More Rainbow Love

I'll have one of each, thank you!  Do I want to wear them or put them in a line on my dresser just like this?!  Hmmmm.....

Xhilaration at Target - only $12.99!!!

Joy

I love color! ...and I love instant gratification.  And that's what this little project was all about.

Take all those broken crayons and peel the paper off.  Or not - that was the most tedious part, and I think it would be fine if the paper was left on.

Hot glue them to the top of a canvas, and then hit 'em with your heat gun.  I tried a hair dryer also, but it ended up blowing the wax too much.

I did this over an old cookie sheet and after I finished the first one, I noticed the drips!  OMG!  L.O.V.E.  Wish that I had done it over a big canvas....

So, I had to make a couple more just to try it.  It didn't work as well as the cookie sheet, but still pretty groovy. I think it would be REALLY awesome if the canvas background was painted black or charcoal first.

How can this not make you happy, happy, happy?

This was fun, but I have absolutely NO idea what I'm going to do with these.  Does anybody out there want one?  If so, shoot me an email.

Soul House

The first part of the SR1 workshop deals with setting boundaries and Melody uses the analogy of a house to describe the condition of our souls.  Have you set strong boundaries and protected your house (soul), or have you let all kinds of people come in and destroy it and turn it into a crack house?

So the first spread, after the title page, in our SR book is a picture of our Soul House. You can interpret this however you like, but I chose to think of mine in already restored condition, so that it would be a reminder of what I need to protect.

I found a picture of a house online that I liked, then I used that as a general guide for the shape I wanted my house to be.  I cut the pieces out of different patterned papers.  Actually the house was one of the last things I glued down.  I cut it out first, but then I had to wait until I got the sky and grass laid down before I could add it. 

I started with scraps of paper.  I tore pieces of several different blue, green, and orange-y pink papers and then I collaged them onto the book for the earth and sky.  Next I found that fabulous glittery flower and used it as the center of my sun.  I layered it on two other pieces of glittery paper and then glued it down with the rays. 

From there, I was able to add the house and all the finishing touches.

This is the lift-up flat that was on this page.  On part you see, it's the reminder that My House is sacred, and then when you lift the flap, on one side it says "I get to decide who comes in my house."  On the other side, I pasted in three truths. 

I like glitter. 

And waa-laaa!  The flowers are rhinestones that I pieced together, and everything else is collaged paper.  Again, I used inks and paint to do the shading and to paint in the grass and leaves.  Yep, it's a little busy, but duh - I made it - how else would it be?  :-)

And then added one final thought to set the tone for the rest of my SR work.  LOVE!

That's all I've done so far... Tonight I want to start on my next spread, but I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do.  Maybe the inspiration will strike between now and the end of the day. 

Homework

I haven't been taking many pictures or doing much lately other than work-working and then home-working on my Soul Restoration 1 projects.  So, I don't have much to write about these days.

In SR1, we're creating a book and we are doing a 2-page spread each week.  The first week, we did the cover, the title page, and our soul house.  Last week, we were supposed to create a spread about our truth teller, but I haven't gotten around to finishing that one yet. Anyway, I thought I'd share what I've done so far.

I started out with a cute 8" x 8" board book.  I found them at Barnes and Noble for about $6, and they have little flaps inside that I thought would be kind of fun.

Before the class started, I put masking tape around all the edges and gesso'd all the pages so that they would hold paint better.

This is the front cover.  I didn't know that I was gravitating towards deep saturated colors, until I looked at these pictures, but wait - you will see...

I bought a box of scrap jewelry bits on ebay last year for a project that I never started.  I LOVE this little piece of whatever (a belt buckle maybe?), and I'm happy to finally be using some of these bits.

This is the title page spread.  The blue side is just paint, and the green side I covered with paper.  I smeared markers along the edges and ridges to do the shading, and try to give it some depth.

Lots of layers...  paint, stamps, rub-ons, gems, glitter, and I cut the fish out of a 2010 calendar.  They fish don't have anything to do with any of the work we're doing, but I LOVED them and wanted to use them.  So, here they are.

And with the flap open...  LOVE the flaps!

I like to add the dimensional bits.  I have a really hard time leaving a page flat.  I have tried, but then I always end up going back and adding something that comes off the page a bit.   Not sure why, but I'm not fighting it...

And here's this page with the flaps open.

These pages took me forever!  Everyone else knocked these out in a few hours.  I didn't realize it, but I obviously just work REALLY slow. 

