On the banks of Bay Creek

Catching Up

2011-08-27T20:32:00.007-05:00

I did pretty well with the Art Journal Everyday until school started. I skipped the two weeks we've been in school, but I got back in gear today. We'll see. Here's what I did while I was actually journaling every day and a couple of older ones I had forgotten to photograph. I'm still journaling with limited supplies as I can't get up to my workroom due to the broken bone in my foot. It's been seven weeks, but I'm still in the boot.

Another challenge

2011-08-03T09:16:00.005-05:00

I've accepted another challenge having to do with journaling. I think this one will be easier to follow through on. Journaling Everyday is the challenge. You don't need to finish a page a day or anything, just do something in your journal even if it is only 10 minutes worth of something. I signed on for August, but I actually started July 28. I love the spreads that Julie shares where she shows just what she added each day until the spread is done. Maybe I'll try that, too.

Click below for all of Julie's posts on Art Journal Every Day.

List 3/52

2011-08-03T09:15:00.001-05:00

June 30 journal page, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

This was the hardest list. I pondered it for days and finally just sat down and wrote something.

Things I learned in Mexico

2011-08-03T09:12:00.001-05:00

Things I learned in Mexico, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

Well, the 52 lists isn't working so well. There were some list prompts that were just hard for me. I did manage to do lists 2 and 3. I need to see what I've missed and work on them.

52 Weeks, 52 Lists

2011-06-05T22:53:00.003-05:00

A new challenge is just what I need to get myself journaling. I actually wrote a page recently about doing a 365 with a list a day in my journal. This is more doable. Maybe I'll start slowly with a list a week and nudge myself back into journaling. Maybe...

I used a pre-painted page. Reminder to self, don't use such dark pages to write on. I still need to work on the facing page.

Journal on Black

2009-10-09T21:19:00.003-05:00

If there is anything that can make me post a blog entry, it's a GPP Street Team Crusade. The current crusade, No. 34 ~ Come over to the Dark Side, is right down my alley. I love journaling on a black background. I've tried it lots of times in the past. As soon as I read what the new crusade was about, I had to head up to my craft table and get busy.

I recently retired a pair of shoes, and as I was tossing them I happened to get a look at the sole. I'm always on the lookout for a good background stamp, and the price was right. I grabbed a knife and cut the sole off the shoe. It became the rectangles stamp I used on this spread in gesso on the left side of the black and in black ink on the other page. I won't be discarding any more shoes in the future without checking out the soles for possibilities.

Vital Statistics

2009-04-21T21:09:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to know how many pages I have done in my journal since I started painting the pages with acrylic paint and thus bridging over to being a visual journaler, never to turn back. As I was counting (and perusing) my old journals, volumes 1 to the current volume 9, I also decided to count the postage stamps and fruit stickers that are a constant add-in for me. I wound up with 1,385 pages. Part of what got me interested in finishing this task was mentioning that I thought I had only done one spread totally without words. As I was going through I actually found two spreads. The second one only has the date on it. I guess I'm just a wordy kind of girl.

I wish I would get my act together more often, like I did in March, and make a calendar page at the beginning of the month. I like this style where I can increase or decrease the date block size as needed. A side benefit of doing calendar pages is that often once I have the journal in my hands to do my little bit of journaling each day, I wind up doing or at least starting a full spread.

We don't have much of the garden in yet, but this evening I hoed all that we have planted. My shoulders are a bit sore. That's last year's collards in the front. There is an advantage to not cleaning the garden up in the fall. Besides the greens we got from these, we also enjoyed the greens from the turnips that came back, and their flowers are making quite a show right now.

In addition to this bed, we have a row of snap peas, half a row of spinach and a bed with more lettuce, a few broccoli, kale, and one cauliflower plant, also a largish bed of onions from sets.

One Hundred Books

2009-04-17T21:13:00.000-05:00

I found this list on the blog of a Spanish teacher and had some fun with it. I thought I would share in case anyone else would like to check it out. I googled, but couldn't track down where it originally came from. A couple of other blogs had it and said it was from The Great Read, but I couldn't find it on their web site. The woman whose blog I found it on had read 52 of the books. Unless I counted wrong, I've read 51. Surprisingly there weren't any that I'd hated, and only one that I never finished. Anyone spot any that you consider must reads?

I found Middlemarch on LibriVox and am planning to download it. I have a 45 minute drive to work and I love listening to books while I'm driving.

I've been reading more lately and am looking for some books to read this summer.

***********************

Original blogger's intro, my marks.

This was a list of the top 100 selling books published by (some publishing house). The original post said that the average American adult had not read 10 of these books.

1) Look at the list and put one * by those you have read.
2) Put a % by those you intend to read.
3) Put two ** by the books you LOVE.
4) Put # by the books you HATE.
5) Post.

*1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
**2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
*3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
**4 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
*5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
**6 The Bible (the whole thing, all 63 books)
*7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
**8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
*11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
*12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
*13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (most but not all)
*15 Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
**16 The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
*18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
*19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
%20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
*21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
*25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
*29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
*30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
*31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
*33 Chronicles of Narnia- C.S. Lewis
*34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (I started, but never finished this one.)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernières
*39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
**40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
**41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
%43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
**46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
*48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
*49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
*52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
*54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (listened to this one)
**58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
*62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
*68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
*71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
**73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
*76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Émile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A.S. Byatt
*81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
**87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (all of them)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
*91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
**94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
*97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I like the idea of travel

2009-04-16T20:55:00.000-05:00

This is the page I was talking about. It's made from a couple of photos from an Anthropologie catalog. The spread is from 2005. Text on the left reads:

I like the idea of travel.

