Art Journaling

 A manifestation of my goal to FINISH what I start this year! Some of what looks like bubble wrap print is actually modeling paste applied through a stencil - and very rough and bumpy to the touch.  I wasn't particularly happy with my lettering on this one, but had to go with good enough.

This was a quick messy background which I actually liked as a base. But the prompt when I was doing this was to "cover up the good stuff"...

...So I did! This is my "Thrive" vision board - the February prompt for One Little Word. It is lumpy, wrinkly, and heavily layered. After I had all my magazine cuts glued in place, I went back and painted and stamped with texture and used markers to blend... and I'm kind of in love with the glorious mess I ended up with!

This one is my tribute to Artfully Inspired's "passion" prompt. I'd love to take credit for that gorgeous graphic in the center, but it is actually elements from a digital scrapbooking kit that I printed on photo paper. My attempts at drawing a fiery lady from scratch were, well, not so hot (pun intended). And I love the graphic... it goes so well with the quote.

Pursuing My Passions - Art Journaling

This is part one in what will likely be a four(?) part blog series about my passions and how I'm pursuing them this year.  I'm doing this as much to get it all organized and straight in my own mind as to share with you what I've been up to lately and why I've been so absent from blogging. So here goes...

I ADORE Art Journaling and Mixed Media.

In fact, when it comes to tactile arts and getting messy this fills my happy well far more than scrapbooking ever did. It still involves cutting and pasting but it adds painting and collaging and making glorious messes.  Not to worry, scrapbooking is still a huge part of my life, just in a different way.

So, Cheri, what are you doing this year to pursue your Art Journaling? Well, thanks for asking!

I've got two classes on tap this year.

First is the Documented Life Project.  It is a weekly prompt class with limited technique instruction via guest bloggers. It has the advantage of being FREE! Free is a really nice price.

Last year DLP was done in a moleskine weekly planner.  This year they've ditched the planner in favor of the large Dyan Reaveley Creative Journal. The prompts are geared to straight art journaling, not to documenting a week of your life planner style. I have a very small (3.5" x 6") weekly planner that I carry in my purse for keeping track of appointments. I've decided to add some tiny little bits of life (tickets, receipts, stamps, product wrappers, etc.) and maybe some washi tape and doodling to that little book. Just for fun.

The Creative Journal has the advantage of nice thick pages that hold up well to most media. It has the disadvantage of having a LOT of space to fill (a two page spread is roughly 18" wide by 12" high)!  I've been leaving it out on my art table and adding layers every time I have ten or fifteen free minutes.

We are six weeks and six prompts into the DLP year and I've only completed three spreads. Here they are:

Week One - the prompt was "book paper" and the theme was "Be your own goal keeper". Since my goals for the year are so intimately connected to my One Little Word "Thrive" I chose to use that quote for my page.

Week Three prompt "Color Wheel" and the quote provided as the theme. I started with a dark wash of colors (quite by accident because the medium I was using did not do what I thought it would), but then dry whitewashed it all with gesso, very purposefully making sure there were lots of scratchy brush strokes visible. My very loosely interpreted "color wheel" is created with magazine clippings of flowers and color swatches.

Week Two's prompt "Gesso" and theme "Beginning". I started with a coat of gesso, then added Tim Holtz distress stamp pads in a watercolor style blending mode. Spritzes of water create a mottled look. Some stenciling... and then ... I created the roses all around the edges using the bottom of a bunch of celery as a stamp, painted with acrylic paints.

Work got so busy at the end of January, I didn't do the week 4 and 5 prompts. I'm choosing to skip them. I'm working on week 6. While I am striving to keep up with the class, I am not worried about doing a page every single week. If I average 3 spreads a month by the end of the year, I'll be very happy!

My second class is Artfully Inspired Life 2015 with Joanne Sharpe. This class is also set up to create a year long art journal. Lessons are posted once a month to create four weekly pages around a monthly theme. The cost is $59 for the entire year. What is being "taught" is whimsical lettering styles, something I've been wanting to learn.

