Art Journal Everyday and the Kathryn Wheel Calendar Project

   As some of you already know I have been participating in Julie Balzer's Art Journal Everyday project on her blog (which we actually link to once a week). For those of you who aren't familiar with it here's the link to Julie's blog. Anyone can jump in at any time and it isn't necessary to play each week, however, it's a nice incentive to create and journal, along with a way to share with others and get inspired by others as well.

   The 366 Calendar Project at Kate Crane's blog, the Kathryn Wheel is similar. Kate began this project a few years ago but I only discovered it just in time to begin this year with January. I am such a fan of this project as it is a great way to get some art and creativity in, along with a way to record little bits of each day. You can see my Jan., Feb pages at my Flickr photostream (see sidebar at right for link) and from March on, here on my blog. I've already purchased a larger journal for next year as this one is almost full and also a bit small. Again, anyone is welcome to join at anytime for as long as one wishes. Kate sets up a linky tool on the first of each month so you can post your links of your completed prev. month's pages and the start of the current month. My favorite part is visiting as many links as I can-the creative calendar spreads are just amazing!!

For Art Journal Everyday:

  This is only a background for some journaling I'm planning to do at a later date. Right now I'm preparing spreads  ahead of time as I will be spending alot of days at the beach over the course of the summer and won't be able to take along as many materials and products as I'd like to use. I simply used some Tim Holtz masks and sprayed the pages with a few spray inks. I found these two magazine clippings right next to each other in my envelope so onto the page they went. It acually makes me happy just the way it is.

 This is my finished June calendar spread:

   As you can see I don't have much room for adding any images but I usually can manage a few small ones like these images which I got from ARTchix Studio (with the exception of the bird). You can read more about my background on this post.



  This is the base for my July calendar pages:

   I used acrylic paint to create the French flag background. For this month I chose a patriotic theme to represent both my American and French citizenship/heritage. This works out perfectly as both flags are the same colors and their independence days are both this month. Some star stamp images were used repeatedly even tho most of it will be covered up.

   And here's the spread ready to go:

  

   The month and days of the week foam stamp set is Magenta. I've had these a long time so I'm not even sure they sell this set any longer. I don't usually add any other stamping or clip art etc. until the month is almost over.

   On a final note- remember the prayer flags I've made and posted about here and here? Well, if you've had any inkling to give it a try please do sign up for my friend Lenna Andrews new Prayer Flag Swap on her Creative Swaps blog!! Lenna is very generous with her informative PDFs, suggestions, techniques and photos. Three more reasons to join the swap-you don't have to be able to sew, it's a 3 for 3 swap which is absolutely doable, and it's not due until Sept.15th!! So wadda you waiting for??? Hope to see you there!

  Thanks so much for stopping by.

         "Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art." Leonardo da Vinci

 

French Inspired-Ooh La La!

   Bonjour mes amis! Not to worry, I'm not going to do the whole post in French but it IS a post about all things French today.  As some of you may know I was born in France, raised here in the US but my heart has always belonged in France with all the family members from my mother's side. I was fortunate in that from after high school and for some years after I would work 2 jobs to be able to spend 6 weeks there in the summers with my relatives. I so wanted to live there especially with my one dear aunt but alas, a difficult home situation kept me here.  And of course, then I met my hubby. (We were there twice together and now he dreams of living there one day too). The last time I was there was 5 yrs ago now-it was a mother/daughter trip I made with my Mom. Oh I miss being there so, and now my Mom's siblings are getting older and passing away-difficult especially for my Mom.It's wonderful to have so many pictures and happy memories of time spent there.

   On to the art! Recently Retro Café Art offered a free download Parisian Beauty collage sheet which you can download free for yourself by clicking on the link. They have also challenged anyone to post some art (up to 3 pieces) on their FB page to win a gift certificate to their online shop. Now how could I resist? You have up thru July 15th so why not give it a go too? 

  Here is my first project:

   This is a 7" x 7" collage I made using recycled postage stamps and "par avion" from my stash, some pretty paper, UM stamp sentiment, ribbon, lace silk flower, heart button, washi tape and vintage buttons along with images from the Parisian Beauties collage sheet-the girls and the postcard. Unfortunately you can't see the bits of mica flakes I used for a bit of sparkle.

