Today I did not make a thing! Instead, I spent hours making price tags for a lot of my art and taking inventory. I’ll get back to creating tomorrow!
For now, here is a beautiful Mini Album I made some time ago, with the gorgeous French Country papers from Graphic 45. Enjoy!
French Country Mini Album
This was a day for making something quick and easy! I spent the day doing household chores and making plans for a trip coming up in late March, so I was glad to find inspiration from Pam of the Paper Outpost for this little collage. I used some corrugated card for the base, after pulling off the outer smooth layers. Added scraps of avocado-dyed book pages, a scrap from a cotton doily, a circle cut from a paper collection, a length of beaded lace and ribbon, and some flat-back pearls. What fun! It can be used to embellish a journal page or a card or envelope. What do you think?
Pink Rose Collage
I got started on my creativity this morning in a lovely virtual CoCreation Conversation hosted by Susan Davis, with an exercise lead by Jen Duchene. We were taken on a guided journey to reconnect with our childhood creativity, after viewing one of Jen’s Illuminating Journey Cards. Here is what I created the end of the meditation. (Scroll down for more.)
Joy poster
After lunch, I got started on the next page for the journal I’m building, and even got it completed before dark! I realized that this time around, I’m going to embellish all of the pages when I’ve finished making them. I hope you’re enjoying the process!
What are you working on today? Have you been inspired to set yourself a challenge for the year, or even for a month? Let us know in the comments!
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I’ll have some exciting news to share in a few days, so stay tuned!
I have heat again! The nice fellow from the power company, who lights my heater’s pilot every Fall (I turn it off in late Spring), came over and re-lit the pilot and the heat went on again. Thank you Goddess! It’s been very cold these past few nights, with lows in the upper 20s! Brrrr.
I’m reading a great book that one of my sisters gave me for my birthday, called 365 Thank Yous, by John Kralik. In the book the author uses the practice of sending hand-written thank you notes to many people in his life, ultimately turning his life around. It sounds a great practice! One that I will implement myself, though not necessarily one a day. I do, however, send many thank you notes via email and messages.
I’m inspired to thank all those who have subscribed to this fun art project already and commented on my posts, and to all those who have yet to join. Your willingness to join me and to write comments are very much appreciated and lift my spirits. Thank you!
I finally got down to my creation of the day this evening. It’s the first page of my new little journal, which will be attached to a binding page when all the rest are completed. Stay tuned for more pages!
I invite you all to subscribe to my website so that you will receive notices of the daily posts. Scroll to the bottom of my home page here and fill in your email address beside the “subscribe” button in the footer. You will then receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription; you must do this step in order to get the daily notices. You can also manage your subscription to get fewer email notices, if you wish.
The journey begins! I’m very excited to be launching this challenge, though I started off with a bit of disadvantage. I woke up today to 55º temps–Inside my home! The pilot light for my gas wall heater went out last night, and the power company could not come re-light it for me until tomorrow. So I’ve been running the oven on my (electric) stove with the door open, and bundling up in my down vest. Plus the dry, cold winter air has caused cracking and sore skin on two knuckles and one thumb. Still, the adventure must go on!
One might think that it’s a breeze to sit down and create an art project in a day. Yet there is so much that goes into it that most people don’t think about. There is a project to dream up, a design to create, measurements to take, and assembling of the base, in this case the outer covers of my next little Magical Adventure Journal. Luckily, I already knew the size I wanted to make this one (smaller than more recent albums) and had picked out the paper collection.
Then I had to choose which page of the papers to use on which part of the covers, measure acurately and cut exactly. I glued the end pieces to the spine by attaching strips cut from an old hankerchief and gluing that to spine and ends. Along the way I stopped to refill my small glue bottle from the gallon jug, chatted with a couple of friends on Facebook, and cut out the butterfly to adorn the front cover. Before any of this, I sent out dozens of emails to announce my Year of Art Project and invite everyone to subscribe.
For me, one of the most time-consuming aspects of creating my art is choosing which papers and embellishments to use, sometimes sorting through large amounts of stash before finding the exact right element! I love the process of building each piece, and there is much more to creating art than just slapping paper to cardboard. It’s a totally engaging, delightful, frustrating, satisfying, magical experience!
So here is my first project for the first day. I will be covering the spine and adding final embellishments when the rest of the journal is assembled, so I’m calling it finished for now. EnJoy!
I invite you all to subscribe to my website so that you will receive notices of the daily posts. Scroll to the bottom of my home page here and fill in your email address beside the “subscribe” button in the footer. You will then receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription; you must do this step in order to get the daily notices. You can also manage your subscription to get fewer email notices, if you wish.
I just finished reading Julie and Julia by Julie Powell (I had watched the movie some years ago), and got inspired to do my own year-long challenge.
The challenge: To complete at least one art project every day for 365 days, and share it in a blog post and on Facebook. Also, to add each item to my online boutique, and to make and share a video when appropriate.
The parameters: Each item may be a UFO (UnFinished Object) or a new project that I complete, of any size, either a paper, fabric or knitted piece. If I’m working on a journal that takes longer than a day, I can count a finished page as my project for that day.
Exceptions: In the event of life occurences that might prevent completing a project on any given day, I will at least attempt to post about that on my blog, so long as I have internet access.
I invite you all to subscribe to my website so that you will receive notices of the daily posts. Scroll to the bottom of my home page here and fill in your email address beside the “subscribe” button in the footer. You will then receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription; you must do this step in order to get the daily notices. You can also manage your subscription to get fewer email notices, if you wish.
I will begin posting today, Wednesday February 23, 2022 and ending on Wednesday, February 23, 2023. Perhaps you will be inspired to start your own 365 day challenge.
This will be really fun and will keep me focused on creating and being accountable. I always love getting lots of support to cheer me on, thank you! I CAN do this!
I made these fun little altered stamps for my partner in a recent swap! Some are stamps that have been canceled, the others are stamp images cut from art papers. EnJoy!
Altered Stamps
Enjoy my beautiful new album! This is made with the exquisite Hortensia collection of papers from Stamperia. Go to this page to purchase:
Here are finished projects from some of my students in prior classes.
Have you done your holiday shopping yet? Now is a great time to buy unique gifts for those special people in your life! Click on this link to read about my special deal, this week only. Get your coupon code at the bottom of the page!
Fiber Fancies 