Lesson One of Dina's Class...

I am absolutely LOVING Dina Wakely's Art Journaling 102 class! I'm only on the first assignment and I'm learning so much! Here are the first few pages in my journal. For the first one I took the raven that I cut out to use as a mask on the other pages, and stuck him right on this page. I love how painty he got! The border is made with water-soluble oil pastels...
The very first page is this little shipping tag - I used it as a title page. The #4 was done with a Heidi Swap Mask and a black oil crayon. I tore my name off of a bill and the stamps are the collage alphabet from Stampin Up...


Here's the back side of the tag...

And this is the next spread. I had so much fun playing here. The materials are acrylic paint (Claudine Hellmuth and some miscellaneous other brands), vintage sheet music, a hand-drawn and cut-out eye (colored pencils), Alpha stamps, a couple of Stampin Up background stamps, spray ink and water-soluble oil pastels.
Close up of the left side...
Close up of the right-side...

The subject matter was inspired by Angie Backen's daily inspiration threads at SiSTV (based on the book "Simple Abundance").

The thing I love about Dina's classes is that she teaches these wonderful techniques that you can apply to your own style of art, and use over and over again. I am still using the techniques I learned in her first Art Journaling class (which you can still purchase, by the way).

That's about it for today - I will be back tomorrow with more to share - have a fantastic Tuesday everyone!

Scrapping The Music Article and Project 365 Week Nine...

Hey everybody, it's the start of another fabulous week and I'm super glad to be here with you! I've got some fun news to share! Scrapping The Music is featured in the March issue of Scrapstreet Magazine! I hope you will check it out if you have a minute - it's a three-page feature (click on the page #s to turn the pages) about what the blog means to us with contributions from our founder Mary and each design team member, along with photos of this week's layouts! Click here to read the article.

Our featured song this week is "Say" by John Mayer. It's such a beautiful song, and the lyrics really speak to me. Here's what I came up with for it... (remember to click on the picture to see the detail)

I used the SiSTV Retro Modern Collection for this layout, along with Jazz Blue Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels), kraft cardstock (Stampin Up), white pigment ink, and an Inkadinkadoo birds stamp. Come on over and play along with us!

Now on to Project 365 for Week Nine! Here are my pics for last week...

Monday, February 23: My supplies arrived via UPS for Dina Wakely's Art Journaling 102 class.

Tuesday, February 24: The price of gas and Cedar Square apartments in Minneapolis. I snapped this while waiting for the light to change on my way home from a meeting.

Wednesday, February 25: This is how many new clients I have! I can't wait to meet each of them!

Thursday, February 26: The snow started right before I had to go to the dentist...

Friday, February 27: And how the snow looked the next day in downtown Minneapolis...

Saturday, February 28: Willie and his dad hangin out on a peaceful Saturday nite.

Sunday, March 1: Johnny looks up to his buddy Tony - isn't that cute?

Somewhere out there in blogland I found a link to this cool, patterned masking tape - check it out! I ordered a package of the orange - can't wait to get it!

I hope your Monday is fantastic! I will be back tomorrow with more to share!

Early Sunday Update...

I've been having so much fun working in my art journal tonite! I've been getting my hands full of paint and gesso and spray ink and gel medium! I've started a whole bunch of pages, but only finished one so far. It's the inside of the front cover... This is my prayer - It's a simple page, but I love how it turned out, and it sets the tone for the rest of the book! I used a piece of vintage sheet music, two sets of alphabet stamps, acrylic paint, stazon ink and water soluble oil crayons.

I've been practicing the new techniques I'm learning in Dina's Art Journaling class, and it's going really well - and stretching me out of my comfort zone - which is fabulous! I should be able to finish some of those pages by tomorrow - so I will share them with you then!

I hope you are having a fantastic weekend! See you soon!

Nice to Be Back...

I've had two days in a row with no creating - eeeekkkk! Wednesday night Michael and I watched a couple of episodes of 24 (season two - we've got some major catching up to do, so please no spoilers!); and then Thursday I had some dental work done and my jaw was hurting, so I just vegged on the couch again, watching American Idol catch up shows.

Now tonight I'm back in the studio working on my homework for Art Journaling 102 and I'm feeling really inspired! Sometimes when you step away for a bit, it makes it even more fun to come back to it! I've got the whole weekend ahead of me to do lots of scrapping - yeay!

I finished my last layout for the Crop Suey Design Team this week - it's a 6 x 12 of my little friend Willie, made with the February "Cocoa Critters" kit...

The look on Willie's face just cracks me up. Everything is from the kit, except for the orange plaid gaffer tape (SiSTV) and the spray ink behind the photo (Adirondack Terra Cotta). I also used a felt "t" from my "Storytellers" kit. I had so much fun being part of the crop suey team, and I thank Bree and Camille for the opportunity to design for them!

In other news - I was excited to find out that I won a "Me and My Big Ideas" RAK over at Lauren Gick's blog! I can't wait to get my new goodies and create something fun with them! Thank you Lauren!

Now I'm off to see if the background is dry in my Art Journal, so I can continue on with my homework assignment! I will be back tomorrow to share how it turned out!

Have an awesome Saturday my friends!

A New Art Journal

Dina's Art Journaling 102 class is starting off FABULOUSLY! I am loving what we are learning, and I am so excited to try the new techniques out! I decided to first make my own journal to use and WHAT FUN I HAD!

The cover is made from an old Chuck Mangione record album cover that my awesome sister Renee gave me (thank you Renee!) And inside I put a mixture of cardstock, shipping tags,
watercolor paper, paper bags,
junk mail, ledger paper (I glued a few pieces of these together to make them thicker),
book pages and postcards.
I bound it all together with my bind-it-all!
I had such a blast doing this!!!!
I can't wait to start filling it up! I better get going on that because the first lesson was already posted yesterday! Eeeekkk!

