Cutting up my credit card

Thanks to Beverly at the http://artjournaling.ning.com/ I am back to art jounaling on a regular basis.  I told myself after Kelly Kilmer’s class that I should be working on my own prompts. That choosing my own was the best way to work on finding “My Style.”  But after the slump I have been in, I decided to get my mojo back any way I could and if it takes someone else’s prompts to do it, so be it.  Some of the prompts strike a cord right away, some take a bit longer.

March 2nd Prompt: Credit cards

This prompt came at a very opportune time.  Chase Bank, who took over after WAMU went belly up, had just sent me a replacement card for the WAMU card. So I had one to cut up for this prompt.

March 3rd & 4th:  Blue and Doodles, respectively. Not much to say about this one, except the background is watercolors instead of my usual acrylic paints. The flowers are colored with watercolor pencils and/or Intense pencils.

March 5th & 6th: Past and Present.

Yes that little girl is me as a child. Since my mom passed, I’ve been going through old photo albums and I found this kid picture of me I wanted to use. Today was the perfect time to try a new method of image transfer.

I used an ink jet transfer method to get the image onto the journal page. after testing, I think I prefer the toner based method more. The water based Ink jet image is easier to mess up. 

The Here and Now side was done with a stenciled image of me that I created a few months ago after taking Mary Ann Moss’ Stencilery class. I’ll probably use it a few more times because I like how it looks. :)

 

I’d love to hear what you do to get out of a creative funk.

It pays to blog

I want to thank my very, very sweet daughter for making some Biscochitos for me for Christmas. She read my Christmas Questions blog post and decided to make them for me Christmas morning.  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, they were sooo good.  Thank you my precious girl. (By the way I hope you are feeling better.)

I haven’t posted in a while but not all was lost, art wise, while I was gone from blogland. I managed to get two journal pages done while traveling to New Mexico for Christmas and another was created last week.  Those are below.

Today, I finally completed the Texture prompt that Kathryn posted weeks ago at the Soul Journal site.  I actually started it a few weeks before Christmas but Christmas projects took precedence and this one was put aside for a while. However, I knew I’d be back to it sooner or later because I liked the idea of it.  Instead of adding it to my journal I used a canvas board and created a freeform piece.  I really like how it turned out.  The size is 5 X 7.  I used fabric flowers, foam leaves, lace, buttons, watch parts and beads.  All were covered in gesso.  The gesso was also used as the adhesive.

The following journal page was created due to the flight we took from home to New Mexico for Christmas.  We are very discouraged with the airline industry.

This was a fun page created on Christmas Eve and Christmas day:

This last page was the most recent and based on our New Years Eve activities:

How was your holiday?

25 Gifts

It’s here. It’s Christmas day and I hope you are all having a great day and have received many wonderful gifts, not all of the material kind.  While I am writing this post a few days before the actual day I know that it will be wonderful as I have been looking forward to it since last Christmas.  I so enjoy seeing the reactions of those who receive gifts I have purchased and especially those I have made. 

I indicated in the last post that I wanted to post images of a gift I made for my daughter.  It’s small book called 25 gifts and it’s made from the Advent twinchies post by Kathryn Antyr at Soul Journal.  Kathryn posted 24 gifts and I added the 25th, The 25th being the “Gift of spirituality”.  

Here are the twinchies (the inside pages), click on the image to see a larger view.

 

 

 

Here is the cover I made for it:

In the two images below you will see the circled numbers used from the advent numbers I posted a few days ago.

 

Since not all the images are easy to guess what is being said, i created an index at the end of the book.

 

Thanks to Anne, at Gaal Creative,  for posting about the Zutter Bind-it-all machine.  It really helped with this project.  It would have taken a lot longer without it.

A Freebie & How is your neighborhood decorating?

Freebie

I've been working on my Advent twinchies from the prompts provided by Kathryn at the Soul Journal group and I needed some numbers to go with the images I made.  This is what I came up with and I thought I would make them available in case someone else could use them. They are just under 1 inch in size and can be printed on card stock and cut out with a 1" circle punch.  You are free to print these out and use them any way you like.

To get the correctly sized image, click on the image below. When the full sized image is on your screen, you can:

1. Print right from the browser, or
2. Right click on the numbers and choose "Save Image As" or "Save Picture as"  then choose a location to save the image on your hard drive.  Once downloaded, double click the image to open it and print.   

 

Neighborhood Decorations:

This inflatable Nativity scene popped up in my neighborhood this year. Yes, an inflatable Nativity scene and it cracks me up.

It's not a funny "box of ha ha's" kind of laugh either, it's a "that's just wrong" kind of laugh.  Just who thought an inflatable Nativity scene was a good idea?  And what makes it worse is that this is what it looks like during the day:

Other than the big snowmen they have at tree lots, I hadn't seen many inflatables until we moved to this farm town two years ago. People here have them all over the place. And they range from Santa's to Grinches to the Abominable Snowman. (We're a little hard pressed to figure out what the Abominable Snowman has to do with Christmas but it's a snow creature so OK.) I'm not a scrooge by any measure and I love all most outdoor Christmas decorations, but an inflatable nativity scene just makes me shake my head.  Is nothing sacred? 

