Soul Journaling Bookmark Swap

We're doing a bookmark swap in the soul journaling group. We were to make color copies of pages from our journal and collage them onto a bookmark. I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out - I didn't think I would be, but I am. The picture on the left is the front, the picture on the right is the back.

I bought a new jar of gel medium last week, and it has really made a big difference. My old jar was getting a bit too thick - it's pretty old. I know everyone says that Golden's is the best, but that was my old jar, and my new jar is Liquitex. It is also glossy, while my old was mat. Anyway, I don't know if it's just that the old jar was too old, or the difference in glossy vs. mat, or the different brands, but the new stuff is so much better!

Soul Journal Pages 5-6

While Sarah was away last week, she gave us a couple of homework assignments. One was to work on our tape page - without rules. So this is what I did with mine. The pictures and most of the words came from a travel brochure, and the rest of the words from a catalog. I used gloss gel medium both under and over the pictures - I just bought the gel medium yesterday, and I like it much better than my mat gel medium.

After it was dry, I wrote on the pages, and here is what I wrote: "For our 29th anniversary in 2006, Glen gave me a choice of several locations for us to celebrate our 30th anniversary. I chose Greece. Because of my struggle with migraines, we have decided to wait awhile. I think we'll go in the next couple of years."

Soul Journalers

I'm in the process of adding links to the other participants in the Soul Journal exercises I've been doing. The links are in the right-hand column under the heading Soul Journalers. I'm not finished yet, but I'm working on it. Check out the other artists' work if you have a chance - it's all so varied and wonderful.

If I've posted a link to your blog and you'd rather I didn't, please let me know and I'll remove it right away! But I think most bloggers appreciate having more people see their work.

New Aquarium

We had a very unusual thing happen to us today. Last week, we ordered a 55 gallon aquarium, hood, and stand from Petco. They called us today to tell us that they had come in, so we headed out to pick them up. DH noticed while loading the stand that the box was torn, and he considered opening the box right then and there, but for some reason he didn't. We brought it all home, and DH and DS brought them inside. DH opened the box, and the stand looked filthy and had a bad smell. DH and DS moved the box out to the garage so that it could air out, and when they took the stand out of the box, they found MICE in it! Not just one mouse, but LOTS of mice, both alive and dead. I am SO GLAD they didn't take it out of the box inside!!!

Needless to say, we took the box back to Petco after I called them to let them know. Two clerks carried it in and took it out back. When one of them came back inside, she apologized for the whole fiasco and admitted that when she was first told that we were bringing the stand back because of a mouse in it, she kind of wondered why. But after seeing it, she COMPLETELY understood. And by the way, we could have handled one mouse.

Petco is ordering us a new stand.

Soul Journal Pages 9-13

I did these 3 page spreads from Sarah's days 16-18, where she provided a list of techniques we were to add to our pages each day, and the only requirement was that we mix up the order - we weren't "allowed" to do them in the order she had them listed.



So, for the first page spread, the techniques I used (in my order) were:
1. Cut out a silhouette of a person and ink or paint over it (she demoed her magazine stencil technique here).
2. Fill the page with descriptive adjectives (use a permanent pen).
3. Add a wash of paint.
4. Write your grocery list or any other list somewhere (use your non-dominant hand).
5. Dry-brush on some paint.
6. Drip and splatter at least two different colors of paint.
7. Make some quick lines, fast and without thinking.
8. Use pencil somewhere.
9. Add tape (I used Magic Mesh).



My list for the next page spread:
1. Trace the outline of your hand at least 6 times (use a permanent pen or paint).
2. Stitch with a needle and thread (I used my sewing machine).
3. Add some meaningful words.
4. Add a wash of a new color of paint.
5. Blob acrylic paint in your book and close it.
6. Paint with a fork dipped in paint (I wasn't too successful with this one, but I did it).
7. Fill up the page with numbers (draw, collage, or stamp).
8. Use a crayon somewhere.



