Christmas Creations 2011

Happy Holidays to everyone! I have not posted in a loooong time. But I'm back and I hope I can be a better blogger. Here are some of the Christmas card designs I came up with this year. I had my annual card party for my friends at work. This year the theme was "Semi-homemade cards". I used cards that I got on clearance last year and we embellished them. Sometimes I covered the entire front of the card, but the sentiment inside and the envelopes were already done!

Giveaway Coming Soon!

I am so excited about the newest publication from Stampington. It's called Mingle and it features all kinds of artistic gatherings. Since I started on the mixed-media art journey in 2006, some of my most cherished times have been getting together with my artist friends and creating together. Keep on the look-out for a giveaway coming in October. I will send out a copy of the new magazine to a lucky winner who comments on a future post. I have been pretty consumed with starting a new school year and dealing with a class size of thirty 6 and 7 year olds. I have started my after school art group and they are as enthusiastic as ever!

I will be posting new art very soon. Make sure to click on the Mingle badge on the right side of my blog and check out the preview pages.

Goodbye Samson!

Yesterday we had to make the decision to say goodbye to our beautiful lab Samson after trying desperately to save him. He spent 5 nights at the vets and didn't get any better. He had stopped eating and didn't even respond after the first time we visited him. We found him 5 years ago and he had been a street dog for awhile. He was so skinny and was used to begging for food. We took him to our vet and he had a microchip. They contacted the previous owners and they said, "That dog ran away months ago, you can keep him". He was housebroken and had been fixed. He walked on the leash much better than our pedigreed, trained lab, Maggie May! He was so pretty but we all learned that Maggie was the brains of the operation. We called Samson our male model. He still thought of himself as a cute little puppy and would try to actually climb up on people's laps! All 95 pounds of him!Our family and friends will miss him, but I am glad we had him for 5 years and he had a nice life with us!

New journal pages from old paintings

In one of my artist yahoo groups we were exchanging 8 x 8 journal pages. I was behind the

deadline and I needed to get on the ball. I had recently dug out my portfolio from the one and only college art class I had taken. It was filled with large watercolor and acrylic paintings.

They were done on quality paper but the results were not frame-worthy! So....I stole someone else's idea of cutting up old artwork to make journal pages. They made great backgrounds to get started. I used stencils and spray inks and added collage elements and words. I also made 26 tags to send out and they actually got sent BEFORE the due date, miracles never cease!
I will share more of the tags in another post. I tried to leave plenty of room on the pages for the artist's to add their own journaling . If you can't read the tiny collage phrases click on the photos to enlarge them.

July Journaling!!!!

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• I have been journaling like crazy in my short time off of work. Jumping off the crazy carousel of year-round teaching left me drained and exhausted! I am trying to slow down, enjoy my family and just BREATHE!!! My journal becomes a happy place where I illustrate positive messages to myself. I recently sent off 5 finished journals to be considered for the Art Journaling publication. They were completed in the past three years. I could definitely see a HUGE learning curve. I had to cringe a little over my first visual journal. But, hey, baby steps right? I loved a few of those pages and hopefully won't be judged too harshly on my first awkward attempts. I am now working on 5 different journals that differ in size and paper type. It's fun to skip around and work in whatever journal I feel like grabbing ( or that fits into my purse, beach bag, etc.). I am hoping to start a journaling group with my friends at work as a stress management tool. I know it works for me and I am totally hooked on this form of self-expression.

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A Day At The Beach!

Ahhhh! Just what we needed around here a lovely relaxing day at the beach yesterday.Dave, Sera, Weston and I spent the day at Balboa Beach Wednesday. It was sunny and clear with a slight breeze. The surf was too rough for surfing or swimming, but it was great ti sit on the sand and watch the waves.
See that big huge wave behind me? I stayed on the beach.
That tall guy is my baby who just turned 17. His big sister just graduated from college!
This was the view from my chair while I drew in my sketchbook and read magazines.

If you haven't been to the beach lately and you are close enough to get there. Go lay on the beach and put your toes in the sand.

Awesome Class with Teesha Moore!

Yesterday I drove to Carson to the Rubber Stamp Convention all by myself because I couldn't get anyone to go with me. I tried begging, bribing, whining...NOTHIN'! So... I got adventurous because I really wanted to take the 2 hour visual journaling class with Teesha Moore. I had taken a mini-workshop several years ago and I knew I liked Teesha's artistic and teaching style.

I was not disappointed! We got to work on a single journal page which I put right into the journal I brought with me and did a double page spread! Teesha talked about the steps she uses and her take on paper, paints,markers, pens, journaling,etc. It is always fun to work alongside creative people.
The first two photos are the pages I worked on at the workshop.

The pages below are some recent journal pages I've done.





After spending most of my time and energy on work and hosting my nephew's wedding reception last week, it was great to spend some time journaling! Art rocks!!!