A Little House for a New House

I had lunch with my Mom the weekend after Mother's Day weekend. It was just too crazy with graduation stuff. I made some home made wrapping paper. Had some fun with home made stencils and some stamps and then I took the little wooden house that I made and wrapped it up with bling because my mother loves bling. I think the gold ribbon looks awesome with the colors in the wrapping paper. I hadn't realized how long ago I had made these little wooden houses which you can see here. I actually used one of these and one of these I was pretty tickled with myself. At one time I had posted them in my once upon a time Etsy shop and they have since sat in a box waiting for good homes. Not only does Mom like bling she really loves art with buildings and houses etc and since she is moving to a new house pretty soon I thought this would be nice to hang in her new home. She loved it!! Thanks for stopping by.

Loose Pages

I have a lot of art done on loose pages over the years, mostly on cardstock. I wanted at some point to purchase a binding machine but have not yet made a decision which one. I happened to be at Kinkos one day and was reminded that they bind things into a spiral journal. They charge by the thickness of the paper. So, for under $10.00 I had 18 loose pages counting the front and back cover (which they provided) bound in to an instant journal. Here are few of the pages. The nice man at KInkos was confused as to why some of the page were left blank. I told him those pages would eventually be filled up. I took it home and decorated the front and back covers. I know there are way more "cooler" ways to book bind, it takes time, patience and practice, which I don't always have, this seemed to work for an instant journal for not much money. I can pick it up and work on it as I feel like it. Next time I will take some smaller pages and see how that works with a smaller size journal. Thanks for stopping by.

You Gotta Catch it When (and where) You Can.

A day or so ago I was talking with a patient at work about the weather changes. I said I hadn't remembered such a fluctuation in temperatures in a given day or maybe I was just a bit more aware of it now that I was in the midst of such fluctuation with my own power surges. He grinned and said he had kept a journal for about 40 yrs and the first thing he did each day was document the weather. This opened up the door for a brief conversation about art journaling and how I felt better starting my day with "Morning Pages" and art. I said, "You gotta catch it when you can," meaning there were not enough hours in my work day for me to create so I took advantage of my need to get to work an hour before I started in order to get a parking spot - hence art in the car. He thought that was pretty cool. And so I am slowly filling this little tranformed Dollar Store day timer. I covered it with some marbleized paper that I had made earlier in the year and the first thing I do is document the weather at that moment and what might be forecast. The book is small enough to work in on my lap and my art bag has glue sticks,some markers and pens, a few big zip lock baggies full of torn paper for collaging, my water color crayons and a water color brush. I have to remember once again to take the crayons out of the car on the days it's going to be hot. I tend to remind myself that I have certain appointments or that I need to do something like pick up insulin for the dog. It's kind of cool to see this little book grow. I started another page by gluing down this altered dictionary page in to the book and I knew I wanted to do some more. (I knew there was a reason I was telling you this) I tore out a bunch of dictionary pages and went to town. So now I have a bunch of paper to use in this little document your life in the car journal. It's really quite simple. You gotta catch it when you can. I hope you have a great weekend. I haven't been to the party in a few weeks so I am headed to where there's a lot of good stuff going on. Thanks for visiting.

Coming Down

I feel as if I'm coming down off a high from a really great weekend with my daughter, Liza's college graduation, and seeing her twin brother who came up from Harlem, NYC. It was the kind of high that kept me going as far as getting up in the morning and going to work and now I'm coming down. I'm off tomorrow so that's a good thing. Before I got involved in helping my daughter decorate her graduation hat and my making her a crown I had played around with making some stencils with a hot glue gun. It was trial and error. Some of them turned out pretty sturdy but some were not thick enough and ripped when I peeled them off the glass. But I did have some fun with them. I like the "organic ness" of these prints. Thanks for stopping by.

She Wears the Crown

My daughter Eliza graduated from college this last Saturday. On Friday afternoon she came to me wanting my help in decorating her hat for the ceremony. Little did I know that was a very big deal these days to have decorated your own cap. So, we did. We sketched out a dream catcher with white pen and filled in the circle with purple glitter (of course) and then hot glued ribbons, feathers and "bling." Lots of bling. And then she graduated. And her very short mother didn't get very many good pictures being so short......... but she felt very proud. The day was hot. The graduation hat and gown came off and she wore the crown imageanchor="1" > That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thanks for visiting.

