I Love Books!

I checked out a book from our local library called The Scrapbook Embellishment Handbook.  It has alot of cool ideas that I would love to implement on my pages.  I'll post those when I start making them.  The book is worth checking out if you get the chance.

ATC's with a Texture theme

I don't know where I found this but I thought it was appropriate to post here. 

ATC Swap for December - Theme: Quilling

Here are our ATC's for December.  I had to buy some tools for quilling to pull it off, but found that it was a fun thing to do.  So many wonderful videos and blogs out there devoted to quilling.  It was a great learning experience.

Here they are:

September ATC Swap

These ATC's are the result of our September swap.  The theme was "feathers & metal".

Great job ladies!

Empty Nesters!

After 24 years of rearing my two boys, my husband and I are now empty nesters.  We've had to relinquish control little by little over the years so it wasn't a shock.  In fact, it's more of a freedom that I'm embracing.  I love my boys, but they need to embrace their independence and fly the coop, which they have.

It's a little strange though because I'm trying to find my new "groove".  I seem to be floundering a bit trying to figure it all out.  Things are so different now.  I do find myself cleaning a little deeper and reading books from my "to read" pile.  It's all good!

I'm taking it day by day.

A friend encouraged me to have a SB retreat at my house in October, which I decided to do.  It was the weekend that we always took off for a few days, but now I don't have anyone to care for our pets while I'm gone, so we'll just have the retreat here.  Which means no packing, yeah!

I am still doing an ATC swap with a couple friends every month, I'll try and get those pics uploaded soon.

Great, Great Read!

If you love time travel, action, romance, Italy and the middle ages, you'll love this series.  It's called the River of Time series written by Lisa T Bergren.  I simply couldn't put them down!  Listed in their correct order below: 

AFC - Day #31 FINAL DAY!

 

For today's art journal entry I was playing with colored pencils.  

I loved playing and sharing this month in my Art Journal.  I tried lots of different things I haven't tried before.   I loved experimenting with different mediums and learned alot about how some of them work best.  I encourage you to go and play in your art journals!  Just Do It!  Anything goes!  It's great therapy!  Thanks for coming by and sharing this challenge with me.

AJC - Day #30

Sketching!  One more day to go!

AJC - Day #29

Sorry that this post is later than usual.  My internet was down all day.  I just got it fixed by my trusty computer geek guy.  He had the darn thing fixed in under 5 minutes.  Nuts!  It's amazing how the internet is so much a part of me.  I can't imagine life without it.  Isn't that sad!?

I've been in a sketching mood!  I sketched this from a magazine photo.

AJC - Day #28

Just a little sketching, a little watercolor pencil and a little ink pen.  I wasn't going to post this page, I don't really like how it turned out, but, after all, Art Journaling is just playing, right?  So now it's out there in space somewhere.  Thanks for coming by!

AJC - Day #27

So far so good, I think I'm gonna finish this challenge only 4 days left! Yeah!  Here's day 27:

Today, I just felt like going back to basics.  Coloring!  I drew up a quick pic with my Stabilo Woody watercolor pencils and then I added a cut-out of a girl with big green eyes and then a favorite of mine, an owl.  The girl and the owl are colored in with Copics.  I realized I don't have alot of flesh tones in my Copic marker stash.  I need to work on that.

Have a wonderfully creative day y'all!

AJC - Day #26

 

What is Art Journaling if you don't include at least one Zentangle.  I love zentangles, it's gets me in the "zone" fast and it lasts for a long time.   I had to color the "moon" yellow, I just couldn't help myself.  Watching the black ink on the white paper can be mesmerizing and therapeutic.   I love looking at smaller sections of the finished work because it creates all new looks and feelings.

AJC - Day #25

For this page I used Gel Sticks by Faber Castell here.  These are fun to work with, lots of color and their creamy goodness lays on sketch paper very nicely.  I water-brushed over the colors and then wrote over the tree with a favorite poem using a green Copic marker, "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree...".  Lucky for me I was able to get the whole poem on the tree, start to finish, without smudging it.  Success!