   My second project:

   For this piece I used a wood plaque. I printed out the postcard image twice and covered the front with the images. I then added the Parisian beauty, a bit of torn music paper, two yellow roses from the collage sheet, vintage buttons, and a butterfly sticker. I typed the title and glued it on. It was finished with glitter glue, mica flakes ,some ribbon and lace tied to a wire hanger I made with 24 gauge wire. This is my ode to Edith Piaf-famous French singer and the title is that of one of her most popular songs besides La Vie on Rose. The title says "I regret nothing". The story of her life is heartbreaking but thru those experiences she sang and wrote the most beautiful songs.

  And here is my third project:

   This is a shaker ATC- 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". I used a Parisian beauty image from the sheet and clipped her "name" from a French label, also on the sheet.The ATC was made using dimensional foam tape around all four sides, filled with some beads, flowers and star sequins then covered with a piece of acetate. I  used foil tape around the edges then covered it with lace seam binding. It was finished with 4 fleur de lis tiny gold charms. I actually just gave this to my friend LuAnn cuz when she saw it as we got together earlier today she fell in love with it.

  Now for the second bit of my French "obsession". Is it an obsession as my hubby thinks? You decide. But I'm not admitting anything yet :)

  Le Tour de France for this year began today! I have been faithfully watching the twenty days of bicycling thru France on tv for many years. But I don't just watch it. I can't. Here's what I also do:

   I get out my trusty French Atlas (which I got for next to nothing at a book sale). I print out the tour map, along with each days schedule and complete listing town by town.

   And then I get to work:

   Yes, I find the towns on the maps and mark them onto the papers so I can follow along-the whole race! BTW, I purposely chose the map at right. This is where my one dear Aunt BiBi lives-almost at the tip on the left narrow strip of land just to the right of my paper. How could I not love it there when I can walk one way and be at the Atlantic , or walk out the opposite way to see the Atlantic from where she lives!

  These races can last anywhere from 2 or 3 to over 4 hrs a day and so in order to keep up and bypass all the commercials I tape them each day.

  Yes, we are a bit arcaic and still have VCRs and use VHS tapes so I make sure I have enough new ones to get me thru. Here's the kicker, after all these years I still don't quite understand the placing  and team work in the race, but I do get to travel around France and explore new territory. Voila!

  Merci bien for indulging me in mon péché mignon. I'll be back soon with my entries for Art Journal Everyday and the Kathryn Wheel's Calendar challenges. Still trying to finish my alphabet set in my stamp carving class too.  See you soon. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.

 "The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience." Emily Dickenson

 

  

It's All About "Happy"

    Good morning and happy weekend! This post is not only to share my project for this week's Art Journal Everyday but to also mention how the word "happy" presented itself to me in various forms in the last 2 days-obviously the universe was trying to get my attention.

    The first thing that occurred was that I found out that the "Be Happy Swami" Swamiji Anubhavananda is coming to a local Hindu Temple to present workshops and lectures the beginning of July. It's open to the public and free of charge. Click on his name for the link to his website. You can find U-tube links to portions of his talks from this site if you wish to know a little about him. I cannot tell you how elated I was as I had been hoping to hear him again after attending his lectures at the temple several years ago. I had never heard of him before this nor had I ever been in a hindu temple. It was a moving experience I will never forget. The members could not have been kinder and more welcoming, the temple is so beautiful and the Swamiji exuded pure peace and joy. Since then I also attended lectures there given by Shubhraji  another world wide spiritual leader. Of course, at first I heard all the "you're going where, you're doing whats???", especially from my hubby. But guess what? I convinced him to join me one evening and he attended the last few evenings . He loved Shubhraji and how the way she spoke and interpreted her teachings made it easy for him to understand. We're so hoping she will come back again. What an enlightening experience for both of us.