Road Trip

No particular destination in mind.
Finding out what makes this place
Different from all others.
Unique, worthy of the time.
Scenic wonders,
Yes - written large on the land,
But also the marks made by man,
Quirky, individual from place to place,
From ridiculous to sublime.
I want to see.

We actually got to take a road trip across Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee a couple of months later. I'm ready for another road trip, maybe this summer.

In the center top the text reads:

I prefer two-lane roads. Away from the interstate, slower, calmer - more to experience along the way.

On our trip we mostly took the two lane roads. They are lined with homes and farms. I love traveling this way when you don't really have anywhere you need to be.

Text where the model was cut out from the door reads:

Open your eyes to new sights,

and your ears to new sounds,

and your mind to new thoughts,

and your heart to new people,

and your wallet to new needs.

There is enough of you to spread around,

some to each sight, sound, thought, person and need.

The text is written really small in silver metalic gel pen and you can't read it until you hold it just right in the light. Then it's perfectly legible.

I thought of this spread for the current Street Team Crusade, but it's also perfect, I think, for #28 Portion Control.

What if?

2009-04-16T18:25:00.000-05:00

I could post a page a day for a long while just catching up on my journal pages. Maybe I will. I was embarassed, just now, to see that I've only made two posts this year. Both of those were this week. Michelle's latest Street Team Crusade has got me motivated to post. I just love adding text to journal pages. In fact my first forays into paper arts were altered books. I loved the fact that the books already had text on them.

Anyway, I wanted to post the above page. I'd had the black birds quilt image laying around and wanted to get it into my journal before I lost it. The page was done last Labor Day. I love the way the writing turned out mimicking the stripes on the quilt. It's fun to go back and read too, now that it's close to the end of the school year.

The next couple of pages are more recent. I like the way the text flows on the one above. I did all three spreads in one marathon session, pushing myself to do just one more page.

The bit of text inside the photo of someone's garden journal was a bit of a mistake, brought on no doubt by my decision to journal quickly without thinking too much. I had the photo laying on my abismally messy worktable. In the rush to add images to the page, I cut the flowers from the back of it. When I turned it over to add glue, I realized what I had done. I flinched a bit and glued it down, and then grabbed what was left of the photo and glued it down too. I love the way the two pieces look together. They remind me of two ladies facing each other. I've used the technique of writing inside a photo where someone's body has been cut out on other journal pages. I'm not a big fan of gluing photos of just anybody in my journal. The person's face has to appeal to me. If it doesn't I cut the person out of the photo and use the spot to journal in. I'll try to look up one of my favorites and repost it.

When I first started adding visual things to my journal, I just changed the style of my writing. Page after page of the same looking text was starting to bore me. I love to write in different pens and different directions when I change direction in my thoughts. I'm truly not a lineal thinker. My thoughts bounce all over the place. This style of recording them suits me.

Red shoes in my dreams

2009-04-14T16:53:00.000-05:00

Michelle asked if the red shoes on my journal page were my shoes. They aren't. It's a great photo I cut out from a magazine.

In fact, I can only remember owning one pair of red shoes in my entire life. They were a damaged pair of Soft Spots that I got at a salvage store for a dollar. I wore them in the garden and loved them, both for their comfort and their color. I never had red shoes as a kid either. In the fifties and sixties redheads didn't wear red... at least not in my family. I wear lots of tomato red now and love it.

I used the other half of the magazine photo in this spread. I really need to be on the look out for another pair of red shoes.

My journals have words

2009-04-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

I have been a bad blogger. I admit it. I finally have started back working in my journal and I've been walking on the treadmill, so I do have some redeeming qualities.

I've been having fun with befunky.com. I love this shot of my granddaughter. It inspired the whole page. Fun, fun.

My reason for finally hitting the blog this button though was the Street Team Cat Got Your Tongue crusade #30. My journal pages have words. Almost all of them. So much so that when I was working on a page for Crusade #29, which I never got around to posting, I wrote, "If I had anything to say I would put it here."

It may be because I started out as a text only journaler. For me it's about recording the moment and that just calls for words. It would be interesting to go back and see how many of the many journal pages I've done haven't had any words. Off hand I can just think of one spread. My.

If you are interested in what I've been up to in the months since I've posted, check out my flickr site.

2008-11-29T12:25:00.000-06:00

I finally got my journal out this morningafter a two month hiatus. The fruit stickers on my window sill were thecatalyst. I was starting to put them on the horizontal surface. I figured I would have a two page spread, but it wasn't quite full. I found one on my monitor and lots more that my daughter-in-law had saved for me on baggies. They filled the pages nicely. It feels good to be journaling again.

It was so nice to wake up this morning with the whole house relatively clean, lots of leftovers and nowhere to go. I could get used to retirement I think.

Last week there was a sale on Tiny Betsy dolls by Tonner. I've been wanting one since they first came out, but could never make up my mind which one. I liked this one which was dressed in a Mondrian dress, because I thought she looked like me in first grade, but I wouldn't pay what they were wanting for her. Well, at half price it didn't take long to have my order in. Isn't she a cutie?

Journal catch up

2008-10-10T22:48:00.001-05:00

Journal - closet dreaming, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

No way I can get caught up on posting my pages here, not that I've done that much in the journal either. I have been putting them on flickr though if anyone would like to see them.

