Tiny Tweets HuG Style Journal

This little Remains of the Day 'HuG' style journal is now available for adoption in my Etsy shop. It is 3" tall by 3.5" wide with a 42" wrap around enclosure. 60 pages of lightly collaged paper and fabric pages. Here are few page peeks.

Tiny tag tucked in a pocket.

Finding My Way

Scrappy, shabby tag tucked away on a journal page. Brian Andreas ROCKS!

Over the past few weeks I have been working furiously on a single project. Whenever I am completely focused on something, everything else gets pushed to the back burner. There are times when I can work happily on multiple pieces and manage to find a sweet balance to work within but there are times when my mind pumps into over drive sending me messages that leave little room for anything else. That voice that says " YOU MUST FINISH THIS TODAY" I always know when I have reached my saturation point with any given project, knowing when I am nearing the end and it is at that final stretch when I simply need to give myself over to pushing it home. Kind of like the long distance runner who paces their stride during the course of a race and then in that last final mile, there can only be a singular focus which is to cross the finish line. Yesterday I finished that kind of project and am pleased with the result, but I am also relieved it is done. I can move on to other pieces, settle back into the bliss of my creative process.

You Would Always Fly

Life is good. Summer is quickly sliding away. The summer always allows me the most 'free time' to work on art. My own personal 'art' camp. Once school and DD's dance classes start in September and it's back to grabbing a few hours here and there. But for now, I am enjoying every second and squeezing as much art time into every hour as I can get.

Here are a few more peeks at some of my pages in my Remains of the Day journal.

In The Shimmer

I have been working in my visual journal all day, a marathon of creating, almost non-stop. These are all pages in my 'Gatherings' Remains of the Day 'HuG' style journal I am going to be submitting for publication. My goal is to have this all wrapped up and in the mail by Monday.

 All of the pages I worked on today were inspired by and come from the deep well in my heart, where things get tossed like coins in a fountain until I can allow them to float and tumble closer to the surface. This particular page is about loss. Everyone understands loss and disappointment. Everyone has lost something or someone in their lives and in the case of this page it is about both.

Here are more of the pages from today's journaling flight. They are all

created on 140 pound Fabrino Artistico paper, gessoed, painted, and stitched with found text and images. 

This page was created on a painted page that was almost the same colors I had achieved on an art journal page I worked on for an art journaling round robin. I always photo copy my round robin art work so I used pieces from that photo copy to create an amost identical page for myself but used completely different text.

Looking Through a Window

Life feels this way sometimes. Feeling like I am living someone's else's destiny and not my own. Like I am watching myself doing things that I must do but wishing I didn't have to. Wanting things to change but they are things that can't be undone so easily. I wrote this quite awhile ago and made a journal block out of it. I was stretching my sketching skills when I created this.  It now hangs among other art I have around my home.

This is a fabric transfer of the piece sewn into a pocket in my 'Gathering's'  Remains of the Day journal.

And today I have been playing with

making lots of background painted pages and various tags for future journals. 

If I am going to make one I might as well make a bunch so nearly every flat surface available has something drying on it. I tend to work in batches when I bring out the paints since it halts my being able to work on anything else. This is when I sit wishing that I had a huge studio so that I could simply move from one space to the next and not have to stop and put stuff away. Oh well, that is not in my destiny so I will just be happy I have what I have and count each and every blessing because my life is a gift.

And something to laugh about. This Storypeople quote arrived in my email the day after our power went out.

'spent a lot of time when she was younger

practicing walking around completely in the dark,

 so she figures she's probably pretty

well prepared for adulthood'.

And then yesterday there was this one.

'Remember to use positive affirmations.

I am not a dork is not one of them'.

Sometimes I am a dork but that is my life. LOL!

Looking For a Home.

I finished my little 'home grown'  journal today and it is now looking for a new home in my Etsy shop. It is 5" tall, by 4.5" wide with a 29" wrap around closure. There are 4 fabric pages with pockets and hiding places and 16 cardstock paper pages with tags and other goodies tucked inside. 20 pages/40 total.

Here is a pic of the cover previously posted.

And here are more page peeks.

You can find more peeks at this journal in previous posts.

Under Construction

Front

Back

Home Grown Journal #2

Yesterday I was content working on some journals pages and started day dreaming about different ideas. It all began when the lights went out the other evening. The journal I was working on is titled 'home grown' and that inspired me to think about trying to create a house shaped journal based on the same process of a Remains of the Day journal. With not much else to do that night, I simply let the idea brew in the corners of my imagination.

 Sometimes what works in theory doesn't hold up when executed. So last night I decided to see if it would work or not and it did. The pages are also house shaped. The journal is 8" tall by 5"wide. There are 2 spines and they each hold 20 pages and fold in on each other when closed and fold away from each other when opened, like a door. The wrap around 39" long.

I will have fun working on these pages.

I also made progress on the little 'home grown' journal which I will be listing this in my Etsy later today . Here are some more pics of the pages in this journal. These are all fabric pages with various pockets and hiding places.

Lights Out

I had no longer finished writing the previous post here and enjoying the fact that I had an entire evening ahead of me with time to create, when the sky turned a nasty shade of green. I knew that thunderstorms were still a chance during the evening, but for the most part the weather in our area had settled down. WRONG. At 8:30pm, tornado sirens went off, alarm on weather radio came to life; daughters, dog and guinea pig were all herded into the basement and we waited. I sat quietly hoping against hope that we wouldn't loose our power, lights flickered 3 times and the last time they simply didn't come back on. Our power was restored about an hour ago. YEAH.

So what does one do when the power goes out? Light lots of tea lights and make a large, frosty cocktail and then take pictures of all of it.

Very thankful to be sitting here with lights on, AC cranked and no storms on the horizon and saying a heartfelt prayer for the many still without power tonight.