Girl stuff

I saw this idea done on a full scale model.  I have neither the full size figure nor that much ribbon.

I did have a half sized helper!

Jolina Mercedes has been welcomed! She is a bit like her brother and a smaller bit like her sister but I bet she will be like herself!  The Grand Dad says she is different and I expect she will be.  I definitely have to set my in-house studio (playroom) up better.  It needs to be recovered from this last invasion of the grand kiddies. 

We moved some of the chickens out to their new area and I was thinking about our wooly girls.  Shearing should be soon.  This morning the shearer phoned that he is on his way this week.  Now he always brings his brag book of his family and I will be surprising him with the addition to our brag book!  So instead of catching up on my Altered Book classes I shall be out and about in the hot sun.  Perhaps this afternoon I can actually do what I'll be dreaming up as I go round and round. 
Yippee! Girl stuff!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled...

Jolena Mercedes arrived this morning and the big brother and sister are preparing welcome cards. 

Life should return to normal for all of us on Monday!   <>

WOW, what is on my worktable?

Actually, there is a big mixed media mess and I need to reclaim my worktable for sewing.  If some create their projects in a closet or on a kitchen table, surely I can corral the stuff on a counter. :O  Of course the counter is a creative mess as well.  :(

I have some canvasses I bought some time go.  They are still wips but I snagged one, gessoed over the first attempt and I'm wanting to make a pot of flowers.  If Leslie can, well so can I!  It is clouded over and the aqua isn't showing well. Neither can the white lettering be seen. 

This style fits where I am wanting to put it.  Next time I'll be going for funky!  But this is now worse light and I wish I'd followed my first instincts and used the bigger canvas. Well, the flowers would have been too small.  There are alwaus more what if's...  I got a few more flower options at the thrift shop!

Jenn and I are off on a field trip this afternoon.  A scrap booking store!  More options and more to spread all over the worktable!

Check out some other worktables.  It was a long weekend so maybe there will have been some fireworks in the various studios to see! 

Think cool!

It's a hot one here. 34 degrees Celsius yesterday!  And my second story studio is even hotter.  But you can't keep a wanna be artist down!

So I am switching from the warm colour palette for my calendar pages to a cooler colour run.

But first:

Sherry and I can't quite remember how we connected but we have been visiting for some time.  She blogs over at Createology.  She is very talented and has helped me with my beading endeavours. But she surprised me with this lovely hand made journal for my birthday.

It is almost too lovely to use and contains various papers.  But I know she means for me to journal in it and I have been wondering what especially I should use it for.  I have decided that I will write about my blogging journey and include some special people and happenings in it.  Thank you, Miss Createology! 

This is a good start on a background.  I luv my new triangle stencil.

I should have quit before I did the last bit on the right hand side, a perfect pearls technique.  The upper left is embossing.   But I'll fine tune the pages when I actually do that week's pages.  This is all just the background and the next layer will begin to pull it all together.

This page is more finished and has a better cohesiveness to it.

Cool, huh?

The Best of June

 The 2012 calendar year begins in June for me.  I started a binder and I'm using old file folders as my base.  This is the title page which I will 'improve as the year goes on.

The first full page is my birth day and I made a pocket about four times until I finally got it right side up and on the inside.  lol  I figure my end of year page should be a doozy as I can already see lots of improvements.  But that is life, especially mine, so I shall resist starting over!

I do want to be adding at least one photo to each page and so I need to learn to do that better.

I should just glue these two pages together.  lol  I am not even sure how I got two different colours but to fix that was way too much fiddling in a very hot studio.  gasp!

Tim Holtz to the recue.  I now have Dylusion inks, masks, etc. and I'll be leaving a lot of the scrap book epherema behind as I gather my supplies and knowledge. 

The left page is a napkin and July's title page is somewhat started.  I also need to find a good method to keep track of the daily stuff as I am finding once a week to be the best for working on the spreads.

So Happy Holidays and here is to an memorable July.

CROWING

After watching some examples of mixed media journaling I determined to find better supplies so I could avoid some of the variables in my efforts to copy the same techniques.

Ranger products were prominent and I did a store search for my province and one of two places was surprisingly close.  So off I went and was appalled that they had N O T H I N G!  It isn't often I leave without buying some little thing to mollify my polite gene.  :( The owner was the sole person in the store and I still said sorry, I'm out of here. politely!!! lol  Nice store but I don't do die cuts or scrap booking.

I thought to stop on the way home at the tiny scrap book store in our own much smaller town.  The Prairie Scrapbook.  WHOA!  It was full of stuff I had seen on the internet.  I spent too much and I now have my own frequent shoppers card.  :O  The owner's mother kept giving me more tips and ideas!  I promised to return!

