Bliss journal pages

some of the inside unfinished pages from last weekend's journal: The first page of my new journal-- the woman next to me cut out this image, then decided not to use it, so I rescued her from the garbage... I just couldn't leave her there, and the more I look at it, the more I like it.

I love this girl!! Doesn't she look like she's having a great time?? I've been saving her forever, and finally decided to use her. I remember where I found her, too-- she was in a laundry detergent advertisement.

This background is from a Phoenix New Times page (a free newspaper that has really thin newsprint pages) that I painted, spattered, and stenciled. The image is a model from a magazine; she's actually backwards- after I cut it out and turned it over, Kelly said "wow, cool!" This side looks better than the original image, actually-- just one of those happy accidents!

Another magazine image that also had a cool backward side, but I really like how her dress pops against the colors of the paper, so I left her this way.

This is the last page of the journal-- I cut this image out from a vintage National Geographic, and decided she had to go on the last page-- riding off into the future, as it were. This page also had a happy accident; when I cut the image out, I had two pieces of paper in my hand, and cut them both at once. So, her shadow is formed from a map of Rome. It's a good start-- now I just need some uninterrupted free time! Maybe Sunday... it's either art or laundry... which one do you think will win?? :D

Kelly Kilmer weekend fun!! (edited)

last weekend was such a great time- Kelly Kilmer was in town, and taught her first two-day class!! it was so much fun!! Two whole days of paper, glue, ribbons, fabric, and creative inspiration mixed in with a lot of catching up, jokes, and laughing! (oh, and a Sprinkles cupcake was in there, too...) We made a journal from scratch, then worked on collaging some of the inside pages. I didn't take a lot of pictures-- I was too busy making things-- but Debbie has a few more on the Frenzy Stamper blog. This was the "before" pic of my workspace-- it's pretty clean, there! (it didn't stay that way for long...)

This was towards the end of day 2, when we started cleaning up-- you can still see Jeane and Jane doing some last-minute touches to their journals across the table, and Kelly's journals off to the left. The woman at the right (I don't remember her name, unfortunately) came from Santa Fe to attend; she said she'd only found out about Kelly's work a couple months ago. It's always fun attending classes; you get a lot of inspiration seeing what everyone else is working on, and although we all started out with the same basic journal and page concepts, the completed books and pages were all really different. I'm always interested in seeing Jane's work, too, because she adds fabric and sewing to her pages, which gives them a different dimensional aspect. (I haven't gotten that brave yet with my own pages, although the fabric and ribbons is a good start, which I don't usually do in my journals.

We decorated the covers inside and out before sewing the journal together, which is such a simple idea, and it made everything so much easier! This pic is the inside back cover of my journal-- I was drawn to lots of pinks on Saturday, and Kelly has a great collection of ribbons and trims! I also used some of her great collection of paper tape, and a piece of (pink) fabric along the edge.

More pinks on the inside front cover!! I never get around to writing my name and address on the inside cover, but I really should, so I left a space for it. The "bliss" ticket is actually covering up a mistake (I snipped the fabric right on the edge), but it turned out good, I think.

The front cover and the spine-- even more pink!! I love this Japanese paper with the gold accents. I'm going to add something more to the cover-- just don't know what yet. I love this journal!! It turned out really nice (I did a pretty careful job with my gluing and trimming), and it's a nice size- not too large, not too small, and the square page format is different than any other ones I have right now. The only problem is, I really want to work in it right away, but I have another journal I also need to work in-- I guess that would be a good incentive for working in the 3-ring binder journal, so I can finish it up!

edited to add: The woman from Santa Fe is Krista-- thanks for commenting, Krista! I'm glad you had a good time!!

image borrowed from Debbie's Frenzy Stamper blog (since I was too busy to take pictures!)

Things that happened while I was 40-- (since I will be 41 in approximately a month)

This idea is totally stolen from Linda Woods and Karen Dinino’s blog, but why re-invent the wheel, right?? And anyway, I did want to make a list like this; I just got the push to do it after seeing it on their blog. And of course, there’s probably lots of other stuff that happened while I was 40, I just don’t remember it now, because I’m almost 41, and my memory’s not what it used to be. (it never was, though, so I can’t really blame it on my age…) Where the heck did 40 years old come from, anyway?? How did that happen?? (this is rhetorical, sort of-- it seems like just yesterday I was chasing lightning bugs in the backyard with the neighbor kids… when did we all grow up and become adults?)

Anyway, back to things that happened while I was 40:

We bought a house.

We fixed up the new house and moved into it- in July!! (we hired movers, thank goodness)

I lost my job (we all did; they closed our entire facility-okay, technically that was while I was 39, since my last day of work was 2 weeks before my birthday.)

We tried to rent out our first house- no luck.

We tried to work with the bank to modify our loan- no luck.

We went through foreclosure proceedings on the first house- then, the bank said they wanted to try and help us… a bit too late, then, isn’t it?!?

I got a new job after being unemployed for 9 months.

I visited my sister Jackie in Missouri (it was a fun time, although hot and humid… the dry heat thing isn’t just a myth, it really is true- I’m acclimated to the desert, now.)

We spent time in Illinois and Wisconsin to visit my parents and attend Tom's family reunion. (we drove straight through from AZ to IL- approximately 28 hours of driving!)

We spent approximately 3 hours in Santa Fe. (on the way to Illinois; I definitely want to go back there sometime!!)

