Let's Talk Jewelery

This week's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge over at Linda's Studio L3 blog is fragment charms.  So easy and so fun! I made a very simple charm with an image from ArtChix.  My little addition was to add a mini-domino on the back for a some added visual interest and a bit more heft.  You can get the idea in this picture:

Have you made any fragment jewelery lately? Or any other type of jewelery?  I'd be interested to hear how you feel about making, receiving, or buying handmade jewelery in general. I love making charms like these and often incorporate them in my mixed media pieces. I also have a few pins and necklaces that I like to wear. But I don't think it will ever be a big part of my artistic time, simply because photography, art journaling, scrapbooking, card making and mixed media keep me too buys!

A Review of Tim Holtz Publications (part 2)

Yesterday, I reviewed Tim Holtz' new book A Compendium of Curiosities.  Today, I wanted to review some of his other publications.  I've grouped these into three categories:  freebies on his blog and webite; books by Design Originals; and videos by Page Sage.


Freebies on his blog and webite:  Tim Holtz is one of the most generous artists out there.  He publishes, free of charge on the internet, a huge number of tutorials on how to make wonderful projects and how to use his products.  In addition to the 36 Tags of Christmas, which I linked to yesterday, he occasionally posts other tag projects, like this Easter tag tutorial.  These tutorials include step-by-step illustrated instructions. They aren't tagged in any special way on his blog, so you may have to hunt them up for yourself.  In addition, he has 18 video demonstrations posted on his website, covering products and techniques.


Books by Design Originals:  Tim published two books with Design Originals called Distressables (2005) and Distressables 2 (2006).  These short (50 page) books are dense and jam-packed with ideas.  They are not as reader-friendly as Curiosities because they cover many techniques that I would call intermediate to advanced and which assume some amount of crafting knowledge.  They each cover about 15 completed projects, and most projects include several variations.  The products used and projects covered have a much greater variety than Curiosities. . . . things ranging from beeswax collage to altered wooden blocks (in Destressables 2) and tins to minialbums (in Distressables).  They often use older product lines designed by Tim for Design Originals or other producers.  I call these books dense because they are almost like textbooks for many of his classes or for classes which could be taught. In fact, the three pieces of jewelery pictured up top are things I made in a class with Tim. The instructions for each one is in one of these books, but I never realized that until after reviewing the books again.  Overall, the books provide the foundation to make a ton of projects and are a great way to expand your repertoire of altered art a la Tim, but I don't think they are for the meek of art. 


Videos by Page Sage:  Tim has published two videos with Page Sage. . . An Altered Journey (2004) and The Journey Continues (2006).  Each one is about two hours long and is divided into different projects (called Journeys).  Each project lesson starts with a list of supplies needed and then shows how to make it.  There is also a gallery and some extras.   An Altered Journey covers some basic techniques like distressing, brushless watercolor and alcohol ink agates but also some cool, more advanced techniques like faux batik, an altered domino mini book (yes, it's tiny!), and projects with polymer clay and UTEE.  The Journey Continues includes some more advanced projects for distressing, using UTEE, polymer clay, alcohol inks, beeswax and cut-n-dry felt.  The techniques are more adventurous than those found in Curiosities but are clearly illustrated (so easier to follow than the Distressables books) and do result in completed projects.   I"m anxious to go back and watch the videos again, now that I own a melting pot and my skills have gotten more advanced.


After having done this two-part review, it seems to me that Curiosities and Tim's website/blog are a great place for beginners to start and the Altered Journeys and Distressables are great next-steps for the artist who wants to continue to explore various altered techniques and projects.  I'd love to hear feedback from anyone else who owns and has used the Distressables books or Altered Journeys videos.