DSL arrives

2008-10-10T22:31:00.001-05:00

Geraniums, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

We joined the fast lane tonight. Finally DSL has arrived on Bay Creek. I'm hoping that this wonder will lead me to post here more. It can't hurt.

Aren't the geraniums pretty. They have been such a welcome every time we arrive home. I'll miss them this winter.

A tale of flip flops and green beans

2008-07-19T15:16:00.001-05:00

OK, I have truly lost it. Our new dog, a stray who showed up and stayed, chewed one of my flip flops a few days ago. I picked it up and threw it away. Then I got to thinking that I might be able to stamp with it, so I dug it out of the trash. Thankfully, it was right on top. It makes great stamps with two different designs, one on the sole and one on the strap. Plus, I have this reminder of a $1 pair of shoes that served me for three summers. That's the sole print on the right in blue and a piece of the strap in purple on the lavender stripe.

Our new fence appears to be working. So far no deer tracks or mischief in the garden. For the first time in ages, we have green beans.

I picked this batch last night about 7:30. I had forgotten just how low bush bean plants are. I'm considering pole beans next year. I would rather reach up than bend down.

I've discovered that I much prefer to snap the ends off when the beans are dry. I wipe the blossoms off then too. It's much easier than after you wash them, plus I can watch tv or blog surf while I'm doing it. With my slow dial-up, it's good to have something else to do while I blog surf.

I used to can beans, but we much prefer then frozen. Plus, now that we are empty nesters, it's nice to be able to take some out of the bag and only prepare what we will eat.

I boil the beans whole for two minutes in small batches, and then cool them down in front of the fan, or air conditioner if it's on, and pack them into the freezer bags.

I wound up at 11:45 PM with eight quart bags full. I should have started earlier, but then I would have burned up in the garden.

Gardening on my mind

2008-07-14T14:26:00.000-05:00

I always think I will do lots of journaling and sewing in the summer and somehow it never really happens. Lately I've had gardening on my mind and when I'm not thinking about that, the addition we are building is there to occupy me.

I have managed to do a few pages. I also got my copy of Dawn Sokol's 1,000 Art Journal Pages with my pages inside. I was thrilled to see them there and am enjoying looking at everyone else's
pages.

I got up this morning and went out and picked a few blackberries. These are growing on the edge of the yard. We've nearly finished eating them already. I need to decide if I want to go look for more bushes on the farm. We've had an unusually rainy summer and there should be lots.

2008-07-04T19:58:00.000-05:00

I love to include my granddaughters' artwork in my journal. Last week when I was at their house the oldest, Madelyn who is nearly five, added her doodles to a couple of dates I had written down and doodled around.

Whatever Madelyn does, her little sister Erin wants to do too, so Erin was soon drawing too. She is twenty months old and is just starting to really like making marks. They looked so sweet as they sat side by side at the breakfast bar,heads down concentrating on their drawing.

I've been using my NeoColor II's a lot lately. My big box, of 15 I think, finally showed back up. I had even cleaned my atelier looking for them. They were in a different room where I had tucked them away when company came.

The bear is from a recent Free People catalog. I like the catalogs because they remind me of someone's journal pages.

Journaling with Madelyn

2008-06-21T14:10:00.000-05:00

Whenever I babysit my four-year-old granddaughter, Madelyn, she likes to do art of some kind. Painting, stamping, gluing bits and pieces, she likes it all. I was looking forward to sharing the crayon rubbings with her. We did several pages in her tablet of her shoe soles, sticker sheets and various toys. She enjoyed looking for textures. I did this one when she got tired of the activity. I decided that I like it without paint and didn't want to take a chance I'd mess it up. I love the idea that it has the soles of several pairs of her shoes on it including the Dora shoes that she has now outgrown.

The next week we painted outside on the deck. I was getting a migraine, so we didn't stay out long. I'm not sure what type of paint this was, but I liked it. It is in little jars. She is getting good at cleaning the brush between colors so she doesn't muddy them up. I journaled on it a couple of days later with a cream colored pen that I thought had dried up. I'm glad I didn't throw it away.

More wax resist

2008-06-10T22:17:00.000-05:00

I had to try the Street Team crusade's wax resist again using something a bit more personal. I decided to try the carving on my bed and a vase I got at a yardsale last month for a dime. The Christmas tree ornament that came from a different yard sale, but cost a dime also, was an afterthought.

Rubbing in the journal on a vertical surface wasn't easy, but turned out ok. I filled in the edges with the vase. I would have never thought of using a vase if I hadn't seen a rubbing done on a glass by another Street Team Crusader. The ornament rubbing was an afterthought. I did it on a separate paper. The front of the ornament had too much relief, but the back worked great.

CRUSADE No. 21 ~ Irresistible

2008-06-07T22:10:00.000-05:00

I'm finally out of school and finished with VBS. The rest of the summer is mine to do whatever I want. I spotted the latest Street Team crusade and knew I wanted to try it. I've always liked the magic of rubbings, and Michelle's suggestion to add paint resist into the mix looked like great fun.

I grabbed the first thing that looked like it might work that was sitting near my worktable. It's a rubbing plate for kids that I got at a yard sale.The painted paper that I cut up to use was painted by my four-year-old granddaughter Madelyn yesterday. I like to use her artwork in my journal every chance I get.

I rubbed over the plate directly into my journal since the paper is thin. I used a gold crayon.

