IMT: (not very far) Beyond my comfort zone
I've wanted to machine sew on paper for quite some time, but something has always stopped me. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble to change needles in my sewing machine. I felt certain I would manage to screw up the tension or break my machine in some way by sewing on paper. But I had the machine on my studio work table, already warmed up from doing some very creative patching of my sweetie's favorite jeans, and I had this tag book project just languishing in my "get to it" pile. I also had the wonderful image from a Seattle Art Museum exhibit program, a few small loteria cards, a snip of text from a truly awful novel, and a scrap of handmade paper infused with roses. All it took was one brave moment to pop out the needle I'd been using to sew the fabric, pop in a new needle to sew the paper, and I was doing it.
Yeah! Go me!
Okay, so it's not a very big leap out of my comfort zone, but it was a step. I'm glad I took it. I hope to spend some time over this weekend finishing up the tag book project and sewing up some paper quilts on my machine.

IMT: Comfort Zone

I created this accordion book for my Spirit Houses swap on swap-bot.com. Everything about it -- the deep, rich green of the background, the collage elements, the house shape and the fact that it's a book -- goes right to the heart of my comfort zone.

This week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt is "circles."

Almost immediately, I got this image in my head and sketched it out a couple of times in my journal before I decided to use chalk on red rosin paper.

I made the circles, outlined them with a black Sharpie, then decided I wanted a higher contrast and some dimension to the piece. So I cut out the circle things, arranged them a little differently than the original composition, and adhered them to a piece of scrap watercolor paper with 3D adhesive dots.

I call it "Blue Moon."

The Inspire Me Thursday prompt this week is "silence," a quality this odd little washed-up garden gnome has in spades. I chose to photograph him in black and white, hoping to capture the strange austerity of his uncharacteristic colorlessness.