Another finished project...

This is the piece I did for the 37 days essay titled Dress Up for Ed McMahon. It may be difficult to tell but the collage is mounted on a piece of paper with maps all over it. And the sky is stamped with the words "dream" and "home" as the author is hoping to be the winner of the HGTV dream home.

Tomorrow I am starting an Advent journal. I'd like to spend some time reflecting during this season. It's so easy to get caught up in the drama and commercialism of the holidays and I'd like to minimize that.

Way behind...

Traveling for Thanksgiving really threw a wrench in my creating everyday schedule. We drove 9 hours on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and 8 on the Sunday after. However, while in Kansas I did do a little creating with my sister-in-law and took a trip to Hobby Lobby where I found two packages of Basic Grey Christmas paper on sale. I love paper.

Recently I've been working on two pieces for a couple 37 days essays. Here is one. I will finish up the other today during nap time. I've had a tree in my head for awhile now. Probably planted there by Leah and then perpetuated by the trees in the neighbors yard across the street. I love the way they look in the fall and winter without leaves.

Day 19...

The last shirt. For my little man. It should really say zoom or vroom or run because he's always on the move but the letters would have to be much smaller to fit on there so I went with zap! Tomorrow is a cleaning and packing day. We are off to Kansas for the Thanksgiving holiday. I don't know what I'll get done on our trip or if I will be able to post while we are away. But I plan to bring somethings to keep me busy.

Day 17 & 18...

Yesterday I took a creative break. Mostly because I've developed a bit of a sore throat. Today we took O to the children's museum where I took a few creative and fun pictures. They have a Sesame Street Exhibit right now which was a lot of fun to see as an adult who grew up with Sesame Street. They had all kinds of history tidbits for the parents to read as well as fun stuff for the children. Here is a picture of Big Bird. Did you know that he is different in other countries? In Mexico he's a Parrot! And his role is also played by a camel and a giant hedgehog somewhere! In the stairway of the museum they have a very large mixed-media collage that I took a picture of. It's beautiful. I will post it tomorrow as I haven't edited it for size yet.

Day 16...

Today I finished the Christmas gifts for my niece and two nephews. The first shirt is for my 5 year old nephew. The second one is for my 3 year old niece and the last one for my 3 year old nephew.

Day 15...

My bird collage is finished! It's only taken me until the 15th of the month to finish something!

Today my sister came over to make hand turkeys. This is a tradition in our family. My sister started it years ago and now is continuing the tradition with Owen. They are a little non-traditional this year! Tomorrow they will be getting some feathers.

Day 14...

Back to the birds and the blue canvas...

I decided to search for some better birds online and thanks to Martha Stewart I found some. These will get filed in the inspiration binder too.
From the picture above I drew my own bird. I decided I didn't like the shape of the bird in the ad but I liked the concept of it.

After I drew my bird I cut it out and used it for a pattern on the pattern paper.

Here is how my bird turned out. It has a bit of foam tape under the wing to make it stand out a bit. I also glued the whole bird to a piece of heavier cardboard to give it some strength. The tail is cut out of pattern paper and I used a brad for the eye.

I'd like to do a little something more with the background but I don't want to ruin the wispy effect I created with the paint. I also need to use hot glue to adhere the sticks. I'm not good with hot glue. It's messy and I usually get burned!

Day 13...

I decided the blue canvas should be the sky.And it would have a bird sitting on a branch. Which was inspired by this ad I tore out of a magazine. I collect stuff like this in an inspiration binder until it becomes useful.

I thought this little bird was good enough and since I'm not good at drawing birds and people I would just trace it to make a pattern and cut it out of pattern paper. So I did that. But I didn't like it and got irritated and turned off the lights and had ice cream instead.

Day 12...

Here is the progress I've made on the 12x12 collage. I added some pattern paper and stamped some text across the bottom and then added a quote over one of the pattern paper strips.
Painted a wash of light yellow and white over the top.

Added the quote with acrylic medium but part of it wrinkled. I'm not too happy about that.

After the paint dried I added 3 pattern paper circles and glued glass blobs (I'm drawing a blank as to what they are called) over the top.

Detail of glass blobs with circles drawn around them with black pigment pen.

The quote has a glass slide mount over the top as well as white paint around it and black pigment pen.

It needs a little something else in the blank space. My husband thinks it needs some green. I'm not so sure about that. In my original sketch the glass and circles were in the upper right part where all the blank space is. But I forgot about that when I put the quote down. It's hanging on the wall and I can look at it as I walk past and think about it some more. I get tired of the thinking sometimes.

I've started working on a Christmas journal. I love Christmas but it seems to go so fast and I lose the spirit of it midway through. We will be in MN for Christmas this year and that will help some. I won't be planning a long out of town trip and stressing about being away and with in-laws.

Days 10 & 11...

Saturday and Sunday were spent mostly creating some order in my craft room. The mess had gotten way out of hand and I couldn't function with it anymore.

Here's my main work table. Everything is tidied up and put away. I even cleaned off the board and put up some new pictures.

Here is my other table which usually holds in progress things as well as my die cutting tools and my big fabric cutting mat.

And this view shows the piles gone from the floor! I collect all manner of things for inspiration and ideas and it needed to get sorted and filed into binders so it was accessible.

I also made a thank you card for my in-laws for my birthday gifts but I didn't take a picture of it.

Now I'm all caught up on my posts and my work space is tidied so I can get back to work!

Day 9...

This is posted very late but I'm playing catch up. I don't have a problem with the creating everyday, it's the posting everyday I don't always get to!

For my birthday my SIL gave me this cute gnome. I have a growing collection of them. My son took a liking to this one and I found him standing in the doorway between my son's room and the hallway. It was just cute and funny how he was just there. As though he had gotten himself there and it was where he was supposed to be. I of course ran for the camera.