I visited my other sister Judy in Wisconsin while we were there, which was also a fun time, hanging out and playing croquet. I miss spending time with her—she needs to come to visit me in AZ! (Jude, are you reading this??)

We drove back (straight through again!!) from Wisconsin to Arizona.

We drove to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend—(drove there on Saturday, came home on Sunday.) A bit of a crazy plan, but after driving to and from WI, it didn’t seem so bad. Las Vegas was a huge sensory overload for me, but I'm glad we went.

I organized a garage sale to get rid of some of the extra knicknacks (including extra art suppies) around our house.

I purchased more art supplies (of course!) and knicknacks throughout the year to replace the ones I sold at the garage sale... how does that always happen?

I attended some very fun art journaling classes taught by Kelly Kilmer (one was last weekend, and I still need to take pics-- it was great: 2 whole days of cutting, pasting, and creative inspiration. But I digress...)

I had lots of fun, as always, attending our group's monthly Mixed Media art group meetings, and even led a couple of them (where I showed some of my favorite painting and stamping techniques, of course!).

I created an art piece (see it here) for the show Women for Women, which raised money for the charitable organization of the same name.

I suffered a stroke while attending the art opening of the show. (!! I did not realize I suffered a stroke till the CT scan days later confirmed it-- was I lucky, or what?!?)

I visited many doctors, specialists, and endured many tests to figure out what caused my stroke- the answer is: we don't have an answer- we don't know what caused my stroke.

I signed on for the 3-Day for the Cure, a 60-mile walk to raise money for breast cancer research.

Whenever I think "nothing ever happens to me," I need to sit down and make a list like this again, I think.

felt finger puppets

my sewing machine got sidetracked for a couple days, while I pulled out the box of felt... I have wanted to make felt finger puppets for quite a while, now (don't ask why; there isn't any reason other than they're darn stinkin' cute!) I have a stack of other patterns drawn, too- I just have to buy some additional colors of felt. The bottom left one is supposed to be a brown cow, in case you can't tell-- tell me the truth, if you don't think so-- I'm still not sure about the face, myself. but the chicken and sunflower worked great, I think! The pile of patterns I have so far include a rocket, a robot and a (cute) alien monster; a frog, a butterfly, and a ladybug; a pig, a rabbit, a kitty, a bat, a jack-o-lantern.; a Gambol's quail, a saguaro cactus... so what do I do, since that adds up to more than ten fingers??

('ll be sure to show you more cuteness when I get them completed!)

crafting crisis!

okay, so I wimped out on the Crafting marathon... I don't even remember what I was doing that weekend, but it wasn't crafting. Today, though, I have a crafting crisis. (My crisis is that I have to pick all this up before Tom gets back from his business trip tomorrow night... haha!!) I decided to see if my sewing machine still worked, and hauled it out of its cabinet a couple days ago...when I mentioned the sewing machine, Tom said, "didn't we sell that ages ago??" I guess that means it's long past due for some use, hmmm? Pandora can find a comfortable place anywhere... but why does it always have to be in the middle of my stuff?!?

the hallway between the kitchen and the laundry room is doubling as my ironing station.

I couldn't find just the right shade of green fabric, and then I opened up the pantry where I saw the set of green napkins sitting on the shelf-- unfortunately (for the napkin, anyway!) it was the perfect shade of green. (there's still three left to use-- as napkins, I mean-- or maybe for something else.) This photo of the kitchen island shows you that I follow the law of crafting physics which says "crafting supplies expand to take up all the space available."

the kitchen table: Tom says that before he left on his business trip I promised I would clean this off by the time he gets home-- I don't remember saying that at all! I probably did, though... unfortunately, my crafting inspiration didn't hit till the last possible minute-...which means my crafting has to be kicked into high gear so I can follow through on my promise by tomorrow evening.

Butters doesn't want to be left out, either... she had quite a fun time playing with all the dangly fabric threads that were flying everywhere! This photo is a sampling of proof that my sewing machine does, indeed, work! The photo colors are terrible, but the mini-quilt on the left is really a nice shade of pink. Upper right is an ATC base, and the lower-right thingamabob will hopefully turn into a sewn and embellished necklace pendant. (notice that I also sewed a couple pieces of paper into them!! Probably not the greatest for the sewing machine needle, but I wanted to sew paper, and now I can say that I have. And this won't be the last time, either-- it was pretty fun!)

This is another mini-quilt base that will eventually end up embellished with tons more paper, buttons, stitching, beads, and whatever other fun bits and pieces I can find to go with it. I saw these mini collage-quilts in the latest issue of Stampington Art Quilts magazine... (I also saw the sewn pendant in the same magazine issue). Now that I have the major machine sewing done, I need to get out my buttons, embroidery floss, ribbon, and all the cigar boxes of interesting "stuff" in my craft studio. I better pick up the kitchen table first, though. (...but before that, I think I'll sew a couple more pieces of fabric together...)

Lee, at the Do Stuff! leethal blog is talking about having a 24 hour Make-a-Long! event this Saturday... I'm not sure I'll be able to stay up for 24 hours (especially since I'll be getting up early to go to class and won't be starting my 24 hour countdown till the afternoon) but I'm definitely going to participate in some way. This will be a great way to work on some not-so-usual projects, and maybe get a few things done, even!! (that would be wonderful!) Of course, one of the things I'll have to work on beforehand is some cleaning in my art room, but that's always a given.