I also stopped for mail and got a package from my friend Margi at Scrap Wisdom Collage.  I met her when she was teaching for a month at 3 Creative Studios.  She has inspired me to try to do more.  I am learning PhotoShop Elements so I can learn to design my own art.  I won her pillow!  I ordered several of her screens and she says she'll be posting some ideas for using them soon.

Another inspiring friend is Leslie at  MarveLes Art Studios.  Les does more with her sewing machine but yesterday she tackled a project that I'd also seen on my blog travels.  Well, I think I can, too and I found a few flowers and some coordinating items to give it a whirl.

I also got a new book in the mail.  This is Surface Treatment workshop.  It has 45 mixed media techniques by Darlene Olivia McElroy and Sandra Duran Wilson.  It looks pretty good and I think I can start it right away as I have much of the stuff they both use.

I was trying a few things this morning.  They will have to wait for next week as I really must cut grass.  I also need to see if I can get my hands back to their natural colour as my homemade black spray (permanent) was pointed the wrong way and the inside of my left arm and hand is no longer pink! OYE!!!   The tip was worth while only the reinker needs diluting and operator error needs eliminating! 

So I am crowing a bit.  I scored some great products, some good tips, some fun goodies and a great resource book.  I persevered in spite of the black reinker disaster and I have Hope! Hope that in spite of an inky black wing I am going to soar right over a beautiful mixed media rainbow!  CAW!!!

Summering on!

The summer schedule is all about a more relaxed style of living.  The schedule always seems to have lots of things to do but there should be opportunities to sit and visit..

I did finish up the frame collage for the Altered Book class I am taking. This is one of three pages on the winter season. The other pages can be seen here.  Leaves are gone but the evergreens do what they can to add joy to the season.

Creativity 101 continues.  Jenn wants to make a scrapbook and we have been adding some pages to her book.  This will be her title page.  Hearts are a favourite motif and we deliberately added one to her shirt. 

I have been studying up on products that are useful for backgrounds.  We did practice making a few and I'm using tags with gesso on one side and just the manila surface on the other for references as I tend to like using gesso and I have lots of manila files to upcycle.  We hope to make a field trip to a scrapbooking store next week.  It  will be in my DD's little city so this is kinda contingent on the baby's arrival. :^)

I am awaiting mail as I have a book, some screens and some hard to get supplies on order.

I've been  trying to shake this awful summer cold, as well as keep up with all the various doctor appointments for family as I am either driver or babysitter.  The weather seems to have settled into hot and dry so we are making progress on the weeding.

I am thinking it is time to regroup a bit as I have a great tendency to follow one tangent after another until I am a far ways from where I should be.  lol   I need to get my focus back and do the next thing first.  This is a profound statement I came across in an old children's book and always makes me ponder things and want to do better.

Now to get summering on!

Status of the Coop for the Summer

Summer has arrived and all its busyness.  This is the status of my chicken coop at the moment. 

The one lone duck likes to hang out here.  There are only a few chickens in residence and the Rooster will be deciding which of the new chicks will be moving over to stay in my coop.

These chicks are White Rocks and the coloured ones are a new breed called Grazers.  He is determined to come up with his own 'perfect' breed.  We'll see.  He should get an A for trying! 

I left off my Photo shop Elements lesson with a blogger header that needed to have 3 photos inserted.  It seems the lessons I'd learned leaked away as the weekend passed and for the life of me I can't get the 3 photos I chose into position. 

Choosing the 3 photos was a good exercise because it reminded me of my focus.

I want to use thread on fibre and paper.

I want to make marks and draw on fibre and paper.

I want to paint and dye on fabric and paper.

I also need to move on to the other things that happen in summer so imagine the photos in the snazzy blog header.  But one one week was all the time I can devote to photoshop classes.  I also realized that I need to do my own creating. So with my focus intact it is time to leave the fantasy work of digi-ing and grab my shovel to clean the coop, my hoe to weed the garden and my sketchbook to make my own marks.   It was fun while it lasted!

B+

This is gonna be VERY useful.  I was sweating for a moment as I 'lost' it in those darn files.  I really must pay attention to where I send them to!

This is the original.  That's my Rooster and he is an International man!

Next up is blog headers!!!

Next up was to figure 3 photos to insert.

Now I may be getting an F for incomplete as I had no time to find photos.  Yard work took precedent as my Rooster wants his chick by his side because the family that weeds together, stays together.  LOL  But we got lots done and some good chats in as well.  I am SO glad he is already making notes and plans to get this job down to more manageable proportions.

I also had been giving some thought to what 3 photos would 'say it all' for what I do here in the coop!

The new grand baby should be coming along in the next few weeks.  We are thinking maybe 10 days???  So I'm off again for a babysitting session as one more doctor visit needs to be checked off.  I shall be thinking about 3 photos and how to avoid an incomplete grade for these photoshop classes!

Digi-ing!

