Develop your creativity with collage

Scrap booking is definitely a creative hobby or activity which keeps you busy for hours resulting into a nice piece of art. Collage is a bit similar to scrap booking as it is also a mixture of few mediums. Collage can be learned very easily as there are not very definite rules or boundaries to adopt this hobby. You can develop your creativity by involving yourself for this creative pastime.

A 'collage' is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.

A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs, a piece of moss or even a dead mole and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique made a dramatic reappearance in the early 20th century as an art form of novelty.

Definition from 'WikiPedia'

Useful links and sites:

* 'Collageart.org' is a rich source of useful links and information about collage related sites, collage artists, exhibitions and more.

* 'Creative spotlite' offers collage tips and ideas.

* 'Collage tips' from 'Stuff that stuck' which provides information about the medium of collage. You can learn the meaning of collage as wells as a variety of technical & “how to” issues associated with it. They also provide references and resources for learning more about this terrific medium.

* A nice post 'Collage Stamp art'

* How to Make a Collage

* 'Kicking the gourd' is a nice blog with some collage works. I have taken the facing picture from this post: 'Composition Collage work'

* 'Collage Clearing house' has some awesome collage work. The right side bar of the blog offers many collage related site links.

Free Automatic Photo Collage Maker

* Create picture collages in less than a minute with just a few mouse clicks
* Photos are automatically and intelligently placed using a very fast patent pending method
* Use photos on your computer or from the web to make collages
* Adjust the collage size, size of the photos, number of photos, and spacing between photos
* Change the background, the colour of the border, and more
* Save as JPEG, PNG, or Photoshop PSD
o If you don't like the collage, save it as a PSD and edit it yourself in Adobe Photoshop or GIMP!

It is Free for personal use with no trial periods, ads, spyware, viruses, trojans, or stds
# Works on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and more! in many languages

* 'Download link'

Weird and strange news around the net

Just entering the keyword is sometimes enough to get in touch with the resources an links for that specific topic. But there are many blogs or sites which may not get the place at few first pages of search engines. There are lots of sites with good stuff which are not visible at first sight. As I search for many useful links at many blog directories or sites with useful links. Many blogs have useful resources or blog roll section where you can check for related sites. This post is about weird and strange news around the net. There are few links but I have selected only sites with good stuff.

"Strange Asian News" scours the internet for the weirdest, strangest and most wacky news from Asia.

Front page offers navigation to weird news from 'Asia, China, Japan and Europe', so you can search or browse through

- Japanese Restaurant has Monkeys as Waiters

- “Money Bath” in Taiwan

- Amazing Digital Cloud Skyscraper

- Military Themed Restaurant Opens in Lebanon

More weird news links:

* Weird news at 'Metro.co.uk offering funny and bizarre stories in news.

* 'That's weird.net'

* 'Weird news section at 'telegraph.uk

Discover online free crafts tutorials at 'Totally Tutorials'

World wide web offers links to many online directories, online forums/message boards or blogs dedicated to crafts only. These online tutorials are a good way of getting ideas, tips to adopt these projects or create new stuff or projects. Not only text sites but video sites like 'YouTube' has many videos relating to crafts, or do-it-yourself activities.

'Totally Tutorials' is a blog with a lot of craft tutorials, patterns, recipes and more. There are many how to and do-it-yourself projects, ideas and tips which are very useful for the people having a passion for art/craft activities.

Readers are encourages to submit their articles.

Related links:

* 'Craft site directory' a guide to arts and crafts links on the Internet.

Recycle your books into work of art

You have heard about recycling many products like paper, plastic, wood, clothes etc. But there is a creative way of recycling your existing or old books (which has a little resemblance with scrap booking) and it is called 'altered book'.

An altered book is an existing book that is awaiting your hands to glued, paint, collage, rubber stamp, cut and tear and transform into a piece or work of art. Yes! by using some techniques, idea and tips you can create crafts with easily available material around you own home. Let's get more information about 'altered book':

Definition from 'Wikipedia' is:
'An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its appearance and/or meaning.

An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and cuts, tears, glues, burns, folds, paints, adds to, collages, rebinds, gold-leafs, creates pop-ups, rubber-stamps, drills, bolts, and/or be-ribbons it. The artist may add pockets and niches to hold tags, rocks, ephemera, or other three-dimensional objects. Some change the shape of the book, or use multiple books in the creation of the finished piece of art.

