Your Support Means So Much...

I want to say thank you so much to everyone who left comments on my last post. You have no idea how much it meant to me. This last week has been very difficult. We laid my mom to rest on Wednesday. I still can't believe it happened. But I want you all to know, that being able to take a break now and then to read your supportive comments was such a comfort.

Give hugs freely and don't forget to say I love you.

I will be back to regular blogging soon.

In an Instant, Everything Changed...

It's been four days, and I finally have the strength to tell you all this.

On Tuesday, January 18th, at 1:20 pm, my beloved mother (Patricia Thompson-Yates) was killed in a car crash. She had just been to the neighborhood post office, less than a mile away from her home, when someone ran a red light and hit her.

To say I am devastated doesn't even cover it. My mom was there for me my entire life, through thick and thin. She was a wonderful woman who loved everyone. She was just getting her life back together after the death of my stepdad in April, and was really looking forward to this year. She had made new friends, she was busy socially and looking forward to taking some college classes. This is a picture of mom with my hubby Michael, taken at Christmastime...

I am in California now with Michael and my sister Renee, making arrangements for her memorial service, and everything that comes after. When I get home, I will post a more appropriate tribute to her, but for now, any prayers you can send our way would be much appreciated.

with much love,
Michelle

Art Journal Every Day - Week Two...

This week was a little different for me in terms of art journaling. I spent some of my time working on creating a dedicated space for my art journals. I'm excited about that and will show you as soon as I have it finished! In the mean time, I have a few days doodles to share...

Thursday, January 6th...
I started a numbers doodle with my colored pencils.


Friday, January 7th...
I was admiring my 7 gypsies ATC tin, and decided to doodle the bird just for fun...

so I started this with my markers in my doodle book...

and added some more on Sunday, January 9th...

Even though it wasn't as much this week, it was still fun!

Now I'm going to get ready for a four-day retreat with my friends Christina and Anne - I'm so excited! I'm bringing my art journaling supplies!!!!

Thanks for visiting and I will see you when I get back!

P.S. Be sure to check out Julie's Art Journaling Every Day post tomorrow!

Project 12 for December and a Recap...

Doing the Project 12 layout for December was lots of fun, because I had tons of leftover papers and embellies from my Holiday Journal! I used the September sketch (confusing I know, but it was the only one I hadn't used yet). Here's how it turned out (click on the image to see details)...
I had lots of scraps of fun holiday paper to use up, so I decided to fill the bottom half of the design with a mosaic. Using a square punch made it easy! P.S. That fun little white character in the photo is my new flash drive! The drive part comes out of his head! How cute is that!?! There are a bunch of different characters and now I want to collect them all!

Anyhoo, I thought it might be fun to do a recap of the entire year of Project 12 layouts, so here we go...













It's so fun to look back on my entire year like this, and takes the place of scrapping each event (which I'm not very good at). I also like it because the sketches challenge me to stretch my style boundaries, and stretching is always good! I signed up to do Project 12 again this year and I'm sooooo looking forward to it!

For more info on Project 12, click here to go to Davinie's blog (the creator of Project 12), and click here to go to Scrapbook and Cards Today's blog.

Thanks for visiting!

Project 12 for November...

My Project 12 layout for November is done, which means I'm all caught up - yeayyy! I followed the November sketch, and here's how it turned out...
All three of the people photos were taken on Thanksgiving, and the other is a photo of a Scrapping The Music layout from November - I thought the words were appropriate, and I like the pop of color it adds.

I was excited to finally use a few things I'd been saving - such as: The blue scalloped border under the photos, which is cut from a paper bag that a gift I bought came in, and the cute little wheely thing with the months on it came from my sister - I love how you can turn the wheel to the correct month - thanks Renee!

Now I can do the December layout and as long as I have it done by Jan 28th, it will be on time - yeayyy!

Thanks for visiting and for your kind comments - I really appreciate them!

Art Journal Every Day - Week One...

I have been having so much fun with the Art Journal Every Day challenge! I think the most freeing thing about it has been the thought that I don't have to finish a page every day - just work on something for 10 minutes or so. I've also adopted the idea that I can just grab any journal willy nilly and work in it. No schedule - whatever I'm in the mood for - yeayyy! The results of my first week are these two finished pages:

The first one is in my doodle book...

The second one is in my watercolor sketch book - this one is for the sketchbook challenge...

I'm really happy with how each of them turned out. I'm amazed at what you can do with just a few minutes here and there. It adds up over a week's time!

Here's how the process went over the course of a week:

Friday, January 31:

I pasted the elephant illustration in my doodle book and started doodling around him during phone calls...

later in the day I started coloring with my markers...


Saturday, January 1st:

The sketchbook challenge started (click here to check it out). The theme for January is "Highly Prized." I had this photo of Willie that I love, so I decided to try to sketch it. It felt a little intimidating because I haven't sketched in years....


I told myself - just ten minutes, and don't stress about it. I was happy with how it started out (and glad I had chosen a very small book to sketch in)...

more doodling...

Sunday, January 2:
I added some white highlights with my sharpie, and decided drawing is fun again!

