I am adding another giveaway for One World One Heart!!!

To celebrate over 100 posts on my OWOH post I am adding another painting/collage canvas to my giveaway! Thanks to all of you who commented and entered my giveaway. I have had a blast visiting blogs and being blown away by all the different styles and talent! 

A special thank you to everyone who has given me feedback on my blog "makeover". I found the magnificent Trudi from Canada who worked her magic and made it for me. I just LOVE it!  

If you would like to hire a fabulous digital artist contact Trudi. She was wonderful to work with and super fast!  If you want to enter the drawing make sure to scroll down and post your comment on my original OWOH post from January 19th. Remember to leave a blog address or e-mail in your comment so I can contact you if you win on Feb. 12th!

Getting into the ZEN making Zendalas... New Weekly Journal Prompt!

First of all, let me say how much freakin' FUN I am having with Lisa's ONE WORLD ONE HEART event. I have been blog-hopping all over the place!  It is inspiring to bask in all the creative, loving, friendly vibes! Thanks to all of you who are participating!  My journal challenge this week was to make a zendala, and I am posting 2 of mine.  I found it very relaxing to work on these serendipitous designs! I even taught my second graders how to do these on Friday and they had fantastic results! They asked, "When can we do this again?!"  

This week in my blog travels, I have been completely bowled over by the expressions of GOODWILL, HOPE, and LOVE for our country!  After a year of feeling I had to supress my feelings and wishes for our country and the world, it  is wonderful to connect with so many who are feeling the same way as I do!  So, even though we had a recent DREAMS theme, I cannot get away from the theme of HOPE!  I think there is a subtle difference in expressing DREAMS and HOPES.  Dreams sometimes stay in the clouds, but hopes we can breathe  life into.

Let's try to focus on articulating our HOPES FOR THE FUTURE and HOW WE CAN BRING THAT HOPE  INTO OUR LIVES AS A REALITY !  Journal about your hopes and the plans you have for channeling that hope into action!

One World One Heart Give-Away Begins Today!

 I am participating in the One World One Heart event this year. You can read about the history of the event and join in by clicking on the logo badge on my sidebar. Lisa "Oceandreamer" started this and it has grown by leaps and bounds each year. I didn't have a blog last year, but I did enter a few give-aways.   It is so exciting to be an actual blogger this year and I want to connect with even more blogging artists! 

The rules are simple- you leave a comment on THIS post by Feb. 11th.

                        1. I will draw a name for each of the 3 items I am giving away.  

                        2.You MUST leave an e-mail or blog address so I can contact you if you win. 

                        3.You do not have to have a blog to enter my give-away, but it is a requirement on                             some blogs. 

                        4.If you join in the event- be sure to connect Lisa so she can list you on her                                          blogroll of participating artists.

This is what I am giving away:  Two collaged wall-hangings approximately 8"x 7" and an altered tin colored with alcohol inks and collaged on the front.  Have fun looking at all the incredible eye-candy and meeting lots of amazing artists! Good Luck!!!!!

If you like my blog be sure to check back and join in my weekly art journal challenges!

What's a Zendala? This week's art journal challenge!

While I was pondering this week's journal theme, I came across a blog featuring a zentangle journal page and some stunningly amazing journal pages you should check out!  Go see Ingrid's blog after you read this post!

I have always drawn and doodled mandalas, so I googled zentangles to see what the difference was.  The idea behind the drawings are similar, to draw lines and designs that repeat, to fill in spaces with many types of lines and designs, to make it a meditative exercise, let the drawing go where it wants to go, don't worry about erasing, perfection, or what the end product will look like.  I found a cool video on Milliande's blog that shows how to draw a Zendala, which is just a circular zentangle!  So, find your trusty Sharpie, Pitt, or whatever marker you LOVE and try to make a zendala or zentangle in your journal this week.  If you  decide to add words, you can just journal what comes to you while you are drawing.  I am going to throw out a word theme as well...

RELAX!  This is supposed to be fun and relaxing.  How do you relax? Do you need to give yourself permission to relax?   This week's challenge is to relax and draw a zendala or zentangle and then share it with us!!!!  I posted  My Dream pages, but they got cut off along the bottom edge, so I'll fill you in.  The issue that I am passionate about on the first page is Arts Education, and I want to find the kep that unlocks the magic door!  Last week, I found some interesting music to go with the Dream theme. They are on my playlist, Kelly Sweet's version of Dream On, is really beautiful! If you don't see it on the playlist, click at the top of the list, it's the first song.

I'll be back tomorrow to post my One Heart give-away!

Experiments from Taking Flight!

My wonderful buddy, Tamara, sent me Kelly Rae Roberts book and I love it!  I made these two

pieces using some of her techniques.  I really liked how they turned out and I have some ideas for a few more in this series.  The top one is called My Story, the photo is of my sisters, my cousin, and me around 1972.  The second one is called Teacher, and the background is actual letters and cards I have gotten from students and parents over the years.  I will probably add more details to the teacher's dress.    I would love to get more feedback from blogland!

This week's Journal theme... IN MY WILDEST DREAMS I...

This  page is a 6 x 6 for a tip-in group I'm in with my friends. I made this for Peggy and her theme was "What do you see when you close your eyes?"   Making it made me think about dreams and the power of visualization and really seeing your future the way you want it to be.In that light, I would like this week's journal theme to be "IN MY WILDEST DREAMS I..."

You can take that idea anywhere, silly, serious, heartfelt, or even literally illustrate a dream you've had.  I want to be fearless and bold and ponder what WOULD I do if my wildest dreams came true.  I want to try to capture what that would look like and what it would FEEL like!

I guess the big question is would I even realize it and  stop and breathe the moment in ?

I challenge you to let this theme rattle around for a few days and try to define and shape and

articulate your wildest dreams.  Then we can record them in our journals and set them free on their way into our realities !!!!!!

How's YOUR balancing act?

Look! I finished my pages this week! Which is impressive since I was in an all-day writing class yesterday.  The writing class was geared for teachers, but focused on writing for ourselves in order to understand what we ask kids to write.  We did a fun exercise called "found poetry,"  This works- but you have to give yourself a strict time limit. We would drive ourselves crazy if we took time to ponder over this one!  Try to talk someone else into doing it with you ( my husband  and 14 year old son declined this offer last night, hmph!) .  Give yourself 5 minutes to cut out random words ( nouns, adjectives, verbs and conjunctions,  and, if, but, etc.) You will need about 10 of each. Don't worry about them going together or making sense!  We used magazines and newspapers.  Then give yourself another 5-10 minutes to arrange them on plain piece of paper into a poem.  Force yourself to do it quickly and glue stick them down!

Amazingly, these turned out so cool! I posted mine after the journal pages!  Did I tell you to check out Tamara's self-portrait pages? Well you should- they rock!  Opehlia has posted her Believe pages, go look! I'll be back later with next week's theme...