Happy New Year's Eve!!!!!

It's New Year's Eve - YEAYYYYY!!! And this year there is lots going on!

First of all it's the last day of the Netherlands Top 2000 Blog party! We are down to the top 265 songs of all time! My choice for today is #14 "One" by U2. Here's how my layout turned out...
The song has been used to promote human rights and social justice causes, but originally was written about the difficulty of maintaining relationships (per Wiki - more info on the meaning of the song here). I just love the quiet emotional power of the lyrics and melody together. What a fantastic song - sigh.

Check out the video...


To check out what everyone else has created for the final day of the party, click here to go to Marit's blog. Thanks so much to Marit for hosting this annual celebration of music! I have thoroughly enjoyed participating in the Netherlands Top 2000 for the past two years, and I hope she decides to do it again next year! THANK YOU MARIT!!!


The last prompt of 2010 over at "A Year In The Life of an Art Journal" is up and I am so excited to be the guest host! The word I chose is "Vision," and here's what I created...

Come on over to the "Year In The Life" blog and play along! Don't forget to leave a comment and say hi! I would love to hear from you over there!!!


And one last piece of EXCITING news!!! Today is the start of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's 2011 project called "Art Journal Every Day!"
It promises to be a lot of fun! As you may know I am a big fan of Julie's so I signed up to participate right away, and was so excited when she invited me to be a guest blogger in January! Look for my guest post at Julie's blog on January 28th! For more info on the project check out the widget in my sidebar or click here to go to Julie's blog!

Whew - that was a long post! Thanks for coming to visit and I wish you a Happy New Year's Eve my friends! I will be back tomorrow with another update!

Top 2000 Day Six...

We are closing in on New Year's Eve, my FAVORITE time of the year! I just love making plans for the new year, a fresh start, a brand new day! I'm busy making new journals, and organizing and making a game plan! How about you? How do you celebrate the new year? Do you make a game plan? Do you have a party? What new things are you thinking about doing this year? I'd love to hear!

We are on day SIX out of seven for the Netherlands Top 2000 Blog Party! Today I chose #501 "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver. I could not pass up this song! John Denver was my hero as a young teen, and I knew this song by heart. Here's how the layout turned out...
The photo is actually of the road from the cabin we stayed at in the smoky mountains, but I think it illustrates the song quite well, so I went with it. Besides, I've never been to West Virginia so I don't have any photos! (Hmmm... maybe that should be on my list of places to go).


Here's a video of John back in the old days, singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads." Enjoy!


To check out Marit's Blog Party, click here or on the Top 2000 Widget in the sidebar!

In other news, Scrapping The Music has a blogpost up announcing some fun changes for 2011. Check it out here!

Thanks for visiting and I will see you tomorrow with another update!

Top 2000 Day Five...

Hey there everyone! We are closing in on New Year's Eve and I'm creating like crazy trying to get everything done that I want to! It's a scrapaganza over here!

For Day Five of the Netherlands Top 2000 songs of all time, I chose #658 - "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman. I love the soulful lyrics of this song, and Tracy's voice is sooooo uniquely beautiful. Here's how my layout turned out...

Tracy sang "Fast Car" at Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday party in 1988 and it quickly became her first hit after that. Here she is in the video for "Fast Car..."




To check in on the Top 2000 Blog party - check out Marit's blog by clicking on the Top 2000 widget in the sidebar, or clicking here.

Thanks for visiting and I will see you again tomorrow!

Top 2000, Day Four...

We are back from California and Christmas was WONDERFUL!!! We had a great time with my family and I will be telling more about that soon, but for now I want to get my layout for day four of the top 2000 up before it's too late! We just got back last night, so I put this together this morning. The song I chose is #959 "Love is Everywhere" by Alain Clark. Alain is one of those people I would have never known about if it weren't for the internet. One of my blog friends (I forget who - remind me if it was you okay?) had another Alain Clark video on her blog and I just loved it, and that inspired more research into this man's awesome music. Anyhoo, here's how my layout turned out...


This song jumped out at me this morning because of the lyric that talks about the love you can see in the bravery of soldiers who risk their lives for you. One thing that we did during our visit with mom, was to visit the memorial for United States soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it was still on my mind. It seemed the perfect thing to use those pictures.

Here's the video for "Love is Everywhere." I think this is such a cool video. Not only does it have great energy, it really made me think about how wide the scope of love is in our lives. I hope you enjoy it!




