Halloween

Happy Halloween! Kids and friends are going trick-or-treating after school today. This year ......
Mad Scientist and Pinky - from PacMan!

Hope to find time to finish my journal! I'm at the end and it's time to make a new book.

Happy Halloween everyone! What is your favorite candy? I love it all but am trying to be good this year. We'll will see.

Experiment

I created this spread a few weeks ago and I really like the colors and distressed effect I created. I really need to start keeping notes of what I do because I can't remember. Then, someone asks me what I did and I have no clue! Maybe I'll create a journal just for demo-ing different ideas and writing down my steps. How do you keep track of your experiments?
(the face and body are from Teesha Moore and the arms are tape by Cavallini.
"squeeze the day" is from a Boden catalog)

copics

I've been playing around with my Copic markers and trying to get down the shading. It is trickier than I thought! I think it would help if I had more variation in the same color families. I've been using the Bristol smooth paper which I think is perfect for these markers. They leak through, but I kind of like how it looks on the back! So many yummy colors to choose from. Dick Blick is having a sale this weekend! Guess where I'll be??

Such a great quote from Steve Jobs. What a visionary! He changed the course of this world.

New Toys

I was at Michael's the other day and came across the Martha Stewart section. She has half of one side dedicated to all of her new paints, brushes, stencils, etc. I fell in love with the paint colors and had to buy a few.

Then I saw these fantastic brushes that create some cool designs. I was going to cut some of my brushes apart before I found these!

I played around when I got home in this journal I recently made in Teresa McFayden's class
Found & Bound. It was lots of fun and gave me some new (needed) inspiration!

Have you recently discovered anything new that has sparked your art?

Life

So life has returned to a routine, activities have begun as has my life as a driver. Things were clicking along and I was hoping that once I finished what I needed to do, I'd have a chance to really get back into creating.

Life had other plans in store. We just found out last week my mom has lymphoma. I am the only one who lives close. Close is 1-1.5 hr. drive each direction. My brother and sister live out of state and we have been trying to coordinate how to best care for her and manage what is to come. She begins chemo tomorrow. The live-in caregiver we hired will be with her 24hrs. as I just can't drive back and forth on the tollway every day and care for my kids, myself, my husband and have my life.

I have been finding myself in my studio once everyone is asleep, sitting on the floor wanting to do something. Paint. Draw. Cut. Paste. Doodle. Anything. Something. Time just seems to escape and my days are filled with life. Some good. Some bad. I still haven't found the best way to manage it and allow myself to truly fall into the zone I so crave when in my art room. How do you do it? How do you let it all go?

I recently made my girlfriend Marissa her own visual journal. She is an amazing artist who does beautiful things with oil paints. Her work is stunning! We both always talk about how tight we are with our artwork in wanting things to be perfect. Look real. Look a certain way. I have been telling her how much my discovery of visual journaling has helped me loosen up and allow the mistakes, the fluidity and even the mess. I have found that making my own journals has allowed me the room for error. I constantly remind the kids I teach that the beauty of making things by hand is that they are not perfect. If you want perfection, buy something that was made by a machine. I am loving the new stitches I learned from Mary Ann Moss and so want to continue to learn new ways to bind books. For now, I love the guerrilla approach!

Camera

My husband bought me a new camera for my birthday! It is the real deal people. It is a Nikon and I am a little intimidated by all of the buttons. I have been playing around with it a little and just figured out how to get the pictures uploaded into iPhoto. There is much to learn! I'm hoping to find a class once school starts. All of these pics were taken by me using my big girl camera!

Maxim decided to smile for me tonight! Check out his teeth. March will be 4 years ago that we
saved him from life in a puppy mill. Max is the BEST boy!!!!

New journal page using some images from my workshop with Ingrid Dijkers. Even when I try to
do grunge, the bright colors still appear!

I loved this octopus and the pipes from the workshop. A little more grungy here I think.

I love how this page turned out! I did so many layers and got some textured circles with gesso and an empty pill bottle. I really enjoyed collaging the zebra's body with images I found in a magazine. I finger painted cream craft paint over and around the zebra to mute the colors. I haven't yet figured out what else I will do here. Maybe nothing! Maybe some doodling!

Speaking of doodles.......... here is my Oodles of Doodles journal. I am taking an online visual journal workshop with Dawn DeVries Sokol. I'm loving this workshop and feel my doodling mojo coming back. I LOVED making the journal out of a Snackwell's box, various paper and tape. Check out the Hello Kitty duct tape I found at Target!

Here are some of my doodles. I am behind schedule! Life just keeps getting in the way.

Dawn provides great prompts and examples. This class is fun! Can't wait to make more journals. So easy and I love repurposing the boxes. My daughter is dying to make one too!

Back cover. I also want to get some of the new Kraft Brown paper by Stonehenge. I think I like working on that color. Anyone used it yet?

Long time

It has been ridiculously long since my last post. I have been up north so my kids could go to day camp. They had THE BEST time ever and the temporary relocation was definitely worth it. I got the chance to spend lots of time with my girlfriends I had to leave when we moved out here. It made me miss them terribly! As great as it is to go away, it is always nice to come home. I missed my bed, my house, my new friends and my stuff. I didn't bring anything with me. It was just too difficult. So I haven't gotten a chance to play in forever!

Before I left, I signed up for MaryAnn Moss's Full Tilt Boogie class. She seriously is full of major creativity, inspiration and helps you look at things differently. If you are looking for a fun class that teaches bookmaking and visual journaling, check it out! I definitely recommend it. Here are 2 practice books I stitched together. I love the stitch and the fact the stitches are exposed. My daughter and her girlfriend took them as their new journals. My daughter already decorated her covers!

When we got home last week, I had some time to play and this is what I created. It's ok. I really want to buy a Japanese Screw Punch as I'm not loving how the awl pokes the holes. They just aren't real smooth. I've heard the Screw Punch is a million times better. I'm also not in love with the covers. Just a little boring for me, so I think I will leave it until I figure out what to do with them. Like usual, I love the process of making my own book. More are to come!!