• Art - Blog

    The tale of two journals

    February 23, 2014 - By 

    Something kicked my creativity back into gear over the past few days. I’m really excited about that!  Maybe it was the exercise….hey, that should motivate me to keep going on that as well 🙂 But I digress…

    I was in the art journal mood so I grabbed my kira-kira journal and slapped down a light coat of gesso. While digging out some washi tapes and other supplies…I dumped over my cup of wash water. UGH!! I had quite a bit of cleanup to do including changing my jeans…yep, dirty paint water all the way off the table on onto my leg.texture

    Shockingly, I was still ready to create after cleaning up. Usually that would have soured me for the day.Love

    The colors and patterns on this page remind of college. Likely because of the clothes I wore at the time. Leggings, black ankle boots, flannels in those colors. That look is back in its own modern way but I’m not sure that I could pull it off now being 20-something years older. Or that I should even try.  😉

    After completing a few pesky household chores I was still feeling creative.

    Wow…two journal entries in one day!  This time I use my white journal. No particular reason…it just felt right. While mopping up the earlier spill I happened upon this fashion plate cut from a newspaper. I wanted to use on of the girls but after an exhaustive search I couldn’t find my “fussy cutting” scissors. I had to change my thoughts on where this was going.

    unexpected weapons

    Peeking out from a stack of stuff on my work desk I spotted a Basic Grey paper pad.  I was drawn to some paper with small circles. Small circles you say? There are no small circles on this page. Yeah I know…but the cityscape paper was in the pad too. As soon as I saw it my mind went to the old Sci-Fi movie genre such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

    So there you have it…two very different pages created the same day by the same girl whose mind apparently took a sharp left part way through the day. 🙂

  • Blog

    Abstract inspired by snow

    February 22, 2014 - By 

    abstractI know it doesn’t look very “snowy”. The reason I say I was inspired by the snow was that this canvas had a painting that used very dark colors. I’d been leaving it for a few days trying to decide if I was done. Turns out…I wasn’t. It needed to light and bright like snow. I thought I was going to save a bit of the original inside the circle but in the end I covered the whole works. I really like it now. So glad I let myself sit and stew on the original.

    So where does the snow come in??

    Well, where do I start? We got over 9 inches on Thursday night into Friday. Another snow day for the kiddos. They’ll never get out of school at this rate.  This storm followed one that dumped around 6 inches on Monday.

    tall pile

    See this pile…I used it to stand on to pull snow off the roof. Little J got a real nice shot of the avalanche.

    snow from the roof

    You may recall my garden box along the deck…summer gardenThis is the current view from the garage…. snowy garden boxThis storm created the most treacherous driving conditions that the state patrol has seen in 25 years according to news reports. I was worried about Mr. G driving but he made it safe and sound….just late.

    snow doodle

    The snow is pretty and the kids enjoy playing in it…and it makes a pretty good canvas for snow doodles curtsey Little J.

    winter gear Me…I’m ready to hang up the Sorrels and Carhartts for the season.

  • Blog - Crafts - Photography

    T Tuesday: candle mug edition

    February 18, 2014 - By 

    Thanks for stopping by today for T stands for Tuesday hosted by Elizabeth, Dr. E (yep she’s got a Ph.D), Queen of Free, caretaker of Bleubeard, teacher extraordinaire and all around nice gal. How’s that for an intro!?!

    I’m getting a bit stir crazy again…I’ve had at least one sick kid since last Wednesday. I’ve been disinfecting everything they touch or at least trying. I’m scheduled to work later this week and it would be just like it for me to get deathly ill for that day.

    Once again I’m not showing my mug of tea…yes, I’m drinking a cup of Twinings Lady Grey but its in my ugliest mug. I just can’t post that…yuck. I might even throw this one out today…stained and ugly.

    But I will show you the mug candle I made last week.

    candle tea

    I picked up the mug at Goodwill a while back. I recycled my candle bits and made a new candle with a touch of fragrance oil and colorant.  The mug seems very Scandinavian in design although I think it’s just a cheapy from HomeGoods.

    watching and waitingMiss Gracie keeps thinking now that there is no ice on the inside of the windows that she should be able to go outside. She sits…waiting and watching…ever hopeful I’ll take her out. Nope…not going to happen honey. She’d get lost in the deep snow…another 4-8 inches are coming on Thursday…oh joy.

    I thought this article about Lake Superior being 95% frozen over this year and for the first time since 2009 people can walk over the ice to the Apostle Islands was really interesting and the photos are fantastic.

    s_s18_00031280

    Photo credit to Paul Johnson…he’s amazing!!!!!

    Maybe this post should have been named T Tuesday: random thoughts edition, since I was really all over the place today. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. 🙂

    What are you doing today??