I'm Starting My Third Art Journal...

Well hello there my friends! It's 4:05 in the morning and I spose I should be getting to bed, but I started my new art journal today and I really wanted to share my first pages in it! This is the inside cover...
I just felt like playing tonight so that's what I did. The pic is of my buddy Johnny. I used newspaper for one side of the background and my fave Jenni Bowlin paper for the other. The circle is an Izze Soda pop carton on one side and an itunes gift card package on the other. The big quote says "There is no must in art because art is free." ~Wassily Kandinsky; and the little quote (by Johnny) says "I dream my painting and then paint my dream." ~Vincent Van Gogh

I tried out my new Claudine Hellmuth's Studio line of acrylic paint (which was part of my Project Catwalk prize) for the rainbow and title block and I LOVE it! It's thick and rich and the colors are beautiful! I used Classic teal, sky blue and yellow pastel. Here's a pic...

I've got ideas for my next project, but since it is now 4:20 am, I better save that for later! I'll be back with another post tomorrow...

So, what's happening this weekend in your world? Are you working on any creative projects?

I'm Looking Forward to a Weekend of Scrapping...

Happy Friday everyone! I'm so excited about this weekend because I am going to do nothing but scrap scrap scrap! I have ten projects I would like to get done in order to feel caught up - I hope I can do it! I finished the first one tonight - my Project 52 ATC for Week Four and I think it accurately reflects how I am feeling right now - here it is... All elements are hand-drawn except the title. Materials used include Happy Camper paper for the house (by Cosmo Cricket), Funky Vintage paper for the sky (Making Memories); Dictionary page, Black Tie Velvet Thickers; Yellow Gelly Roll Pen by Sakura and a .08 Zig Millenium journaling pen.

The journaling came directly from my blog post yesterday...


It's so much fun watching my display ribbon fill up as I add these cards to it. I will show you how it's progressing when I get a few more on there.

I will be back tomorrow with some more projects to share - have a wonderful Friday my friends!

"Expect the universe to support your dream. It will."
~Julia Cameron

Project 52 - Week Four and List Making...

Well - I didn't finish my Project 52 ATC for this week quite yet. I did decide on my word for the week tho - COZY. That's how I am feeling right now. The weather is cold and snowy and I am so grateful for my warm and cozy home with my two snuggly cats and my snuggly husband. These are the kind of evenings when there is absolutely nothing better than a home-cooked meal, warm socks and a good show on tv.

So the reason I didn't finish my ATC is because I realized that with all the projects and challenges I signed up for, my brain is in a traffic jam again! I spent the evening (after the home-cooked meal and good tv show) figuring out what all the projects I am working on are, and when they need to be completed. I prioritized the list chronologically, so now I can just go down the list and check things off as I do them - Yeayyy! The list is HUGELY long, but it's all FUN FUN FUN!

The timing is perfect too because this weekend Michael has a huge computer assembly project he wants to work on, so I am going to have my own scrapping marathon and see how much I can get done. This will be fun!!! And the first thing on the list is my Project 52 ATC. I will tackle that tonight.

I will be back tomorrow with another update, but I can't do a post without any pictures, so here's one of my friend Willie, lending me a hand with the computer...


and his brother Johnny snoozing nearby (if you could only hear his little snore it would be perfect!)...


See you tomorrow!

Happy Mail and a New Project...

Heyyyyy everybody! How goes it on this fine Wednesday??? I got some fun new happy mail I want to share with you! When I played Sunday grabs a couple weeks ago at SiSTV, I "grabbed" one of these fabulous hand-made coffee sleeves from the very talented MandyKay. I got to choose my own fabric - isn't it awesome? Here's how it looks on my coffee... and here's a pic of it by itself so you can see the groovy fabric on the inside! It's neat because it's not only cute, but the material is really soft - I'm going to keep it in my car - it will feel great on my cold fingers this winter! Thank you so much Mandy!

Okay, so if you visited the Crop Suey blog yesterday you already saw this, but just in case you missed it, I want to share my latest project with the January kit. It's a book I created to put all my creative ideas, sketches, quotes and all that other stuff that I think up or see somewhere and don't want to forget!
I started with just a plain composition notebook. Everything is from the kit, except for the black paint I used to stencil the title. I just placed the alpha stickers that came with the kit gently onto the cover and then sponged over the top with black paint. Then picked the alphas back up. The stars and moon are just cut out of the patterned paper. I added more patterned paper to the inside, along with a quote...
covered the back and wah la! I have a book ready to fill up with ideas!

