Scissor Quirk

Around Here...

My little desk in basking in the sunlight.

Art Journal remnants on my work table.

A pile of lovely sheets & linens sits, waiting to be made into a quilt.

I'm excited. :) This week I *finally* have lotsa time to re-organize the house, set up our new Ikea shelves, and generally bring order to our little home. It's been kinda crazy in here - sheets piling up on the sewing table, projects being started and abandoned, old frames being found but not hung - it downright needs a good cleaning. Call me nerdy if you will, but I'm psyched to decorate and tidy! (And start the quilt - eeeek!!).

I was working on a big craft fair application all weekend, so I rewarded myself with a little trip to Value Village (yay, 50% off day!) - and a chai latte, of course - to ward off the Mondays! :) I need little treats to get stuff done...lol.

What's laying around your home? Are you feeling the must-nest-in-the-new-year, need-to-organize blues, too?

I have been for *weeks*!! Off I go!

Art Journal Peeks.

Aah. I art journalled this weekend - *just for fun* - and it was lovely. :)

I haven't done anything art-journally in months & months, but have been craving it (and, it seems, collecting journals and composition books to do it in,excessively...lol. There are at least 4 blank ones on my desk, right now).

I'm busy busy today putting the final touches on my school portfolio & application (which is taking *sooo* much longer than I remember these things taking, goodness!), so I only have a moment to post a few little peeks of the pages I've been making, but here they are - in yummy color:

Soooo fun to splash paint around and handwrite messily and experiment with color & idea development. :) Yay! I'll share the full pages in a few days!

This week is looking like it'll be full of Ikea setting-up & some much-needed organization in here (eeek!), craft-fair applying, a little video compositing, Spring line (and vacation!) planning, quilt-beginning, granny circle crocheting,
a milkshake meeting, bike riding, lots of coffee drinking, and hopefully some Black Swan watching. I'm feeling the need to catch up on Oscar nominees!

Anyhoo - what are you up to this fine Monday?
I hope it's been a lovely one!

She is...

Reflecting on this lovely message she happened upon in her
empty, yet-to-be-filled art journal the other day:

She is loving this and wanting to mold her year around it. It's going to stay in the precious part of her mind to remind her when she starts planning the new year and those dreams and goals that are bubbling in list form below the surface...

Also, she is smiling about the craft fair this past weekend. Happy that was the last one of the season. She is dreaming of crocheting the chunky yarn that sits beside her. Happily working into the wee hours on a suuuuper fun, secret-for-now design project. Worried she's a little too late with everything and Christmas vacation starts this Sunday (this week is going to fly!!). Frustrated with her scanner. Addicted to gingerbread lattes. Sick of eating pizza on work-late nights & not working out. Yearning for balance that she needs to find soon. Wearing her contacts much too late and for much too long.

She is going for a walk, getting a coffee and some fresh veggies & fruit, and getting back to work. :) She is looking forward to a good, productive day!

**Blog Party winners  will be posted late Tuesday!**
Peek back - I'll post them later tonight! :)

Do you recognize the writing? It's Sabrina Ward Harrison's beautiful, unmistakeable scrawl from the workshop I took with her back in the Spring! My favorite, favorite. Love her writing to bits!

Summer of Love/My Art Journal - Pt. 3

Hello, guys! :)

First of all, I gotta say thanks *so much* for all the love and sweet words both here & over at Sassafras - I have the bestest readers in the whole world, I think!! :) I'm sending you love & good ju-ju back, too!

Here's the third (and my most favorite favorite thing I've made in a long while...) page in my art journal from the Summer of Love journal I made back in June.
Parts 1 & 2 are right here, if you missed them.

It's, again, totally not very readable, journalling-wise - but I know what it says - which is all that really matters in an art journal, yeah? And it majorly helped me fall in love with the messyness of my hurried writing. :) I used pencil, pencil crayon, and a fine-tipped black pen to do all of the text - and lots of fabric scraps, the spine of my book-cover book, old film, and a few other favorite little bits & bobs.And the sewing! Oh, the sewing. I'm so addicted to thread + paper. :)

And a few other pages from the journal:

I found this photo from the lovely Birds Nest and Paper and fell in love with it!
It had the cutest writing on the back, and I pondered the story for a bit. :)

Thanks for peeking in at my paper stuff, guys! :)

I'm really really craving and art journal hour or so right about now, especially after looking back at this book, but literally tonight I need to finish an invitation design, 2 illustrations, and a friends' thank-you card cuz tomorrow is my last night in town for a week! :) Eeek! Wish me luck! lol. Hello, coffee I say - and Diane Birch is my new all-nighter best tune friend.

I hope this lil art journal o' mine has inspired you to write illegibly and show an old book some love! he he. And remember, Kara's lovely class for which this book was made is still available in her shop, The Sequined Shoe!

Summer of Love/My Art Journal - Pt. 2

As promised, here's the second part (2nd of three!) of my art journal. :)
The first part of my 'Summer of Love' journal is right here.

Here are a few of the inside pages, now!
First, inside the cover's 'for' page:

And the second dedication page right behind that one, because I ran out of room to write, lol. I always forget about that...

I used pencil crayon, watercolor pencil & marker to write on the masking tape.
Also: my first jaunt with washi tape, if you couldn't tell...love it to bits!

And, hello messy writing! lol. I admit, I can't read my writing most of the time when I just 'write' to get it out or I'm hurrying. This happens more often than I care to admit, actually. I like it here on this journal - it's just not helpful when, say, I jot a note on a post-it & then try to read it a few hours later...lol.

Funny story: During the Sabrina Ward workshop, we did a lot of free-writing before beginning our day, and on the first day I assumed free writing was just a 'get it out' exercise, so I wrote and wrote and wrote a lot, and then we were finished with the prompts & were told we had to share what we'd written, and my heart sank - nothing on my page was readable! lol. My poor partner poured her heart out to me reading her beautiful free-writing aloud while I had to bumble through, giggling at the horrible-ness of my writing and trying to remember what I had written, which pretty much proved impossible! Goodness me.

Part 3 of my art journal will be posted up next week !
It's my favorite pages from the book (with nice writing on it, too! lol). :)

Some blank pages from the rest of the innards, I leave you with: