Art, Crafting, and Genealogy

2/4/2020

I had the most amazing day on Monday working with a young man who homeschools. His mother had approached me several years ago when we met through a Craft Show I was participating in as a paper crafter. She had asked me to consider coming up with lesson plans that could assist homeschoolers in the art and craft area. I told her I'd consider it and then life hit, so it got shuffled to the back burner. 

Fast forward to 2019 - we reconnected, and the conversation came back around to art, crafting, and genealogy. She follows me on FaceBook and sees my journey when I'm walking with my ancestors. After all, I am the family genealogist of the family. I told her I'd consider doing something along these lines. 

A few weeks back, I informed this young man and his mother - I'd be honored to work with him doing art, crafts, and genealogy. I sent an email with a genealogy assignment two weeks ago and informed them that we would start the art/crafting piece around the first part of February. 

My room last year

We set a date and location to meet so we could start the art/crafting journey. Our original plan was to meet up and go to a local establishment, but after carefully thinking about all we were going to do, I thought it best for them to come to my house. 

When we walked into my crafting room - their expressions were 'wow'. This young man's name is Charlie, his reaction was "you have a lot of stuff". That’s a fact - I do indeed even after destashing this last year!!! A paper crafter cannot have too much paper, embellishments and stuff! I fit that category very well. I even think some days, I have too much stuff! LOL

My stamp collection last year

We set the chairs at my desk and I asked them to come with me. I took them to my cabinet that housed the stamps now.

The Armoire the stamps are now housed in

I told Charlie and his mom, Glenda, to look through the top two drawers and choose a few and if they aren't ones I want to hold on to, they could have them. They were so excited! They perused the different stamps. Moving them here and moving them there in order to see all that was in the drawers. 

This is Charlie

They chose a few and I was delighted to pay it forward. 

A few of their choices

When we came back into the crafting room, Charlie showed me his book where he had completed the assignment he had in genealogy. Remember, I am going to work with him in the arts, crafts, and genealogy areas. After showing me his assignment - I reached for a few journals that I had made to create a visual of all he could create with what he is going to learn daily. Art and creativity! What a concept...art, crafting and genealogy. There isn't a reason why they can't work together. After all, that's what my blog is about - Art, Crafting, Life, and Genealogy. 

Today, I was going to show Charlie and Glenda - how to create a glue book using their other daily excursions and journeys to fill the book. I mention Glenda too, because when I showed her some of my personal glue books in order to explain what I was going to work with Charlie on in the beginning- she indicated she would like to make one for herself as well. I was excited to share my talents with them. 

Charlie indicated he would like to turn his genealogy assignment into the glue book he was creating today. I looked over his assignment then asked how he would like to create his glue book. He said, 'I'm was very interested in the 1800's - 1900's vintage era with the western cowboys". Awesome - so we need to do vintage crafting! I love to craft with the vintage feel...little did he know, that was right up my alley! 

My collection now - I told you I had destashed! 

I had him go over to the shelf where the papers were to look for something vintage. I pointed out a few paper pads I thought would give him the feel he wanted to capture. 

I pulled out my distress inks and we began to work on a few pages before we covered the book with his paper choices. I explained the technique of inking and distressing pages as I showed Charlie and his mom how to achieve the effect of distressing a page in my own glue book. 

They both chose ink colors, reached for the daubers and began inking their own pages in their respective glue books. While Charlie was working on his pages, he was telling me how much he liked the 1800's era. I was very excited to hear his interest in these times because it will give learning genealogy much more excitement! 

We finished inking a few of the pages in the book and moved to the covers. They both had chosen some beautiful papers from The Paper Studio line, Kellerkurtz & Company. Vintage papers...

I showed them how to measure out the covers, explaining step by step how to achieve covering their books. Both front and back as well as the insides. 

I grabbed a paintbrush, the mod podge and gave the cut papers to both Charlie and Glenda. 

I brushed the mod podge on the cover near the spine - as we weren't going to cover that with the paper. After brushing the mod podge on, we placed the paper right next to the spine to get it started. Charlie then finished applying the mod podge and placed his paper down onto the cover. 

I explained to him that it's important to measure the paper correctly and when applying it to the cover or something else, be certain to use the proper type of adhesive for the project at hand in order to achieve longevity of the creation.  After all, we don't want our creations falling apart within days, weeks or months after we have made them. By explaining this to Charlie, we achieved two things - ensuring the paper was all lined up properly and making sure there were no air bubbles. 

The start of Charlie's cover (not completed)

The front of the composition book (what we are using for this project) is covered. We are ready to move to the next step of embellishing it. In other words, how do you want it to look? Again, I asked Charlie how he would like to accent his book in order to capture his vision for it. He asked me about the punches he had chosen, and I indicated we could do some layering of a few die cuts if he wanted to do that. He grabbed a few complimentary pieces of scrap papers from another organizer I have and used the die-cut punch to cut out embellishments. I showed him how he could layer them to achieve another look. Charlie was having fun while doing art in class today! He chose a button out of my grannie's button tin to use the center of the layered die cut. There is also a small bow on some pieces of thread to capture a bow that is in the paper. We will complete the cover embellishing next week. 

In the meantime, Glenda was taking note of the different words I was using. Words like techniques, distressing, template, accuracy, measurements, inking, daubers, trimmer, paper pads, and embellishments. She told me these would be used in his spelling lessons. ahhhh, it's funny how learning can navigate so many waters at one time without really putting thought to it. How cool is that!!! 

It was about time to wrap things up for the day, so we began to find a stopping point. Charlie showed me his cover and said, 'he can't wait to work on it again next week'! His mind was going in all kinds of directions talking about how he could make this and achieve that and mentioned, he would like to make a junk journal one day. 

For now, Charlie is going to make a glue book for several different passions he has. Just think, a glue book is just the beginning. We might be opening the mind of the next Bovey Lee, Diana Bertran Herrera, Eiko Ojala, Eric Standley, Helen Musselwhite, Yulia Brodskaya, and more recent - Tim Holtz, as well as others in the WHO’s Who of the Paper Crafting world. 

Smiles, 

~~Heart to Heart Soul Creations

#H2hsc2020