Up in smoke

I just joined another Yahoo group about art journaling ... this one's called ATCA Art Journals. I have no idea what the ATCA stands for, but that's okay. I can still play LOL! They post a theme each week for the members to make a journal page about. This is week #19 and the theme is "up in smoke". Here's what I came up with:While I wait for next week's theme, I just might go back and work on some of the past themes. I've already got an idea for week #14 "definitions" ....

Outside my window ...

The current journal prompt at Inspire Me Thursday is "outside my window..." I started out by painting the background with shades of brown and green because those 2 colors are very dominant outside my window LOL! Then I added a few touches of pigment ink (pounced through some punchinella), using colors that I also see outside ... like dark red for the mulch around our plants, blue-violet for the lobelia, yellow for the swings on the swingset. Then I added the journaling with a Pitt pen. In case you can't read them, here's what's outside my window:

neighbors waving
fog rolling
flowers blooming
birds singing
steaks grilling
sun setting
rain pouring
squirrels chasing
children playing
grass growing
wind blowing
vegetables ripening
weeds multiplying

You can see out others' windows here.

Roots

This week's creative theme at Inspire Me Thursday is "roots". I got an idea right away, but as I started painting the background, another thought came to me. So I went with it. I'm glad I did ... I really like how it turned out! The background and trees are acrylic paint and the writing is done with a Sharpie paint pen. The texture in the water at the top was from pressing a paper towel into the paint and then removing it. Love it!

You can see other interpretations here.

And another one ...

This page started out as journaling about homeschooling and turned into a prayer:

More art journal pages

Maybe I am on a roll! First I worked on this hair style page ... I've been searching for a long time for the perfect haircut, but trying to describe what I want to a stylist just doesn't work too often. And it seems that when I finally get a stylist that understands, I never see her again. Ah, such is the life of a cheapskate ... I suppose I wouldn't have quite this much trouble if I went to the same stylist every time at a fancy-schmancy salon, but until I win the lottery, that just ain't happenin' LOL! So my sister suggested I get some hairstyle magazines at the drugstore and use them to get a real "picture" of what I'm looking for. I didn't even realize there were such magazines! I thought they only had those huge books that you find in the salon waiting area. So, hey, I learned something new ... always a good thing! Anyways, I started out just turning down the corners of the pages as I found ones I liked, but then realized it would be more helpful to be able to see all of them at once. So a journal page was born! In this second picture, you can see what I did when there were 2 cuts I liked that were back-to-back.Btw, it worked very well! I made this page just after lunch, then took it over to the place I usually go to and when I showed the stylist, she was very happy. She said, "Perfect! We love pictures!" I'm very happy with my new cut. Wish me luck as I try to style it myself tomorrow LOL!

Tonight I worked on this gardening page. I had done the left page last year to map out our garden, and today I journaled on the right about how it had done. I guess I just wanted to prepare myself for this year's garden adventure LOL! Which reminds me ... I need to map out the new garden layout!

The daily routine

This last week's journal prompt at Inspire Me Thursday was to describe a typical daily routine. I don't really have much of a daily routine, so I wasn't sure quite how to respond until I saw Deb's journal page. She inspired me to just look at the things I do practically every day without worrying about what order I do them. When I approached it that way, it came much more easily LOL! Here's my response to the prompt:The background is watercolor crayon that was smooshed with a babywipe. I collaged with magazine clippings and added some color with more watercolor crayons, then journaled with Pitt pens (love these pens!) In case you can't read it all, here's what I wrote:

The DAILY routine ... it never ends ...
Keeping an eye on the girls.
rush, rush ... gotta do those errands
always more dishes to wash
LAUNDRY! would these fancy things make it easier?
create something!
don't forget to homeschool!
did I remember to? [water the garden]
mmm...
thinking [treats] while doing [exercise]
feel the burn!
What's for ...
breakfast?
lunch?
DINNER?
will they eat it?
do we have enough $?
clean something NOW

You can others' routines here.

More art journal pages

A couple weeks ago, I tried my hand at making some stamps with foam meat trays. After trying out the stamps on scraps of paper, I cut them out and glued them into my journal for future reference. They were really fun and easy!More recently, I did this page about my love of reading. It took me several days to think about my favorite authors for the right side LOL!

