Amalgamation

While it took longer than I thought, the January edition is out now! I am incredibly proud of it. While I didn’t include every page of the art piece, pictured above are the majority of the pages from this edition!

To set the stage, here is my “Letter from the Editor”, also pictured above.

“A letter to readers,

Whoever you are – fellow crafter, a curious mind, my parents (hi!), or just someone with some eyeballs, I would like to formally introduce you to Amalgamations, a magazine or a scrapbook or a blog or a mindset, who’s to say really.

This January edition had no real initial form, but snowballed from a few gift tags, a crossword, and a blank Christmas card into a whole magazine, complete with staff page and table of contents. This edition truly turned into a way for me to get back to my roots. As someone who used to serve on a magazine staff and hasn’t for a couple years now, it was a blast putting this together.

This edition, cover to cover, is compiled entirely of found things. Even the base of it I made out of old paper bags, notebook paper, newspaper, and embroidery floss. It has poems, word searches, scrap fabric, paint swatches, and more. My personal art style for the last few years has been collages, be it in a scrapbook or on my bedroom wall (and subsequently the background of my phone). What started as spicing the photos on my wall up with a few paint swatches and fortune cookie fortunes to add some variety and depth grew into collage art journals and has now transformed into this incredible project that really knows no bounds.

Being the (self-appointed) Editor in Chief of (a made-up magazine) Amalgamations is mind boggling. This project is something I’ve been dreaming of and mentally planning for over a year now, and for it be real now is surreal.

I’m so proud of this edition and can’t wait for you all to enjoy it too.

Keep pushing boundaries,

Lacey

Editor in Chief”

I waffled for a bit on how to organize this post (it was harder than I thought it would be for some reason??), and I decided that I would give a run-through of the magazine and wander into tangents potentially as I go.

The base of the magazine was quite fun to make. As I said in my Letter from the Editor, I made it myself. And here we land on my first tangent. I truly believe in making art/being creative as accessible as possible. The paper bags I got my groceries in, the notebook pages are from my school days or journals that were gifted to me, paint swatches I got for free from a number of hardware stores in my area, newspapers I got for free around my city, and the festive paper bits I either had in the form of wrapping paper or I got in the form of gift bags from my local thrift store for a separate art project. Art can be made from anything, by anyone, from anywhere. And you can do anything you set your mind to. And on a similar vein, creativity is a muscle. I don’t believe in the idea that people either are or aren’t creative. I do believe that people who practice creativity have an easier go of it, as well as people have different areas that they might be more inclined to, but anyone can practice creativity if they want to. You can do anything you set your mind to. Alright, tangent over.

Throughout this process, I was often reminded of a video on YouTube that I found in my youth, which, now that I think about it, might have been more transformative than I realized haha. The video is from the creator Jennibellie, who makes all sorts of videos on how to make art journals and fill art journals, and the specific video is “How to Make 100% recycled Art Journal from Cereal Boxes” (https://youtu.be/Ec04rVh0ndU?si=SrbGiDoFuiPyXs4z). She also has a video on how to make a journal out of paper towels used during painting projects. I have in fact made one for myself directly inspired by that video, and perhaps that will make an appearance in later months of this project, perhaps the spring or summer time of year. She has a video on a greeting card journal as well, along with videos on how to make smaller crafty objects like paper flowers, paper beads, ornaments, wax seals, etc. Her videos are all about using what you have around you, so it’s no wonder that I appreciate her content so much. So, if you like what I’m doing with this project, I would check her out too!

You might notice that, even though this is January, there is a lot of Christmas happening in this magazine. That was on purpose. It takes me a long time to get out of the Christmas season (potentially because I tend to have a considerably higher number of get togethers than most people I know), and I wanted this edition to reflect that. Especially being the first edition and not having a chance to get the Christmas out in a December edition before this, I used a little artistic license and mashed em together this month.

On the note of Christmas – I truly will be figuring out this project as I go, particularly formatting, I do want to have some continuity throughout our time. So, I think I’d like to have a fun cliche ice breaker question every month. So, since I am in fact still in the Christmas spirit (or at least I was when I planned this haha): if you were a cutout cookie shape, what cookie shape would you be? You’re more than welcome to divulge why, but certainly aren’t required to!

To touch a little more on specific bits and pieces, word searches kept coming up in conversation throughout my holiday season, so I included a couple of my own in this edition. They were surprisingly quite fun to make; it was kind of like putting a puzzle together. If you couldn’t tell already, I like creating or figuring out complicated things lol.

I included fabric scraps throughout this edition as well. Most of the fabric I have was either handed down to me or I found at the Goodwill bins (I did recently purge my stash of scrap fabric, since none of the projects I had planned were ever going to come to fruition and they became something I kept moving with that no longer served any purpose. Yay for decluttering – the objects you keep around you take a mental and emotional toll, whether or not you realize it)(I realize how funny this sounds coming from someone who pulls things out of her recycling bin and keeps little bits and pieces, like candy wrappers, to use in silly little art projects). Anyways, the pieces that I used were leftover scraps from Christmas presents that I made this year. I am a big fan of not only intentional Christmas gifts but homemade Christmas gifts. It’s taken me a long time to feel like the gifts I make are of enough quality where I don’t feel bad for that being my gift (being a broke college student is fun I swear), but homemade and intentional gifts are so special, and I try and give them (and promote them) as often as I can. Okay, tangent over.

So yeah! That’s all my bits and pieces of thoughts on this edition! This really ended up being a study on mixed media. Also, I wanted to include a little bit of info on mixed media, what it is, and a little history on it (I haven’t fact checked a thing, so take it with a grain of salt perhaps, but it looks like some cool info if you’d like to check it out!) Mixed Media: Combining Materials and Techniques | RMCAD. I love the idea of making new art out of found things and how everything has a purpose but potentially a changing purpose.

I wanted to include some found poetry (taking lines or phrases from various other poems to create your own new poem) or blackout poetry (crossing out various words or chunks of a poem to create a new poem out of the original) in this edition but did not have the time. I recommend you give it a try if you never have before! Or even if you have. It’s a fun experiment and really helpful to get you out of a writing rut if you’re in one.

Okay, for real this time, that was all my bits and pieces of thoughts on this edition. If you couldn’t tell, I’m from the Midwest and therefore don’t know what a quick goodbye is.

Thanks always, keep pushing boundaries,

Lacey