December Daily

Sooooo on November 30th my friend Angie and I decided that we were going to do some "quick" December Daily's. 

Is there such a thing??

Well we did our best, and spent the next two days putting together 

our "quickie" books.

Here are some looks into the blank pages.

Hope you are somehow documenting your December, and your life in general.

Most of my papers were not double sided, so I cut the same paper for front and back and then I 

used my sewing machine to sew them together.

On one of the days I added a place to slip a tag between the sewing.

There is a lot of yummy good pages and papers. 

I love the uniqueness of each page, and am having fun documenting my time with my parents. 

Flowers??? How thoughtful

Sometimes I find myself wandering around those big box stores admiring the pretty "spare parts" 

the wonderful flowers that look flawless.....

I pick them up and do my best to try to figure out how they were made....

I of course picture a big factory where these flowers are churned out by the thousands... 

I CAN do it! 

So I decided to try.... 

1. Pick out your fabric.... Satin seems to work best but you can use any kind you want.

2. Cut circles from your fabric.  These can be as big or small as you would like, but you want them to get progressively smaller.

3. Light your candle.

4. Burn just the edges of the fabric.  If you're using satin you will notice how the edges start to curl up.

5. Layer your burnt circles with the largest on the bottom.  There are many ways to finish off the flower.  You can glue the circles together, you can sew them, you could punch a hole in them and use a brad to hold them all together.

Voila!  You have a beautiful hand made flower to add to your art project! 

I like to make them while sitting on my couch watching my favorite show... then they are all ready to go when you start a new project!

Saturday finds

About two months ago I stopped working the graveyard shift, and now have to be up at 4:30

in the morning 3 -4 days a week.  

However I'm off on Saturdays! 

So at 6 am I get up, make a cup of coffee, and head out to see what I can find to use in my art!

Today I ventured up to a 55+ community and ran into a couple of estate sales.

Sometimes they creep me out.. but I'm in search of maps, and vintage metal findings,

books, ect...

Today was a bit of a treasure trove!

Maps, pictures, a copy of "Little Women" with a signature and date of 1949. 

The pictures are all old black and whites, 

 

 

 

and there are actually about 5x's the amount of 

postage stamps as you see...

The maps are from Germany, and most dated in the 80's

There was also this little hand held scorecard for Bridge

All are enough to get the creative juices flowing...

The bonus is that the stamps I found have some value... I paid 50 cents for them, and I found one worth 15.00!  I'd say that's an investment... If I could find anyone to buy it of course!!!

What do you look for at yard/estate sales??  How do you plan to use them in your future projects?  

Please feel free to post your pictures, or link up to the treasures you have found!  T

Thanks for looking, and come back soon!

No Art Days!

Yesterday was one of those... No Art Days....

My work week starts on Sundays right now, and I work 12 hour shifts... It makes creating on work days difficult!

And yesterday was one of those "I'm too tired to even eat dinner" days!!!

Today however.... I was wide awake at 4 am and had 2 hours before work.... 

I still didn't create... I did however get to the gym... 

OHHHHH how wonderful that felt... 

Its just the start I needed to get the juices flowing, and hopefully keep me up those few extra hours tonight so I can create!  

On the agenda is a Graduation Card for my brother in law, (Master's from Duke!!!) and of course a Mothers Day card for mom... and A birthday card for my sister!!!  

That should keep me busy for an hour or two!   And on top of it I'm gonna get hubby to help since one of the cards is for his bro! 

Sorry I don't have any pics today... Hopefully tomorrow I'll have lots of pretty pictures of cards created!  

When do you have the time to create??   

Self portrait

I love to follow the challenges on http://artjournaling.ning.com 

While I haven't had a chance to do any of their challenges up until now, I love the 

inspiration that they throw my way!

This week the challenge is to do a self portrait.....

While looking in the mirror, and without really lifting the pen from the paper! 

Oy I said...

I can't draw....

Then I realized that was the whole point right??  

Just do it!!!  

Try something new!

Sooooo......

this is mine.....

No, I don't have pink hair!  or green eyes for that matter....

Part of the challenge was to use your favorite color...

So I colored my face yellow! 

Then I looked over at my doggin Sierra, and figured why not... so I drew her too!  Isn't she cute??

Check out the challenges...

And enjoy the journey.... after all isn't your art journal a place for discovery and trying new things???

What is vintage??

Do a google search for Vintage and you will come up with about 100 different styles of what is vintage. 

The last few days I have been working on an altered composition book. 

The only parameters I was given is "Vintage please."

I was floundering... I had even turned to hubby for some help! 