Later I started pasting background tidbits willy nilly into my Nancy Drew Journal...


More coloring doodles...


Tuesday, January 4:

Finished my first doodle page!


Wednesday, January 5:

Added some cool greys and finished my first sketchbook challenge page!

This 10 minutes at a time approach to art journaling is so much fun! How about you? Are you doing the sketchbook challenge and/or the Art Journaling Every Day (AJED) challenge? How's it going?

I'm looking forward to checking out Julie's update on AJED tomorrow!

Tomorrow I will be back to share some photos of a beautiful paper line designed by a friend - I just received it and can't wait to start playing!

Thanks for visiting and have an awesome day!

Project 12 for October and New Journals for 2011...

I had so much fun working on Project 12 tonight! I just love working with Becky Fleck's sketches - it's totally stress free and I just get to play with colors and patterns - yeayyy! For my October layout, I ended up using Becky's December sketch. I know, I'm a rule breaker, but it worked better for my photos! Here's how it turned out (click on the image to make it bigger)...
October had so much going on, I needed a sketch that included a lot of photos. For the layout, I used my Scarlet Lime "Cranberry Spice" kit, plus some other papers and embellies from my stash.

I'm excited to share my new journals for 2011 with you! First, here's a picture of all of my unfinished journals - new and old. I like to keep them together so I can grab one at any time and work in it...


And here are my four main new ones that I'm just starting:

First, I'm so excited about this one that my talented sister Renee made for me for Christmas! She knows I used to love to read Nancy Drew books when we were kids, so she even used a Nancy Drew book for the cover! Check out how gorgeous this book is...
She did the binding by hand, and painted all the pages for me, and they are GORGEOUS. Each one is different and the colors are all so intense - it's awesome. These are just a few of the pages...



I'm going to use this one for collaging, and I've already started! Thanks again Renee!


This is one I made especially for doodling with markers. The cover is a children's book and the pages are all white posterboard, that I had leftover from a project. I used my bind-it-all for the binding...

This one is my smallest journal ever. It's only 4" x 5." I'm using it for The Sketchbook Challenge. It's filled with nice, cream-colored handmade paper, which works great with my watercolors...

and this cute one was given to me by my mom. I just love that little sheep on the front...
and his feet are actually a magnetic closure - when you open it you see his whole face. How CUTE is that?
I'm using my sheep journal as my first "Ravenea's Chronicles" journal of the year. This is where I do my daily writing, and staple in bits of my everyday life...

Thanks again Mom - I love it!!!


As I've mentioned before, I'm participating in Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's "Art Journal Every Day" project, and so far I'm having a lot of fun, just taking ten minutes here and there to put something in my journals. I'm planning to have an update every Thursday on my progress, so stay tuned for that!

I will leave you with my new fave picture of Willie and Johnny. I took this earlier today - just couldn't resist how Willie's got his foot over the top of Johnny - they are such buddies!

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

Bob Dylan at Scrapping The Music...

The new song at Scrapping The Music is "Things Have Changed" by Bob Dylan! It's from the movie "Wonder Boys," and it's got such cool lyrics and a groovy beat, I just love it! Here's how my layout turned out...
The lyric "Things Have Changed" made me think of all of the changes that have happened in my life in the last few years, so I decided to make my layout about that. The awesome orange patterned background paper was designed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer (thank you Julie!) and I've been waiting for the right time to use it. The patterned paper with the circles is another one I've been waiting to use, but I don't know who the manufacturer is. I added my journaling to some green patterned paper and cut it to fit in the circles.

It's a great song to start the new year with! What has changed for you? Come on over and play along with us! Click here to go to the challenge.

I'm starting 2011 with all new journals. I will be back tomorrow to share them with you.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Welcome 2011 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy Happy 2011 everyone! I finished my holiday journal and wow, it got really thick!!! I had to devise a ribbon closure to keep it from exploding!!! HA! Here's how it turned out...


Here are some highlights of the pages from Dec 18th on...














I left the family photos from Christmas eve out - some of my family members are camera shy and I want to be respectful of that. :0)


We went to 11pm church service with mom, so I punched holes in the program and stuck it right in.


a beautiful handmade card from Elmer's daughter Debbie and granddaughter Lindsay!



I found out that the beach in the photo on the bottom right was used in some scenes of Gilligan's Island!




Had to include one of the cute napkins from Christmas Eve dinner.


Got this pretty postcard at the airport and used it to journal about the events of Dec 26th.




Our last day in California was beautiful and sunny! We took a walk in my mom's neighborhood...


and visited the Northwood Memorial, and then were on our way home.





Received this beautiful New Year's card from Marit!

and I had to include my participation in the Top 2000 party!


finished with a simple vintage postcard.

and I'm done!!! Michael and I had fun looking through the whole thing last night. We both agreed that there are so many little details that would soon be forgotten if they weren't included in our holiday journal. I can tell this will be a fun annual project!

Don't forget, tonight at 8pm, the first challenge of 2011 goes up on the Scrapping The Music blog, and it's a fun one! Check it out by clicking the widget in the sidebar, or clicking here.

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