Back to my art journal

For some reason, I was in a bit of a slump with my art journal ... I kept pulling it out and thumbing through it, but just couldn't seem to get in the mood to actually do any journaling. I had ideas in my head to write about, but I was paralyzed at the thought of actually marking up any of the pages. Was it my perfectionist side rearing it's ugly head? Was it fear that what I wanted to say was too trivial? What? I don't know, but I was getting very frustrated. I kept reading ABOUT art journaling, but not DOING any ... ugh! But recently I discovered Inspire Me Thursday. It's a neat blog that inspires you to think and create art. I spent a few days checking out the archives, while thinking about the prompts for last week ... circles and dreams. And then Donna Downey posted about her new Art Journaling 101 online class. I immediately signed up ... and I'm so glad I did! I had a few ideas from all that thinking about circles and such, and her class gave me some ideas on how to actually put those ideas on paper. So yesterday I sat down and did this page:Too fun! The background was done with watercolor crayon, using a babywipe to smear it. Then I added the fruit stickers and journaled around them with a Pitt pen and used watercolor crayons to embellish the journaling.

Next, I carved my very first wine cork stamp to make the shape of the blocks we used to border a flower bed in the front yard, and used it on a page to journal about what we did to that bed:More circles LOL! This background was done with torn bits of masking tape and acrylic paint. (I'm so happy with how this page turned out! When I did the background a couple months ago, I really didn't like it at all ... the color was so weird. But it works well for this gardening page ... now I love it!) The stamping is also done with acrylic paint.

And finally, I got up the courage to mark up this page:Oh, hey, I just noticed ... another circle LOL! I actually had done the collage stuff months ago and just loved it, but then I didn't know how I wanted to journal on it. But I finally just let myself write and write. It's not perfect, but I'm glad it's done. I love doing the journaling this way ... so much more fun than my own boring handwriting!

So, am I on a roll? Well, we'll see ...

If you want to see some more circles, check here.

My new bag

I've been crocheting this bag for a few months now and it is finally done ... yay! It's called "Blooming Granny Squares" and I got the pattern out of this book. The only problem I had was finding handles for it ... I couldn't find the kind the pattern called for at any local stores and I didn't want to pay shipping on just one little thing. I finally had to settle for the round ones. Took a little creative maneuvering to get them to fit, but that's okay ... it's done! Now it's filled with my next crochet projects ... totes for my girls' dance class stuff. They're getting this bag done in yarn they chose. Hope I'll be showing you pics of them soon LOL!

Close-ups are below.

A baby quilt

I've been so focused for the past few months on trying to organize my studio that I haven't had time to do any actual sewing. Of course, it doesn't help that my plans keep changing as I try to fit several types of craft and art into it LOL! But a couple months ago at a quilt guild meeting, a lady had brought several "kits" for baby quilts to be donated and I thought that'd be a great way to get me focused on clearing off my new sewing table and really giving it a spin. The kit included the front and back fabrics and a piece of batting. The lady just wanted them to be quilted and bound, no need to do more, but if you wanted to get creative, go for it ... can't beat those rules! I chose one that had a cute blue sky/cloud fabric with little purple, yellow and pink stars. When I got it home, I opened it to find that the other fabric was a simple white-on-white with stars. After a little thought (which I had plenty of time for, since I had a ton of stuff to clear off the sewing table before I could even start LOL!), I decided to make the sky/cloud fabric the back instead of the front, and have fun on the white-on-white side. Here's the result:

More art journal pages

While taking pictures of the Florida pages, I realized I had a couple random pages in there that I hadn't shared yet, so I snapped their pics, too.

Florida gluebook pages

My family went to Florida to visit family in February ... we are blessed to have family on both coasts so we get to see the ocean and the gulf ... love it! I brought along my art journal and did gluebook pages of the bits of ephemera I picked up along the way to document our trip (as you can see, most of the stuff centers around food ... hmmm ...)

Calendar journal -- February

I went a different route for February ... I didn't use any Post-it notes to mask the squares before doing the background. Instead, I did the background, then drew a grid with a Sharpie. While I liked the slightly bigger squares for journaling, I found, as the month went on, that I didn't have much room for the little bits of embellishment ... guess I can't have both LOL! The background is done with Sharpies used in a blow-pen contraption.

French fries that are totally not fattening

Finally, something yummy that won't increase my waistline LOL! I found the pattern for this French fry container on the Fairies with 'Tude blog and just had to make one for my mom to celebrate her 60th birthday. The best part was that I got to deliver it to her in person last week! (She's in Florida so I don't get to see her as often as I'd like.)

For the box, I created my own paper by tearing scraps of different black and white printed papers and such and gluing them to a piece of freezer paper, overlapping as I went (I used Modge Podge). Then I painted an acrylic colorwash of yellow. Next, I stamped some images onto a thin paper napkin and randomly glued them on top of the paper. Then added two more colorwashes of purple and deep red ... love the antique look I ended up with! The flower is a fabric pin that I colored the petals with watercolor crayons. The inserts are cardstock that I balled up and then smoothed out, stamped with brown ink and then rubbed brown chalk over. Then I glued the images, words and flowers (with a bead in the center of each flower) to both sides of the inserts. Too fun!

