Soul Journal Day 9

For Day 9 we were to paint over the inch squares from Day 6 and then do some "doodling" around many of them. I chose to mix orange with white to paint over the purple base. It kind of looks like a melon on the page. The red shoe is an homage to April's favorite movie "The Wizard of OZ" and I of course had to include a picture of my favorite dog, the Jack Russell Terrier!



Below is a poem I wrote last night on the spur of the moment to emphasize the dragonfly on my Soul Armour page. I lifted the transparency piece so the poem could be read in the picture. I love my friend Lillian's response when she read it this morning: "I can actually picture the dragonfly!" The best compliment in the world! Thanks, Lillian!:)


Day 10 is all about houses, I have gessoed my pages and will work on it this evening after "Wipeout".

I'm Back

Well, let's see....... it's been how long since I had a life outside my job? Not that I'm counting, but 10 years!!!!!!! I am taking at least a year off to focus on the creative side of me that has gotten lost in the frenzy of teaching. I will still be subbing, tutoring, and most likely working with a homebound former student of mine, but it will be done on my terms and if I need to see a doctor, I won't need to put it off until some break in the school year!

I have recently joined many wonderful Yahoo groups and found a gazillion blogs that I love. Soon I will post many links here, but I HAVE to send you to Sarah Whitmire's blog. She posted on on of the groups asking for people to join her in Soul Journaling. Well, I am horrible at keeping a journal. I have started many, but lost interest after one or two entries......... Sarah is such an inspiration and has created such purpose to this project that I am LOVING this!! The most difficult day was journaling "I forgot to tell you..." A friend mirrored my thoughts when she said she wouldn't be brave enought to write some things down for fear that it would be found and read. My thoughts exactly, but after two days procrastination, I did it and I love the result.

My daughter, April, is also Soul Journaling with us.

Enough talk, here is a snap of the journaling page: (I am going to figure out how to insert a slideshow and put the previous pages and cover into that format!)

The tapes I used to cover my journaling are blue, yellow, and pink duct tape, silver conduit tape, and black electrical tape. I dry brushed a mixture of purple and white over it, sanded, and dry brushed a brown to "age" the pages:

Winter Break: Book making

A few days after Christmas I spent the day with my friend (and wonderful artist) Jane in her Studio 23. She suggested we alter some little board books she purchased for a class she was going to teach. We made up our own "rules" for this project: each page had to consist of at least three layers, each page had to include a heart, and each page was covered in fabric swatches. We each "secretly" chose at least five items that had to be incorporated somewhere in the book. My favorite was the large key seen dangling at the spine. Jane was not happy with my choice, but decided it could go on the outside of the book. It was fascinating to see the difference in how each of us approached the project. Jane laid out each page before adhering, while I did one page at a time right in the book. It was a blast and I love my mini chunky book! Thanks, Jane.
I've included pictures of the cover, spine, and one of the sets of pages:

More Jewelry

I started this necklace in the Exotic class taught by Karli at Confetti Beads last month. My friend, Angela and I took the class together. Although the technique was easy to learn, finishing the piece was time consuming. I was running low on beads for the dangles, so I finished with a combination of the bicones near the clasp. All the beads are Swarovski and even the clasp is a Swarovski button. At one point I got a blister on my finger from using my crimp pliers so much trying to finish, but the end result is worth it, I think. Ok, so Angela finished hers the week after class......... I did FINALLY get it done, girlfriend!

Winter Break Projects: Jewelry

This gold necklace is one of the samples in the Firemountain Gems and Beads catalog. I've had my eye on it for several weeks, but needed several sources for the supplies. I got most of them from Firemountain, but also got some from my favorite local bead hangout, Confetti Beads in Surprise. Here is an article about the store that ran in the newpaper.

I really enjoyed making this piece because I learned to make really good "basic loops" for each of the dangles. (Great directions) My thumb was sore, but after several attempts, they turned out nicely!!! All beads are Swarovski (my favorites).

Cleanin' out the crap

Today I finally got tired of trying to move around the messes in my craft room. Bryan left our "original" dresser we bought when we moved to Phoenix over 28 years ago and I want to utilize the drawer space in my craft room, so....
I AM FINALLY CLEANING OUT SOME OF MY STUFF!
And April will be taking home an additional Christmas present of my unused stuff. I already have a box almost full and I've only been working for half an hour. I'm making lists of what I had intended to use some items for and am going to work on the list to complete some new projects and learn some new techniques since I have all of the items to work with.
I'm off to bake with a friend and her mother (who came in from Sweden). It will be fun to make some different traditional holiday treats.
Happy Holidays!

OK Liz, you win!

Liz scolded me today at lunch and I really do need to blog more often. Thanks, Liz, for getting me back on (and for the yummy lunch today). April, Liz, Teresa, Amanda, and I went to Claim Jumpers for lunch and then shopped at Hobby Lobby this afternoon. It was good to see Liz again (last time was at convention this past fall). Lunch was great, Hobby Lobby not so great. They don't use scanners to enter prices in their registers so my entire ticket was wrong. Had to wait in line at the refund counter to adjust the prices. I can't believe they expect the cashiers to memorize every sale item. No wonder the refund counter was busy!
In the morning April and I went to Recollections to stock up on their going out of business sale. I got lots of adhesives, embellshments, and some unfinished albums to play with.
All my holiday shopping is done (gotta love the internet!) and only have to wrap the few gifts I did buy.
So, April, what are we having for dessert on Tuesday?