After viewing the January class material, I chose not to create the actual journal for the class. Joanne has the entire year mapped out with what goes on every page of the journal. Part of January's assignment was to create the table of contents page and number all of the weekly pages. That felt too restrictive for me - I have this terrible habit of wanting to make every project my own! Instead, I'm simply going to incorporate techniques I learn in this class into my DLP journal.  For example, the lettering in the third spread above is my take on the February calligraphy exercise, using calligraphy markers.

So that's how I'll be pursuing my passion for Art Journaling in 2015.  Do you art journal? How do you devote time for it in your busy life?

Documenting The Everyday - Week 31

Here is week 31 with the tip-in closed. I got some happy mail from two gals in the group, so all of the pasted in elements on the right-hand page were created by other women.

With the tip-in flap opened. Again most of the elements (except the bar code tags) were provided in happy mail, but went great in this layout! I'm really happy with the messy background. And the hummingbird card was perfect - been seeing a little hummingbird feeding on the hanging plants on my back deck. Just wish I could get a photo, but the little guy only stays for a few seconds and is gone.

Being Me - Week 10

The topic for Week 10 of Being Me was Eating Fresh. And since we already know that I'm trying very hard to eat only REAL food - difficult lately because it is definitely ice cream weather - this topic is all too familiar for me.

I chose to do a collage of many different "healthy" food pictures taken from magazines and paired that with several quotes and a really random variety of letter stickers and rubons. And when I had it all together, I splattered paint all over it  - reminiscent of the mess you'd make while cooking or during a food fight. Wetter paint (the red and orange) got me droplets. Very think paint (white) got me the stringy splatter that I absolutely love on this page!  And by the way, splattering paint is FUN! :)

My quotes are:

1. "Let food be thy medicine." ~ Hippocrates.  Very apt considering how much changing my diet has lessened my fibro symptoms.

2. "If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.  And he may have said that a long time ago, but it is even more true now. What passes as the "Standard American Diet" or "Conventional Wisdom" right now requires that the bulk of our diet be comprised of grains.  As I learned from my paleo/primal eating experiment, it was all those grains that were making me so sick. Not saying it is the answer for everyone, but sure made a difference for me.

3. "We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are." ~Adelle Davis.  Hear, hear!

Being Me - Weeks 8 and 9

Week 8 of Being Me occurred while I was on vacation at the shore. So needless to say, I'm playing catch up.  The theme for week eight was finding solitude.  The theme for week nine was reflection.  And to me, these two go hand in hand, I use solitude as a time to reflect, gather my thoughts, recharge, and start anew. So I found a lot of overlap in the two layouts I created for these themes:

Week 8 - Solitude:

This page started with a photo of sunrise at the shore that I printed at roughly 10x7 on regular copy paper. I laid the photo in place and painted a background around the space that the photo would occupy. Then I adhered the photo down and went to work trying to blend the photograph into the background. Obviously, I couldn't get a true mix of all the colors in the photo, nor am I able to paint quite as well as I photograph, but I was happy enough with the results.

The quotes read:  "Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary, this is the time we sort them out, air them, get over them, and go on without the burden of yesterday." Joan Chittister  and "Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. Great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart."  Jeanne Marie Laskas

Week 9 - Reflect:

For this one I first painted a background of sand, sea, and sky. And added bits of stamping and texture. I printed off two 4x6 photos on actual photo paper and fit them into  background I'd made. Both photos I chose have reflections in the water, so symbolic of the week's theme. I had to trim down the one on the right hand side to fit. Then I went back with paint and blended the photos in a bit with the background.  The quote reads "Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away." Barbara De Angelis  

While I'm happy with both pages, this second one is brighter and just feels more like me.

Mixing It Up - Post Five

But with a twist... I did NOT mix it up this week!

The Being Me theme for this week is happy and here is the page I made for that:

The background is a really fun technique that I will likely revisit.  Just glob several colors of paint on your page and then spread with an old credit card or gift card.  Creates a fun marbling effect! The color combo - lime green, bright yellow, and various shades of turquoise truly is my personal summer palette and the colors make me happy!

The Summer of Color challenge combo for the week is sage and sepia.  And this is what I came up with:

The butterflies are actual lace. The owl is from a paper napkin.  The "remember" is ribbon.  The girl is a Unity stamp. All of the stitching is from an OLD set of rub-ons.  I love the way this page came out and how the elements worked together.  And I'm really going to miss this challenge now that it is ending. Working with specified color combos forced me out of my comfort zone and into areas that really allowed me to capture feelings.