Red, red, red ...

Dawn posted a challenge to the CompositionArtJournals group over the weekend to do a grid page. At first I wasn't planning to join in, but, as I usually do, I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and this morning I finally had to just do it. Besides, I had this spread already painted in black and hadn't yet come up with something to do to it, so it worked out perfectly. I decided to thumb through a couple magazines and pick out as many red things that caught my eye. My daughter had fun helping me with that part! In fact, she added to it by coloring on a scrap of paper with a red crayon ... it's the one in the bottom row, third from the right ... love it! After gluing the squares down, I doodled with a metallic marker ... very simple, but I think it added just the right touch. This was such a fun thing to do! I just might try it again someday ... maybe a different color, or a certain shape or ... well, who knows! Thanks, Dawn, for the challenge!

Calendar journal -- January

This one was okay, but a bit darker than I was trying for. That's what happens when I don't dilute the acrylics.Background done with acrylics, boxes outlined with silver marking pencil (the kind usually used for quilting!), title and snowflakes are metallic marker.

Weekend fun

We spent Sunday night at a nearby Sheraton that has a new waterpark ... too fun! This is the page I put together about it.

Calendar journal -- December

Background is watercolor pencil, squares are acrylic paint, "December 2006" is Sharpies, and the red words are pre-inked stamps.

A Crocheted Christmas

Oh, boy, it's been awhile since I've blogged, hasn't it? I didn't post much in December because everything I was working on was for Christmas gifts LOL! But now that the gifts have been opened and life is finally settling back into a routine, I can finally share some pics.

This fall, I picked up my crochet hooks again (thanks to my friend Dana's encouragement ... it gave us something constructive to do while our girls were in dance class together). I'd forgotten how fun and soothing it is to wield a hook and run yarn through my fingers. At first, I worked on an old afghan I'd started many years ago. But then I started checking out books from the library and browsing through the books Dana brought with her, and I just had to start something new. I picked out a simple single-crochet pattern for placemats for my dining room ... found a gorgeous variegated yarn and I was on my way. Then I started thinking about making something for Christmas gifts. I decided to make a scarf for my Dad (which, unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of before wrapping it up). I picked a simple basketweave pattern using a wool blend in a yummy dark green ... I got the pattern out of this book. I loved working with the wool blend ... so soft! Then I made a fun purse for my mom ... found the pattern in this book. Here are some pics of the finished purse ... I love how it came out!














Then I decided to make something for our niece, Amanda. She's really into skulls right now, so I thought it'd be fun to crochet something with a skull on it. I finally found a skull sweater pattern in this book. However, I didn't want to make a sweater because I knew I would have a hard time making something that would actually fit a body LOL! So I decided to use the skull part of the pattern to make a purse/tote. A purse in the same book gave me the basic plan ... I combined the two patterns to draft my own pattern, making the purse a little bigger to make the skull pattern fit. I incorporated some skull beads into the sides of the purse, too. I had fun working on this one ... learned a few things along the way, too.















I also attempted to make a cap for her using some of the leftover yarn from my Dad's scarf. I can't remember which book I got this one out of. It was a book specifically about crocheted hats that I got from the library. It turned out okay, I guess. My problem is that I crochet very tightly ... I have to automatically go up 3 hook sizes when checking gauge, and occasionally have to go up a fourth before it works. And even then, when the stitch gauge matches, the row gauge might still be off. That's why making stuff that has to "fit" is hard for me. But it was fun and quick to make. Oh, well, live and learn ....

Calendar journal -- November

I used Sharpies to outline the squares and the pumpkins, and colored pencils to color everything in. The attempt to make the squares look transparent was inspired by TracyU's August and September layouts. I tried to make them look like vellum by coloring them in lighter. Next time I will try different colors instead ... and maybe paints instead of colored pencils. The pumpkins look too flat and boring. Oh, well, better luck next time LOL!

I left plenty of room for bits and pieces to add in, but then the month ended up being one of the worst ... my girls were sick quite a bit, back and forth, during the month, and dh even got sick with food poisoning one weekend ... ugh! And then towards the end, we were in a hurry to re-shingle the back half of the house and I actually spent a lot of time up on the roof (never would have dreamed of that!) What a month! So I never found much time to embellish ... I'm hoping December will be more laid back ... but with the holidays and all, ha! If I can just hang on until January ....