Sunday with Dina

To finish off this past weekend, I took two more classes with Dina Wakley at Bizzy B.  In the morning, we made a bird journal.  We decorated the pages and the cover using several of the techniques we had learned in the past 2 days, using acrylic paint, stencils and Dylusions inks mostly, then painted our birds (can't tell you how, you have to take the class to find out but trust me, everyone ended up with beautiful paintings!) and bound the books together.

Front cover

 

Inside flap

Back cover

Inside back covers

Here's Dina doing a demo.  As you can see, her hands are moving fast - that's how she works.  "Done is better than perfect" is her motto and by golly, it's a good one!

After another delicious lunch prepared by Kelly Belton (who also took part in both of Sunday's classes!), in the afternoon, we made an accordion book that featured tags decorated with encaustic wax. I had taken a class in collaging with encaustic wax in the past but that was using a melting pot method (pots of coloured wax melted and then painting the collage images onto the surface of your piece).  In this class, we used special irons that are made for encaustic wax.  Much less fuss and quite easy to use. 

Here's Diane, hard at work starting to decorate her tags.  She and I sat side by side for all 4 classes. laughed a lot, shared supplies, etc.  Now we're bonded for life!

Paris was the theme of my little booklet.  I had brought collage items with me to go with that theme and here's how the little booklet turned out:

It ties up prettily with a
ribbon.

I stayed later after class and decorated the reverse side of the book with French/English dictionary text, as I didn't want to leave it plain:

I am pleased to report that I finished all 4 projects from the 4 classes I took with Dina.  That is definitely a first for me and it's so nice to have the finished items to show my friends and family when they ask, "what did you make in class?".

All in all, it was a great weekend, many thanks to the staff of Bizzy B, who did a fabulous job hosting this weekend, as usual.  I had lots of fun hanging out with my tablemates - Daniza, Diane, Keitha, Lorraine, Annette, Susan and Mary - and really enjoyed learning from Dina, who makes her projects fun and easy to do.  Looking forward to her next visit to Toronto, hopefully it will be soon!