The 4-day workshop I attended in the Portland area, in August was called “Washed and Worn”. We we would be making journals using vintage papers that were tea dyed and distressed. Our instructor was Michelle Geller, an artist who makes amazing journals. She also well known for being a big collector of vintage Dennison labels and office supplies. I’ll have to devote a whole other blog post, just on that!
I’ll start by sharing some photos of the kinds of journals, made by our instructor, Michelle I love the look of these kinds of worn-out journals, and couldn’t wait to learn how I could create something like this as well.
Pretty amazing, aren’t they? I almost couldn’t believe that we were going to be creating in a similar style.
There were nine other participants of which I knew one other person, my friend Judy, who I knew from the mail-art group I belong to. The others I discovered to all be lovely ladies, and we found plenty of things to talk comfortably with each other about. The “washed and worn” workshop was organized by Monica at You Shine Studio, and she did an amazing job making us all feel comfortable and welcome in our environment. If you are interested in attending something like this in the future, get on her mailing list!
On the first day of the workshop, one of the first things we did was create a rubber stamp or two, using erasers and a sharp blade. Here’s what I created. I didn’t have anything in mind. I just wanted to create some type of mystery script.
After that, we took ephemera bits and embellished on top of vintage papers. These papers were intended for the journal. In addition to individual journal pages, we needed to create a large oversized page that would eventually wrap the journal pages before placing everything in a tea bath.
Most of us brought papers to work with, but there were plenty of materials provided by Michelle. We also got some sets of papers with all kinds of vintage ephemera that came in handy for adding on to our pages.
A huge pot of tea
I didn’t take any photos of the gathering and assembling of my pages because I was so busy working! Here are some pictures when things are all wrapped up and ready to be placed in the pot of tea.
We took ribbon or twine, or lace trim, or whatever to bind everything up tight. Those rusty metal pieces get woven in there to pass along some interesting colors to the papers and material going through the tea bath.
And then, here we go.
More hot water was added in the pot until the tops of the pages were submerged. I’m not sure how long everything sat, but it was several hours.
This is what we saw the next morning.
They were certainly fascinating bundles, grouped so prettily together. Here’s a closeup of mine:
I opened everything up and let them dry out in the sun for an hour or so. Most dried rather quickly. After that, it was assembling the pages in the order I wanted, thinking about the binding, and reinforcing the pages at the holes where I would run my twine through.
My “Washed and Worn” journal
It was a lot of work and all of day 2 and 3 were taken with putting the book together. Here are my pages. I love how they turned out! I also pressed a flower between my pages. Hopefully it wont disintegrate anytime soon.
Sometimes I used postage stamps as page reinforcers. I love the coloring on the envelope below. That marbling is so neat!
Can you see the imprint of the skeleton key on the page below? I had a couple of rusty keys sandwiched in between my papers.
The birds and the floral images are what I picked up a few days earlier and Scrap in Portland.
Many of the photos I used came from other participants who brought things to share.
Michelle allowed me to briefly demonstrate how to put together a collage. No one need the help, everyone did a fabulous job, but it was nice to share some simple techniques for laying some pages together.
Quite a lot happened to that photo below, in the tea bath. Text transferred to photo from a letter that was lying on top of it, and also, there is another imprint of a key there.
The covers warped a lot. So much so, that I am considering swapping them out with another set that didn’t go through the tea bath.
My week-long getaway to Portland
What a great explanation of how the Worn and Wild journals were put together. Beautiful journal, thanks for sharing your pages.
Thanks, Beth. I wish I would have taken more pictures, particularly of other’s books, but I ran out of time, unfortunately. I would have loved to be able to pour over a huge collection of photos of how everyone else put theirs together 🙂
Thanks for sharing your wonderful photos! I’m in the process of making another book with stuff everywhere in the studio. I clean a bit but stuff wins! Your ideas create more ideas.Thank you.
I know what you mean about cleaning and then getting distracted with finding things in your work space 🙂 I’m glad you got some new ideas!
What a pleasure to receive photos of your exemplary work. Thank you so much for sharing. New ideas are just spinning through my mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So cool! I’m so glad you’ve got some new ideas to play with, Tiny 🙂
Beautiful pages & stamp; layouts. I have a question….How did the papers not stick together once wet? Were they difficult to peel apart without tearing?
