Lazy Summer Day...

I love lazy summer days, not too hot, just right, just like today! Sitting in my hammock on my porch reading Game of Thrones Book 4 - heavenly!!

And now for my MAY journal pages:

I bought a few new stamps and some Dylusion sprays!

Hope you are having a wonderful lazy summer day!

Hot!!

Beautiful (though hot!) day today! My house looks great because I got back to doing Fly Lady, and now I don't feel guilty about going into my art room! I went in there today to make my next journal page background, and to tidy up a wee bit. I found a stamp I had lost (an um) and then when I went to put it with it's family, the rest of the stamps were missing! Trying to keep my space tidy so I don't have to tidy everything before I can do anything!

Here are some more journal pages, I think we're in April...

 

The only Easter-like stamp is this one from Tim Holtz!

 Outside...

inside...

My DD's boyfriend's 28th  Birthday Card was the only other art I did in April! I used Character Construction stamps (that he gave me for Christmas!)

I'll do May next - hope everyone is enjoying the heat, or, if not, are somewhere nice and cool!

So Sorry.....

I feel like I've been in Limbo since February. I've finally rejoined the land of the living though! I really didn't do anything artsy since Feb except for my journal and a few cards. So rather than fill this space with months of journal pages, I will try to post a few everyday, and maybe I can get back into the swing of things! The reason for all this is because I've had a terrible cough since January 1st, and it has been keeping me awake at night, combined with teaching all day, I was a zombie! Lately the cough has been getting better, and I've been sleeping better since I found a cough syrup with Codine. I have actually had 3 nights in a row (not last night though) with no coughing! So I apologize to my followers, and hope I can make up for my lack of posting!

I'm still working in a Moleskine journal-I really like the size. It also has a pocket in the back for storing things I don't want to add to a journal page. I'm also working on a few other journals as well, larger. I had made a bunch of tags early in the year, just playing, so I've been adding a few to my journal pages.

If you've been checking up on me -THANK YOU!!!

February, but feels like Spring!!

Sorry I take so long between posts. I always feel I should have a bunch of stuff to post, but really I could post with fewer things! just have to DO it!! The weather today is amazing - warm, sunny, and smells like Spring. I hope it stays this way! Saturday we had the most beautiful snowfall, lovely large flakes gently falling and sticking to the trees in clumps - so pretty! I was already thinking about how I was going to put that in my journal!

I'm going to go backwards with my journal pages, this first one is really the last page in my moleskine book, luckily I have another one in the wings waiting to go! I think this page is my favorite one though. It started out horribly! I tried to stencil a bird and a birdcage on it, then realized it was upside down! Darn! So I sprayed it with black glimmer mist, and used a lot to cover it all up. Let it dry, and realized it had seeped onto some of my other pages (to come).

Then I thought I'd stencil it with white gesso using a credit card, but it was horrible. Thus the smeared white. I found an Altered Pages image I liked, plopped that on, and the rest just came. I love the trees, because that is just what they looked like during the snowfall on Saturday!

OK, less chatter and more journal pages! I've smudged anything private, so don't hesitate to enlarge!

Stamps from Altered Pages

Funnily enough, I didn't like the green around my men, and the seepage from the black spray fixed it for me! I like it now!

 

new stamps from Michael's (Hampton Arts)

my oldest cat died. Very sad, but it was her time.

new $1.50 stamps from Michael's

Thanks for looking! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Springlike day like I am! BTW, take a trip to Altered Pages - they have lots of new stuff!

Valentine Canvas

I made a Valentine Canvas for Altered Pages, and it's on their site (here) as a kit! There are lots of awesome collage pages here, as well as stamps, papers and lots more! Come take a look!

I made this canvas because I had a canvas that I made a few years ago that I didn't like, and it was just sitting around. I had a brainstorm one night as to what to do with it, and I came up with this:

It will probably be a Valentines gift for hubby! I painted over the canvas, and you can see some of the previous design coming through the paint, which is awesome! If you buy the kit you get everything you need to make it, including the (new) canvas! You could always do a quick collage on the new canvas, then just paint over it to let the design come through.  


Thanks for looking!

Some journal pages...

I now have 4 journals on the go - my Moleskine, my daughter's travel journal to make for her, my large art journal, and my journal that I'm hoping to use for my Kelly Kilmer class that I haven't started yet. My idea for going back to the Moleskine journal for everyday was that it was small, and I could prepare it easily to work on everyday for a week on each double page. At first I wanted it to be more private, and I wasn't going to post it, but it's so much fun I have to. So I took photos rather than scan it so that (hopefully) no one can actually read the words. Here goes:

This was when I started back into my Moleskine in November. It was also the first day we had snow which was gone by the afternoon! The next day that we had enough snow to stay was last Friday!