My list for the last spread:
1. List everything you did today so far.
2. Write the alphabet quick and angry (use a permanent pen).
3. Add a wash of paint.
4. Add a dry brush of paint in a new color.
5. Use something unusual as a stamp (I used a lid from a milk bottle first and then some bubble wrap).
6. Gesso out a section of your work. Add something new over it.
7. Cut out a silhouette of a person's face, ink or paint over it (magazine stencil technique again).
8. Add something metal (I stapled on a piece of foil from Dove chocolate - I've been saving these).

These pages have been a lot of fun - I'm sure I'll be doing this kind of thing again. I love the layers and the spontaneity. At one point, I wasn't happy with the second spread, so I just kept adding to it until I liked it. I think the first one is my favorite.

Sarah's been away for a few days celebrating her anniversary, so that has given me the chance to get almost caught up. The page spread before these 3 isn't quite finished yet - I have my house and neighborhood done, but I haven't started on my paper doll family yet. You can see what I'm talking about on Sarah's blog - it's days 10 - 15.

Soul Journal Pages 5 & 6

I doubt if we're through with this page yet - I have the feeling it will be the background for something. But I don't know what yet - Sarah has gone on to other pages. That's ok. I like the way this looks. What I did was first I did some private journaling on the pages. Then I covered that up with various kinds of tape - I used masking, duct, electrical, and metallic repair tapes. Then I painted over that by adding paint, wiping off with paper towels, adding more paint, etc. Fun technique and great texture.

Soul Journal Pages 3 & 4

I'm continuing to work along with Sarah in my Soul Journal. For this 2 page spread, I painted the background with a dark blue paint. Then Sarah sent me on a scavenger hunt of sorts - I cut out pictures from magazines of 24 items. I didn't know what I was going to do with them when she posted the list. But I found out the next day that I was to cut those items into approximately 1" squares and glue them in my book. A few days later, I came back to these pages, when I added the light purple paint and the rest of the decorating with a pen. Even though I'm behind, I've been trying not to look ahead, so that it feels more like I'm doing this along with everyone else.

Soul Journal Page 2

I really had fun with this one. We were to write about the things we need to protect and nourish our creative spirit - the things that shield us from outside criticism and our own inner critic. I followed Sarah's lead and used a picture of a suit of armor for mine - I found my picture here.

Soul Journaling Page 1

I started a new journal a couple of days ago, working along with Sarah Whitmire. Here is my first page. This was a lot of fun to do. I'm using a Moleskine Sketchbook that is about 5" X 8".

Silk Fusion Postcards

These are my postcards for the Silk Fusion swap in the Surface Design Yahoo Group. To create the background, I used soy silk and textile medium and followed these directions at Joggles. After I finished the background, I fused it to a batik with similar coloration and then fused that to a stiff interfacing (like Timtex). I put Razzle Dazzle thread in my bobbin and did bobbin work all over the piece, then cut it up into postcard sized pieces. I added some Bonash and foil, then stitched on the flower just in the center so the petals are loose (I made the flower from two pieces of batik that I fused together, stitched in the flower shape, and cut out just outside the stitching). I added a Swarovsky crystal to the center of each flower, fused a piece of muslin to the back, then satin stitched the edges with variegated thread.

Back Home

I've been home several days now, but I've been too busy to post until now. We've been doing a bit of remodeling to our house; we had all of our counter tops (except the one in our utility room) replaced on Wednesday. My DH took all of the old counters off before I came home. He also had to remove all of the sinks, and since our house is 19 years old, most of the shut off valves to the sinks leaked. This meant he couldn't just shut off the sinks; he had to shut off the water to the whole house. He was able to set up a temporary work-around so that they only dripped very slowly with a bucket under each to catch the water. This allowed us to turn on the water, shower or fill water pitchers or do a load of laundry, then shut the water off again. The plumber came yesterday, so I now have new counters, new sinks, and new faucets throughout the house. They look so good! I've been wanting to do this for more years than I can remember, but several years ago we had a new housing development go in to the north of us, and for quite awhile we thought we might move. During that time, we didn't want to spend any money remodeling our house. Now that we've decided to stay, I finally convinced my DH that this would be a good thing.

