School has started. . .

and I am very tired! I am usually too exhausted at the end of the day (I teach children 3-6 years of age) to do much art. But here is what has been happening in my life recently. I have had a few medical problems (not serious, but very annoying), one of which is my mouth. I can't really eat much without getting a very sore mouth, on both sides. My teeth hurt. OW! So I'm eating a lot of liquid meals. Yum. But the homemade soup is good! Still managing to gain 2 pounds (what's with that??).

Here was my art table this morning - not much room! I was working on my altered book page for my ABCanada group. 

So I decided to clean it up. . .

and finish the page. Yay!

I made a metal plate at the top left page, using a stamp (HA) that I inscribed into the metal. Then I sanded the metal to bring the pattern out. I would like to work more with metal! There is also some bling that is very hard to see, that Therese brought for me when she visited last month. I know the mask is not right, the long points should be up, but I was so excited to use it for the first time, I forgot! So I put some bling at N,S,E and W to make up for it!

Does your house look like this?

 

 

Art Books everywhere?

and still, the shelf is full?

I have always wanted to try at least one technique from each book that I have

. . .so I am going to try and make that my weekly mission! I will let you know which book it came from, and show you what I did. There are a few blogs out there that do this already - they were my inspiration. I have so many of these books, and I love reading them, now I have to DO them!

I went to Michael's this weekend, just to spend one little 40% off coupon and get my Xyron refill at 40% off, but I came home with all this. . .

All the stamps were $1.50 except the one I used my coupon on (the cute little round face). Beware the Peace stamp - it's MUCH smaller than the package! All the paper was on sale - bonus! I really needed some new rubber. . .

I took my coptic bound book apart. . .

and re-bound it with some hemp (for jewelry) I found at Michael's (and then at the Dollar Store for only 1$!)

it's much tighter and stronger now. So I've painted 2 layouts in this journal, hoping to give myself a head start. . . let's hope it works! I'm thinking of having several journals, this one as my daily journal. I've been getting inspired by lots of people lately, most recently Judy Wise, I love her daily journals, so mine may look a bit like hers for awhile. . .! Hopefully she won't mind. 

I absolutely LOVED this travel journal by Mary Ann Moss when she went to Portugal - I want my journals to look like that! Here it is full of stuff. Wonderful!

Ok, I think I've rambled on enough! Until next time!