Thanks, Aileen. Yes, they did stick together at first. I peeled off pages from the wet stack one by one, very carefully and then let them dry in the sun. After that, they were fine again.
Beautiful work, as always, Margarete! Thanks so much for sharing the process and the photos of your wonderful art! 🙂
Thank you, Katie. It was such a great experience, I’m glad you enjoyed the post and found it useful 🙂
I am a beginner . I found everything beautiful. I did a few collages but that’s about it. Thanks for sharing
Nice, Louisa! I’m so glad you’ve taken up this kind of art. You’ll have so much fun with it 😉👍.
They look wonderfull, I still have a long way to go before I can make an album that look a little bit in your albums direction. But most of all its so much fun to work with all the collages and with all the ideas you are giving us. Thank you so much for that!
I know you’ve been busy, creating some wonderful work, Josephine. You’ve been work on several types of collages so I know you’ve got albums in the making.
your journal turned out beautiful! thanks for sharing it with us~ i’m sure it was a fabulous time!
Thank you, Donna. It was truly lovely. I flew in for the workshop and it was so worth it. I want to do it again! 🙂
What an amazing look! It’s been through the flood and survived! I appreciate all the ideas on how to reinforce the holes. Inspiring work, Margarete…
Funny! Through a tea flood and survived 🙂 I’m glad you got a few new ideas for reinforcing holes, Nancy.
Wow!! Thank you for all the info and sharing your fabulously washed and worn journal! It must have been a blast to open the pages and see the transformations. The key impressions are dynamite and you have the only ones there are. What an amazing workshop! So glad YOU were able to attend.
Thanks, Kimberly! I was one of the lucky ones with the key impressions. They were so fun to try to do. I know the technique now 😉
the link to this just popped up on my Pinterest feed…at the perfect moment..i had a similar book in my heart and now i have a jumping off board! what an awesome workshop <3 thankyou for sharing your work ..it has inspired me greatly
Super! I’m so glad I could give you some good ideas to start off with. It was a great workshop. I was just thinking about looking for another type of inspirational workshop to attend 😉
I just found your lovely book! What an amazing experience that workshop must have been! You did a very nice job on yours! Thank you for sharing so many photos and descriptions!
Thanks so much for your kinds words, Cecile! 🙂 I so loved that experience, as you could probably tell.
Thank you for sharing! I love the looks of these papers. So, they soaked for several hours, but then they were taken out and allowed to sit until the next morning? I can’t wait to play around with this technique. 🙂
Thanks for your time!!
Yes, that’s exactly it, Marilyn. I hope you do experiment with the technique. It was such a learning experience!!
I was wondering with your bundles submerged under water overnight, did some of the pages disintegrate and fall apart? I coffee stain paper and some, if dipped too long, falls apart in my hands.
Hi Kathy, some did lose their structural integrity, but the vast majority held up fine once they dried. It’s definitely tricky to separate the wet pages and lay them out. But once they begin to dry, it was all good from there.
I would love to see if Ms. Gellar offered an online course. Do you know if she does?? THESE examples you photographed are just wonderful and beautiful. Love the process you describe. Thank you !
Hello Margarete. Greetings from the beautiful city of La Serena, Chile. I loved your photos … The idea of dyeing everything together had not occurred to me. I’ll see how it turns out. A hug
Wow, what a technique! I’m not sure I could dump a whole journal in a tea bath. I would worry about those poor old papers, photos, and hardback books. But, on the other hand, it’s kinda fascinating. Certainly gives you the thought that nothing is precious. Thank you for sharing.
I know! It does take a leap of faith. Luckily my instructor was very experienced with the whole process 🙂
super cool and creative. Thank you so much for sharing step by step for those of us who are not able to actually attend one of these! I was especially Impressed (pun intended) by the rusty metal stuff – I guess I need to check to make sure my tetanus shot is up to date! 🙂
I was surprised with how cool it was working with metal too. I love the effect!
You wrapped the pages singly or in multiples before putting it in the tea bath? Can’t wait to try this.
Thank you
I hope you do, Donna! I’ve done it only once but definitely want to try again.