What kind of decorations are in your neighborhood?

Soul Journal - Trusting the Journey

The theme for this page, Trusting the journey, was inspired by Kathyrn Antyr, the Collage Diva while the background was inspired by Millande at Millande Creativity Club.  I used images and quotations I found on the web to add content to the page. And then outlined it all in Black charcoal pencil. Then I smudged the pencil to produce a shadow effect. 

The background was made by painting the page first with Gesso, then with a solid color.  Then I added rubber bands to a brayer and covered the brayer in paint of a different color.  Used the brayer horizontally along the bottom and then washed it and added a different color to paint vertically.  It was a fun experiment.

Most of the images are easy to see but the scrap on the top left of the page says "Boarding pass" and it's taken from a boarding pass for a flight I took last month to see my daughter and mother.  I thought that was a fun element to add.

 

 

The biggest and hardest change I've had to deal with recently was when my daughter moved to New Mexico.   I've written about it before so I won't go into it again but it was very hard because we were so close. We still are.  How about you?  What's the biggest change you've had  to deal with and how did you handle it?

ATC Winner announced

Francine Cronos  from Harps In The Willows is the winner of the drawing for the Creepy Halloween ATC shown in the Soul Journal Halloween Blog party post below.  Francine's name was randomly drawn from the pool of 19 who commented.

The visitors who didn't comment made a very yummy witches brew.  (I did warn you.) There were one or two who thought they could sneak away but they were caught by the blood hounds. :) No one can escape them.

Soul Journal - Lexicon

This weeks Soul Journal challenge was Lexicons.  Kathryn says this about the challenge: "A lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. For our personal lexicons we will be collecting and chronicling our own visual and symbolic language."

In creating my collection of symbols I realized that there are so many that I really enjoy using that it would be too cluttered if I added them all in a layout.  So I created a layout with the symbols I use the most or mean the most to me and the rest as the page background. 

 

 

"When thoughts fails of words, they find imagination waiting at their elbow to teach a new language without words."
   --- Author Unknown

Soul Journal - Healing Love

This week Kathryn says, "With this journey, I invite you to think outside of yourself, to think of a friend or family member, or even a beloved pet that may be hurting or suffering in some way. As we work through the steps of this journey we will think about how our friend is suffering and create a page where we acknowledge their needs and send them some healing love." 

This page or theme couldn't have come at a better time.  My mother-in-law, who I love dearly, was hospitalized with a intestinal blockage and she was in so much pain. She really needed the healing love.  I created this page for her. I love you mom.

 

Where to begin? In the middle of the female silhouette is a Citrine crystal which is the Solar Plexus Chakra. It Reduces anxiety, fear, depression, stomach tension, food disorders, allergies. Detoxification of: the Spleen, kidneys, liver, urinary system, intestines.

The Sun, always makes you feel energized. A fortune cookie fortune that says "Good fortune is around the corner." (How many times can I say the word fortune in one sentence before you start throwing tomatoes at me? :-) )

On the left, there is an Angel to watch over her, H because her first name is Helen (but she likes to be called HJ), on the bottom left is the Chinese symbol for healing. They are all on the stencil I created from an art show flyer, the artist makes the most beautiful paper kites.  

Toward the center top of the page there is a tiny tarot card that says "a Good Augury", which means a good forecast.  While I was creating the page, I pulled out the little tarot cards and decided that since I was thinking of HJ, I would read her cards. Now I've never read anyone's cards before but I was amazed at how accurately her situation was assessed, down to what was causing her a lot of tension. And in HJ tension and stress manifests themselves in physical pain. Anyway the very last card was this one, which gave her predicament a good forecast.  So I had to add that card to my page as well.

And so, from my heart:

I pray for your health to return. I see that which is causing you emotional distress will soon be a thing of the past. I send you all my healing energy and love (repeated like a meditation.)

To update you on HJ's condition, by the time the page was complete, she was out of the hospital and back home.  She is still in a lot of pain but at least she is home where she can recuperate in familiar surroundings. 

Thank you for reading.

Soul Journal - Lost and Found

The theme this week is Lost and Found.  Kathryn says (edited for brevity) "It is time to think about things that we’ve lost. In this step, your journaling will be very personal and unique to your own interpretation of the theme “lost.” Give yourself some time to reflect on the topic." 

I used this theme as an opportunity to address a very hard time in my marriage. Every image and embellishment was chosen carefully for what they symbolize, although it may not be apparent to the reader without explanation.

The "lost" message says "There was a time period [lasted two years] where I lost hope that my marriage would survive. We simply went through the motions  for our daughter's sake. It was difficult and painful for both of us [husband and I]." 

