Three Cards...

I haven't made any cards for awhile, but I had a chance last week! We had a few family events going on.

This first one was for a baby shower for my niece...
It was fun making this one because everything I used was from my Sass Lass Grand Finale Box, which I just received! The only thing I added was the white and black doodling.


We also celebrated two family birthdays - son Stevie turned 20, and daughter Becca turned 22...

The chipboard 20 on Steve's card was also from my new Sass Lass box of goodies! The paper is from the American Crafts "Campy Trails" line; the arrow is a Sass Lass stamp which I shaded with colored pencils.

Finally we have Becca's card. She is our girly girl so I always try to include a little bling and/or glitter...
Most everything on this card is from the Pink Paislee Soiree and Daily Junque Collections. The velvet flower is from Maya Road.

I'm very excited because I received my Project Life Page Protectors today! I got the big variety pack, plus some extra A's and G's! And Speaking of Project Life, Lisa Truesdell has an awesome post about her Project Life process on her blog right now! It's full of tips and photos - check it out here!

I'm excited to be featured at the Smashbook blog today! I'd love it if you come on over and leave me a comment! Click here to go to the post.

That's all for today, but I will be back soon with more updates! Thanks so much for visiting!!!

Oops! Now I'm really truly done...

Just when I thought I was done with my journal page - Julie busted out another lesson on adding details to finish the page! I'm so glad! It's amazing how adding those finishing touches makes me feel like the page is complete!

Here's the final final page...
This time I added punchinella stenciling with pink and orange acrylic paint. I also managed to add another day's journaling right under the word "acceptance."

Tomorrow we start a new page! I'm so excited!

Thanks for visiting and I will be back again soon!

Day Four - The Completed Page...

It was fun to finally finish my journal page! Here's how it turned out...


One fun thing that I am learning is that I don't need to preserve the ability to read my journaling. Just getting it down is the therapy. Once it is down sometimes I actually don't want to read it again; and other times, I just feel like doodling something over the top of it and I can go ahead and do that without thinking about it.

This time I added:
Black and Teal acrylic paint
More Neocolor II crayons
Misc. bits of tape
Magazine words
White Poster-Paint Sharpie
Pitt Pens

Aundria asked what type of journal this is. It's a new one for me and I just love it! It's a little bigger than 8"x10" and it's made by Global Art Materials...
Here's a link if you'd like to check it out.

I can hardly wait to see how we are going to start the next page!

I wish you a wonderful weekend my friends! Thanks for visiting!

Day Three of "30 Days In Your Journal..."

Still playing in my "30 Days" journal and loving it!

Yesterday Kelly asked if we are going to be fitting all 30 days onto this one journal page; and the answer is no (thank heavens!) I wouldn't be very good at that. I write too big. Ha. I know there will be multiple pages; how many remains to be discovered! It's really a different way of working for me, and I love that.

Here are my day four additions:

I added:
Neocolor II crayons
the words "needs love." doodled with a pitt pen, and filled in with a signo uniball white pen.
a Prima #3 sticker
and more journaling, of course. :0)

I can't believe it's already Friday - can you? These weeks seem to fly by faster and faster.

Thank you again so much for visiting and for your supportive comments! They really mean a lot to me!

The First Two Days of "30 Days In Your Journal"...

It's day three of Julie's "30 Days In Your Journal" class, and I'm having a blast! I love my new journal, and building a page a little at a time is new to me - so much fun! Here are my first two days results...

Day One...


and Day Two...

I can't give away any details about the class, but I can say that it's tons of fun, easy to do, and has a really neat, supportive community going! There's a widget in the sidebar you can click on for more information.

I hope your week is going well! I wish you sunshine and creativity! See you again soon!

The Daily Record Smashbook - Week of October 24 - 30, 2011...

I tried something new with my Daily Record Spread for this week. I wanted to be able to see the whole week at a glance, so I tore out a page from further back in the book, and taped it on the right side with some Smashtape, and now it's a fold out...
It's hard to see in the photo, but I only taped the left side of my postcard...

so I could flip it open and put some more details behind...
I love including little details that I would not think to put in a 12 x 12 layout, like this little bit about who we are rooting for on the X-Factor...
My fave part of the week is the conversation I heard between our cat Willie and Michael, which I jotted down and then transferred to the blue Smashpad page (above).




Thanks sooooo much for visiting and I will see you again soon!

Last Page in this Journal for Awhile...

I'm so EXCITED to start Julie's "30 Days In Your Art Journal" workshop tomorrow! Yeayyy! I bought a special journal to use for the workshop, with watercolor paper pages (click here to see).

So that means that this page is going to be my last one in my record album journal for awhile. It's from October 30th...

I've had so much fun working in this journal so far! If you are interested in seeing all of the pages from this journal - click here to go to my flickr album.

Tomorrow I will share my Daily Record Smashbook pages for last week.

Thanks sooo much for visiting and I will see you again soon!

OMG It's a Scrapbook Layout...

It's been a long, long time since I've felt like scrapbooking, but this weekend I got out my supplies and remembered how much fun it is! I finished this layout (click image to see details)...