Grungy, Messy and Mysterious

I don't like to show unfinished pieces but I'm finding I am doing it more often. Because I have ADD where art is concerned, I have a bazillion different things in progress. I mean I have a lot of canvases that I've set aside for years. Do you do that? How do you feel about sharing something that's not finished? I came across Roxanne Coble's work before I knew she was a guest teacher at 21 Secrets. I found I was drawn to her style. She suggested to us to work in areas. I call it little fragments. The pages seem fragmented yet they're not. In the end they all blend into one. It's almost as if each section of the piece tells a story and the story is in your imagination. I dunno. I find her work grungy, messy, and mysterious all at once and I like that. These couple of pieces are based on or inspired by Roxanne Coble's art journaling process. They don't feel or look finished to me. Maybe I'll return to show you what they look like when I feel they are. Roxanne Coble's process is altering a book to use as her art journal. I like that idea. I also like the idea that what's on the pages that are being altered often are the inspiration to what follows. With mine, I left certain images because they took me in another direction. They took me to the next fragment. I also like that there is no use of someone else's stencils or stamps. Mark making was all by the artist's hand. That's refreshing to me. I had an old sort of periodical magazine. Not hard cover but the pages are thicker than a normal magazine. I chose to add some of my vintage family photos. I am reminded by Roxanne saying how long it sometimes takes her to finish a page as there are so many layers, so she has many pages going on at the same time. And I agree, it's kind of cool to have a bunch of backgrounds laid down and then you come back to it for the final doodling phase. So, here are a couple of unfinished pages inspired by her workshop Fragments and Mysteries.

Artistic Embroidery

Because of my nearly one month absence due to my MIA computer and then more computer issues, I have not been able to share with you some of my work inspired by the latest 21 Secrets workshop. I have thoroughly enjoyed Paivi Eerola's Artistic Embroidery with Pens and Paper. Seriously, I find this gal's work pretty amazing, not to mention her very interesting background. I found her website full of "eye candy," and found myself pretty inspired to use my colored pencils and listen to music more when creating. Here is my take on her offering. Here's a few close ups. My intention was to show you the steps leading up to this point but I quickly forgot to photograph after the first three pictures. I forgot to mention that Paivi works with water colors and the way in which she uses them is unique, like throwing color down and then using pens and color pencils to doodle. This is how my background paper started out. The shapes were then embellished with doodles and color and then cut out and then glued down on a dark background. Learning water color has never been on the top of my list, but using it in this manner was really fun. Embellishing, coloring, doodling, cutting and pasting..... what could be more fun?!! Thanks for stopping by.......

Finally

I am up and running again thanks to the Geeksquad who came to my home and sorted out a bunch of computer issues for me this afternoon. It was a month ago that my visually impaired, geriatric dog, Buddy, bumped into the computer desk, knocking it over and cracking the screen, thereby my having to purchase a new computer, which I was none too overjoyed about. While they had transferred my data from the old to new, this was not the same program I was used to using in order to upload photos, edit and some other things. "Agent Jordan" was very helpful in resolving these issues as well as sharing other tidbits of computer knowledge which I greatly appreciated. Needless to say, I feel sooooooo much better. Today I am keeping it light, just showing you a couple of unfinished journal pages. I have been wanting to incorporate some vintage photos in to my work, and what better way than to use some personal family photos. . THe background of the first one was done with INktense blocks, gesso, and my own torn papers, and the second one is using the same as well as torn paper from a magazine image. These two girls were sisters. While I cannot remember the exact story, I know that one of them died in childhood. And the last one was just playing around withe inktense blocks, gesso, torn paper and some doodling. I rather like it. Of the art supplies I have ever bought I cannot say enough about these inktense blocks. The colors are luciously brilliant. I am thoroughly enjoying my new studio space, hopping from end of it to another. I still don't have it all organized, but I know that will happen when I can stop creating long enough to do it. I should have done that when I had all this computer trouble, but it was a lot more fun to come home after a stressful work day to throw some paint down rather than organize. I have lots more to share with you in the coming days. I hope you are well. Thanks for visiting.