.com

There is one last thing missing...

What I have taken out of the collage box #1:


And my collage:

The collage box has landed!

It’s done, the collage box #1 has arrived safe and sound at my home again.

Do you remember? It was in February 2010 when I sent a box with 144 snippets all around the world to 28 different participants. It went from Germany to Poland, then to the Netherlands, France, the UK, flew over to USA, travelled through different states there and landed in Canada, then take another flight over to Australia (got stuck there, but not lost!) and travelled to New Zealand and arrived here at my home yesterday.
This is what I have sent at the beginning:




And here are the things what were in the box at the end, when it came back from Lisa (New Zealand), 220 items!!!


And this is what is left from the original snippets I have sent:


Inside was a little „sign in“ book, and all participants made this a real object of art too!





So a big thankyou goes out to everyone, who has been a part of this project, you really made this a wonderful experience with sending it on so quickly (and ignoring the high costs some of you had!) and filling it up with such lovely treasures!
Thank you Imke, Mosi, Anne, Eliza, Lien, Carine, Jill, Judy, Seth, Deb, Laura, Tammy, Pat, Kavindra, Patty, Joy, Mary-Jo, Lois, Kay, Candy, Janet, Shelley, Brandi, Robert, Lee, Sue, Jacky and Lisa.
To give you something back in return, I have used a random calculator to choose a number from all the participants. And it’s #10=Deb Eck from the USA who has won a little price: 144 items from the collage box and some papers for more collages and artwork to do! Hope you will enjoy!

You can read more about the whole project on my (old) blog.

And I would like to show your work, your collages, what has become of it. Please send me your pictures or bloglinks (if you haven’t done it yet). I really appreciate.

Ongoing are still Box #2 and #3. And maybe there will be a #4 in the future. One never knows....