The next spread is my soul house.  That one took me DAYS to finish!  When you see it, I think it looks relatively simple, but it was "a process."  I'll give you a peek at that tomorrow.

Have a good day.  I gotta go work-work now.  Argh!  This real work thing is so inconvenient...  ;-)

Art Journal - Backgrounds

If you've been reading along for the past few months, you probably know of my struggle with Art Journaling.   AJ and I are in a battle of wills.  I have been determined to fill her up, and her blank pages hae  just stared at me belligerently, almost shouting, "Bring it!" 

I am proud to say that I have indeed, Brung It!  Or, at least I'm feeling pretty good about the start that I have finally made!

My plan is to use this Journal for the Soul Resoration 1 journalling prompts.  Here's the first background I created - it was HIDEOUS, but I just kept adding more and more stuff until I kinda liked it.  My plan was for this to be the 'title' page (and that's how it ended up - I'll post a few 'finished' pages later this week). 

Page 2:  Again, I hated it, but kept adding more junk until I decided I  could tolerate it.  I also went ahead and added one of the journalling prompts so I would know what to write about.

I've never been a big journaler.  One of the reasons is because when I start writing, I just don't know how to be brief (duh, I'm sure you never would have guess that buy reading this blog - lol!).  So, with AJ, I've been afraid that I would have to decorate 3 - 5 pages the same just to cover ONE prompt.   Over the last week, I've found that limiting myself to one page is kind of nice.  It forces me to focus on the important things, distill my thoughts and keep it brief. 

After these two pages took FOREVER, I decided to practice one of the things I've been trying to learn lately:  less is more and keep it simple, so I got busy with the mists and watercolors and here are a few more I came up with...

I don't know why, but I love this page.  A couple of spray inks, and some acrylic inks for the sun and clouds - nothing special, and so basic, but I love the colors and the simplicity of it.  LOVE!

Plastic doilies, mists, watercolor, a stamp, a flower border punch, and a rub-on.  I was just playing around with EVERYTHING on these pages.

More mists and stencils/masks.  I like the color combinations here, but I'm not really sure how I'm going to journal yet. 

Again, I don't know why, but I really like this page, too.  Collaged on a sewing pattern and that coffee filter flowery kinda thing - a bit of paint, and a stamp. 

This dragonfly is actually a Christmas ornament that I put down on the page and misted over.  Like it!

Since I knew I was going to be out of town (away from my art supplies - ack!) last week, I decided that I would throw down a few backgrounds in AJ, and then take her and some markers along on my trip...  Since she would be my only creative outlet, then I'd have to start journaling, right??

So, that's what I did, and during my VERY long, VERY boring meetings, I pretended like I was taking notes, but really I was writing my journal prompt responses.  I still have to transfer a few of them from my notepad to the journal, but I did a couple last week, and I'm pretty happy with them. 

I realize they're no masterpiece, but I'm so happy that I've FINALLY broken through this brain block.  I'm learning...sometimes it's not about being perfect and fancy, it's just about showing up and doing it.  What a hard lesson that is for me!

Linking up here.

Wow!

One of my favorite things about my job is the view.  We are in a great office building, and I can almost see my house from my desk. (Another favorite thing is that I'm only 5.2 miles from home - but who's counting?)While it's not particularly scenic, I love the BIG sky and the vibrant colors.

We had BIG storms on Sunday night, and everything that wasn't already green is gettin' with the program.  Busy, busy week, but I just wanted to share the amazing colors in this picture.    (I didn't amp up the colors in this picture at all - this is the real deal!) 

Hope you're having a great week!

Finally!

Brrr!  It's gotten chilly here in the last few days.  It really feels like Fall, and... FINALLY it's starting to look like Fall.

The mums are finally on all out GO!  They've just fully exploded this week.  I'm going to have to take it all in quickly because they don't last very long.  They are so flashy - love all the color!

Yea!!  I LOVE pretty!

Pumpkins!

I LOVE PUMPKINS!

Pumpkins and gourds, and all of their wonderful colors are some of my most favorite things about this time of year. So far, I've only bought a few for my decorating inside the house. If I could I would also turn my whole front yard into a pumpkin patch.

I took these pictures at the garden center around the corner from us. I'm trying to restrain myself, but I'm sure I'll be visiting again soon...

A space of my own... finally finished!!!

OK – so Labor Day was a long weekend, and I worked from home on the Friday afternoon before the holiday. We had no plans, and I was sitting at my kitchen table wondering what I was going to do with myself for those three days.

