New Projects...

Happy Wednesday! Today I want to share with you a few of the projects I worked on for SiSversary.

This first one was my entry for the plate decorating contest. 20 people were given a 3" tin plate and told to decorate it any way they choose. For some reason I envisioned a woman's face when I saw the plate, and here is what I came up with. I call her plate girl...
To make her I used acrylic paint and a sharpie for the face, punched holes in the plate with my crop-a-dile and added spray-inked pipe cleaner hair. Her dress and hands are made with Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky back canvas, which I painted with acrylic paint. Her shoes are made from SiStv gaffer tape. Plate girl now has a new home with my friend Julie Weiss!


My second project was a layout made from the Moo cards I received in our Moo Card swap. I made the layout on a transparency so you can still read each artist's contact information on the back...
Materials used include hambly transparencies, glossy accents clear adhesive, Jenni Bowlin cow image cut from her journaling card, SiStv red houndstooth gaffer tape, and some patterned paper from the SiSTV "Girl Next Door" collection.

This layout was completed in a Round Robin circle on Saturday nite. It was a lot of fun! Round Robin is a game where everyone sits around a table and each person starts a layout. Every 4 minutes the layouts get passed to the person on your left. Each person gets to contribute something to each layout. The game (and layout) is done when you get your own back. I wanted to make a layout to say thank you to my sweet hubby - the trip to Nashville was a birthday gift from him - he is the greatest!
I started the layout with the background paper, plaid paper, photo and journaling block. I am so happy with how it turned out! After it got all the way back to me, the only things I added are the words "Thank U" and the journaling. All the artists that contributed signed it on the back. I'm happy to say that Michael loves it!

I have lots more projects that I started, but have to still finish before I post.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone! I will be back tomorrow with another update!

SiSversary Rocks! and Project 365 Week 26

OMG SiSversary was so much fun! Meeting everyone in real life was surreal and amazing! I had so much fun! Learned a ton! Made new friends! Had a BLAST! I took 149 photos! I will be able to describe it more eloquently once I catch up on much needed sleep, but suffice to say it was a five-star weekend. I can't imagine it turning out any better.

Here's my project 365 photos for this past week:

Tuesday, June 23rd: Johnny relaxing in the scraproom - he loves playing with the paper that Michael makes at the mill...

Thursday, June 25: I arrived at the Embassy Suites in Franklin, TN. Got to meet a lot of people Thursday night - here are some of us having dinner at the hotel...

Friday, June 26: Waiting in line for registration - some of my fave gals - Julie (bmwgirl) Tucker-Wolek, Julie (lalscrap) Weiss, Sasha (GAgyrl formerly Sassy Sasha) Holloway, and Penny (smllchg) D'Autremont...

Saturday, June 27: My secret sister was Andrea! She is soooo sweet and spoiled me like CRAZY!!!! Thanks Andrea - you ROCK!!!

Saturday, June 27 #2: Julie took a liking to my plate girl creation - so I gave it to her. Now she will have a good home with a fab gal. It really touched me that she liked it so much!

Sunday, June 28: Me and my awesome roomies - Penny and Sandy. Sandy is Penny's Mother-in-law and they scrap together all the time - how cool is that!

Sunday, June 28 #2: JJ (aka Jeanette aka Big SiS) is sooooo sweet and funny - I just love her!

What a whirlwind, fabulous, inspiring, heartwarming weekend!

On Monday, Vicki, Marissa and I toured the Grand Ol' Opry before heading to the airport! That was a lot of fun - pics to come soon...

Now I am off to check out challenges and posts that I missed! Thanks so much for stopping by and I will see you tomorrow with another post!

Project 365 - Week Twenty-Five...

Good evening my friends! It's time for another installment of Project 365. We are almost half-way through the year already! It was another week where I took more than one pic on some days and no pics on other days...

Monday, June 15: Michael plays with Willie in the scraproom...
it's a plush goofy doll that came in a box of cereal...

such sweet friends...

Tuesday, June 16: Some of my books...

Thursday, June 18th: Willie likes to look in the grocery bags...

Saturday, June 20th: Time for a hi-lite! That's Donna - my wonderful hair wizard. She's been taking care of my hair for over 20 years now...

Sunday, June 21st: Happy Father's Day! Michael and his dad Stan. I just love this pic of them...

and a little chipmunk in Sue and Stan's yard - he was so cute!

And that's it! Another week gone by!

For more info on Project 365, click on the link in the right-hand column =====>

Thanks so much for stopping by! I wish you a wonderful Wednesday and I will see you soon!

Mixed Media Circle Journal Layout...

I finished my last circle journal layout! This one is for Peggy, and her theme is "Mixed Media Techniques." Here's what I came up with...
For my technique I chose layers. The layers I used are:

sheet music
gel medium
powder blue acrylic wash
layer of dark blue and green paint, partially rubbed off with baby wipe
gesso splatters
glimmer misted stars and magazine piece
orange glitter stars/gel medium
black oil crayon
stamped images and quote

Quote reads:
"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a Dancing Star." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

The process took numerous days - had to let each layer dry in between. Tons of fun with this one!

