Sunday, January 30, 2011

Meet my new love....

Kalon

Fabric Shop


I was at a fabric shop today & it reminded me of how I was introduced to sewing.  When I was 12, two women came to my low income neighborhood and gathered up a group of us girls and invited us to join their 4H club. It was amazing what they did.   They met with us in a small neighborhood church and taught us how to sew.  Arlene and her sister Lois were such great teachers and had a huge impact on me and the other girls.  I was a member of 4H into high school.  Our projects started with a simple apron to detailed blouses, dresses & slacks.  Our sewing projects competed in the State Fair & never got less than a purple or blue ribbon.  I learned so much from both Arlene and Lois, but Arlene is a major influence and mentor.  I tell her all the time how grateful I am that she is a part of my life.  She gave me possibilities.   Funny how a trip to a fabric shop moved me today.
Martin (Arlene's husband), Arlene and her sister Lois.

My January Art Journal Every Day


 I had so much fun journaling everyday.  As I mentioned before, I'm using my work desk calendar as my journal.  Feels great to journal this way.  I found it's best to watercolor the backgrounds a few days in advance so not to tear threw the wet page.  I found it was so fun to add to it while I'm on the phone or eating my lunch.  What a blast.
























This is my journal art kit.  I have a watercolor kit, a watercolor brush (cool tool, has a water reservoir), pens in shades of blue, couple of reds, a thick & thin black sharpie, typed words and glue stick.  Amazing what you can do with such few tools.  Loving it!
Stay tune for February's art journal.  

Recycle

Clip boards from work needed to be replaced and I was asked if I could do something with them instead of throwing them away or buying new ones.  I primed them and set them aside.
I didn't want to spend too much time or thought since I'm limited on my free time right now.  So I thought why not paint stripes with whatever paints I had around the craftroom.


I think they came out nice.
The back was painted with leftover pantry shelf paint. 

 
They'll be finished off with some black highlights.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Blog, I've missed you.....

I'm finding it tough to get to posting on my blog.  I've been a busy person on the creative side of my life and of course there's my real job, too.  This is what I've been up to...
Designing, printing and assembling wedding invitations for a few people.  I finished one and I'm in different stages on two others.  I've taken out my sewing machine and made a few small projects.  Just for fun I'm working on some funky hairpins for my niece, I'm working on my daily artwork journal....will be posting pics soon.  I'm also working on a project for five friends having to do with a little bit of journaling.  In between, I've made a few sets of earrings and I'm still finding a minute or two to paint.  Oh yeah, that reminds me I have five clip boards to paint for my real job.  One big job was to unload all the photos off my camera storage cards...over a thousand.  I'm very organized with my photos, plus I back them all up on an external hard drive.  Ugh, that was a big job.  I'll post some of my favorites.  But as for now I need to get to my real job.....  Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Check out my niece!


Amanda with her daughters, Hadley & Channing

Meet Amanda, she's making the cutest bows!  
 Check out her website.

Art Journal

I stumbled on Balzer Design blog a long time ago.  Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is crazy creative and shares so many ideas.  She offered up a daily art journal challenge.  I love the idea of this. 
I had an idea several months ago about using my desk calendar to journal on.  I want to document my 25th year of my job.  I decide to begin on January 1, 2011.  One late night I was catching up on some of the blogs I follow and here's where it all came together.  The next day after reading her entry I put together my journal kit(paints, brush, markers & pencils) and took it to my office.  I painted some backgrounds squares into the first week of January since I was going on vacation.  Each day in my job something awesome happens in the mist of all the chaos.  That's what I want to capture on the calendar.  I'll post photos as I complete the month.  This is so exciting.