Then as I was leaving Hobby Lobby tonight I saw this....

and I knew I would be doing something using this as my inspiration....

As much as I hate to leave you all in blog world waiting, I haven't even yet begun the altered composition book... so there will be no pictures of that listed here...

Just a little more eye candy from this beauty...

Which were all shot from my ipad in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby, and were slightly altered using instagram!  Enjoy

She's a beauty, and what inspiration for vintage...

What do you think is vintage??  If you had to alter a composition book what would you do??  No really, any ideas are welcome! 

Translating a hobby!

#5 Hobby

My list of journal prompts from Mary

includes this beauty...
When I was at a recent meet up one of lovely ladies triggered an idea for this page. 

You see art journaling was not my first love... In fact, I had a whole life as a sewer and quilter prior to this adventure.  I even tried to sew a pair of pants once... that was a MAJOR fail!  

I am a lover of all things sewing though...
 I would love to have a dress form just for the inspiration it might lend to me!

I was super excited to use a leftover apron pattern in my art journal. 

I modge podge'd up the page and slapped that bad boy down!

Then it tore... and it didn't fit quite right... 

So I added some more pieces, and I stamped it up some using my Ranger distress inks!

It was starting to look better.... Then it hit me... since I was already going for a little sewing theme, why not actually sew on the pages??? 

So I pulled out my embroidery threads that mom had given me last time she was here.. and I went to work on the edges! 

Then I added a little sewing in the middle of the page with a piece out of my scrap dictionary about a "pattern." 

On the opposite side I used some glitter glue to write "Sewing Machine" 

and some ribbon that looks like a tape measure.  

Finally I added a quick sewn paper flower that I adapted from this tutorial.

I hope you enjoy!
What is a hobby that you would journal about?? 

Turning Vacation into art?

 My husband is a perpetual goof ball!

My parents love to go to thrift shops when they come to visit... Dad is always looking for local t-shirts, and mom is looking for household goods......

My husband on the other hand... he's never looking for anything in particular, and is more so just along for the ride!

Flagstaff, Arizona is just far enough north of Phoenix that they get snow most every winter, and are even close to skiing. 

This is my amazingly funny husband dressed up in the Flagstaff good will.

In case you can't read the bib below, it' reads "Don't feed the Bears, Feed Me!" 

What sort of silly and fun things do you do on vacations??  Do you sing in the car?  Do you make up games to play in the car?  Do you try on silly bibs??    How would you translate this into a journal page?? 

Orange

Create an orange page!

It's such a bright and happy color... but how do you make a whole page of orange???

This page is similar to one that I saw online, and while I should have written down the site, I didn't, and then of course I couldn't find the site... Luckily for me I did however write down some of the things on the page... This is my version of that page.  

I journaled exactly what I was doing at the time I was doing it.... 

The background is orange watercolors mixed with wild honey Ranger ink, and orange glitter watercolors.  The lettering is stamped using black soot Ranger ink.  And the white writing is a jelly roll.  

This page was super easy to make, and I love that it went together so quickly!

Challenge #15

I had to read the rules twice before I determined that an art journal/ smash book entry would be fine! 

This is my first entry to the saturated canary challenge I am super excited to start using these fun digi stamp creations by Krista you can find them in her store here. 

This is my big beauty!  

I used copic and prismacolor markers to color her.  

And her close up!

The background for the page was painted with a wash of glitter watercolors, and the raindrops are of the same.

Some of the raindrops have a little Ranger Distress Crackle paint on them.  

Thanks for taking the time to stop by hope your are enjoying creating something today!

Journaling your favorite book

I woke up super early... Super excited about Mom and Dad coming to visit!! And it's also Mom's birthday... I will post about her present later...  What an adventure that was!  The house is all cleaned (or hidden!) Except for the studio that I just don't have the patience to clean now!  And since I was up so early I decided 

to tackled another prompt....

13. Favorite Book.... 

 I first read Gone with The Wind when I was 10 or 11 years old. Most likely I didn't understand parts of it, but I remember that I had gone on vacation with my family (I don't remember where) and I stayed up all night sitting on the bathroom floor, in the hotel, reading this amazing book. 

 

 I was simply mesmerized by all the flowing dresses, and the romance! I have read it quite a few times since, but that first time was the clencher, of all the hundreds of books I've read since, this has remained the most precious to my heart.

 I had some fun doing this page in my journal. I even copied the beginning of the book onto the background. I used Distress Inks to make the "weathered" look 

and the library card is from a pack of colorbok Antique Paperie die cuts. I added the info about the book that I found in Wikipedia. 

What is your favorite book? How would you journal it?