I used acrylic paint over the rubbing.I liked the blue paint over the gold better than the red. The marker is one of a set that my granddaughter Madelyn picked for her treat at the Everything's a Dollar store. It has roller rubber stamps at one end. She likes crafty things.

The collage bits on the finished page all came from the newspaper that Madelyn and I were painting on. I seem to be adding chunky bits to my journal lately. I'm sure it will make it harder to work on the remaining pages.

Resolved

2008-03-23T21:31:00.001-05:00

journal 2008-3-8 to 18, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I made some resolutions the other night, just because. So far I'm doing pretty well with number one, fair with three and not at all with number two. Not bad as resolutions go.

I'm still behind posting journal pages. I've put a few more on flickr.

Flu days

2008-03-22T15:08:00.001-05:00

Flu days, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

This page explains a bit of why I have been absent from here. I had a yucky case of the flu that turned into a sinus infection. It took me ages to get back to normal and then allergies set in. I have been journaling some and posted several pages yesterday and today to flickr.

Blah, blah

2008-02-21T16:10:00.001-06:00

Blah, blah, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I was wanting to do a page for my black.red.white.book group, but the yellow crept in. I've had the text clippings on my craft table for a while. I knew they would fit my mood eventually.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/blackwhiteredbook/

Snow Day!

2008-01-31T20:41:00.001-06:00

Our house in the snow, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

If I'm posting two blog entries in one day, it must be a snow day. I have to admit I love having an unexpected day off, even better two of them. We have tomorrow off too. I got out this morning during the snow because I had forgotten my cell phone in the car. I'm not much for braving the cold and snow, but it was nice taking a few pictures. I'm using the time to knit a baby blanket for my nephew who is due in a couple of weeks, a perfect project for today's weather. I promised to make a pie tomorrow if we didn't have school. Looks like I should get out the can of cherries.

Behold

2008-01-31T09:43:00.001-06:00

Journal -2008-01-26, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

Sometimes the covers of our church bulletins are perfect for a journal page. I'm enjoying the cupboard I cleaned out. It's nice having something from Mom's house in my kitchen.

I'm also enjoying a snow day today. It's really coming down. For a few pictures taken through my kitchen window, go to my flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/68499916@N00/ .

New computer

2008-01-27T20:10:00.001-06:00

Journal, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

We finally broke down and bought a Vista computer. So far I love it. I haven't tried to put any of my old software on it yet though. There are lots of things I will miss if they won't work and I'm guessing they won't. Maybe the old one will hang on if I'm not using it much.

Bills, what bills?

2008-01-19T19:13:00.001-06:00

2008-01-13, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

Ok, I'll admit it. Sometimes I forget to pay the bills. So far nothing has been shut off, but we've come close. I had the idea that maybe if I put a chart in my journal and wrote down when I pay the bills, I can keep on top of things better. One can always hope.

I finally got upstairs last weekend and did some cleaning in my atelier, as I finally decided to call my craft/art room. Now if I could just remember how to spell it without having to look it up. I have a tendency sometimes to journal or sketch on whatever is handy. Most of the time the bits and pieces make it into my journal in a timely manner. Sometimes they don't. This sketch was done over a year ago. I found it in a pile of stuff I intended to glue into my journal. Better late than never I guess. I still need to do a couple of pages for a trip we took summer before last that I left blank in my journal. I have lots of ephemera to put in it. I just have a hard time going back and journaling something that is over.

The red squares are from the label off a roll of vynal wallpaper that I used to line my shelves with. When we first graduated from college and got teaching jobs 15 years ago, we bought an older house that needed to be completely re-wallpapered. We went to a warehouse place and bought enough for the whole house for $50. We had enough left over to do one room in this house, the bedroom ceiling here and to line the shelves for the rest of our lives. Talk about a bargain!

New Year's Day 2008

2008-01-08T21:16:00.001-06:00

2008-01-01, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I actually finished this a little before midnight on New Year's eve and went to bed. I was in the mood for New Year's though. I say finished, but I couldn't glue the frame part on until I got the clock hands from the previous page done. Loose stuff in my journal bugs me. I was glad to glue it all down yesterday.

The red stripes are from a flag pharmacy bag. I love the way they show through on the dictionary pages that preceed this page. Somehow the stripes are perfect with all three of the prior pages. I'm liking working with these sections of vintage pages.

New Year's Eve

2008-01-08T21:12:00.001-06:00

2007-12-31, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

This clock belonged to my great-aunt, who gave it to my grandpa, who gave it to me about 15 years ago. It was just a plastic clock, but I enjoyed it. A few years ago it got wet and I dried it out and straightened out the clock face, and it started working again. This time when it fell off top of the medicine cabinet, where I had unwisely put it, barely missing my husband's head, it broke in parts. Of course, I had to save the face for my journal. Those are Modigliani's eyes peeking out.

It's taken me a week to post this because I had the hardest time actually getting the clock into the journal. I punched a hole through the page and even put a patch of other paper under it to strengthen it. Then I couldn't find the other clock hand. It had broken before Christmas and I put the hand somewhere for safe keeping. When I finally found the hand, I didn't have a paper fastener. I have everything else imaginable to work in my journal with, but no regular sized paper fasteners. I planned on bringing one from school, but forgot three days in a row. Finally, yesterday, I stuck a few in my shirt pocket. Then, when I went to put the hands on finally, I couldn't find the shirt. I had taken it off and it was noplace in the house. It turned up on the couch, under my husband. I do like the fact that the hands can move.