To check in on the Top 2000 blog party and see what everyone is creating, click here or on the Top 2000 widget in the sidebar to go to Marit's blog!

I will be back tomorrow with another update - thanks so much for visiting!!!

Top 2000, Day Three...

My choice of songs for day three of the Netherlands Top 2000 is "Marrakesh Express" - a classic tune by Crosby Stills & Nash, which comes in this year at #1511. CSN's harmonies are some of the most beautiful I've ever heard, and I love the happy energy of this song! Here's how my layout turned out:
For this one I was inspired by a photo I saw of a Marrakesh sunset, so I painted the background with watercolors to represent the sunset. I drew the border with markers to represent the pattern from one of the rugs (kilim) they sell in the square there.

I know it's by Crosby Stills and Nash and I only have Nash & Crosby on the layout; but that's because whenever I hear this song I think of this classic video - my favorite rendition of the tune! Check it out...




And here's a video of the magic of Marrakesh, it makes the lyrics come to life when you see it, I think...




To see what others have chosen for their day two songs, head on over to Marit's blog party! Click here to check it out!

Top 2000, Day Two!

For day two of the Top 2000 Party, I picked "Big Yellow Taxi" by The Counting Crows, which comes in this year at #1693. Here's how my layout turned out...
I painted the background, and then created the tree from woodgrain contact paper; and the birds and other elements were done with colored pencil on white cardstock, cut out and glued on.

This is a song written and originally done by Joni Mitchell (and I think her version is also on the list somewhere); but the Counting Crows cover is my favorite! Here's the video:




If you want more info on the Top 2000, check out Marit's blog here! Thanks for visiting and I will see you tomorrow with the Top 2000 countdown day three!

Top 2000 Party - Day One!

It's time for the Netherlands Top 2000 Party!!!! I played along with Marit last year and it was so much fun I just had to join in again! The way it works is like this. There is a Netherlands Radio Station that publishes a list every year of the "Top 2000 Songs of All Time," and then for one week they count down that list on the radio. So, for each day of the countdown, I am going to join Marit by creating a layout inspired by one of the songs that will be played that day. I add the following additional guidelines for myself...

1. The layout is about the song itself (as opposed to something about my life that is "inspired" by the song) if that makes sense...

2. The artist must be represented on the layout in some way...

So, here we go!

For day one, I went back to my childhood and chose "I Want You Back" by the Jackson Five! I just loved the groovy vibe that the "J5" had back then and tried to represent that in my layout...

I drew the words onto a photo of the J5, cut them out, and then glued them to a piece of groovy handmade paper. The outlining is done with poster paint sharpies.

Here's a video of them singing "I Want You Back" on their first appearance on American Bandstand...



To check out the party, and see what everyone else did, click here to go to Marit's blog!

See you tomorrow for day two of the Top 2000!

Holiday Journal - December 14 - 16 Pages...

The 14th entry was using a topic from Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class - altho I've lost track if I'm doing the correct topic for the right day or not. That's one thing I really like about Shimelle's class - it's so flexible! And the topics I don't get to this year, I can tackle next year - yeayyyy!

For the 15th I took an easy approach - I printed out a photo of my layout for Wednesday's Scrapping The Music challenge at 8x8, slapped the date tag on it and called it done. I liked the uplifting message of the lyric and thought it fit in quite nicely with the new year coming up...

I never tire of my Rocky Mountain Christmas album (sigh)...


Thanks for visiting!

Holiday Journal - December 11 - 13 Pages...

OMG How the days of December are flying by! It's getting harder and harder to keep up to date with these pages, but I'm trying!!! Here are my pages for December 11th through the 13th...

We had a winter storm like we haven't had for many years!!! I thought it would be good to document it with an article from the local paper (got from the web...)

another Christmas card...

and journaling from Saturday...

That's me from about 1966 or so...





Steve, Becca and Tony with their birthday cake...




If you are doing a December Daily or Holiday Journal of some sort - how's it going? Are you having a tough time keeping up, or is it smooth sailing???

I'm busy making some new journals to start 2011 with - it's so exciting!!!

Thanks so much for visiting!!!

Scrapping The Music and Fave Layout of the Year...

The new song at Scrapping The Music is "Times Like These" by Foo Fighters. I love the poetic lyrics of this song! Here's what I came up with...
The photo is one I took at dusk from my car. I was on my way home from a trip up north and the sky was so beautiful I just had to snap a shot. The background is torn pieces of dictionary paper collaged with gel medium, and painted over with acrylic. The moon and stars are hand-drawn and cut from the same dictionary. I had the vision for this one stuck in my head and it was so much fun to get it out onto the paper!