So, this is our new kitchen island.



And new kitchen counter with sink and built-in drain board.



These are our bathrooms, with new faucets, towel bars, towel rings, and toilet paper holders. We still need to put the mirrors back up; turns out when they were ready to install the back splashes, the mirrors were about a half inch too low - or else the back splashes were too high.







I'm still working on getting the house clean and back together, but it's getting there.

Arte y pico Award

I was so surprised to open my email today and see that Carol had awarded me the Arte y pico award! Thank you Carol!!

The rules for this award are:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, for creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributing to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winners and the one who has given the prize should to show the link to the "Arte y pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.

So, here are my picks for 5 blogs that deserve this award:

1. Imagine, Create, Inspire by Fannie Narte
2. Ashton Publications by Darcy Ashton
3. Sue Bleiweiss by Sue Bleiweiss
4. StegArt by Terri Stegmiller
5. Dear Me! by Jessica Wesolek

There are many other blogs I read, so it was difficult to narrow down my list. But these are the five I settled on. Go take a peak!

Quilt Camp in the Pines Part 2

I arrived in Flagstaff on Sunday, and have been very busy ever since. I'm taking classes every day. Monday I took an appliqué class from the very talented Sharon Schamber, and on Tuesday I took another appliqué class from Sharon's daughter, Cristy Fincher. The two classes taught different techniques. I like to appliqué, and I've never done it exactly like either of these ways, so I learned a lot and really enjoyed both classes. Today and tomorrow I'm in a paper piecing class from Deb Karasik, and there are some curved seams in the project. I've never really liked sewing curved seams, but Deb taught me how to do them, and I was very pleased with my results. Then on Friday I'm back with Sharon Schamber in a class called painting with dyes. I'm really excited about that one! And on Saturday I'm taking a class from Martha Nordstrand on making a fabric landscapes. Not sure how much time I'll have to post again while I'm here.

From the Road

Fannie asked me if I was doing any shopping. I've been to 5 quilt shops in the past 3 days - one in Amarillo (R & R Quilt Shop), one in Santa Fe (Santa Fe Quilting), one in Corrales (Quilts Ole), and two in Albuquerque (Southwest Decoratives and Ann Silva's Bernina Sewing Center). And then Santa Fe has tons of other shops (including Overland Sheepskin, where I bought the most awesome coat):



And I bought a pendant and earrings from one of the Indian vendors at the square. So, yes, I think you could say I'm doing some shopping.

We head on to Flagstaff to Quilt Camp in the Pines tomorrow.

Quilt Camp in the Pines

I'm leaving in the morning for Quilt Camp in the Pines. It is a week-long quilting retreat in Flagstaff, Arizona. I've never been before, but the good friend I'm going with has been and she says it's wonderful. I'm really looking forward to it! I'm all packed and ready to go, except I still haven't decided whether or not I'll take my laptop. I don't know if there will be internet access - I kind of doubt it since we're staying in a college dorm. But then again, there are always places with WiFi, so maybe I will. Hmm . . .

More Woven Strips

These things are addictive - I've made 3 more. All of these are card size (4 1/4" X 5 1/2").

Woven Strips

Someone in my journaling techniques class asked the question the other day, now that we have all these painted papers, what do we do with them? Good question! Sue Bleiweiss, the instructor, gave us lots of good ideas, including cutting them into strips and weaving them. She posted some pictures of some that she had done, and they were beautiful. So I had to do some as well - with my own twist to them. I decided to tear my strips instead of cutting them, and here are the results; this first one is journal-page size (9" X 6"). I used watercolor sprays on these and glued them to black cardstock. I always think that black makes colors pop - I use it in my quilts a lot too.