Mixing It Up - Post Four

click on the photo to see larger and read quotes

The week five Summer of Color combo is candy apple red and yellow.  Initially I resisted this color combo and had a hard time getting started because all I could think of was McDonalds (yuck!).

I created this page with a wash of yellow acrylic, layered on the b&w wrapping paper, red tissue paper heart, and white heart shaped doily. Then I used purple spray mist and dripped red ink.  Added texture with yellow and orange acrylics.   Added some word and music washi tape. Inked the edges of my quotes and applied them with gel medium, allowing some of the paint and spray mist to smear onto them.  And then finished it off with some stamps with red ink.  Nice and messy!

The week 6 Being Me topic is being kind to yourself, banishing negative self-talk, etc.  I found a handful of quotes that I really loved to include with this page as personal reminders.  You can click on the photo to make it larger and view the quotes!

Mixing It Up - Post Three

The week four Summer of Color combo is pale pink and charcoal grey.  I created this page with a wash of pale pink acrylic and a little bit of "Diva Pink" for depth.  The flowers and leaves are created with light modeling paste mixed with a couple drops of black ink to create a dark grey and then applied in a thin coat through a stencil.  The quote was provided as part of week 5 of the "Being Me" course.

Another Mixing It Up post

Lime Green and Purple is definitely not a color combination I would normally choose to work with - a little loud for my taste - but I'm still happy with the way this turned out!  This is Summer of Color week 3 combo combined with the Being Me week 4 assignment.  I used a patterned paper napkin, bits of lime green and purple tissue paper, acrylic paints, rub ons, and a variety of pieces from the happy mail that Deb sent me.

Finishing Out Get Artsy & Starting "Being Me"

I used the techniques in Week 4 to create my OLW pages for May.

Week 5 covered water colors and week 6 was about India inks.  I combined both of those lessons techniques (most of which I was very familiar with) to create this art journal layout:

The layout is actually my week 1 assignment for Being Me.  Lots of ladies are still signing up for this 52 week free course about loving yourself. Week 2 has been posted and I can say based on the first two weeks that there is plenty of good stuff happening here even if you just want to do the assignments in a notebook and not get artsy with it at all.  And if you want to get inspired, there is a good bit of creativity being shared on the Facebook group!

Having finished "Get Artsy" I can say I definitely enjoyed the class and love the layouts I created in response to the assignments. But I don't expect to see any more of these type of layouts appearing in my scrapbook albums any time soon. I prefer the freedom of using all the art stuff on art journal pages or mixed media work  where the final result is less important to me in terms of telling a story.  For scrapbooking, I think I'm really a digi girl at heart.

I Think We All Need A Pep Talk

My LOAD213 Day 27 layout was inspired by this video which I came across on Facebook yesterday:
He's cute and quirky and his message is so on target. I'd love to get the whole world to dance! And since you all encourage me, I'm sharing here!

This is the layout it inspired:

The Day 27 prompt was to learn something new. Today I learned how to create that starburst background in PSE without a template. Seven different papers and a bit of trial and error. I used Krystal Hartley's Artastic Bundle plus Stamp Stash #7, #8, and #10.

Just A Quote for Friday

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."  ~Albert Schweitzer


A little more than the quote - I thought I'd share the journaling on this page:


In the world of art - whether it is photography, scrapbooking, art journaling, mixed media, or some other form, one important part of the process is the connections - meeting other people who share your interest and passion - people with whom you can share tips and ideas and who will provide support and encouragement when you share your art. I love the tribe of women I've "collected" on my blog - they keep me working even when I sometimes feel that "not good enough" gremlin sneaking back in and threatening to sideline me. I also love attending crops. It is so much fun to have others asking questions about my work - and being genuinely interested because I'm doing something so different and unexpected.

Creative Color - Art Journal Page

The Creative Color class over at Scarlet Lime has had us looking everywhere for color and design inspiration. On Day 1, we were looking at books and magazines and as soon as the concept was introduced, I knew what I just HAD to use as creative inspiration!