December 27, 2007

2007-12-29T22:22:00.001-06:00

December 27, 2007, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I saw a journal page of IHanna's and sketched my version of her girl. After sketching, I went upstairs to add the black watercolor and red lips. I originally got the mouth too high. That's why she looks like she has a five o'clock shadow above her lip.

The candy canes came from the bags our pharmacy was using during the holiday season. I have some labels that I got somewhere that worked great for the journaling here.

A long dry spell

2007-12-28T20:17:00.001-06:00

2007-12-26, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

Early December was really not very productive for me as far as creative endevors go. Between a rotten cold and the disk in my neck, I felt fortunate to do what I had to do. There was no energy left for anything else. I can go just so long though before I start feeling a need to do something creative. Fortunately journal pages fill the need. I still can't look down for the length of time I'd need to knit or sew something.

I did help my granddaughter make a felt jacket for her Sheep today. We both had fun. I placed the needle and held the felt and she pushed and pulled it through. At four she loves to paint, stamp and anything else creative.

Christmas Journal

2007-12-27T17:57:00.001-06:00

2007-12-25, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I was wanting to journal Christmas Day evening, but it was late and I didn't want to drag out the paint and prep the page. I pulled some wrapping paper out of the trash and glued it down and journaled on the white parts of the snowmen and the red tissue. Then I glued strips of green copy paper over the dictionary page and wrote there too. The Wal-mart sticker was laying in the bathroom magazine basket. I like it because it reminds me that it was sunny Christmas day after several days of clouds. This probably isn't my most artistic journal spread, but it was very satisfying to do and I'm sure will bring back memories when I look at it.

Early December pages

2007-12-26T20:36:00.001-06:00

2007-12-04, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I actually did a Christmas page yesterday, but I didn't get it photographed today. My sweet grandgirls came over and I played with them instead. I thought I'd put up the few pages that I got done during my blogging moratorium. Maybe tomorrow I'll take some pictures and put up the new spread.

Victorian Scrap Ornament

2007-12-23T20:14:00.001-06:00

Victorian Scrap Ornament, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

I think I'm going to like this blogging from flickr. I am enjoying my Christmas tree and wanted to share it more. I've been off blogging so long that I have no idea if anyone is still reading. Just in case you'd like to make this ornament or a similar one. I printed the angel from the internet on stiff paper. Then I made an oval from wire that I had strung beads on. I wrapped gold thread around it and tucked in the angel. A bit of gold tinsel garland finished it off.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-22T20:16:00.001-06:00

Christmas ornaments, originally uploaded by Crazyquilter.

It's starting to look more like Christmas around here. We got the tree up last week, but it took that long to fully decorate it. I've been having problems with my neck. I have a new empathy for people with back and neck pain. I'm on vacation until January second, so hopefully the rest will help.

I've been a bad journaler and a worse blogger lately. Maybe discovering this nifty way to blog from Flickr will help with the blogging anyway. I find it easier to post pictures to flickr by far than to post to the blog. Doing both, with my ancient computer and dial-up internet is torture. I just put several close-ups of my ornaments up at flickr if anyone is interested in seeing them. Several are hand made and I included instructions for a few of them.

My mom made the egg in this picture by crocheting a cover for it. The eggs were blown and painted gold. I made the two embroidered ornaments several years ago. I suddenly got tired of my old seventies homespun tree and wanted a Victorian one.

The gold walnut I carefully cracked, glued a wire inside for a hanger, glued it back together and spray painted gold. I made a dozen of them, but I had to crack a lot of nuts to get that many without breaking them to bits.

Nearing the end of my seventh compo journal

2007-10-13T15:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I'm in a down mood journaling perks me up. Sometimes, as below, I just wind up with a dreary, whiney journal page. I put it below because I couldn't stand the idea of starting my blog post with it. My second try worked out better. I started the page above with varying shades of purple. Light and cheery. Before I was done I had darkened it considerably. Notice my notes to myself encouraging my mood to lift, lift.

I get tickled now when I look at this page. I think that evening the blue gate finally did the trick. I really want a new gate in my back yard going down to the creek. You can see it from the kitchen window and I'd dearly love to find a vintage one to hang there. The barb wire fence wouldn't even bother me, if I had a cool gate.

This page prooves another thing, that I am a true packrat. I've had that little photo of a crazy quilt rooster since 1989 when I got a catalog with it in it. I kept the whole catalog because of that little rooster until a couple of years ago when I finally tore it out. Now after all those years it has a home in my journal.

Sometimes I'm not particularly ready to work with one of the vintage pages in my journal. I think this one was an example. I found the scissors and words on an old pattern tissue that had some ads on it. I recently ran across a crazyquilter online who actually finished a quilt project that I also embarked on, but quickly fizzled - a Y2K quilt that was to have 2,000 pieces. 200 blocks with 10 pieces in each block, all of them different. I had a couple of swaps to get different fabrics. I think I finished about 10 blocks and traded for a few more. Then I got distracted by paper arts and never went back to it. I had forgotten the project until I saw the finished quilt online. She said that she gave up on the numbers, but still has a very pretty finished quilt. The seam stitch drawings and words on this page I think came about as a result of this. I'd like to do some crazyquilting some time soon. I just don't seem to pick it up and get started. I'd like ot make a cover for my current journal like I planned back in January when I started it. Maybe if my sewing/craft room weren't such a mess...

