Art Journal Every Day and Yetis!

I put this page together in just a few minutes, so it's sorely lacking depth, texture etc. My pain today was ridiculous so I ended up needing meds and was too shaky to have much fun. 

Just to clarify the Art Journal Every Day challenge, we're to try to spend a minimum of ten minutes per day but can work on it as long as we want. Yesterday I played for the good part of an hour - all those strips and inking took time - but other days (like today) have been closer to the bare minimum.

 I took a big scary leap and tried a lesson out of Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun (Lab Series)

I don't draw.  

The lesson was to sketch seated, relaxed strangers  in a really loose way. Two hours waiting at the orthodontist while B got his braces was the perfect opportunity, so here is Tracey (who came out kind of literal and more than a little Mike Judge-ian) and Linda (much more an interpretation of the impression she made).

and here's what 4K can buy you, besides of course unsuspecting models:

The other crafty fun I indulged myself in was folding up this yeti calendar. Totally cool, no? We de-catted ours, but otherwise turned out pretty near identical. You can get your very own yeti calendar here at Curiosity Group.

Scrapbook Club Layout

Last night I realized I had completely forgot to make my LO for the page of the month club at our LSS. The way the club works is you have to bring in your page between the 1st and 10th or you forfeit your spot. Since I'm not a fan of leaving thing to the last moment I got right to it.

The trouble was, the kit contents this month was a piece of striped paper, a matching rose colored floral, 1 piece of ribbon, three jewels, black and white cardstock. What could I do with that? And remember, no stamping. No altering. No paint. You have to use everything in the bag and nothing more. Eek. I think the matchy-matchyness nearly drove me around the bend. Then I remembered why I signed up in the first place - to challenge myself. Duh! Here's what I ended up with, it's not exactly my style but I'm happy with how it came together.

Click to see it up close

Tips:

* You can add a lot to a scrapbook page by creating layers and texture. This doesn't have to be any more difficult then crumpling the paper, squishing it or roughing up the edges with the blade of your scissors or fingernail. I did all three on this LO and the 'flatness' disappeared.

* Accordion fold flowers are so much fun but they can be a little too girly for boy pages. I find squishing them flat makes them grungy enough to suit masculine pages.

* It's an old technique but sanding the edges of your designer paper creates a nice vintage edge and it softens and highlights just like inking does. Sometimes these old techniques need to be cycled back in to our crafting tool boxes.

* Don't feel like you can't use scallops on boy pages, just make them larger - it takes the fussiness away. I free-hand cut mine for a slightly off kilter (and I hope charming) look.

* Accentuate the lines in a feature with white pen - dots are easy to get right. Another oldie worth visiting again. I love how the dots draw your eye and the black paper grounds the LO.

* Take advantage of the features on your paper. Often you can cut out an image and use it as an embellishment. In this case, I used some of the striped paper as a large photo mat and then cut the rest of the strips apart to use as desperately needed coordinating solids.

* Things don't always need to be straight. Some off-kilter strips or an angled photo can add playfulness to a page.    

* Use your scraps to make your own embellishments. Even small pieces can have big impact on your design. In this case, the piece here completed my visual triangle.

I'll be back later with my art journal post. I've been so busy today that even ten minutes hasn't come easy.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Calendar Challenge and Resolutions(ish)

My very, very cool, creative friend Carmen blogged about a Calendar Challenge she's doing and I took one look and the drool started pooling all over my lap top. Oh, my! Come to mama, this project is straight out of my dreams. Go check it out.

I love the idea of an art journal/calendar/diary. And since 2011 is going to ROCK, it'll be the perfect assurance that I won't miss a thing.


Plus it blends nicely with my AJED project. Nice when life works out that way.


Speaking of, here's todays addition to my AJ:

(click on the pic)

Here's the text, not resolutions exactly, just plans to make this rich life even richer.


By the end of 2011 I plan to have...


Learned: How to sew. Really sew, not just aim the needle in the general direction I have in mind. This will involve both books and classes.
Changed: My self-talk. I'm really hard on myself and say things to me that I'd never say to other people. I think now is the time to learn to be as gentle with me as I am with everyone else.
Figured Out: Whether or not I'm ever planning to drive again. Trenton will be 15 this summer so if I'm going to be his licensed driver in the vehicle with him, I better get at it. It's time to fish or cut bait on this issue.
Completed:  At least 75% of this list: Two half-marathons (2/27 and 4/30), a marathon (maybe 12/4), the Suncrest (PSYCHO!!!! You need to be a very fit mountain goat to survive it.) Half-marathon and maybe a sprint triathlon with my sweetie. 
Stopped: Basing all my decision on my spine. This is going to be my big year. I've waited most of a decade for this and I'm not filtering life through my spinal cord and vertebrae any more than I absolutely have to.
Started: Swimming and biking. Up until now I've been more of a falling, flailing and trying not to drown type of gal.
Acquired: Some finisher's medals, a swimsuit I don't hate and a hair color I adore.
Given Up: Frat boy food like Hot Pockets. I feed my kids home baked whole wheat bread made from fresh ground wheat and slathered with homemade hazelnut spread while simultaneously popping a Ham and Cheese Lean Pocket in the microwave for myself. That's seriously messed up!
Visited: Florida and at least three other states. Yellowstone NP would be nice too :-)
Left Behind: The 190s, the 180s and the 170s. I'm in the 160s now, but in the last two years I've hit each of those weights and I'm not going back. Nope. Not ever!