Just a few more days left to this challenge.   

AJC - Day #24

 For this page I was playing with different colors of Copic Markers on one page.  Then I decided to take the opposite page and draw a profile.  I colored it in with Copics also.  Then I cut the image around the edge.  If you notice, the sheet is still attached to the sketchbook.  Now that page can flip back and forth.  I found the quote on the internet after searching "color quotes" on google.  I really like this quote I found.  Weirdest thing is,  that it was quoted by Marcus Aurelius.  Nicely said Marcus!

AJC - Day #23

I really didn't have any time this morning to create, so I decided to give just 5 minutes to the effort.  I also decided on one medium + water.  Watercolor crayons here, except I have a set of 12.  I set the timer and started coloring away, I had no plan and no ideas of what I might want.  I wasn't looking at the colors too much either.    The above pages are the result of that.  And, Yes, it counts!  LOL.  I might want to play on these pages some more later with other mediums, if I do, I'm countin' it too!  hehehe.

AJC - Day #22

Here I made a watercolor background with Dr. Ph Martins watercolors.  Such rich pigmented colors, a little goes a long way.  This is a sketchbook I am using, not watercolor paper,  so it doesn't work really well when it's all wet.  But, I love those colors, they're a little pricey but worth it if you can swing it.  I cut out some images I wanted to play with and then just doodled on the whole thing while watching TV, is there anything better than that, doodling and being brain dead watching (or I should say "listening" to) TV.  Very soothing!  LOL!

Filofax - FYI

Just FYI, I moved all of my Filofax posts to my new blog here.  Hope you stop by and let me know you're there by following.  Thanks alot for visiting!

AJC - Day #21

For these pages I played with Water Soluble Oil Pastels by Portfolio.  First I colored in a background with 4 of the colors and waterbrushed over them.  Then I made swirls and lots of them.  Who doesn't love a good swirl?  I like how colorful it looks.  And I love that quote!  See you tomorrow! 

Go and play with art today!  Share a link of what you do in the comments section below.  I'd love to see your creations. Thanks for coming by!

AJC - Day #20

I wanted to do a simple sketch, after doing the Flamingo and enjoying that I decided to do another.  I thought I grabbed a regular pencil but it turned out to be a Ticonderoga marking pencil.  I used it anyway.  I think I'm finished with it at this point. 

Filofax Mix-Up on Ebay order

I was thinking how nice it would be to have a Filofax for taking sermon notes at church.  I knew I wanted to get an A5 to do just that and could kick myself for not buying the Chameleon when it was $40 a little while ago on the USA Filofax website.  Makes me sick to think about it.  But, anyway I decided to get an A5 Holborn Zip, after watching this video by FiloObsessed.  But alas, they don't exist on the FF USA website.  So I did what any self respecting citizen would do and I went to Ebay.  That's where I found it.  A beautiful Holborn Zip in Wine:

It came with free shipping, but I paid a few buck extra to get it faster.  About 3 days later, it came in my mailbox.  I was so excited to get it open and touch it and smell it, but to my surprise it wasn't MY Filofax but a completely different one, actually a more upscale one to be truthful.  This is what I received:

It was a gorgeous Filofax but it wasn't the one that I wanted.  So after many ebay messages back and forth with the seller we realized that the labels were switched at some point.  Someone, not 2 hours from me, in this whole great big country, just 2 hours away, had received my beautiful Holborn.  Well, to make a long story longer, she sent me my Filofax and I sent her this one.  We should have our correct Filos by the middle of next week.  The company that we purchased these from offered us refills of our choice to compensate for the mishap.  I got the magnifying glass, the world map, a ruled notepaper pad and 2 envelope pockets.   So all is well,  after-all, I should receive my Filo in a few days.

In the meantime I'm preparing beautiful papers to put inside it.  I'm "Filo-lifting" the idea from Gail right here.  I bought the papers she used right here and here.  Can't wait until I get the Filofax and get it all set up. 

If anyone knows what the lizardy looking Filo above is called I'd love to know.  The inside looks just like the Osterley. It's not on the FFusa site.