Photography is one of my favorite things. I think because I can capture something exactly as I picture it in my mind. I don't find I can do that with other art mediums. I haven't been experimenting with the camera as much lately though. I feel at a loss for subject matter.

Friday evening I finished up the Home box. I finally found the perfect chain. At the craft store! I didn't think I'd find something heavy enough but I guess clunky is in for jewelry now. So it's done!

Detail of the side. I used rub-ons on the side that coordinate with the paper I used for the letters. It's a little more crafty looking than I had wanted it to be.

Day 8...

The bottom of the black painting is got some old book pages on the bottom. I'm going to paint over them and then crackle over that.

Then I started a new 12x12 canvas. I put down a layer of old book pages from a spanish book. I have no idea what the book is about but it's old and the pages are really neat.

I'm a bit stuck on some things right now. Which tends to happen. I get a lot of things going but don't have a firm idea of where I'm going with them and then they sit. Sometimes I'd love to be the kind of artist that starts one thing and then finishes it before moving on to the next. But I'm not. I'm just not like that. Sometimes things get done quickly. But it's usually something small. Sewing projects tend to take me less time because they are more concrete I guess. I'm not sure. Maybe it's just that I have fewer sewing materials to ponder or mess with. Anyway, when I get so many things up in the air I get agitated and irritable and can't seem to be happy with much of what I'm doing. In my studio or out. I think it's because the old ideas are blocking the way of the new ones. I make notes and sketches but I tend to keep thinking about the ideas that haven't been started yet. And then start them. Which backs up the other projects!

Day 7 (a day late!)

My husband's birthday was yesterday and while I had time to work I didn't have time to post so day 7 is a bit late.

I began working on Christmas gifts for my niece and nephews. Fabric applique on a long sleeve t-shirt. Each will have a word on top of it. Probably Bam, Pop and Wham. Reminiscent of the old batman show. And fitting for the kind of children they are!

The black painting got a stripe of crackle. Kind of hard to tell in the picture.

The shadow box frame got a distressed map background from wrapping paper on one of my husband's birthday gifts.

And I started putting together a mini-album from a day trip we took in Montana in October. I managed to put the wrong date on the front!

Day 6...

Oil pastel on drawing paper. My husband titled it: Psychedelic Onion. I'm not so sure about the title.

Day 5...

This is acrylic on canvas. 16x20. It's just the beginning of something. I'm not sure what. It's sort of an emotion piece. And it doesn't look exactly like this in person. It's darker. I'm waiting for it to dry. I've mostly decided that I have to wait 24 hours for my acrylic to dry. I always touch it too soon.
This is my week 43 Deck of Me card. The theme for the week is Home. I drew a house and colored with oil pastels. I love the creaminess of them. I had to dig around for a blending stump though as I haven't drawn or used the pastels for ages.

And this is a peek at the creative chaos I've been working in lately. The state of my craft room is so opposite of the way I prefer things to be. I prefer order and neatness and my craft room is almost always in a state of chaos. I've found I just need to work around that or let it go otherwise I would spend most of my time cleaning, organizing, and rearranging rather than creating.

(The painting looks a little more true to life here. )

Day 4... Digital

Today I made a new banner for my photography challenge blog using PSE. It's rather simple but I don't think a banner needs to be too complex.

The cameras are a brush that I downloaded from the internet. The parentheses are a digital element created by Amy Teets.

My "home" box is mostly done. I'm not entirely happy with how it has turned out. It's just a little too craft fair kitchy. Which isn't what I wanted. I haven't taken photos of it but will post when I do. I need some chain to hang it.

Day 3...

Today was a mish mash of projects.

I did my Week 43 Deck of Me card. A challenge by Emily Falconbridge that I participate in. The theme was Scary. The picture of is of my son having a little melt down in his Halloween costume the other evening.

Then I painted the outside of the shadow box green.

And finished sewing some placemats I'd started a couple months ago. The fabric is by Amy Butler.

It's also time for me to start working on Christmas gifts. The first will be shirts with an applique for my niece and two nephews. I need to have them done in the next couple of weeks to take with us when we see them at Thanksgiving. I have the design all done I just need to copy it onto some heavier paper so I can keep the design when I'm finished. I tend to have to remake patterns because I lose the pieces or they just get all messy because they are not on sturdy paper.

Day 2 continued...

Naptime!

The gel medium dried so I decided to apply a warm white paint to the edges over the phonebook pages.

It didn't cover as well as I wanted so I did two coats. I used Americana craft paints for the whole thing. They dry faster, which I like, and have a matte finish. The canvas incidentally I used artist quality acrylics. Which I also like because of the quality difference but they are different to work with and take some getting used to. Which I'm still doing!

Here is the box with the letters laid out on it. They are not stuck down. It's too flat and needs something. I'm not sure what though. So it waits.

For the basswood frame I decided to use rubons over the phonebook paper. My grandma used to use a similar material on ceramics. Although her stuff may have been softer.

Here is the inside with just the brown rubbed on.

And here is a closer look at the inside after I finished. I did a brown first, and then put a copper metallic over that. Then I went back and did black around the farthest edge to create a little shadow for some depth.

And now it too waits for some inspiration!

While I was working on these I was thinking about how bits of the artist go into the work he or she creates. For me today it was the phonebook paper. It's from the area I live in. I chose pages from the section that contained businesses with the word home in their titles. While I was doing th rubons I also discovered there was the listing for Hooters! Not what I had planned but interesting. There were also churches with the word Hope in their name and schools (I used to be a teacher). I enjoyed connecting with the work in this way. And thinking about how bits and pieces of me go into what I create. I also don't listen to music or a tv while I'm working so I have a lot of space to think and ruminate. I've tried listening to the radio but it's just too much stimulation for me.