Oh, and can we talk SiSversary for a minute????? I am so excited about it I can't stand it! I am finally going to get to meet a lot of my online friends in real life!!! Yeayyyy!!! Workshops and Crop Time and Jenni Bowlin - yeayyyy! If you want more info on this fun and fantastic event, click on the blinkie towards the top of my blog. It will take you right to the site.

Also, today is Wednesday which means it's Project 52 day! I think my ATC will have something to do with the excitement of SiSversary!

I'll be back tomorrow with another update - I hope your having a fantastic Wednesday!

Art Journaling 102 Starts Today...

The UPS man delivered my supplies yesterday - I'm all set to start Art Journaling 102 with Dina Wakely today! I'm so excited!
Also, it's my last day to blog over at Crop Suey. My design team term ends at the end of the month. Come on over and say hi! I'd love to see you there!

Tomorrow I will be back with an update on how the first day of class went! I can hardly wait!

Project 365 Week Eight...

Monday: Michael and Steve at the movie theatre - they're ready for "Coraline" to start - they've got their 3D glasses on!

Tuesday: I was excited to win the Prima paper pack in Nat's workshop! I can't wait to start creating with these gorgeous papers! This pic is taken in the doorway to my scraproom.

Wednesday: A romantic dinner for two with my Michael...

Thursday: I came upon this little country church while out driving and it looked so pretty I just had to stop and take a picture.

Friday: Johnny loves to hang out with dad (Michael) in his office. Give him a pile of soft socks and he's happy!

Saturday: My new purchase arrived - Claudine Hellmuth's new book! I can't wait to try it out!

Sunday: The last of the roses Michael gave me on valentine's day. It's still beautiful eight days later!

I wish you a week filled with purpose and inspiration! I will see you tomorrow my friends!

D is for Decide...

The weekends fly by so fast, don't they? I can't believe it's Sunday evening already!

I finished my "D" page for my "A Year In The Life of an Art Journal" group. The word prompt is Decide. The lyric is from a song by Shinedown called "Fly From The Inside." I used Peerless Watercolor sheets, and dropped water onto the dried page to get the splotchy effect. The butterfly is a glitter diecut by Crate Paper. The word "decided" is Sassafrass alpha stickers, The lyric is stamped with Stampin' Up's newsprint font, white ink, and micro glitter. You can see the glitter a little better in the pic below...

So, now I am off to work on my last project for the Crop Suey blog. Tuesday will be my last post, as my design team term ends at the end of February. I will miss it!

I will be back tomorrow with my Project 365 photos for week eight!

Thanks for stopping by!

My Top-Secret Project is Done!

I finished my top secret project - yeayyyy! And Michael loves it! Super yeayyyy! I'm so happy!!!! So now I am excited to share it with you! This is a project I did in an online workshop called "The Storyteller," taught by my friend Nat Kalbach. Here's how it turned out...The base for the album is by Urban Lily - it's called the "Secret Keeper", and it's part of the workshop kit. Actually everything I used comes with the kit, except for the paint, glimmer mist, journaling pens, and one piece of purple patterned paper. Most of the materials come from Prima.
I just loved the layers and different shapes to the pages...
So, here's the story (click to see the details)









I had so much fun writing our story and making the album! If you would like more info about taking this class - click here.

Oh, and one more fun thing! One random person got a prize in their workshop kit and guess what - it was ME! It's a GORGEOUS pad of 5x7 Prima Papers from the Sasha Collection. Here's me holding my prize...

so I want to say a big THANK YOU to Nat for teaching such an awesome workshop! I had so much fun!

I hope you are all having a great Saturday night! See you again tomorrow!

C is for Clearly...

Happy Saturday my friends!!! I'm about to get started on my top secret valentine's project, but I wanted to just take a moment first to share my new page for my ABCs of Me Journal. (Also known as "A Year In The Life of An Art Journal."

It's called "C is for Clearly"... (click to see details)I used the Peerless Watercolor sheets again for the background (love those!) plus magazine images, including one of Mikhail Baryshnikov who was/is my dancing HERO (I got to see him dance once - it was AMAZING!) Alpha stickers (unknown origin - they are really old) and a Making Memories clear tag for the C. I stamped the C on the front with stazon, and the swiped a little orange paint on the back to make it stand out more.

Ignore all the little green post-it tags. I marked where each letter will go to make sure they will fit and be spaced out well. The other pages will be filled in with random quotes, thoughts, etc.

So, now I am going to start in on my top-secret project in hopes of finishing before Michael gets home from work at 3! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Project 52 Week Seven...

I finished my Project 52 ATC for the week! The background for this ATC was done in layers - gesso, acrylic paint, bubblegum pink glimmer mist and finally Bravo Burgundy Stampin Up ink sponged over a paper heart doily. The making Memories felt alphas and handcut hearts are from the "Girly Girl" collection at SiSTV. I inked the edges of everything with a chestnut roan cateye inkpad. Dotted border done with a sharpie. The journaling on the back explains the front...

I also wanted to share with you a pic of how my ribbon display is filling up!

I can't believe it's already Friday? Wow. I am working on a top-secret project that is a gift for my hubby Michael for valentine's day! I know, I know - valentines day is already over, but we just celebrated on Wednesday! I wanted to have it done by then, but alas - I think it will take me one more evening. I can't wait to give it to him! After that I will also share with you! Hopefully tomorrow!

Have a wonderful Friday my friends!