Because I had already decided to use this page:

This is from the book "Where Women Create."  As the last recipient of this first round offering from Sian's Pass the Book, I felt a need to make good use of the inspiration - and several of the contributors in this book had spaces that were basically "white". Although this room is a bit cluttered for my taste, I found the white, cream, beige space with splashes of copper and peach (I also picked up some of the tan from the baskets) to be very calming and wanted to try it on an Art Journal page. I also loved the vintage feel with all the lace and sewing notions.

This is the page I created using the color inspiration.  And  to be totally honest, I found creating with the total lack of color to be quite difficult frustrating challenging! Definitely out of my comfort zone.

I'm not 100% in love with the finished product, but there are bits and pieces of it that I really do like:

The background here is actually very old paper from my stash, not real lace. And copper Stickles.

Prima Flowers and a ribbon rose.

Goodbye June!

I am so HAPPY  to be saying goodbye to June!  


My June was, in a word gray ... 


and hard, ...


and cold, ...

like the weight of the steel bars of a prison cell pressing against my chest and slowly suffocating me.  


I fell apart during June.  I couldn't bring myself to do any real blogging.  I didn't pick up my camera for over two weeks (and I'm now hopelessly behind in classes and challenges).  I didn't scrapbook.  I also didn't exercise much and definitely went off the wagon with eating choices.  And I didn't care.  In fact, I've been on a wicked sugar binge lately, much like an addict.  Sad I know.  I went through the motions of living, without truly being present in the moment.  Sure there were a few bright spots and moments of levity, but for the most part, June sucked. Big time. Sucked. 


 I recognize my behavior as a depression brought on by the "new normal" of living with an unemployed spouse and having both him and the girls home full time. But I had to live with it to get to this point. I guess I'm starting to adjust and find my way through it.  This art journal page was my response to one of the early days of missing my quiet time:

a close up:

I actively worked at trying to pull myself out of my funk by reading uplifting books and working with my Art Journal.  This was one of my happier pages during June.

And here is a background I'm working on.  I'm not positive where this page is going yet, but I do have a quote in mind.  The teal patterns are actually tissue paper I picked up in Target's dollar section. 


So I happily bid June adieu and look forward to coming alive again in July! Adios June! Auf Wiedersehen! Au revoir! Sayonara! Later dude...  

Art Journal Play

I've been playing in my Art Journal. These are my newest pages:

The crazy face image came from a paper bag that Sarah brought back from Italy and gave me my mother's day gift in. That just gives the page some extra meaning to me.

And here's the close-up:

The wording for this page comes from a Chrysler Town & Country advertisement!

In my case it was particularly appropriate after a whinefest by Rachel about how much she dislikes our family and how we never do anything "fun" together. Yet, she was unable to name a single "fun" activity she would like to do as a family that did not involve spending money. Obviously we have no intention of going into debt to take the ingrates on a family vacation.

Picture Color 6/11 - Best of Both Worlds

The prompt was for the pink/red color combo...or to choose another combo that we never "got."  I have to admit I never "got" the purple/orange color scheme so prevalent in Halloween scrapbook kits. But when I created this Art Journal page to celebrate my 50th birthday, the color scheme just "happened" organically.

And now, thanks to a functioning computer, access to PSE8 and my external monitor, I'm actually able to show you this page properly post-processed (it needed some brightening) and in the correct orientation.  Ahhhhh.... that's better.

Digging Out From The Depths

My how time flies when you are NOT having fun!  My last post was actually written in advance and auto-posted.  I haven't actually blogged since ... ummm....May 31st?  Back when Jay was still leaving the house to go to work and I was dealing with a loaner computer. :(  Did you miss me?  I suppose not much since I've been reading blogs and commenting on them. Maybe you didn't even notice my absence.

The truth is, I have been struggling.  Sometimes choosing to be happy, choosing to see the opportunity in a challenge or the good in a ridiculously difficult situation is hard.  And sometimes it isn't just hard, it is damn near impossible.

