Ask for Peace

........... doodling tea light candles................ and ..............and wood burning on wooden boxes (lids)............... and mail art before it went out.............. I have made an incredible amount of art in a year's time considering that I work a full time job. I want to say thank you for supporting me and for taking the time to leave comments. Comments are so appreciated for those of us who brave putting ourselves out there. Of course, I wish for all to enjoy the holidays in whatever manner you do, but most of all, I wish you peace................... xoxoxo........ See you in the new year..............Jo

Mail Art

Isn't it amazing how many pieces of mail art you can get from one piece of paper? Are you still decorating or making holiday art? I cannot seem to stop. Thanks for visiting..............jo

Wish Upon A Star.

All those days playing with the gelli plate turned in to something good.. Cut in strips and glued down to water color paper. So they could become stars and houses and hearts. And then there's always mail art. I love how playing can turn into so much more playing.........Remember my little wooden houses I've been showing you in several of my posts? I have posted them in my Etsy shop. It would be nice to send them to someone to hang on their wall. You can see them to the right..xoxoxo....jo

Making My Own Ornaments

I am using my art to make some ornaments this year. I wish I had started in July. You can do a lot with those clear plastic ornament balls. So, I will show you over the next couple of days what I've done with some of them. Here's the first one. Do you notice how the ball looks a wee bit warped? Oops! I didn't know a heat gun would get hot enough to do that. I could probably have changed the entire shape of this had I kept going. And did you notice the face that appeared in the second photo on the right side? I gessoed it first, because you need a "tooth" for the paint to stick on with these glossy orbs. Then started fooling around with different paints, and couldn't wait for it to dry. Hence the heat gun. Then added my little tree doodles. Have you made some ornaments or decorations this year? Tomorrow I'll show you some more. The last time I posted it was ridiculously warm, in the high 60's and I was wishing for some "normal" December weather. I did get some freezing rain, no snow, but was grateful for not having any power outages.It rained enough that my backyard is a swamp land. This morning I went out to start my car and it was 23 degrees. It feel like December. Thanks for stopping by.............. jo

This Weather is Ridiculous

I don't know where you are in the world but here in Virginia it has been nearly 60 degrees for the last several days and headed for 70 tomorrow. Having lived most of my life in the North I want it to be cold this time of year. I want frost and snowflakes. I want December weather to be December weather. Right now I have a couple of windows open and my flip flops on. Maybe that's why I needed to do this. Not having any specific paint markers for glassware etc in the house, I just experimented with sharpie fine point markers. Maybe by the time I fill the plate with snowflakes the weather will return to normal, what ever that is. I'm glad you stopped in....................x0x0 jo

Happy Lights

Some of you may remember those little candles with the tissue paper our kids made in school. They usually came home the last day of school before the Christmas break. I decided to make some of my own. Here are some beginnings. I found it a bit tricky as tissue paper is so delicate and I did tear a couple of tiny holes in it as I was trying to lay the paper down so carefully on a mod podged surface. I was delighted to find some glass ware at the thrift store for a couple of dollars and today was gifted 3 cases of mason jars. How great is that! And how cool they look with a tea light candle in them! There's no end to what you could do as far as designs. I love houses and city scenes so that's what I started with. If I still had a fireplace I would have tons of them on the mantle. Maybe next year I'll remember to start making these in the summer time....... Thanks for stopping by.................xoxoxo Jo. I am headed over to "Aimee's place" because it's Glue It Tuesday and there's a lot of fun and good stuff happening over there.

Got Happy.