  On to my project. But my table was piled up with used papers etc. so I needed to clean up first and toss some of the piled paper-WHAT??? They actually looked kinda pretty....and my idea for the project was born. I made a little journal from these papers and here's how I did it:

   First I gathered the scrap papers, cut some down, folded one in half and glued the page together for  stability to use as my cover. These truly were scrapped papers as you can see above was one that had been used as a test sheet for aligning my printer ink cartridge!

   After folding and nesting the pages I ran some Tim Holtz tissue tape on the outside and inside crease of my cover where the binding would be sewn.

   I gave it a title-there's that magic word again :) along with my happy stamper. That's a self inking OLD stamper that had been found at a yard sale and I keep it on my table right in front of me. Now for the easy peasy binding.

  I nested my folded pages together and centered them with the fold of the cover, using a large paper clip on one end to keep it all together. I made three holes with my awl, one in the center and one on either side of the center 1" apart. I took a length of black rattail cord (about 2 1/2 x the length of the book) and pulled my cord from the outside center hole to the inside leaving some length for tying in the end. Come out through the bottom inside hole and then into the top hole from the outside as shown.

  From the inside come out the center hole, tie the ends into a double knot and voila! By the way-don't you love the needle I used?? It's actually a length of 24 gauge wire I folded in half and used-something I do quite often when I can't find the right size needle. Pretty nifty huh?

   This is the inside. The papers are varying lengths-I think I have 16 pages. And this is the outside:

 
  My finished project for Art Journal Everyday at Julie Balzer's blog. But I'm still not done with "happy". Looky here:

  Did you see it in the photo of my book just above this one? Sitting right there in front of me! This darling piece of art made from a nail polish bottle was given to me some years ago by one of  my internet art friends, Paula Dion. Always brings a smile to my face.

 I'll leave you now with one final "happy". This was in the paper yesterday-a Mutts comic strip:

   Love it!!!!!

   Have a beautiful weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Summer Solstice!

  Aaah, summer officially arrives here in the northeast US (EST) at 7:09 PM although the current temp. is 80 degrees F with a humidity level of 79% and it's barely 10AM! The heat index value is supposed to get to 100-103 degrees so as much as I love summer I am ever so thankful to have a place with air conditioning to cool off in. This will be another quick post so I can enjoy the outdoors before the heat of the afternoon sets in.

   Lesson 6 in Stamp Carving 101 was about carving a damask pattern. Since I'm working quickly here please click on the icon at the right for more information on the class, or you can find more info on my lessons in my older posts.

  I chose the pattern Julie provided in the class as I really liked the pattern in this one and knew it would be a nice challenge.

  Here's how it started:

 

   And after lots of carving, test printing and more carving:

   It just needed a bit of fine tuning and it was finished. Time for making my tags for Lenna Andrews (who's also participating in the class and doing a tag project with me) and myself! Once we are finished with our class and the carvings we are sending each other the collection of tags and we'll each have a nice fat tag book with all our individual carvings. What a really great way to take a class with a buddy and have a beautiful sampler of all our work, don't you think?

 For the base of the tags I used acrylic paints in orange and lime green and stamped my damask with Jet Black Staz-On ink to create a pattern.

  I simply added the sentiment (unfortunately I have no idea where this UM stamp is from) and embellished the tags with some pretty metallic and purple strands and a silver feather charm from ARTchix Studio.

  Lesson 7 involves carving a complete alphabet and number set and before attempting it I thought I should practice and play a little more so I created these two stamps  and made two tags for Lenna and I.

   I knew I wanted to play with carving curves so I made a circle and a teardrop. I have to confess that I wanted the inner curves of the circle to be smooth but somewhere along the way my tool slipped a tad and I ended up with a notch in it. So, I chose to add notches around all the inner curves and am happy with its funky, imperfect curves. The rubber stamp sentiment is by Make an Impression. I also used it on the "leaves" by first inking the leaf with Staz-On Citrus Green then overstamping with the sentiment before  stamping the tag. The bottom is a bit of Tim Holtz tissue tape I inked up before adding at the bottom of the tag.