AJC - Day #19

I'm adding Day 19 today because I won't be around my computer tomorrow.  This page started out as a dumping ground from unused poured out paint and such.   I decided to do something with it.  I just doodled and doodled.  No plan, just putting color on paper.  It was a nice release and I'm using it as one of my days.  LOL

Have a happy, creative and restful weekend y'all!

See you on Monday!

AJC = Day #18

This time I tried my hand at sketching.  I love flamingoes, I mean, who doesn't love a bright, big, pink bird, right?!  I found a picture of a pose I liked and just sketched away using an ordinary no. 2 pencil.  Then I used a bright pink Copic marker to color in a background, I might've gotten carried away with the pink copic.  There were already some marks on the substrate from previous art journaling messes.

AJC - Day #17

I started out decoupaging some pretty tissue paper down on this one, then added some other cut up paint sample sheets.  Unfortunately, as I kept playing they are mostly unnoticeable at this point, I didn't mean for that to happen, but that's OK too, right?  I used some gesso, spray mists over stencils, letters and some ribbon.  I'm especially fond of the quote by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Light tomorrow with today".  Something I have to do to have productive days, start them the day before.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Agatha Christie

AJC - Day #16

I used my left hand (I'm right handed) to make this entry in my art journal.  It was fun and strange.  I had to constantly remind myself every time I changed colors to put the marker in my left hand.  My concentration had to be different too to do this entry.  Nice experience.  The birds are from a magazine.  I used Copic markers for the whole thing.  If you want imperfect lines use your less dominant hand. 

Today is Julia Child's 100th Birthday!

I had to write something of what she meant to me.  I wrote it in my Personal Malden.  A special place for a special memory.

Organizing My Recipes

I decided to have two seperate binders, one for recipes I've made and we've all loved and then the other binder is for recipes that I really, really want to try.  The reason I'm doing this is because I want a one-stop place where I can go to to create weekly menus. 

I hate, hate, hate the 5:00 PM "figure out what's for dinner" scene.  I'm thinking that this will help me immensly also to stay on track with Weight Watchers.  If I know "what's for supper" then I know how to eat the rest of the day.

I copied (with a printer) my tried and true favorite recipes out of my cookbooks too, so that they could be in the binder as well.  I used different sorts of sheet protectors to fit everything in there, no matter what size it was. 

When I'm done I'm going to keep these binders in my kitchen where they will be accessible and convenient.  Once a week, I'll fill in my weekly menu chart that I have on my fridge and make a grocery list. 

This is Oscar waiting for my husband to come in the door after a hard day's work.  He heard his truck pull in the driveway and here he waits.  Isn't he cute!  How sweet is that!  (Tip:  Leather furniture is great when you have animals that think the furniture is theirs.  I can just wipe it down, cause you all know what's under that tail, LOL)

AJC - Day #15 HALF WAY THERE

On the left page I made a watercolor "frame" and then added this quote with funky lettering.  I love fonts and creative ways with playing with letters.  The right page I got out my scrapbooking markers (all of them from Close To My Heart, I used to sell that stuff).  I was just playing with whatever shapes called to me.  They must be about 8 years old or so and they still are quite juicy.  Only one has to be re-inked.  Not bad, eh?  (Technically this should count for two, so let's keep that in mind as the month progresses, ok?)

AJC - Day #14

Playing with inks, the quote doesn't really mean anything. I had the word style and then I just built on that.  Who knows - maybe subconsciously there is a meaning, whatever, right?.  Anyway, I drew and colored in the face on a seperate piece of paper, cut it out and then adhered it to this page.  You can't tell but the page is very shiny. 

AJC - Day #13

For this spread I did some thought stream writing on the background.  I wrote around and around and around until I felt that nobody could actually read what I wrote.  Then I went looking for a quote on listening and found this one that I really liked.  Except for the fact that I misspelled tongue, and had to write it over *(because that's how I am) I like how it came out.  I love journaling and I thinks it's very therapeutic to spew thoughts that are in your head onto paper, good or bad.  It's so freeing!