Altered books may be as simple as adding a drawing or text to a page, or as complex as creating an intricate book sculpture.'

There is a very specific definition of making altered book at 'Kaboose.com'

An altered book, according to the International Society of Altered Book Artists, is "any book, old or new, that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art." Altered book artists change a book by cutting or rebinding; covering pages with collage, drawings, or photographs; stamping images on the pages, and highlighting particular words or images, while covering others. Different than a
scrapbook, altered books are preexisting books that are complete in and of themselves, not journals or blank bound volumes. Take, for instance, an old children's board book or a dusty garage-sale find and personalize it by adding your own thoughts, images, and art.

"Scrapbooking is using photos of your family and journaling a particular event" or time, says Aileen Roberts, a California-based mixed media artist.
"Altering books is not the same as scrapbooking. Most altered book artists are using the book as their canvas and altering it into an artistic statement just like you would a canvas or a sculpture."

Book Safe - Altered Book. You can turn an ordinary, hard-covered book into a safe to hide your valuables and little treasures. Not only are these books a useful addition to your own book shelf, it also makes a great gift!
'Book safe project'
'Altered book safe' is a great way to hide things on your book shelf Or in your school bag or locker.


Useful links:

* 'Getting Started with Altered Books and Other Altered Art' at 'Creativity Portal'

* Altered book: Craft, patterns and tutorials at 'Craftster.org' forum.

* Few article about 'Altered books' at 'Suite 101.com'

* 'Arts and Crafts : Techniques Used in Making Altered Books'

* 'Altered books ideas and tips'

* Few links at 'Craft Site Directory'

* 'Altered Books at 'Incredible art lessons' at 'Squidoo'

* 'Artful journey' wife, mother, teacher, writer, and artist trying to live a creative life. I make all kinds of altered books and collage art, and I write about the process as I go along.

* Making Altered Books :: Art in a Child's Hand

* 'Art ezine'

Useful Links for paper crafts and origami projects

From the very early age I have a fascination for paper. I love to use paper for writing, for correspondence or making paper models which is called paper craft or origami.

You can make a lot of crafts using paper, which is a vary cheap medium for this purpose like cards, paper models of cars, houses, dolls, famous places etc. I have written before about the online useful resources and links in my previous posts and it helps me to find the relevant information quickly as I teach a lot of origami models to my nursery class kids.

I believe that origami or paper craft is one of the best creative art form with a lot of benefits. You can have hours of  fun for hours doing it yourself or keeping your kids busy with it.

I am happy to share the information with my blog readers and hope that I it would be helpful for you to get ideas and tips from these resources to learn and create paper crafts or origami projects for yourself, your students or your children.

* Paper crafty is a site dedicated to origami and crafts projects.

* PaperCraft Art Creative' is the free collection of paper crafts, paper models, paper dolls and origami.

* 'Paper craft models of things that fly'

* 'Card models for free download'

* Paper modelz

My previous posts about origami:

* 'Amazing paper craft blogs'
* 'Useful links and resources for paper crafts'
* 'Learn origami at the internet'

Note: As my 'A learners diary' is hosted at 'Blogger' you might not get the link to the original post. In this case just go to the 'A learners diary' homepage and at category link you can find the posts under origami and paper crafts.

Discover the extraordinary places and past with 'Curious Expeditions'

'Curious expeditions' is for the people having interest in traveling/discovering wonderful and extraordinary places of past.

If you are interested in travel and like to discover amazing or strange places, museums and objects then this site is for you.

describes itself as being “devoted to unearthing and documenting the wondrous, the macabre, and the obscure from around the globe.” These two travel a lot, and bring things back — stories, objects, ideas, what have you. Michelle laughingly points out that she’d like to open her own natural history museum someday…which seems ridiculous until you remember that the first museum in England that was open to the public was a house full of curiosities called The Ark and created by Charles I’s gardener.


I picked up few titles of posts like:

- Museums of Lost Wonder and Mummy Madness
- Museé Mécanique: Where History Lives
- Museums of Lost Wonder and Mummy Madness


Related posts or links:

- 'Mapping the marvelous'

- Diary of a Mad Natural Historian

- 'Cabinet of Wonders'

- 'Extraordinary places' A blog about travel, history, word and phrase origins, curious customs, superstitions, and folklore.

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