The Fave Things challenge this time is to choose your Fave Layout of the year! That's all - you don't have to create anything new - just choose your fave and link it up to the Fave Things blog to enter! Here's the one I chose as my fave for this year...
It was one I did as guest designer for the Gutter Girlz challenge blog. The inspiration song was "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. I liked her lyrics, but for me it's not about the climb anymore, it's about the ups and downs of the journey - the road. I loved creating this - it was fun to make the surreal sky and it just felt freeing - know what I mean?

So what's your fave layout of the year? Come on over to the Fave Things blog and link us up!!!

And come on over to Scrapping The Music and check out "Times Like These" by Foo Fighters!!! We'd love to have you play along with us!!!

Holiday Journal - December 9 & 10 Pages...

For some reason I had ALOT to say on December 9th! Here we go...

On the bingo card I attached a photo of the sweetest gift I received from my friend Julie! The sock-monkey is a hand-carved stamp and it's just the most adorable thing ever! And the cute little cannister will be perfect for tiny beads and/or glitter! Thank you so much Julie!


the back of the bingo card. The bird is from Birds & Blooms magazine...

Straight out of Oprah Magazine...


I've decided to include holiday cards we receive right in our album...

a beautiful photo of Julie & family...

Again - the bird is from Birds & Blooms...(which reminds me - I must resubscribe to that beautiful magazine!!!)...



another holiday card...



Johnny peeking into the box of Studio Calico goodies - ha! I included the stickers that held the SC bags shut right on the page...
Photo taken on my way home from getting some holiday shopping done.


December 10th was a MUCH shorter entry. Image cut from a magazine, and on the right is a sampling of our christmas wrap for this year...

Thanks for visiting!

My Attempt At Organizing My Brain...

So, for a long time it's been driving me crazy to have all these different journals going with all different kinds of things in them and no order of any kind. I kept starting a journal and then starting another kind of journal and on and on you get the picture. Well, I finally decided I NEED A JOURNALING SYSTEM! So, after much brainstorming I came up with something which I hope will work; and I'd love to share the results with you! Keep in mind that I would never have the energy or even interest in working on all of these at the same time. It's just a way to sort out in my brain what goes where - ha.

HERE'S WHAT I CAME UP WITH...

I will have five different types of ongoing journals, along with the flexibility of adding “special” journals to the mix at any time. Each of the five different types of journals will be named and numbered, and everything will be dated.

1. MORNING PAGES:

   1. Composition notebooks with decorated covers, all lined up in a row with number stickers on the spines.

   2. Long-hand writing of whatever is on my mind. This is a place to work out ideas, vent, take notes, etc. Also can be a place for practicing writing skills. Can be totally messy, no decorating on the inside – just writing.

2. RAVENEA CHRONICLES:

   1. Each one can be different. Dry materials like patterned papers, writing papers, pockets for ephemera. Can be bound in different ways, but each one will have charms hanging off of it, one of which will be a number.

   2. This is like a travel journal of everyday life. I will record what happened just like I do in my travel journals, pasting ephemera and pictures or anything else that tells my story.

   
   

3. PROMPTED/COLLAGE JOURNALS:

   1. Altered books & handmade journals with painted and collaged pages, each one answering a prompt of some sort. These will each be numbered with those round metal tags.

   2. These books will be filled in stages.

      • Painting backgrounds

      • Collaging

      • Writing

      • Final decorative stuff like doodling, tape, etc.

      
      

4. CREATIVE ABANDON

   1. All different sizes of sketchbooks, bound & numbered with different kinds of tags.

   2. This is what I vision as an actual “art journal,” filled with all kinds of experiments, challenges, quotes, drawings, and other self-expressive type-stuff. I picture the pages all thick and rumply, with stuff sticking out all over. Anything goes in these books.

   
   

5. INSPIRATION & GOALS

   1. Decorated three-ring binder with tabs:

      • Goals (annual & quarterly goals, plus project lists, trackers, etc.)

      • Ideas/Inspiration (sketches, layouts I like, color schemes, etc.)

   2. This is in a 3-ring binder because I envision it being one book that is always evolving. As I put an idea into practice, I could take it out of the ideas binder. I could add goals at any time, along with visuals to inspire, etc. At some point, the Inspiration and Goals could be separated into separate binders.

6. SPECIAL

   1. These are special journals created for a class or a particular subject matter. They could be anything that warrants its own journal for whatever reason. These will have names but no numbers, unless there is more than one volume of the same journal.