I'd love to read your list of what you plan to learn, visit, stop etc. If you post one please link it up so I can see it.

Day Three: Art Journal Every Day

Just posting a partial page today. My house looks like the homemaker has been sick in bed for a week. Ew. The worst part is that it's tidy but dirty. Gross. My most common offense is having a clean house that's a bit messy. This is much, much worse.

So instead of working on my page for all the time it would require, I put in my ten minutes and am now trying to rid the floor of it's choking layer of dog hair.

Proof of Art Journal Time:

(Don't forget to click, it's much prettier LARGE)

Bye for now, off to slay dust bunnies :-)

Jan 2: Art Journal Everyday

Thanks for all the kind comments about yesterdays half-made page. Today I left my art journal out on the table and added a bit of marker here and paint there through out the day. Without dedicating any specific time to crafting, I was able to get a ton more done.

See all those yummy layers, seam biding and tapes? I think creating on altered junk mail is my new very favorite thing.

(please click to see the photos better)

Here's a close up of the stamping and paint texture. I threw caution utterly to the wind and stamped with a clear stamp by Prima without using a block. While it wasn't as perfect, it did allow me to stamp into the valley created by the spine and to get a good impression on the different heights and textures.

Art Journal Every Day: One

I've been horribly sick all week (parting shots from one bee-yotch of a year?) and haven't as much as checked my email in five days. In fact, I slept 60 out of the first 72 hours I was ill. Which is crazy!

 Hope everyone had a merry christmas and a happy new year.

I signed up for Julie's Art Journal Every Day challenge and the commitment is to spend at least 10 minutes per day working on your art journal. Here's my page in progress. I've only just begun, and it feels WEIRD sharing it when it still looks meh.

Day One

You can still sign up, it's a join in anytime thing (if I understand it right). I'd love to have some of you lovelies playing too :-)

Back to napping...

Mixed-Media Photo Tree Skirt

A Very Maki Tree Skirt

One of the reasons we don't like decorating for Christmas is that our decorations aren't very us... in fact, they're not "us" at all. We bought a bunch of stuff at Lowes, very generic balls etc., when we were first married ( nearly 16 years ago) and called it done. We aren't very tchotchke-oriented to begin with so the trappings of Christmas don't really fit our space. It's got to the point where I don't feel like hauling out the crap ever again. Something had to be done. So I started with our pathetic tree skirt. 

Please click on the pictures to see them up close.

Start with one of those dollar store, batting tree skirts:

Add fabric to it. I used the same technique I did with my dish mats and it went fine. The fabric is just a base, no need to worry about perfection or even matching:

Paint with thinned gesso. We used a mix of thinned and full strength gesso for variations in opacity:

Start adding some paint. I didn't worry about letting anything dry. But when painting wet on wet you need to have a light hand.

Add more paint, stamps, stencils - whatever you like :-)

Thin black paint with water and start writing meaningful text over the tree skirt. This part was really fun as the kids yelled out suggestions so ours has everything from "Saltine Toffee" to " No SAT" and "Elvis"

Keep doing this until you like how it looks. A lot of the writing will get covered up over time so don't stress about imperfections. Be sure to add some drips and splatters while you're at it:

Let it dry, overnight is best as the batting weight base really holds the moisture.

Meanwhile, print your photos onto fabric. I used Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky Back Canvas - it's awesome! In Alisa Burke's Anti-Scrapbooking Class  I learned a technique where you paint non-essential (or distracting) parts of the photos with gesso:

And journal in the open space. Cool 'eh?:

Once the skirt was dry, peel off the backing on the canvas and stick the photos down randomly. Since my plan is to continually add photos to it, I didn't worry too much about placement.

Add paint to the edges to blend them in with the background:

Decorate the painted edges, paint pens work great:

Add some doodles:

You might have a few corners pulling up; I solved this by adding messy, decorative stitching, but you could also use adhesive:

Stitching such an unwieldily gigantic project is horrible. Seriously. Not fun. It helps to roll up the sides to shove the excess through the sewing machine. Speaking of the machine, don't be surprised if it gets a little paint on it. Oops. 

Consider this man-handling of your project "distressing" and it feels a lot less traumatizing.

And yes, we do have zombie pics on our tree skirt... their called "memories" :-)

You should end up with something like this:

Hope there was something you can take away and use from this tutorial. If only, be yourself.