Finally-Back to Journaling!

Boy -it's been awhile! I stopped art journaling last September. I tried to figure out why, and what I came up with is that I was 2 pages to the end, and I didn't have another journal ready to go into. I wasn't up to making another one, so I just stopped. Then one of our best friends died, I knew I should journal about him, but couldn't. In January I finally got the gumption to start again, and it's been getting easier ever since. I even started the page on our friend yesterday. And I already have another journal to go into, so hopefully thing will go smoothly from here! But I have decided, after journaling every day for the past month or so, that I lead a terribly predictable and boring life! Oh well!!

So here are all my pages so far, some I took before the journaling as well, so that maybe I can use them in other pieces of art along the road. Besides, I think it's interesting to see "before" and "after"!

This is the completed page of the page I started a few blog posts back, using enlarged copies of 2 moo cards I made a few years ago.  

Before page

after- Family Day

The  background pictures are taken from some of my old ATCs

 Again, more of my old art enlarged in this page as well. I've always loved this Buddha page I did in someone else's Deco Book!

I made this page with the first Altered Pages stamp I got, as well as an extra page I made for another swap book,

and this is what it became:

Another page made with enlarged ATCs of mine. I originally had a quote in the middle, but I hated it, so painted over it. The leaf shapes on the right edge are made with those black heat sensitive foam things that you can impress shapes into. I love this one!

So I used it again on the next page:

This is the page I'm working on this week, so hopefully I will post it in a few days when it's full. The stamps are from Stampin' Up, a gift from a friend. I like using new stamps in my journals. And there's that neat leaf thing across the bottom from the previous page.

My next page to work on, ready to go:

 Images from Tim Holtz paper, other bits are things I found on my table that day. Bought some K&C chip board shapes (on sale at Michael's) and used a few as stencils.

I have one more finished background page but I haven't scanned it yet. Also started making background pages in my next journal with leftover paint from this one.

To make this blog post even longer, here are a few other things I've been working on lately:

I had an enverlope swap to do for Byhand -15 envelopes plus thing to put inside. My theme morphed into a Lord Byron (the poet) theme. I even made Byron Post stamps for each envelope (and put a few extra inside)! You can see the huge amount of room I leave myself to create these things!

SPOILER ALERT! If you are in this swap, and want to be surprised, skip this next photo!

 Inside each envelope are some Byron post stamps, a romantic letter from Byron (After I finished aging these letters, I realized I should have changed the name on each letter to reflect the person it was going to! oh well, next time!), and a "framed" portrait of Byron, as every love lost girl should have!

 

My mother turned 75 on Feb 12 (see sidebar for her new books!), and here is the card I gave her, and the inside:

And another card I made with the Altered Pages stamp (I love this stamp!)

And FINALLY (yes, this post is almost over!!) some ATCs I've made in the last month or so:

One of my favorite stamps -"Maude"  

These two were for a "Queen of hearts" swap.

Well, that's it. When I started I thought I didn't have much to report. Wrong! I really need to do this more often so you aren't subjected to such a LONG post!! Off to spend the afternoon with my friend Marg and to PLAY!!!

Blogiversary

Yesterday was my 5th Blogiversary. I can't believe it's only been 5 years, it feels much longer! Someday I will have a celebration, but this year I was sick.
    So far, I've been sick all of February. OK, so it's only Feb 6th, but what a way to start the month! I stayed home from work 3 of those days, and 2 were the weekend, so only 1 working sick day. I hope I'm up to going back tomorrow! Now Ron is sick.

Anyway, felt better today so was able to get some art done. An ATC swap for AFTCM called "Hands of Time". I like them both!

Last month I made a kit for Altered Pages, but I hadn't put it on my blog yet. Since it's been on the site for awhile now, I thought I'd post it. I made it from a wooden box my mother gave to me that she found in a second hand shop. I had some sheet music I was supposed to used on a project from AP, called "Song of India". I was all set to do a cool Indian box, until I researched the music and found what the story was. Not at all what  thought! It was about an under-the-sea wedding!

 The box was fun to make, I'll have to make a book someday to go inside.


Thanks for looking!

Sunday

It was too cold to do anything this Sunday but stay in my warm cozy jammy type clothes and do art! I have several swap items I needed to make, so I did the two most pressing ones, plus an ATC.

 This is my "Under the Sea" Gothic Arch I made for my AFTCM Yahoo group. Sometimes i make things I don't want to give away, and this is one of them! I would love to keep it! The mermaid, the seahorse, and 2 of the shells on the left are popped up. The arch is free standing, made from a chipboard book I got at Michael's in the summer. The 2 sides fold in a bit, but this has been scanned flat. Maybe I'll use it on a journal page!


I also needed to make a card for my Stampscapes II Yahoo group, the theme was "Anything Goes" so I decided to use my new horse stamps (also from Michael's).

 This one is going all the way to the Netherlands! I went to a Hero Arts sale on Saturday and bought a set of word stamps and I used 2 of them on this card. One is on the inside, under a stamped image of a horse's head. If you recognize the stamp of the trees in the background, you will know that I took out the water! How to be versatile with your stamps!

That's it for this week! I'm hoping to get some time to work on my journal from my Strathmore class, but I seem to have such small windows of time! I need to start working on my envelopes (15 of them I think!) for an envelope swap at my Byhand Yahoo Group, and I have 3 sets of ATCs to do as well.

Have a great week!

Playing!

Playing with my new Cinch - easy peasy! Found a bunch of old (2008) 4X4s to make into a book, some ATCs, and my calendar pages from AFTCM Calendar Swap.

 These are from an old Byhand Swap called This and That from 2008. Isn't the first one awesome! That's Yogi's!

 My calendar from AFTCM Yahoo Group. It stands on it's own.

A bunch of old ATCs of mine

That was fun! I'll have to go searching for more!

Christmas Day

We had a lovely Christmas Day, peaceful and serene! I don't remember ever not being totally exhausted at the end of a Christmas Day, but last night I felt calm and so not tired! My Mom, Step-Dad and Brother came for dinner, we had a 23 lb turkey (I LOVE leftovers!) and all the cooking was done by the time they arrived! The kitchen wasn't too bad as I had already done 3 dishwasher loads of dishes during the day! So it was sit back, drink eggnog, and enjoy!

Here are some highlights of the day:

 Christmas morning

 The stocking are filled

 My daughter and I are warm and cozy!

My family is so good at getting me art related gifts -here are all the wonderful things they chose for me this year!

and a Cinch!! From my wonderful husband! 

This will get a lot of use!

I am so blessed! I had a wonderful Christmas, and hope that all of you did too! Have a lovely restful Boxing Day, or as we call it, Turkey Soup Day!

12 Days of Christmas- Day 12

Last day!! I had 2 presents to open, from Robyn and Mary-Beth

here is Robyn's:

Looks very pretty on the tree! Thanks Robyn!

And Mary-Beth's:

A tiny canvas on a tiny easel! Very cool! Thanks Mary-Kay!

And for the gift from Mary-Kay from Day 8, I can reveal it now:

 

Delightful little fabric ornament! Thanks Mary-Kay!

Well, that's it for another year! This was such a fun swap! Many thanks to all who joined!