• Art - Blog - Creativity

    AJJ: Waltz of the Flowers

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    I’m pleased to be asked to host Art Journal Journey for a fourth time.  It’s always easier for me to do a challenge during the summer months while school is out.

    Since its summertime here in Minnesota, that means I’ll be enjoying the great outdoors as much as possible. I love puttering in the garden, getting my hands dirty. I’m especially fond of flowers so I thought the perfect theme would be Botanicals. The theme is pretty broad…from beautiful vintage images to wonky sketches, stamped images to stickers…as long as it relates to plants, it’s fair game. Are you in?

    This first page in the series was inspired by the vintage sheet music I found in my stash. Then I started pulling items that I felt might work on a page. This is my general process when working with a theme.

    The vintage wallpaper strip piece set the color scheme…all that was left was to pull pieces that would coordinate.

    I knew I had printed one of my digital creations that would fit the bill. It was absolutely the perfect color.  I really love creating in Photoshop. That is for sure going on my summer list of things I want to do.

    After all the layers of paper I knew it needed just a little something more. This piece of tatted lace was exactly the right length. I love it when things work out like that.

    I hope you’ll play along with my challenge and post your link over at Art Journal Journey!

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Pretty in pink

    July 28, 2024 - By 

    I really enjoyed putting this page together mostly from scraps. I chose the main image first from this ephemera book I ordered on Amazon over a year ago. Then I went about pulling out pieces from my scraps that spoke to me.

    The pink scrap wasn’t long enough but I decided to use it anyway and embrace the imperfection of it. The overall page still measures 7×10. I used layers of organza ribbon, lace harvested from a shirt and a bit of curtain scrap to help with the illusion of a full length page.

    I used a bulb pin to attach a pretty vintage button for even more texture and a bit of bling.

    I added a ticket cut from scrapbook paper along with a couple other random scraps to my design as well as the postage cancelation sticker. With that I felt I was done and stamped the date. As I was setting up to photograph the page for the blog, I decided it needed a bit more. I found a Tim Holtz butterfly that made me happy. I seem to be all about the butterflies lately.

    This may be my last page for “I’ve got a notion”. Time will tell.

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Everything’s coming up roses

    July 5, 2024 - By 

    For the second piece in my “I’ve got a notion” series, I went with a vintage feel using elements from the sewing room.

    The background is the instruction page from a pattern set. The vintage paper has such a lovely color.

    I used a label rubber stamp around a spool image from a dictionary to add a notion.  I like to use this technique to harvest images from old book pages.

    The printed papers are my own digital creations. I haven’t played much with that technique lately. I did take a USB thumb drive to Kinkos and have a few pages laser printed a couple years ago just to see how they’d turn out. The rose paper is one of those.

    I added the lace down the side because who doesn’t love roses and lace. Once again butterflies are appearing in my art.

    I hope you’ll join in with me for “I’ve got a notion” over at Art Journal Journey sometime this month.