A Really RED Week

   I was very happy to find one of my favorite colors in the Summer Of Color Challenge this week so I got to work on two projects that I luckily completed Mon. That was the same day more red came into my life quite unexpectedly. All I wanted to do was slice and chop  my last bit ( a tomato) for tacos for dinner. And then that darned Cutco knife decided to take a bit of my finger with it-ugh!!! Amazing how much a small thing can bleed. So I held on tight with a paper towel and had hubby drive me to the drugstore to get some things to wrap it up. I'd worked in the healthcare field many years so of course I figured I could take care of it myself. It started to look that way anyway. The night went OK, no more bleeding under the wrap and luckily my finger didn't swell much (my wedding ring finger with the rings still on. Next AM I had to soak my finger to get the last bandaid off. Once that happened the blood began gushing. I thought poor hubby was going to pass out so I sent him away and called on my Mom to take me right to the urgent care center. ( I was supposed to be picking her up and taking her out for the day for her birthday). It took two special wrappings and attempts to stop the bleeding but finally I was able to leave with this:

 The smiley face was done in blood with a tiny brush I had in my purse.   NOT! I used a permanent marker:) Turns out my doc had sliced a bit off one of her fingers one time so she understood. Said I was lucky I didn't need my rings cut away nor did I have to have skin grafting done (so far). And it IS on my left hand and NOT my middle finger. So, it could always have been worse. Thurs. AM had to go back for a dressing change. Took awhile to soak all the dressings off but it finally came loose and thankfully it's beg. to heal. All I need to do is continue cleaning and redressing it thru Sun. then I can just use a bandaid. Whew.

  And so, for the art part...

  Still thinking of the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit I mentioned seeing in this post. Swirled some red and yellow paints ((Kristin's Summer Of Color challenge colors this week are Candy Apple Red and Yellow) on the page then added some ephemera I had in one of my stash boxes. Sentiment stamp is UM from Stampland. 

  An this is my second project for the color theme:

  This is a wood based house 2 1/2" x 4".   Products used: house shape (Michael's); red acrylic paint (Golden's); vintage image (ARTchix Studio); bird sticker (Paper House); yellow ribbon (QVC); paper flower (Recollections); red rhinestone; black pen (Signo uni-ball); photo holders and black wire (JoAnne's); dotted ribbon (Michael's).

  I'm linking these up to Twinkle Twinkle's Summer of Color, Art Journal Every Day, Inspiration Avenue (theme is words), Glue It Tuesday at Artsyville, and Paint Party Friday.

  One more thing using the color red :) A few weeks ago I read  this post by Jane LaFazio about having your blog published into a book. She shared some of her wonderful pages. I was intrigued and checked out the site she used Blog2Print. And I did it! Easy peasy! You can pick your cover, photo for cover and back cover, title, format photo size and then they do the rest. You can preview it first and if you don't like something such as the cover or photo sizes you can edit and redo before paying for the final print. Now mind you, it can get expensive but I figured mine would be reasonable since I wanted to print my first year and I only posted once or twice a week. I even got 15% off and I am THRILLED with my book! Thought I'd share a few pages:

Front cover:

 I wasn't concerned about a pristine photo. This is a journal page I actually edited and use as one of my business cards.

 Back cover:

First Post page:

More page samples:

And I was compelled to write this dedication :

It's why I decided to do this and the first year was very special to me :) Oh-my book size is 8 1/2" x 11" and 133 pgs.

Will be in touch soon. Have a beautiful weekend!

                                     "As you walk your way through life,
                                        Let this ever be your goal,
                                       Keep your eye upon the doughnut
                                        And not upon the hole."     Anonymous