  And here's a second tag I made using the teardrop image which reminded me also of a rain drop:

   The sentiment is Stampers Anonymous. I repeatedly stamped the teardrop in Seashells Cloudy Blue ink and Marvy Matchables #12 Grey. I can't believe how old some of my stamp pads are but so long as they still have the ink I'll use them :). I finished the tag with some black and metallic threads and a gold charm which I "antiqued" with Staz-On jet Black ink to tone down the gold.

   If any of you have taken the class or have done some stamp carving, leave me a comment or email with your blog or link-I'd love to see. I also love being able to browse thru the Flickr group that's set up for this class-very impressive stuff!

   Now, if you love summer as much as I do, take a moment to step outside during the official solstice time with a glass of something cool and refreshing and offer your joy and gratitude for its wonder and beauty. 

 " Summer afternoon-summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language."

                                                                                                                  Henry James

 

A Summer Journal Spread and A Special Piece of Art

   Where does the time go? I'd swear it was just yesterday I posted a spread for the Art Journal Everyday project!  Fortunately I have pages in my takeaway journal that have been sprayed, brushed and stencilled usually during cleaning up from another project. It's much easier not to be facing a white page that's for sure. I started adding more color to sprayed pages by swiping a Distress ink pad in Squeezed Lemonade directly over the pages. Then the fun really began!

   I had recently read Julie Balzer's post regarding her stencil hops which you can see here. She asked which hop or stencil art inspired you the most or surprised you. I chose the "pomegranite" hop because although I liked the stencil OK it wasn't until I saw the artists' projects that I just went "wow, I NEED this stencil!" It has become one of my very favorite "go to" stencils now. As you can see above, both my pages and hands are getting stencilled with pomegranites and the Adirondak paint dauber in Snow Cap! I continued to stencil and add more color with many different ink pads, along with numerous stamps by Dylusions which you already know I love as they seem to appear in my projects alot :)

    Here's my finished spread-WARNING-sunglasses may be necessary!!

      I can't begin to list all the inks and stamps I used!! I do know that the leaf images were stamped in Distress ink Peacock Feathers. The mushroom image was stamped on white cardstock,colored in with Caran D'Ache watercolor crayons, then trimmed and adhered with foam dots. The sweet little moppet on the left is from Paper Whimsy. Her wings were glittered and before adhering her with foam dots I stamped on her dress a bit to incorporate her into the page. The imagine tile was from my stash. The title is from an Oprah magazine. The red stamp image is one I just carved yesterday for fun. Some butterfly and bird stickers were added. I think it's done, don't you? :):)


   And now, about the note I left at the end of my last post about the wonderful world of blogging and giving. I recently went on a blog hop at Alpha Stamps, especially because an internet art friend who's work I so admire, Theresa mARTin, is now a member of their design team and I was especially excited to see what she created to give away! (generally blog hops serve as a way to introduce artists and/or new products, and besides giving lots of tips and inspiration, giveaways are a big part of it all).
Theresa is a very accomplished artist who has been published numerous times and her art has been shown in various exhibitions. Click on her name above and check it out.

   I was especially drawn to this piece of coaster art titled "Time For Spring":

  and as you may have guessed by now- I WON it!!!! I was so excited, especially since I just had a special feeling when commenting about it. The photo doesn't do justice to the multi layered, collaged and stitched papers along with the metal clock, dresden crown and resin(?) numeral! Thank you Theresa!! It truly is special and besides cherishing it, it will also be another reminder to me to give back and to pay it forward. So, be on the lookout for another giveaway from me to you coming soon.

   In the meantime, if you love lavender and pretty projects like I do please visit my friend Patty's blog where she is generously giving away to 6 people a beautiful lavender wand. The giveaway is open up to June 20th so you still have time to enter. She has also provided links on how to create your very own. If you do visit, please leave her a comment. She is so incredibly generous in sharing so many things and works hard on keeping her blog top notch, inspiring, and so lovingly versed in word and art.

  See you next time with more stamp carving. Thanks so much for visiting. I do like to reply when I have an email to reply to but if I don't just know your comments are all much appreciated.

   "It took me a year to paint like Raphael and a lifetime to paint like a child."  Pablo Picasso