Recently a new family moved in several houses down, including two daughters. My girls were so excited ... new kids to play with! Well, they met the girls the other day ... a few minutes talking, and next thing I know, my 6 yo comes to me, crying. Turns out, these girls are calling my girls "stupid" every time they ride by on their bikes. If you're a parent, I'm sure you can imagine the anger ... no, the rage that welled up in me. When my 9 yo rode by, I stopped her and asked her take on the situation. She didn't know why they were doing it either. No tears, but I could tell it really upset her. I was so tempted to march down there and wring their little necks ... not a very Christian response, but there it is.
My girls still wanted to ride their bikes, so I told them to stay on our end of the block. But they kept riding their usual route, and so I got to actually witness them making snide remarks as my 6 yo rode by. I stepped to the middle of the sidewalk and glared at them, but I felt helpless ... what should I do? March down and yell at them? Tell my girls to stay close to home? Let them work it out amongst themselves? I want to be a good example to my girls about how to deal with others ... but in this situation, what does that look like? Well, I decided to wait and see what would happen next. And every time one of my girls was going by them, I walked to the middle of the sidewalk and watched them. The other girls obviously saw me, because they kept looking at me and then looking away, trying to pretend they didn't see me.
When it was time to go in for dinner, my girls were standing in front of their house, talking to them. A good sign? Not sure ... so instead of just calling them to come for dinner, I walked down to get them. When I got close, I asked the older girl her name, then asked her why she was calling my kids "stupid". She denied it at first, but when I told her I had heard her, she said something like, "Well, they said they wouldn't come in my house to play." Hello?! We don't know you!! My girls know they are not allowed in anyone's house when we don't know the parents very well. I don't remember everything I said, but I tried to be calm (my girls were watching me with eagle eyes after all). I told them my girls were not allowed to play at their
house, but that they were welcome (with their parents' permission) to come play in our yard ... but only if they played nice. They would be sent home immediately if the name calling started again. (I must confess, I dread that first day when they show up to play ... luckily it's been rainy since then, so I haven't had to deal with it ... am I pathetic or what?)
This whole incident bugged me for the rest of the day and into the night (memories from my own childhood surfacing here). The next morning, I did this page in my journal.
As you can see, there's a little bit of room for some more plants, but we haven't decided yet what to plant there. When we do finally decide, I'll add that info to the chart. And I'm leaving the lower right corner blank so that in the fall, I can make note of what grew well and what didn't. That's always good to know when choosing plants the next year LOL!
Stay tuned for part 2 of "My Garden" ....
We are studying the fruit of the Spirit at church right now, so I chose plants that have those meanings. This was the work-in-progress spread that ended up with splotches on it from the inkjet transfer mishap. I'm not all that crazy about the blue background ... if it weren't for the fact that I needed to try to camouflage the splotches, I probably would've left the sky plain. It's a bit too busy. But overall, I'm pretty happy with it. Now to move on to another page ...
Thanks, Mitch! Love ya!
Then on the backside of the right page, there were five big pink splotches ... since there was nothing else on the page yet, I thought maybe I'd cover it up with collage or paint. But Sunday we were at my in-laws' house and everyone was gathered in the family room doing various things. I wanted to sketch in my journal, but I was also thinking about this ruined page. While looking around the room, I noticed my mil and one of my girls doing a puzzle. And that got me thinking ... we LOVE puzzles! I could draw puzzle pieces around the splotches, color them in, and journal about this love. So I did ... I sketched the puzzle pieces in, then the next day I colored them and journaled. Another fix, and a great page, to boot. Can't beat that!
I'm still working on the backside of the left page ... that has a few splotches, too, but was on a work in progress. I've got some ideas, but it'll be a little while ... will post it when it's finally done!
Then this morning I attempted to do some inkjet transfers based on this video. I did not have the same success, but I learned a few things. First, do not choose "photo" under the ink quality ... normal would've been fine. Second, make sure your spray bottle shoots a very fine mist. And third, if possible, use pigment ink, not dye ink. As you can see, the ink ran and left pools of pink at the corners. That wouldn't have been so bad, but it bled through to the back of the pages, too. In fact, on the left side, it bled through not only that page, but the next page, too. Actually it was the shoe page above ... luckily, I hadn't finished the watercolor on the shoe, so I was able to cover it up pretty well. Can you tell?
Next time I will use what I learned to do it a little differently ... hopefully with much better results. It was fun to play, though ... that's what art journaling is all about ... playing! Now I get to play with the page that's still in progress and now has pink splotches all over ... who doesn't love a challenge!
Since taking that online art journal class, I have really enjoyed working in my art journal again! I think I was focusing too much on the art side instead of the journaling side. I'm more comfortable with words than pictures, and I've been learning that it's better for me
to decide what I want to journal about, then make art that complements the words. Not that I still won't occasionally do art on a page just because, and then journal randomly on it later ... gotta mix it up a bit sometimes LOL! It's just nice to learn something about yourself, and then be okay with it (even embrace it). These are my pages from the past three days.
Yesterday the girls and I went with some other homeschooling families to a CYT performance called "Seussical Jr.", a musical that combined various stories and characters from Dr. Seuss' lovable books. I sketched the scenery, partly during the play (which was kind of hard because it was so dark in the theater) and partly from memory later.
I think that says it all, don't you?
Another great feature of the class is that at the end, Jessica provides a link for a Yahoo group for "graduates" where they can continue to share pages. The participants of this exclusive group also challenge each other with fun prompts. I did one recently that I will show you later. It's one of my favorite pages to date!
house, but that they were welcome (with their parents' permission) to come play in our yard ... but only if they played nice. They would be sent home immediately if the name calling started again. (I must confess, I dread that first day when they show up to play ... luckily it's been rainy since then, so I haven't had to deal with it ... am I pathetic or what?)
postcards that you find falling out of magazines (the business reply envelopes in your everyday junk mail would work, too)
and turn it into a piece of artwork. Only rule is that you can't obliterate the markings on the card/envelope ... instead you try to incorporate it into the artwork. Some of the artwork is simply fabulous! I've done these 3 so far (you can also see them here). And lucky me 
(though not lucky for my sick dd), we went to the doctor's office the other day ... jackpot! Got almost a dozen cards to work on.
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