I suddenly felt motivated to tackle the closet in my office/craft room/guest room. I don’t really know what to call it – it is upstairs and it has a bed in it so it could be a guest room. But it also has a bookshelf, a desk and a computer so it could be an office. And it has all my art supplies, wrapping paper, unfinished projects, and sewing machine in it so it could be a craft room. For the most part, it is just “my room.” Joe almost never goes up there, and when she is home Chicken Little only goes in there to “borrow” supplies or when her mess has consumed her room and she needs some space to work.

This is what the closet looked like before I started. It was bad. (Sorry for the fuzzy pictures.)




After I got everything out of the closet, I decided it would be fun to paint it. Once I started thinking about pulling out all the painting stuff, it seemed like a good idea to just paint the entire room. I painted it about 18 months ago and never really liked it, and I have really been obsessing about a pink room. Also, since it was a three day weekend, it seemed like I would have plenty of time to paint the ceiling. The ceiling had been two tones of tan, and I think ceilings should be mostly white.

Everything that couldn’t be piled into the center of the room was moved to the hallway and Lib’s room.



I wish I had taken some before pictures, but I was this far into it before it hit me that this might be a bloggable project. So, this is what it looked like after I painted the closet and had just trimmed out the ceiling.




What was I thinking?

As you can see, I’d painted an “accent” wall a deep red and the rest of the walls were gray. I’ve never been a fan of the accent wall. I like either all or nothing. And I LIKE color – lots of it. So bye-bye red and gray and HELLO pink!

At one point, it was so crowded in the room with the furniture and the ladder that I tripped, stepped on the edge of the paint tray, and flipped it over on the floor and on me. Luckily I had put down plastic and I was barefoot. I was able to grab my flip flops (which didn’t have paint on them) so I could walk out of the room to get cleaned up. The carpet was not ruined. Just call me Grace. Geez!



The three day weekend project turned into a three week project, but I finally finished!!!

Here’s the reorganized closet. You probably can’t tell much difference, but it really is well organized and everything has a spot now. Also, if you look closely, you can tell that I painted it a really gorgeous leafy green color.



Now that I know what’s in there, I’m in the process of using up some of that junk so that it’s not so stuffed to the gills.

Drum roll, please…


It’s a whole lotta pink (actually more of a melon color), but I like it. The colors for the room came from the fabric that’s in the blanket on the bed. I’ve had that fabric for about 9 months with the intention of doing exactly this. I’m loving the blanket and feeling pretty proud of myself for making it (I don’t really know how to sew – I just wing it). Overall, I’m thrilled with it.

All of this furniture was already in the room. The bed’s from Ikea and the chest of drawers is from the Salvation Army. It was one of those 70’s bamboo ones that was ugly light wood. A coat of white paint can fix a multitude of sins. The deer head just makes me smile.

I found the three cow pictures in Chicken Little’s stash of artwork. I bought the frames at Michael’s for $3.99 each and they’re perfect. I’d like to have 9 cows in a little grid on this wall – that would look really cool. Surely there are 9 different kinds of cows, right?

I didn’t buy any new furniture, except for the desk chair. I got the desk/tables at Ikea last year and I got the chair there this weekend. I’ve been wanting a clear acrylic chair. I had a big red leather desk chair in here that ate up half the room. This one is so much better and just disappears and the room seems so much bigger.

I painted the bulletin board because I wanted it to disappear. I also installed the paper towel holder ($1.99 at Target) under the desk. When I’m painting or using glue I’m always looking for something to clean up messes, but I didn’t know where I was going to put the paper towels. I'm very happy to have come up with a solution. The laundry basket under the desk is the projects-in-progress-keeper.

On the bookshelf, I got rid of a bunch of magazines and books – I’m pretty sure I can find whatever I need on the web. I moved the white board out of the closet to the space behind the door. I love quotes, so it makes me happy to have this place to write whatever is inspiring me at the moment.

I made the cornice board over the window and then padded and covered it. I used the power tools and everything!

I put the storage cubes under the window to hold the printer, the cricut and the card-making stuff. I think I would prefer a “cleaner” look, but if I don’t see it I won’t use it. So, I like having all of it close to the desk where it’s easy to see and access.

Ta da!!! A space of my own! It’s pretty and girlie – soooooo happy with it!

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m pretty proud of myself. Even though it took way more time to finish than I had planned, I had some really satisfying moments during this process. It was so worth a couple of weekends. I actually want to spend time here. By organizing it, I know what’s in there. By throwing a bunch of stuff away, I feel like I have some room to breathe and think and create something. YEA, me!