I have absolutely loved the Circle Journal process. I am definitely going to try this again! I can't wait to get together with everyone and exchange our pages! It will great to fill my journal with everyone's self-portraits in song!

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments - they really mean a lot to me! I wish you a terrific Tuesday!

J is for Just...

So, here's the art journal page I started the other night, to help me get through my artist's block. It's for my "A Year In The Life of an Art Journal" project. The project is actually up to the letter L, so I'm a little behind, but that's okay. The word for the letter J is Just. Here's what I did with it...
For this page I used acrylic paint, alpha stickers from K&Co, Love Elsie & Doodlebug, magazine image, postage stamp, dictionary paper, gesso, paper towel, vintage lace, gaffer tape, Purple sparkly felt, Border Word stamp (a gift from my online friend Linda), and butterfly embellishments that were made by Tammy Gray.

Journaling reads:
Art is simply self-expression. However it turns out will be exactly right. Just begin.

Quote is by Von Goethe and reads: "Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it."

For more info or to join in on the "Year in the life of an art journal" project, click on the widget in the right hand column. =====>

I've also been having fun working on my last circle journal page tonight. It has lots of layers, so it's been taking awhile. I have to let each layer dry before starting the next one. I find that I really enjoy having two projects going at once. It creates a nice energy flow. So now that I am finished with the art journal page, and I have a layer drying on the circle journal layout, I think I will start my SiSversary Yearbook...

I hope you have a super sunshiney Saturday my friends! I will be back tomorrow with another update. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Inspired by Color...

Happy Happy Friday my friends!!!

I finished another circle journal layout! Yeayyy! I am feeling inspired again, which is good since Tracy's CJ theme is "Inspiration." I get alot of inspiration from color, so I decided to do a color mosaic.

I drew out the word Color on a piece of typing paper. Then I scribbled all over it to create the mosaic pattern. Then I traced the individual pieces onto patterned papers, cut them out and reassembled them back into the word color. It was kind of time-consuming, (kinda like putting together a puzzle), but alot of fun to do!

Here's how it turned out...

I can see that there will be more mosaic work in my future. It could be a great way to use up scraps too!

Last night I had a lot of fun working in my art journal too. I started a page, but it's not finished yet. I will post it as soon as I finish it.

There's a cool tutorial on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog for making a unique handmade flower. Click here to check it out. I wanted to try it tonight but I ran out of time.

Alrighty then, that's it for today. I must get some shut-eye. Thanks so much for stopping by and I will see you tomorrow with another update!!!

My First Layout and Other Nostalgia...

I learned (or should I say re-learned) a valuable lesson this week: - Always create to satisfy your own heart. Trying to create something for someone else's approval just plain doesn't work, and it's a sure way to come up with a bad case of artist's block. This is what happened to me this past week and it's been driving me crazy. Aargh.

Artist's block is something that happens to me every so often and each time it takes me awhile to come back to the same conclusion I noted above. I'm trying too hard. Once I realize that and let go I'm free again. It's getting to the point of realization that is sometimes the hard part. Each time I get a little better at it though, so that's progress, right?

I was reflecting on all this tonight and it made me think about my first scrapbooks. I've loved keeping scrapbooks since I was a kid, and back then I never gave much thought to how they looked. I just wanted to have a place to keep my memories. I love to go back and look at them. Here's a picture of my very first page in my very first scrapbook. It was 1971...

I think it's so funny that I felt the need to keep that article from my teeny bop magazine about David Cassidy's gall bladder surgery. I think it was in "Tiger Beat." Anyone remember that magazine? HA! And on the other page is my fifth grade class photo. Here's a closeup...

I'm the one in the second row, fifth from the left, with my eyes closed. Ha. You can see it a little better if you click on the image.

The other thing I always did as a kid was keep a bulletin board with poems, doodles, magazine clippings, song lyrics and anything else that was inspiring me at the time. When I moved out I took the stuff that was on that bulletin board and put it in this box...
Now it's like a treasure box full of memories. I'm so glad I have it.

How about you? Do you have scrapbooks or other memorabilia that you kept as a kid? Where do you keep it now?

I'm inspired now. I'm off to play in my art journal. Have a wonderful Thursday my friends and I will be back tomorrow with another update!

Project 365 - Week Twenty-Four...

Ohhhh I'm slipping up on the job here! It's week twenty-four and I was bad about taking pictures every day - eek!!! No matter tho, when I missed a day, I simply took two pictures the next day to make up for it. I don't want to keep doing that tho, cuz I really like the idea of having a picture to represent each day of the year. Oh well. Here goes...

Monday, June 8th: The layout I created for Scrapping The Music...

No photo on Tuesday, so

Wednesday, June 10th: My Studio Calico order arrives - Yeayyy!!!

and also on Wednesday, Johnny snuggles up to his brother for a nice little nap...

Thursday, June 11th: Michael made some of his FABULOUS chocolate cake. It's got pudding in the middle - YUM!!!

No photo on Friday so

Saturday, June 13th: Son Stevie and me at the family reunion...

and also on Saturday, Michael's sister and nephew...