The bird on the right page was inspired by this cool page . I messed up the wing. I thought I would go up and paint over the part that was too long, but I decided to just leave it.

My sweet Madelyn has decided that she likes to draw in my journal. I was showing it to her mom on Monday and she wanted to find a white page. We were asking her who that was that she drew and she said, "It's me!" and threw out her arms, fingers spread wide and threw her head back and got a wide smile on her face. Her mom said that she has a set of antennae that she wears with her tutu and fairy wings. She also added the rows of stamping with her Dora stamp.

The Sarasa packaging is from a new pen set that I got at Staples on Monday. I really like them. I've used Sarasas before and they really last for me, plus they have a nice size line. I just wish I could find one in olive green to replace the one that I used all the ink out of. It was a favorite for months.

I also picked up a vinyl covered composition book to make my next journal out of. One of my students had one in black and I really liked the feel of it. I found this one at Wal-mart. I used it to make my Volume Eight journal from. I deconstructed it and a quad rule compo book sent to me by an online friend and put it back together with aboug half quad-rule pages and half vintage pages from old books Thursday night. One more page in the current journal and I'll be ready to start this one. I laced some bright threads through the stitching on the spine to liven it up some. I don't know if I'll add to the cover or leave it like it is.

A few in between pages

2007-10-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I just want to write in my journal. Pages like this one fill the bill. The pink in the speech bubble is paper that I took off our new windows.

My niece spent the weekend with us and was working on her scrapbook that she will leave here and work on when she comes over. I don't like to put the girls' faces up on the interenet, thus the leaf. She drew the fox and rainbow that I included on this page.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to put on these in between pages and I thought of these baby photos of my husband and myself. These are photocopies of the originals.

I did the pages in the last three photos in one setting. I have a tendency to treat spreads with the smaller pages in between as one spread.

Volume Seven of my journal is nearly filled. I'm contemplating what I want to use next. I had almost decided to just use a quad-rule composition book that a friend sent me, but I'm starting to think that I would miss the vintage pages if I do that. Maybe I will re-bind a new book using the quad pages, regular pages, and vintage pages with some brown paper feed sack pages thrown in. I'm hoping I can find one of those cool embossed looking black notebooks I've been seeing at school for the cover.

Someone Witchy

2007-10-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

I've been in the mood to sketch dolls lately I guess. Last night I spotted this adorable witch on Ulla's blog and the next thing I knew I had my pen and a sheet of printer paper out and in action. The journaling is all about my October 28 birthday and how I used to have Halloween birthday parties. Seeing the dolls dressed up on Ulla's blog has inspired me to put mine in costume for the holiday. I'm hoping to start this week and dress as many as I can find costumes for. It's been a while since I've had them all out on display.

I was tickled when I saw the new GPP Streat Team Crusade. At first I thought, "Goth, I'll never have anything for that." Then I read a bit farther and realized that Michelle was talking about Halloween decorations. I just finished a page last night and hadn't even glued the witch down yet. I get to be one of the first to post. Our leaves here in Arkansas haven't fallen yet as it looks in the journal picture. There were some branches down in the back yard that we had to cut when the new roof went on. I thought they would be a good backdrop for the Halloween page.

The checkerboard on the background was stamped with a piece of foam that I pulled off one of our new windows. Each window had two of these foam pieces glued on to keep them from bumping into each other during shipping, I guess. I immediately thought of stamping with them when I saw them. We have eight of the nine windows in the new part of the house put in. Siding is next, probably some weather-proof insulation board first. These windows are in the bedroom-to-be. Unless it gets changed into a new living room. We are loving the four big windows (3' x 6')and talking about changing our plan.

Numbers...I have them tonight

2007-10-03T19:12:00.000-05:00

I was thinking last night about Dawn Sokol's book, 1,000 Journal Pages, that she is working on, and it occurred to me that I might be reaching around that number of individual pages myself soon. I counted them tonight and I've passed it! 1,024 pages to be exact. I'm a bit impressed with myself. That is just pages since I started painting my compo book spreads. There are a lot more with just writing, and writing with some visual stuff glued in. Lots of memories stored in those books.

Just now when I went to log in here, I discovered that this is my 601st blog entry. Another big number. I guess if nothing else, the numbers prove that I'm persistant. Not very timely maybe. I'm playing catch-up again. But I do seem to be persistant.

You know you're a journaler when you find a dead frog in the washing machine and the first thing you do is put it on the scanner to include in your journal. After the scan was on the page, I realized that I had labeled the back and front incorrectly. Oh well, I'm not a scientist.

I found this mosaic that my son made in high school a couple of weeks ago. This is a scan. I'm wanting to frame the original. For now it's displayed on my bookshelf.

The flowers on this page are made from shaped erasers that I carved the center out of. The stem and leaves are more eraser stamps. I think they turned out pretty cute. Definately have potential to use somewhere else.

I added some to this page, but I'm too tired to take another photo. So far the curtains haven't gotten made. I hope it doesn't take me two years like it did from the time I bought fabric for my kitchen curtains and journaled about it. I still haven't made the chair slipcovers that I planned.

I have more pages to post, but I'll save them for another post. My dial-up is working even slower than normal tonight. On to my second thousand pages.

Catching up

2007-09-22T18:14:00.000-05:00

I haven't felt much like blogging lately, but I have done some journaling. My main news is that I finally bought a new camera. I'm really enjoying it. I'm looking forward to hopefully taking some photos of my grandgirls tomorrow.