So, it's Wednesday - Project 52 day! I'm not sure what my word for the day will be. I'm gonna have to take the day to think about it. I will make my ATC tonight and I will be back tomorrow to post it!

Oh, and by the way - there are only a couple more days for the big sale at Crop Suey! It ends at the end of January. To check it out, click here.

I also joined another group! My wonderful friend Bree has been inspiring me with her projects for "A Year In The Life of an Art Journal," so I decided to jump right in and play along! Check it out here if you are interested.

Alrighty - that's it for today, but I will be back tomorrow - see you then!

Finals for Project Catwalk...

Hey there friends! I'm so excited because we finally got the go ahead from JJ at SiSTV to post our final projects for Project Catwalk! I had SO MUCH FUN putting my heart and soul into these final projects and I really hope you like them!

The first assignment was to create a project using the unique SiSTV "modsheets." There are many things I like about the modsheets, such as the fun colors they come in, and how the designs are so classic that you can mix and match any of them and they look great - but my favorite thing about them is that each sheet has a variety of different patterns and each pattern is a different size. Here's an example of what they look like:

So, anyways I wanted to create a project that would show how you can use the different sizes together to make a mini-album! Here's what I came up with...











I had a blast mixing and matching the colors and patterns, and coming up with my faves of the year!

The second assignment was to show a unique way to use the SiStv gaffer tape (one of my FAVE products!) The gaffer tape comes in a bunch of different patterns and colors but here's an example of what it looks like:


I decided it would be fun to take pieces of gaffer tape and make them into mosaic-type embellishments! Here's the layout I came up with...
Materials used include patterned paper (that looks like a phonebook), gesso, cardstock, gaffer tape, two types of alpha stamps, basic grey chipboard alpha and a journaling pen. The words are a lyric from "Feelin Groovy" by Simon and Garfunkel.

The third assignment was to showcase some SiSTV patterned paper. I decided to take that to the extreme by doing a layout using NOTHING BUT patterned paper. I used the SiS Romantic Collection (also known as the Pemberley Collection). I did a layout about our wedding...

The journaling around the edge is a lyric from the John Legend song that my wonderfully talented sister Renee (that girl can sing!) sang for us on our special day.

I hope you like the projects! I created a tutorial for each one and they are all now at SiS, so they might be posting them in the near future - I will keep you updated!

Oh - one more thing - It's my day to blog over at Crop Suey today so come on over there and say hi too! I would love to see you!

I will be back tomorrow, but until then I wish you much inspiration and plenty of free time to create to your heart's desire!

Project 365 Week Four

Project 365 is still rolling, altho I must admit I am getting REALLY anxious to get my kit! I want to print these photos out and start putting the pages together! The latest I heard is that it will be shipping mid-February, so that's not that far away I guess. Anyhoo, Here are my photos from this past week:

Monday, January 19: A snuggly late-nite moment with Willie
Tuesday, January 20: We took a break from our training at work to watch the inauguration together. What an exciting moment in history!

Wednesday, January 21: Michael's computer is on the fritz and he spent the evening working on the problem. Luckily, he likes that sort of thing.

Thursday, January 22: My latest art journal page

Friday, January 23: Evidence of all inhabitants.

Saturday, January 24: Lunch with my wonderful friend Becky!

Sunday, January 25: Becca gives Willie a smooch.

This project is really making me aware of the little everyday moments that make life sweet. I'm having so much fun with it - I could see this becoming a life-long habit!

If you are doing Project 365, how is it going? Any tips you'd like to share? What are you taking pictures of?

Well the new song is up at Scrapping The Music and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this one! It's "Home" by Marc Broussard. You've got all week to complete a layout - come on over and check it out!

I finished another project with the January Crop Suey kit last night and I wish I could share, but I need to wait til tomorrow for the reveal on the Crop Suey blog, so stay tuned for that!

Here's wishing you a wonderful week, full of unlimited possibility!

Fave Photos Mini...