Sunday, June 14th: Back at home, Johnny basks in the sunlight of the golden hour...
Once again, no layout this week - I'm going to have to catch up with the Project 365 layouts next month since I have so many deadlines this month.

For more information on Project 365, click on the link in the right-hand column. ===>

Now, on to my next Circle Journal layout. This one's theme is "Inspiration." Wish me luck!

I wish you a glorious Wednesday my friends! Thanks for stopping by and for your comments - I really appreciate them! I will be back tomorrow with another update!

Circle Journals and Amos...

I finished another circle journal layout! This one for CeCe, and her theme is "Guilty Pleasures." I had a hard time deciding what my guilty pleasures were, but then once I started to roll with it, I had a hard time narrowing it down to what would fit on a page! HA. Anyhoo, here's what I ended up making: (click on the picture to see more details and read my confessions)...
I used the SiSTV "Girly Girl" collection for this, plus the cat which I cut from a greeting card. I just knew she would come in handy for something.

So, I hope you are enjoying the Amos Lee song over at Scrapping The Music this week! Thanks for all the nice comments on my layout. I really appreciate them soooo much! For me, the simple guitar and voice songs are the best kind. When I say simple I mean not over produced. Clear and clean. The ones that have you really listening to the lyrics. Amos' songs are all like that. So heartfelt. His first album (the one that Keep It Loose is on) is one of those albums that I played over and over until I knew all the songs by heart. If you haven't headed over to Scrapping The Music to check it out yet, come on over!!! I'd absolutely love it if we got a huge participation turnout this week! In the meantime, while I am on an Amos kick, here's another one of my faves off of his first album...

Arms of a Woman

That's it for today - I will be back tomorrow with a Project 365 update. Have an awesome Tuesday my friends! Thanks for stopping by!

Amos Lee At Scrapping The Music!

I finally can share my layout for this week's song at Scrapping The Music! The song is "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight," by Amos Lee, and it is one of my all time fave songs ever! Did anyone guess it ahead of time? I hope you like it! Here's my take on the song...
I chose the lyric "We All Need a Place that We Can go and feel Over the Rainbow..."

This is also my entry for this week's challenge at The Next Step, which was to alter patterned paper. I altered this Fancy Pants paper by painting, and then doodling around the edge, and also adding pieces of dictionary paper to the insides of the clouds for added texture.

Other materials used include SiS gaffer tape, acrylic paint, journaling pens, and a MAMBI epoxy peace sign.

The journaling reads:
Northern Minnesota is breathtakingly beautiful in the fall, and this was our first trip together which made everything even more magical. I remember this moment. We had been climbing around on the rocks taking pictures, and you had me in stitches with your video narration of our trip to the lighthouse. We stopped to take in the view of Lake Superior. It was peaceful and serene. Grand Marais will always be an "over the rainbow" place for us.

This song is so inspirational for me. I can envision numerous other art projects inspired by this song in my future...

I hope you will come over and play along with us this week!

I will see you tomorrow with another update. Take care and have a marvelous Monday my friends!

Home...

Happy Saturday! It's 3:46 a.m. here in Minnesota, and I am finally starting to get my mojo back! Yeayyyy! I had lots of fun tonight and if it wasn't so late, I would stay up and make another layout! In any case, I finished one. It's another Circle Journal layout - this time for Denise. Her theme is "Home" and whatever that means to you. The layout has to be a double 6x6. Here's what I came up with...I used my new Cosmo Cricket "Girl Friday" goodies (thanks Secret Sister!), plus a little black vintage Jenni Bowlin paper, and a journaling pen. The title quote is from the song "Homeward Bound" by Simon & Garfunkel. Click on the image to read the writing and see more of the details.

Okay, I will give you another hint about tomorrow's song at Scrapping The Music. Ummm... Okay two hints. 1) It's a person as opposed to a band. 2) The title has six words.
Any ideas? Only one more day...

I'm off to get a little shut eye. Tomorrow's a busy day! Have a stupendous Saturday everybody! I will be back tomorrow with another update!

Awesome Happy Mail and Yummy Dessert...

My RAK came today from The Next Step! How fun is that?!! This week has been a festival of awesome scrap supplies! In true Next Step fashion, this RAK is a mixed media lover's dream! Along with some funky and fun patterned paper, there is fabric, fishnet, fibers and ribbons, tags and frames, flowers and buttons and a simply gorgeous bird! And it's all so bright and beautiful! Thank you so much Lucy, Bethany and Gayle! I really love the inspiration these women provide every week! If you haven't checked The Next Step out, I highly encourage it! They post every Monday with new ideas for mixed media techniques. It's a really unique challenge blog, and lots of fun! After all, who can't use a reason to look forward to Mondays?!

Still no creating from me! It's only been three days, but it feels like much longer! Today I was happily distracted by Michael's gloriously fantastic chocolate cake. I am blessed to have a hubby who bakes the most scrumptious desserts you could ever imagine. And when he married me, he learned how to bake vegan!!! How lucky am I?!!! Sooo yummy.

But seriously, I must get busy and start making stuff! EEEK - time's a wasting!

I will be back tomorrow and I hope hope hope to have a new project to share! Thanks so much for stopping by, and for your comments - they really mean a lot to me!