In other news, the roof is finally done on the new part of the house. Johnny asked what I thought about moving the kitchen to that part. I'm thinking about it, but it will be hard to change kitchens. It's such an integral part of the house and I've had the same one for nearly thirty years.

Crushes

2007-09-09T17:53:00.000-05:00

Crusade Number 12 over at GPP Streat Team is Crush. I wasn't sure what to think of that until I realized that Michelle was talking about what I consider fazes or obsessions. I've been through several, starting with dollhouse miniatures in my teens. I bought every magazine or book I could find on the subject. I corresponded with people across the world (before Internet) trading my handmade miniatures for what others made. I spent endless hours with them. And then I was done, so done that I could only find one photo on my flickr stream.

This photo actually shows several of my next crushes. About the time that I finally got online, I developed a big crush on crazyquilting. So big that my alias on several sites is still Crazyquilter.

I got into web pages and mailing lists at that time and spent endless hours with both with a crazyquilt theme. The little doll in the middle of the wreath was my next crush, or rather taking pictures of her wherever I went and sharing them online. Dolls have been an on and off crush all my life.

Altered books came next and I spent a couple of years learning how to do things with paper, paint, scissors and glue. Then came my current crush/obsession of visual journals. I've nearly filled seven composition books. I love looking at other people's journals, books about them, and of course working in my own. I have a thing for recording. Everything paper and some things that aren't find their way into my journal. The phone sketch below on my lastest journal page was done in my car on a light bill that is postdated May 16, 2005. It's been floating around my workspace ever since then waiting to find a spot on a journal page. I go weeks sometimes without journaling, but it always draws me back.

My crush always seems to have lots to do with creativity. Other crushes along the way included making doll clothes, knitting and taking pictures through my kitchen window. I can't seem to go very long without making something.

Collaborative Effort

2007-09-07T18:45:00.000-05:00

Drat, I knew collaboration had two l's. I even tried to look it up in my art room dictionary, but that page had been torn out to use in a project. Oh well, I can't spell. It's really no secret to anyone who knows me.

I had a wonderful time with my grandgirls and son and daughter-in-law this weekend. Right before they went home I wanted to show them the photo I took a few weeks ago of the turkeys and deer together in our garden. I had one printed out in my journal. Madelyn, who is four now, wanted to draw on a page in my journal that I had prepped for a vacation page this spring and still haven't done yet. I suggested the next empty page and she was happy to draw there. It was a lot of fun working with her drawings on the page. I'm looking forward to doing this lots in the future.

The fruit stickers are from Umberto in Italy. I still have several more to put in my journal. I love getting these in the mail. When Maddie finished the drawing on the right of the page, I asked her if it was Larry the Cucumber. She is in a Veggie Tales phase right now. Her birthday party in August had that theme and she has an adorable green t-shirt with Larry's face on it, so it was a pretty safe guess. She told me, "Yes, he's jumping."

2007-09-01T14:15:00.001-05:00

I'm looking forward to the long week-end. The second week of school went well. I got a new marker board and new rain-gutter bookshelves for my free choice reading books. The room looks great

I know better than to go upstairs at 9:30 PM, thinking I'll work in my journal for half an hour. I wound up spending three hours, but I had fun. I guess it was worth it. The doll's skirt on this page is loose at the side because there is journaling underneath it. This is the first time I've tried something like this in a journal. I discovered that if you are going to use glitter glue, it needs to be the last thing to go on the page and you difinitely don't want to work on the next page while it is still wet.

Today I took some books I was wanting rid of to our local second-hand bookstore. They took nearly everything I had and I wound up with these fun books and the stencil for only $3.10. I'm not sure if the science book is Chinese or Japanese, but it has some great diagrams. I'm looking forward to using it in collages. The open book is A Guide to Making Decorated Papers by Anne Chambers. I hope it will motivate me to try some of her papers. The block print ones look especially enticing.

The Queen of Saturday

2007-08-25T13:58:00.000-05:00

Once school starts, I become the Queen of Saturday. I don't want to do anything except enjoy myself and relax. The first week back is always hard and this was no exception. I'm always stressed about getting the classes off on the right foot and that keeps me from sleeping right which makes it hard to function the next day, and makes it even more difficult to get the classes off on the right foot. I feel pretty good about how the week went all-in-all.

I finally broke down and ordered the 1000 Journals book. It is my new bathroom reading. I'm enjoying it a lot. The book feels nice in your hand too. Lots of inspiration here.

I've Been Contemplating

2007-08-17T17:28:00.000-05:00

Do I need more storage, or less stuff?

Sometimes I think more storage would be great and other times that I just need to get rid of a bunch of stuff that I don't need. I did get rid of some this summer and I really haven't bought much.

I was sitting here earlier and suddenly felt the need to go upstairs and work in my journal. Didn't matter that the kitchen was a mess. I got to it after the page was done. The sketch I did a few days ago during an inservice. It was my granddaughter's fourth birthday, so I added the cake and phrase stamp that was sitting out because I had used it for her card. That's why lots of stuff makes it to my pages. It was sitting there with-in my reach as I did them. The strawberries and cherries above the drawing came from the tops of jelly jars. The jelly was great and I like the jars too. I'm starting to get a little collection of them. I've been wanting to add green tea tags all summer. Johnny has been drinking quite a bit of it iced while he works on the house. It takes eight bags for each gallon.