I can't take credit for the design. It was an October Afternoon project class from Scrapfest. I'm quite proud of myself for finishing it because, quite frankly, alot of the times my half-finished projects from Scrapfest get put in a box after the event, and I never quite get around to them again. Aargh. It's embarassing. Anyhoo, this time I did, and here are a couple of closeups...

I love, love, loved playing with the OA Sprinklers (the light-colored splats in the background)! They are so different from other spray inks/mists I've tried. They are opaque - like paint! Very retro, very cool!



I did change a few things - added some paper tape, extra embellies & changed up the photo sizes; but basically I stuck straight to the project design they gave us. I love how it came out. Now I am all keyed up to start scrapbooking again!

Speaking of scrapbook supplies, have you seen that Sassafras Lass is having a huge box sale? It's their final one, since they are no longer going to be manufacturing products (soooo sad). Click here to check it out.

One more fabulous thing I wanted to let you know about - it's a fabulous and FREE online art journal workshop! The super-talented Tracie Hanson is generously offering it up on her blog, and it's a good one! Perfect for beginners and advanced art journalers alike. Check it out here.

Thanks for visiting and I will see you again soon!

New Journal Pages and a Little about Organization...

I did something I almost never do with the last couple days of journal pages. I turned them sideways (gasp)! The reason had to do with that little wolf on the left hand page right next to the number 26. See him?
The base of the left-hand page is a map, and that wolf was part of it. I really wanted to use him on my page, which meant turning it sideways. I decided it was better to turn them both sideways, than just one, so that's what I did.

Here's how it looks if you twist the book around so you can see it right...

Closeups...
The image on this one came from a songbook from my childhood, and the lizard is a stamp that I inked with a poster paint marker. I punched some holes in the paper just for fun. :0)


On this one I wanted to tone down the busyness of the map, so I painted it with blue acrylic, but first I used some clear crackle paint over the wolf, which acted as a resist. I pasted tissue paper strips on top with a glue stick for journaling.

Lou asked about how I organize my collage images; so I thought I'd share a few pics with you all...

In my studio I have this rolling cart which contains collage ephemera. I just divide it into three categories: Images, Journaling (tags, spots, and ledger paper, etc), and backgrounds...

For crops I have it organized even better. I have these four folders which fit perfectly into my rolling cart:

I can't remember who makes these things (cropper hopper?), but I got them at Archiver's and they're fabulous! Here's a closeup of the categories...

and here's how the specialty folder looks when open...
Specialty paper is a broad term I give to papers that are a little out of the ordinary, like tissue paper, gift wrap, handmade, wallpaper, etc. I love how these folders give you pockets for different sized pieces. It makes it easy to keep track of the little bits.


Here's the text/ledger paper folder when open...

I also have a big jumbled up box of stuff that has no organization at all - ha. What I tend to do is grab from that box when I need to refill my organized boxes. So far it's working great.

I hope that is helpful!

Thanks for visiting and see you again soon!

Where I get my images, and a Journal Page...

I want to share my journal page from October 24th...

Alison had asked where I get my pictures from:

I get a lot of them from magazines. Some of my fave mags for images are:

Oprah (great quotes, photography and images that empower women)
Birds and Blooms (gorgeous photography)
Best Friends (Adorable Animal photos)

I also carry a camera with me everywhere, and take a lot of pictures of random stuff to add to my collection.

Another thing I do is look for children's books and coffee table books at thrift stores. Thrift stores are a great resource for fabulous photography and images.

I encourage you to look for images everywhere you go. If you are getting coffee, check out their free brochures, look at napkins at fast food places, shopping bags at the grocery store or the mall. There are opportunities for collecting images everywhere - it can be addicting!

I hope this info is helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions!

Thanks so much for visiting!

The Daily Record - Week of October 17 - 23, 2011...

I'm loving this style of documenting in my Smashbook! This week took up three pages...

The lime green quote card is from Becky Higgins Project 365 (2009); and the Round silverware sticker is Cosmo Cricket;

I think it's fun working with the designs that are already on the Smashbook pages...


Closeup of left side...
The brown tissue behind the ephemera on the bottom is what my burrito was wrapped in at Chipotle. It was too cute not to keep!


Closeup of right side...
The big orange flower was on the wrapping that came with my new journal;

and if I back out a little bit, you can see that my Smashbird bookmark is holding my place...

Thanks for visiting and I will see you again soon!

I finished a couple of pages at the crop...

My monthly girls crop was fabulous! We always have such a great time together. I'm mad at myself for not taking a picture this month tho - ack! I got so caught up in the fun that I forgot all about it. Oh well. I did do a bunch of backgrounds and collages in my art journal, which I will share as soon as I finish them up with the journaling. Here are my last couple of days' pages...




I originally titled this one "Little Wonders," because of my fascination with birds. Then it made me think of the song by Rob Thomas, which sent my journaling in a whole different direction. I love it when that happens...

I know I've got some questions to answer and I have not forgotten - I will get to them soon, and if you have anymore, feel free to leave them in the comments! Thanks so much for visiting!!! I appreciate you!