Since I last blogged I've been so busy making art I haven't stopped to post what I've made. I often wonder what happens if people just forget about you when you've been gone for so many days, and I didn't want that to happen. Here I am hoping to show you in bits and pieces this week some of what I've been up to. I took an ordinary composition notebook. You know the kind. We've all used them at least once or twice during our school years. And you know how they come in all kinds of colors and patterns now, not just black and white as they did when I was in school. And then I got happy. Wow! I would have loved to have a composition notebook like this when I was growing up. I think it would have been called a designer notebook at that time and we probably could not have afforded it. And then I got happier with what I had laying around the house. A cheapo clip board from The Dollar Store. And this....... and ordinary small clip board. So, I can talk to the home decor angel, right? Here are some closeups. What do you think? I've more to show you in the coming days. Thanks for visiting here........................and as always, thank you for taking the time to comment. ......................xoxo Jo

One Dollar

I hope you had a good weekend. A creative weekend. I spent a good amount of time playing. I started with this ****************Painted them.************They became this. I might add some wings to the backs of them. I might see how they look slid over a red candle. I can see them on a mantle or on a Christmas tree. I also finished the front and back covers of my children's board book from The Dollar Store which I've been showing you the last several posts. Tell me what you think? You can view the other pages in previous posts. At least I can say I have finished something. Yay!! One last thing. I was delighted to view Balzer Designs post on Friday to find Julie had "featured" one of the pages of my Dollar Store book on her website for her Art Journal Everyday. Caught me by surprise.......... Thanks for visiting. Do come again....................jo

Just Playing Around

There's so many layers on this page- I left the page alone for awhile and came back to it. I don't remember the order of things. I just know I kept adding layer upon layer, until I reached for the butterscotch spray ink. Then I knew it was finished. I love that warm glow of butterscotch spray ink. I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. What do you think? I hope you had a good weekend. Thanks for stopping in. I appreciate your comments...............jo

The Balcony Scene

Today is my birthday. I won't tell you which birthday it is. I share my birthday with my "womb mate" twin brother, John. Last year you may recall seeing the birthday card I made him. My twin brother decided in his 50th yr he wanted to become a police officer. And I'm not sure but I think we both hated the bologna sandwiches in our lunches growing up which is where the idea for that card came from. This year I made an envelope out of a copy of one of my art papers. I enclosed a print of another piece of my work. I mailed it on Saturday and he still has not received it. I told him that was not cool and it was my feeling that perhaps someone really liked the envelope and wanted to keep it for themselves and that he should perhaps arrest them......... hopefully it will arrive tomorrow.....Here we are performing the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet.................. Thanks for visiting............Jo

Letting Go

Letting go may be shaded in sorrow but it is lit by strength. ~Quinn McDonald The remaining page that I haven't shown you in altered children's board book from The Dollar Store. Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist who's blog I frequently visit. For some strange reason on those days I find her words often resonate with what is going on in my life at that moment, or on that day. I am working on the front and back covers of this one dollar book. I'll show them later. Thanks for stopping by.....Jo

Responsibility

Here is another page in the altered book- a children's board book from The Dollar Store. I did the background on the gelli plate. The face is cut out from my- faces -on -top- of- morning- pages -writing. The torn paper is from copies of my own art. I used sharpie paint markers, gel pens, acrylic paint and gesso to complete it. I hope you had a good weekend and that you took some time for yourself to be creative. I am glad to see the leaves here finally in full color. Thanks for popping in and thanks for all your comments. Please visit again..........................jo ************************************************** I am linking this to Carolyn Dube's November Gelli print party.

Grow Your Garden

Back in June I took the train to Pennsylvania and visited my "bestest buddy," Patty. Patty and I have a history, spanning at least thirty years of friendship. Patty and I met as college room mates. Patty, I have learned over the years is a wonderful gardener. I have watched her garden grow through out the years and whenever I'd visit she'd always have something new to show me. This last time I looked at her garden with new eyes. I took so many pictures because I wanted to draw, sketch, paint her garden. And while she is awesomely creative in many areas, a wonderful water color artist, her garden has been her canvas for a good long while. I am amazed. I do not remember the names of these plants, flowers. Perhaps I should have taken a notebook with me on the tour. Here are a few pictures I took from Patty's garden. It occurred to me that I was working on this Dollar Store board book while on the train to visit her and also at her house. I showed you a peek of a page yesterday because I hadn't decided what I wanted to write on it. I figured it out. Sorry about the green grid underneath the photo. I didn't have enough natural light left by the time I took the photo. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a creative weekend........................jo I am linking to Aimee's Glue It Tuesday Carolyn Dube's November Gelli Print Party and Balzer Designs Art Journal Every Day.