Jay's home now. All the time.  Officially unemployed. My quiet "me" time in the morning is gone. Any ability I had to center myself on my own, in private - gone. I spend free time proof-reading resumes and cover letters and trying to reassure him that everything happens for a reason and it will all work out in the end. And in another week the girls will be out of school and home full time too. I'm dreading Summer in a way I never thought possible.  At the same time, I know I have so so much to be grateful for. I know that I have a roof over my head and food on my table and that won't change no matter how this situation plays out. Sometimes it is hard to comprehend feeling so grateful and yet so overwhelmed in the same breath.

I got "my" computer back on June 2nd, (it actually belongs to my employer) but I'm still trying to get it fully functional again. It has been...well...frustrating. And time consuming.  Between all that and one other little piece of teen drama that I can't even share, I think I've broken down and cried more in the past ten days than I have in the past two or three years. I haven't felt like taking pictures. I haven't kept up with online challenges or classes. Exercising and eating right have fallen by the wayside. I haven't been able to blog. I've written a half dozen or more posts in my head, but actually sitting down to a computer that feels like a stranger to me, and trying to catch you all up with what's been going on... just didn't seem within my capabilities.

You know how when your computer gets "wiped" you lose all those glorious settings and automatic things that you've spent weeks, months, years... setting up and perfecting to make your life easier?

I immediately reinstalled PSE8, but just today figured out how to reinstall my Pioneer Woman Actions.  I seriously can't live without those!  (You can download them from the link). I immediately reinstalled iTunes, Google Reader and my "next" button, my "pin it" button for Pinterest, and my "wish list" button for Amazon.com.  Recreated my email signature.  Turned off that stupid automatic email notification that interrupts you every five minutes.  Put back the desktop wallpaper with the pretty ocean scene.

So why am I not fully functional yet?

• I still need all my printers installed - only Jay knows how to do that.  Since I lost that before the end of May, I don't have my Best of Days pages printed out.  I NEED them!
• I need to get the hub working to recognize all my peripherals (monitor, keyboard, trackball mouse - the computer itself is a laptop and not a great workspace for anything digi related).  That requires another call to work, and probably taking the computer back in.
• The tech at work who wiped my computer forgot to back up my .pst file for my personal Outlook profile.  Luckily I had a back-up here at home... dated June 2, 2010.  Yeah, it's been a year.  So I lost the entire past year worth of email (all those Picture Series class emails, sign on info, taxes, etc.), and contacts and calendar.  By the way if you sent me your contact information (mailing address) in the past year... I NEED YOU TO SEND IT AGAIN.  It's gone.  Email to scrapdreams at verizon dot net.
• The other thing I "lost" as a result of the computer virus was my ACDSee program and all the photo tagging I've been working at so diligently for the Picture Freedom class.  And all the tagging I had already done of all my digi scrapping supplies.  Hundreds of hours of work.  I'll tell you all the reasons NOT to buy ACDSee in another post.

The good news is that I'm finally back to a place where I can sit here and write a blog post.  Hopefully that means you'll be hearing more from me soon!

Project 64 {21/64} and Art Journaling

So I'm taking a couple of online Art Journaling classes right now.  The primary one being "She Had Three Hearts".  So while my computer activities are strictly curtailed (I'm editing photos one at a time on picnik.com - great site but not my normal workflow!!!), I've been busy playing with actual paint and pastels and rubons and stuff...

My Art Journal cover - the original print was from a Jessica Sprague class.  It's been altered quite a bit.

My very first art journal page.  I love all the bright colors on this one!.

close up of the actual journaling.  I was perfectly okay with my hand writing being a bit messy!

this is the two page spread I made in honor of my 50th birthday.  And I have to say it was unintentional, but I really ended up rocking the "yellow-orange" color for Project 64 in these pages!

And for reasons i can't comprehend (or fix) at the moment, blogger will NOT let me put this photo in the proper orientation (landscape) even though it was saved that way!

the quote is from Oprah Winfrey on closing out her talk show.  But to me it is just as fitting for turning 50!

And I think it is kind of amazing and neat that I've been rocking it as long as Cover Girl!

Art Journal

I'm betting some of you can relate to this one...

Creativity Boot Camp - Five

Growth cannot occur unless you are willing to step outside of your comfort zone and be different than the crowd...

Credits:  All elements are from Tangie Baxter's Art Journal Caravan