So that's my system! Right at this moment in time I am loving it, but knowing me I could decide to start over and reorganize at any time - HA. I thought it might be fun to share each of the different types of journals, to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about...

To start with - the Ravenea Chronicles. I have seven of them so far, and lately they are the ones I've been working in most consistently. Here's a photo of all seven in order...


For me - half of the fun of having a "system" is being able to see the completed ones all lined up neatly on a shelf! Here's how they look...

Next post, I will share one of the other types.

So, am I out of my mind for having all these different kinds of journals? Obsessed? I'm not sure, but it makes me happy so I'm going with it - ha! Do any of you have your own journaling systems? I'd LOVE to hear all about them!

Oh, did you notice the "Sketchbook Challenge" badge in my sidebar? I'm so excited about it! Starting in January there's going to be a challenge all about keeping a sketchbook, and it's hosted by a whole bunch of cool artists! Something fun and different to look forward to, and I plan on following along - how about you? Click on the widget or here to find out more.

Tomorrow was supposed to be my monthly crop with my scrappy gal pals, but we decided to cancel because we have a huge winter storm coming!!! I heard it's supposed to be more than 20 inches of snow and it's already started! Yikes! But, since I have to stay home, I've decided to have a snow-day crop all by myself here in the scraproom - which means I better get it cleaned up!

Thanks for visiting and I will be back tomorrow with another update!

Finishing What I Started - Project 52!

In 2009, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer hosted a group called "Project 52," whose mission was to create something - anything - every week of the year. I chose to do ATCs. I really enjoyed the process - at first I was doing something different every week, and then I discovered the fun of creating ATCs in monthly "sets," so I started doing that, and I kept it up until it got to the holiday season and I got busy and well, Project 52 got set aside. Well - that was a YEAR AGO - HA. I had the first 47 ATCs displayed on my wall on two strings, and that empty space where the last five should go has been staring at me for a year now. Well, I finally finished - yeayyyy! Here are my five final bits - the December 2009 ATCs (click on the image to see it larger)...

and here is my wall with the ribbon finally completed...

To see all of my Project 52 ATCs in more detail - check out my flickr album here. It feels good to finish something, know what I mean?

Thanks so much Julie for the inspiration - better late than never, eh?

Holiday Journal - December 8 Pages...

For Wednesday, December 8th, the Journal Your Christmas mission was to take note of things that look different in your community because of the holidays. Here's what I came up with...

The cute little elf girl on the middle right below, is an illustration by the inspiring Helen Dardik! I saw on her blog that she had designed some christmas advertising for Walgreens, so I had to stop in and see it - isn't it cute?!!! Click to see the image larger...

Here's a closeup of my handmade tag for this entry. I made it from some scratch paper that I had used to test out my new watercolors. The little tree is a Love, Elsie rubon...


Yesterday Deb asked what kind of white pen I use - this is my all-time FAVORITE white journaling pen - it's the Sharpie poster paint, water-based marker...
I was so EXCITED last week to see that Michael's is now carrying these in all different colors and nib sizes!!! They have been super hard to find until now - I actually squealed with delight!

I hope that is helpful Deb - let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks for visiting!

Holiday Journal - December 5, 6 & 7...

Hello and happy Wednesday! I'm happy to have more holiday journal pages to share with you today! Starting with December 5, here we go...

I had the buttons on here but they seemed a bit plain - then I saw this tutorial at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog and ta da! Beaded buttons... (Thanks Diane & Julie for the inspiration!)



Photo of the advent calendar taken from the gypsy girls blog here. I sooooo want to make something like this for next year!...

The little ATC came with a new pair of boots I got on this day. It says "peace, love & happiness" so of course I had to include it!!!




I tried a lomo photo effect in my new photoshop program for this picture...


this was my first attempt at using a transparent photo overlay. It's kinda hard to tell in the picture, but it looks a little like sparkly lights over the top of the photo...

Our christmas shopping list, full of pen scratchings, highlighting and various other doodles, is tucked inside the mini envelope. Behind that is our to do list for all the holiday things that are not complete yet...

this cute little Santa outfit was given to me by my friend Lorena and I've been waiting for the right opportunity to use it! Thanks Lorena!



In other news, we are extending the current Scrapping The Music challenge one more week to give more people a chance to play along during the hectic holiday season! Come on over and check it out! We'd love to have you play along!!!

Take care and thanks for visiting! I will see you again soon!!!