I'm so excited! I finished my minibook! I never thought it would happen that fast! I tried a couple different approaches and decided to go with a very simple design for this book. On the inside cover I listed the dates and descriptions for the photos and then just printed the photos out 5x7 and pasted them to the page. I usually LOVE to embellish the heck out of everything, but for this I didn't want anything to distract from the image. I picked completely random photos from the year - ones that felt special to me for one reason or another. All products except the black thickers are from the Social Butterfly collection at SiSTV...
Willie at home 1/14


View from our scrapbook retreat window 2/28
Leaf in the yard at our retreat 3/1

Graffiti on St. Paul train car 3/19
Hometown sky 6/7

Our hands 7/17
Second anniversary of our first date 5/19

Becca on graduation day 6/7
Dancing with joy 7/31

Steve at seventeen 11/9
Father and son moment 8/18

Tony serenades 8/14
It's a big wide world - outside Home Depot 9/7

Nature walk in the neighborhood 10/21
Brotherly love 12/22

Window shopping on Balboa Island 12/29

Some of the SiSTV collections come with what's called a "Look Book," which is a nice little collection of design ideas for the supplies in the kit, and this mini was inspired by one of Martha Bonneau's designs in the Look Book, as well as Kristina's idea for a Fave Photos of 2008 mini. Thanks for the inspiration you two!

Okay, so later today the new song goes up at Scrapping The Music and it's one of the coolest, rockinest songs I've heard in a long time! I had to rush right over to itunes and download it! Don't forget to check it out!

Percolating...

Ever since I read Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog post on Time and Creativity I have felt really inspired. This whole concept of artists needing time for their ideas to percolate is very freeing for me! Julie I can't thank you enough! I think what I have done in the past is - I would get an idea and think - "oh I will work on that later - I've still got time", and I would not do anything about it until a deadline was looming over me. Then I would look at my project or assignment and draw a complete blank. This has been frustrating because my projects are fun and I look forward to doing them! I also read this inspiring post by Kristina Contes about how she lays stuff all over the floor and adds to different layouts as something inspires her to do so. I LOVE that idea! Wish I had more floor space I would try that one too. I'm seeing a theme here, and it makes me feel like I fit right in. I need time for my ideas to develop. I need to start things when I get inspired, even if the idea isn't completely formed yet. What I really wish I had was a long shelf somewhere in my scraproom, where I could display my partly done projects. That way they would be there in front of me and as ideas formulate I could add to them. Wouldn't that be cool! I'm going to think about that one - there's got to be a solution that will work...

In the meantime, I've got a couple of ideas percolating that I thought I would share with you. The first one is a mini-album I started last night. I was inspired by this project of Kristina Kiessig's, (isn't her photography beautiful?!!!) and decided I want to do a mini-album with fave photos for 2008 too. I started the cover right away while I felt inspired. I used the Social Butterfly kit from SiSTV, which includes this cool Heidi Swap Mirrored Mini-Album. Now I'm letting my ideas for what to do with the inside form a little bit before I go ahead and finish it. I will share the rest with you when I'm finished. Thanks for the inspiration Kristina!

The next idea I'm thinking about includes this vintage 45 record tin I've had for awhile. I'm thinking of altering it to be a holder for file cards that are actually layouts about music that has mattered in my life. A kind of a "soundtrack of my life" idea, if you will. Again, the idea is still formulating, but I think it's going to be really fun!
So tonight is one of those Saturday nights where I am free to scrap all night, and that is what I am going to do - Yeayyyyy! It's super cold out and it feels really cozy here in my scraproom. I'm gonna turn on some music, open a Sodie and go to town!

I will be back tomorrow to share how it went! Peace to you my friends - have a wonderful Saturday!

Project 52 Week Three Plus More...

This week I decided to celebrate my new job with my ATC for the week! I used watercolors on watercolor paper, plus a journaling pen, alpha stamps and some glitter for this one:and again, the journaling goes on the back:

I also have two more pages from my last journal to share with you. The first one reflects what I've been thinking about lately with regards to doing more writing on my layouts. The background is just waste paper that was leftover from another project. The giraffe is from a magazine and I also used duct tape and black oil crayon:

and finally, I finished this page that I started back when I was doing Dina Wakely's Art Journaling 101 class, and just finished yesterday. This one is made with gesso, acrylic paint, magazine images, sheet music, a stamp and some alpha stickers.

Julie Balzer has a wonderful blog post right now about Creative Projects needing time to "percolate" (which I can so relate to - the above art journal page being an example), and I found it totally inspiring. You can check it out here. It's got me thinking about finding a place in my scraproom where I can keep a few projects out that are "percolating". Thanks for the inspiration Julie!

I also want to thank Angie Backen and Lucy Folch for choosing two of my projects for the catwalk at SiSTV this week! I feel so incredibly honored!

I will leave you with a picture of Johnny enjoying having colorful tissue paper to roll around on! Oh, to be so easily pleased!

Have a wonderful Friday my friends!