After tearing the strips for the journal page, I had some shorter strips left. I couldn't let them go to waste, so I made this next one, which is card-size (4 1/4" X 5 1/2").

Journaling Techniques Lesson 3/4

I've also been having a lot of fun painting papers for backgrounds for my journal; here are the results:









I've used watercolors on some, acrylic paints on others. Most of the watercolor pages are sprays, and some of those used either plastic wrap or paper towels on top for added texture. For some of the acrylics, I put paints on a tile, put my paper on top, and brayered it. For others I scraped the paint on with a credit card. And on one I used a comb for texture. I've done several things I've not done before, and it was a lot of fun. I think that the watercolor ones will be easier to use as backgrounds - not sure how easy it will be to add anything on top of the acrylic ones - but I like them all (at least all of the ones I photographed).

These are all techniques taught by Sue Bleiweiss in her Journaling Techniques class.

Completed Journal

I finished the journal I was making for my son. The cover is made from a brown paper bag - can you believe that? Looks remarkably like leather. Basically, you paint it with brown paint, then crumple it up and smooth it out again, and rub rubber stamping ink over it, and this is how it turns out. I'm really pleased with the results. I modified the pattern somewhat, and here is the front cover:



This is inside the front cover - it is lined with black wool felt, and the tag reads "Joy is not in things; it is in us."



Three of the inside pages:







Close up of the spine:



Close up of my closure (one of my modifications to the pattern):



My son is a writer, so I filled the journal with lined pages. I'm making another one similar to this one for an artist friend, and that one will be filled with various kinds of art papers.

Leather Look Journal

I've been working on a couple of journals the past few days. Unfortunately, I don't have anything finished yet, so no pictures to share. But my latest journals will be gifts. These use brown paper bags and paint to make a surface that looks very much like leather. It's really amazing. Anyway, I'm really having fun with the journal making class. I hope to have some pictures to share in a day or two.

In other news, my son and daughter-in-law have finished the hiking that they were doing. They spent a month on the trail, starting from West Virginia, then going into Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and ending in New York. It's really hard to imagine hiking as far and for as long as they did. I'm glad they had a good time, but I'll be really glad to see them in another week or two.

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

Very enjoyable book - witty and smart. Unusual story - not exactly believable. Set in an alternate England in the 1980's where the prevailing culture is based on literature. The main character, Thursday Next, is a Special Operative in literary detection. When her husband is eradicated, she moonlights as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside books. She is apprenticed to Miss Havisham of Dickens' Great Expectations, who teaches her to book jump like a pro. I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Shaving Cream and Watercolor Backgrounds

I had a lot of fun making background papers a few days ago. I marbled the first four using drops of paint in shaving cream.









I used watercolor sprays on the next four. I used a Heidi Swapp mask on the first one, blotted the second with paper towels, and covered the third and fourth with cling wrap.

Fabric Bowl

Sweet P has a contest on her blog to post pictures of unique containers in our studios. So this is a fabric bowl that I made. It is sitting on a not-so-unique container - a cardboard box! I keep name tags and pins and that sort of thing inside it.

Third Journal

I finished another journal yesterday, and this one is my favorite so far. I have always loved oriental art, and I have quite a lot of oriental paper and fabric and rubber stamps and stuff, so I am going to use this journal to do oriental artwork.

Here is the cover - I appliquéd the square with the geisha face onto the background fabric. I used a set of ornamental chopsticks that I have had for a long time - thanks Michele!



This is inside the front cover - left side is the cover, so it is fabric. Right side is a piece of Japanese paper:



This is fabric - leftover from a wall hanging:



This is the back of the page above - I fused two pieces of fabric together to make this page:



Another fabric page:



And back of the above page:



Inside (white) pages are cardstock, so it should be heavy enough to stamp or paint on without bleed-through. I'm looking forward to filling this up.