 Got out my Christmas stamps which I hadn't used at all yet because I hadn't made any Christmas cards yet!

 More Christmas stamps. First I scribble neo-colors (watercolor crayons) all over the page, then wipe with a baby-wipe. This smooths the background color out. I do this for the next 2 or 3 pages, not really worrying about which colors I'm choosing, although for December I did choose "Christmasy" colors.

 For this page I scribble dark red around the edges, then pulled the color into the middle. The envelope is from a swap I was in with the Byhand artists group, a 12 days of Christmas Swap. The envelope was from the 1st day of Christmas giftie.

 This next page I did in green and red stripes. It was AWFUL and I hated it, and wondered what the heck I was going to do with it. I decided to showcase the 12 days of Christmas swap gifties and I had 2 different circular shaped "shapes', not doilies exactly, just some shapes I had bought a few months ago thinking to use them as stencils, which is what I did. I sprayed over them with Maya Mist red, and I loved the effect! Then I spent my TV watching evenings doodling away, making each shape different, and used my 12 Days of Christmas stamps for each spot. I added anything like tags etc. that came from the gifties as well.I'm also using my Bienfang watercolor pens to color in the stamps.

 This page was better with the green on the border and red inside.

Gifties 7-10-I remade the ugly page to match the other one, and have made each circular shape different by the way I doodled them.

 These are the Character construction stamps my daughter gave me for Christmas. I had pre-stamped this page, not knowing what would go in the banner yet, but as it worked out, it was New Years Day at that spot!

I needed more 2 pages for my 12 days gifties so I remade the same ugly pages as before. More character construction stamps that CJs boyfriend gave to me! So lucky that he lives near Bizzy Bee stamp store! I used these stamps to make a birthday card for my step-father.

So that's it for today! Don't forget to stop by Altered Pages to what what new goodies they have! They now have LOTS more than just collage images!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas (and Happy Hanukkah!) to all my wonderful blog friends who keep me up when I am down! All of you are such wonderful and caring people, and I am so thankful to have each and every one of you in my cyber-life!

I was only able to make 4 cards this year, and I only have 3 of them to show you. I really have to start Christmas card-making in January!

All images are from Altered Pages

I will be posting some Journal pages after Christmas when I have more time (2 weeks holiday!!!) and I am starting a new Kelly Kilmer Workshop called Revel in the Moment, so I will show you what I'm doing there too.


Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Hope everyone has a fabulous holiday!

November already!

Boy, time is flying by. I'm not getting much done, barely started thinking about Christmas, but everyone else seems to be - it was so busy today at the stores! Working on a few journal pages that I can share anyway. . .



 I thought this background was done. . .

but then I started doodling!

This is the next page background, the writing isn't quite done yet, and I have one more page on the go. 

Not much to show, but then I haven't been working on it much, either too tired at the end of the day or too busy on the weekends. But I'm trying to get a few minutes in before I go to work, and a few minutes in just before bed (but that doesn't last long, I'm no good at night). I'm also trying to get into my art room before I do the things I HAVE to do!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US friends! Hope your Turkey / Tofurkey Day is a delicious one!

Birthday Card

Hopefully this card reaches my good friend Marg before she sees this post. It better! But here it is, I had no idea what I was going to do for this card when I started, except that I had just bought the new Tim Holtz pad of paper and knew I wanted to use it.

I had also just bought a new Crafters Workshop swirly stencil that I thought I would christen. The "Life is nothing" stamp is from Viva Las Vegas Stamps. This is the result. I like it! Hope Marg does too!

Check out the giveaway on my sidebar for Ink On My Finger's blog!

Finally - an art post!!

Hives are all gone, hopefully NEVER to return! But if they do, I am armed! Thank you for all the sympathy I received. I needed it!!

OK, so here are some new journal pages. I've been experimenting a lot with backgrounds and stencils. Not sure how I like it.

The cross is a canvas I'm doing for a good friend who is sadly moving away. I will miss her very much!

My friend Therese came to play with me!!

I thought I would use my Character Construction stamps and create some people on my journal - unfortunately, I only have a couple of these stamps - I have to get more!! Well I'm off to finish this page.

My thoughts go out to all of you who are remembering 911 today, especially those personally affected. It was a horrible day, and though we don't want to remember it, we need to.