The wedding picture is self-explanatory, the journal page is about marriage. The lotto ticket symbolizes the risk you take when you choose a mate. The chance that you may be heartbroken at some point or that the marriage will fail.

The choice of color, sheet music and brightness of the heart represented the change that occurred within me, when I finally made the choice to work on me for me and not because it was something my husband wanted.  In 2005, I rediscovered myself, joy, my love of music, and my creativity.  I became so much happier because of those changes and those changes affected how my husband looked at me, looked at himself and our marriage.  The change was monumental and profound. I no longer lived for my husband, I lived for me and in the process saved my marriage. The numbers 448, is my personal reminder of that change. The number also represents other things, which I won't go into at this time.

The "Bon Voyage" image represents how close we came to saying goodbye, to going our separate ways.  The "2-of-Hearts" represents the choice we made to "Do Over" or try again and was purposely placed over the Bon Voyage image.

The excerpt of the lyrics to the Rolling Stones song says "You can't always get what you want, But if you try sometimes,

You just might find, You get what you need."

 

My Affirmations:

 

              

And so I leave you with this video to enjoy.  It's my favorite version of the song.

Thank you for reading.

Soul Journal - Instant gratification

Soul Journaling idea was started by Sarah Whitmire at Caspiana and has now been taken over by Kathryn Antyrs on her blog at www.CollegeDiva.com. I just learned all this thanks to my friend, Jennifer Williams. (Thanks Jennifer!) Because I started late I'm behind but I've promised myself that I'm not going to stress about getting caught up or keeping up. I will do only the themes I find interesting and pass on the ones I don't. I have so many other art projects I want to try that if I try to keep up with them all, I'll drive myself crazy.

The theme of this page isn't instant gratification it's about getting instant gratification from creating the page. It's about creating the page without waiting for gesso to dry, to create with supplies you have on hand. Create something in 30 minutes.

However, me do something in 30 minutes? Never happen. No matter how easy it is, I manage to dwell on it. As I looked through my magazines for a good image to use, there were many good ones but none spoke to how I have been feeling this week until I ran across this one. I've blurred the text somewhat as it has some very private thoughts.

Soul Journaling also has a home at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoulJournal/ Join us.

Soul Journaling Day 18

OK I'm behind again.  Still only on Day 18:

Here is the prompt from Sarah's page:

Mix up this list!

-Write the Alphabet quick and Angry (use a permanent ink pen)
-Cut out a silhouette of a person’s face, ink or paint over (magazine stencil technique)
-Add a wash of paint in a new color
-Use something unusual as a stamp (like a piece of corrugated cardboard or a sliced green pepper)
-List everything you did today so far. (Include little things like: brushed my teeth and let the dog out)
-Gesso out a section of your work, don’t think about it…just do it. Add something new over it.
-Add something metal
-Add a drybrush of paint in a new color

 

Here is what I came up with:

Soul Journals

Not long ago I was blog surfing and found this great blog written by Sarah Whitmire called Caspiana. Sarah started a art journal project last month called "Soul Journaling." When I read her words, "I want these books to be a mess of words, color, collage, etc. I want you to be able to be totally free with these and use them to express anything you wish," I decided to follow along. I started late and so I've been busy catching up. Lucky for me Sarah took a short vacation so I could catch up.  That's what I have been up to recently....catching up.

The good thing about starting late is that I could sneak a peek at the pages to come while working on the previous pages. It really helped me to continue with the project. In other words I liked what I saw.  The bad part is that I haven't posted my images on Sarah's blog so I haven't been a part of her community. As soon as I finish this entry I will. Hopefully I won't be too late to join in.  So here goes

Now I didn't take photographs of the whole process but just of the finished pages.  The instructions for the pages were written over several days so what you are seeing here is just the end product but I will list the Journal "Days" from her blog. 

"Claiming your Journal" and "How to protect your creative soul": Days 2-5

 

 

Inchie Art: Day 5-6 and Day 9

 

I Forgot to Tell You: Day 7 - 8, there will be more to come on this page

 

  Recreate our home: Day 10 - 15

Close ups

  About this page, I feel the need to explain that the house on the left is my home and the one on the right is my daughters home, which is 1100 miles away. The song lyric says how much I miss her.

Now I have to admit that I jumped from creating the house to the next assignment and skipped right over the "paper dolls"  I still want to do this but I also wanted to catch up.

Magazine Stencil technique: Day 15 & 16

The stencils were supposed to be people but this doggie said 'use me'. See the doggie looking up at the woman and she is finger crunching?  I think it's because I've been yearning to get a doggie for a pet. Still trying to convince myself it's not a good idea because we don't have much of a back yard. Plus I'm afraid he'll fall in the pool and drown. That would kill me.  I (we) still miss our Charlie, RIP. Charlie was the cutest red/black haired Pomeranian and had the best disposition. sniff, sniff...

I Can Count on Us: Day 17

Not the real name of the project but what my page said it should be called.

That's where I am so far.

Thanks for looking, come back soon for the next installment. Enjoy your life and your art.