It's a digi world and did a quick stop at the library to see what else I might benefit from with some more digi understanding! LOL

Another quick page and I thought it went better than the first even with 2 photos but I didn't do anything too tricky.  I did use a star sprinkle brush.  VERY  COOL!

On to lesson three.  pant pant

I don't think this is right nor finished.

COFFEE BREAK

Actually, I was just checking if I could find my way back to my beginner beginnings!  lol

OYE! Avatar

I'm sure some of the success of Photo shop Elements editing has to do with the subject matter.  ;^)  I did the photo supplied and followed directions so it was lovely. Then we pick one of our own photos and edit it.  ???

I didn't think about this a whole lot but this is probably as good as I get.  I save my camera's photos in a setting for the computer as I've not actually developed any.  lol  So I didn't start with a prime example.  It is a good thing I don't look too much in a mirror!  I see myself as that high school gal and the Rooster has never wavered in remembering his first impression of me!  Bless him!  lol

This is a scrap booking quick page.  And before everyone gets excited it comes, well, quick!  You add the photo, use a very cool brush to make the bracket and lines and then you type your message.  The horizontal text tool needs lots of practice and I don't have another hour to make and undo mistakes today,  maybe tomorrow.  I think I get another try at another quick page.

I'm learning lots but I'm not sure digital scrap booking is in my future.  But the whole program and the brushes are quite exciting.  OYE!

Where the heck...

 I was all set to show my first lesson in Photo shop Elements but it seems the editing is a small matter compared to finding where I need to find the files I've down loaded and saved.  Somehow I find that excruciatingly confusing. ={  So I was very pleased when I found them to show you but it sees that was only step one of about four. I stopped too soon!  lol  So maybe tomorrow I'll have some show and tell. 

So here is Creativity 101.  I was not quite as prepared for Jenn as usual so we covered her magazine journal with Mulberry paper and made various pages to tip in.

This is a sheet of cheap tissue paper with gel medium used to attach it to a previous paper with doodles.

She likes the painting with acrylics but really lit up with splattering and then dripping!

She likes hearts and  and we are still stuck on dots and circles.

Acrylic paint on the back of the doodle page and then I laid the fabric we had stamped on over the wet and some transferred to the fabric.  We used pink and then purple.   We felt it was successful.

Now we have a light denim shirt for a cover-up for Jen.  She is much too neat so we just added some of our own art.  We'll continue to do this and see how it all turns out.  Perhaps it can be her graduation present!
Now where the heck did I file the coat hanger?

In my Element

Things are a bit droopy as I play catch up.  The rain is making the peonies sag so I'll need to go rescue some more.

Before she left my DD reminded me that I had said we could even just sit around and do some crafting! Not.

Only the grand and messy kiddies got a chance to do that.

There were a few curves in the week's plans

DD got a cold from her Dad and shared it with her bunk mates who passed it on to their mother!

It was a good thing we got our trip to the city in.  Except for springing for snack, I left no cash behind at Chapter's although DD has told me all about Kobo.  yes!!!  Likey!
I did take advantage of DD and we scooped double coupons at Michael's.  I had to scoop quickly as the grand kiddies parents were arriving for the rest of the festivities.  I think we all had a good time.

But the rain is settling the dust after everyone left and I'm back to work.

The Altered Book is coming along as I posted previously.

I used some of my new supplies and this week's visit spread is coming along not too badly.

My techy DD commented on my old mouse for the 'puter.  She prophesied that I should get a centre wheel.  She is a true prophet as I picked one up on a run to babysit the recuperating grand kiddies while mum got assessed.  She is looking good and has about 4 weeks to get ready to receive Jolena.

Now part of the journey to finding how I wanted to do a daily journal led me to  Jessica Sprague.  I joined her site and perused a couple of beginner classes.  My timing was excellent as a few days later she announced her gift for her fifth birthday.  She is offering, FREE, 5 days of tutorials on Photo shop and Photo shop Elements.  I had bought Elements but I've been rather intimidated by all of it.  In fact I had to (BLUSH) do a search to find where the program was on my computer as the desktop shortcut had been wiped out in one of those "would you like to..." that the computer uses to clean up obsolete stuff. ={  I have now completed the updates on it and Acrobat Reader.  I got the mouse Jessica said would make 'zooming' easier and I will hopefully be caught up by tomorrow morning's class.  This is gonna be SO great.  She is wonderful.

So that is what is happening this week.  Jenn comes tomorrow and we'll be doing her magazine journal cover now that I've located a jazzy duct tape for her class.  It was the main reason for the Michael's stop and I forgot it. grrrr  But I got my mouse in Steinbach's Staples and the duct tape at the Canadian Tire.  Pheww!  I couldn't face Michael's again!  lol  I'll also be in class myself for the rest of the week  as I learn all about Photo shop Elements.

I'm posting early to The Needle and Thread Network so I can get the word out to more about this wonderful opportunity.

And I hope everyone is in their Element!