I carved the seven while working on this page. That makes one, two and seven. I also drew the nine/six on the eraser. I figured I'd carve it next since it was a twofer.

Last day of summer vacation

2007-08-13T21:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the last day of summer vacation. I went to church in the morning, and then came home and mostly vegged. About 5:30 my husband looked out the window toward the garden and called me to come and see. The flock of turkeys that we have watched in our field for the last two months was in our garden. The babies are nearly as big as the two moms. As we were watching the turkeys eat the grass and bugs, the doe and fawns that have been around for the past few weeks ambled into view. It was a blast watching the fawns interact with the turkeys. Of course, I grabbed the camera and tried to get some photos. I managed to get a couple of decent ones. Later, before I went to bed at the new and improved earlier time, I printed them out and journaled.

When we went out to wash the car we had to shoo the deer away. There were another doe and fawn that we didn't see from the window.

2007-08-07T21:36:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in reading about the process of my journal pages, but I thought it might be fun to record one.

I woke up early this morning and was told to quit moving around, so I thought I would do something in one of my books. I really had no ideas, so I grabbed one of my journaling books, Altered Books, Collaborative Journals, and Other Adventures in Bookmaking by Holly Harrison and opened it at random, thinking that I would try to incorporate at least one thing from what I found on the page into my journal or one of my altered books. This is the page I wound up with. I grabbed my journal and headed upstairs.

The page on the left appealed to me, but not for a journal page. I've been working in a red, white and black altered book for quite a while now. I usually use found text in this one. First I looked for some words that I could work with and circled them with a grey colored pencil because we have a pencil-stealing gremlin in this house and no matter how many I buy there is never one when I need it. There must be one at school too, because neither I, nor any of my seventh-graders ever has one. But I digress. After finding the words, I spread some red fluid acrylic paint with a sponge on the edges of the spread. Then I painted in antique white around the words with a brush and then dry brushed the rest of the spread in antique white. At this point I sat the book aside to dry, intending to sketch a woman on the right page.

I picked up my journal and thinking I might turn an interesting piece of a red magazine photo into something similar to the heart on the right photo of Harrison's book, I got to work. The left page of my spread was a piece of an old German book that I sewed into the compo book when I reconstructed it. The pages are really fragile and I had forgotten to strengthen them when I did the first side, so I grabbed some masking tape and went all around the edges of the page. For good measure I added some to the right page too.

Since I was doing a red heart and I had some read paint on my pallet still, I spread it on the right page and worked some into the masking tape on the left side. It looked pretty flat, so I dry brushed some antique white on both pages. The texture was starting to happen

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I started this post two days ago and had my computer freeze up. Luckily Blogger now does lots of mini saves. Unfortunately, I've totally lost my train of thought and have no idea how I planned on finishing the post. Rather than start over, I thought I'd just post this.

Today is my last totally unencumbered day before school starts back next week. I've been upstairs making mail art all morning and now I need to clean the house a bit. The mail art is a lot of fun, I'll probably pop back up and work on it some more too.

The Discard Pile

2007-08-07T11:48:00.000-05:00

I cleaned out the kitchen cabinets yesterday. Snatched this out of the discard pile this morning. This will probably find its way into my journal somehow. Moral of the story...when you de-clutter, get rid of the give away stuff quickly.

2007-08-06T22:09:00.000-05:00

It's back to school for me next week. I have slept like a baby all summer and suddenly last night I didn't get to sleep until after 4 AM. I don't want to start that!

I've had a busy couple of weeks to sum it up, I had a cool teacher's inservice on altered books Mon and Tue of week before last. It lasted two days and we played in books the whole time. Most of the other attendees were new to altered books, but most of them were art teachers so the pages were cool. One man was an agri teacher. The presenter wondered what he was doing there and tried her best to include him and help him make a book that reflected his area. He said the nicest thing when we had show and tell at the end. He said it was the most pleasant workshop he'd been to. Usually people complain and gripe at inservice and want to be anywhere else, but he said we all smiled the whole time and were happy to be there. I had a cold and got a migraine the second day and I still enjoyed myself.

Wed I canned tomatoes and also the following Sun. I baby sat my sweet granddaughters Thur, Fri, Mon and Tue. The little one had a hard time sleeping and we had some quality time around midnight all three nights. She was so content just to sit on the couch next to me while everyone else slept. Wed I came down with walking pneumonia. That's not an experience I care to repeat. Fortunately the Z-pack took care of it quickly. This last Sat was my nearly four-year-old sweetie's Veggie Tale birthday party in the park.

I went out last night to pick tomatoes. I got side-tracked by my marigolds and zinnias they are putting on an awesome display. We don't often get the amount of rain we've had this summer and they are showing out. It tickles me to think that all this beauty came from $2 or $3 worth of seeds. Several of the flowers had dried while I was so busy, so I picked them and sprinkled the seeds around the edge of the yard. We have had them volunteer in the past and I'm hoping if I scatter seeds they'll do it again. Thankfully I didn't have enough tomatoes to can. There were plenty to eat and that suits me just fine. I've canned 84 quarts this summer and I don't mind if I don't have to do any more. We will enjoy them this winter I'm sure.

Yet more tomatoes

2007-07-23T23:12:00.000-05:00

I went to a teacher inservice today on altered books. It was fun. I got to see several books made by highschoolers in response to literature. One was supposed to look as if it had been used by a WWII soldier in the field as a journal. The boy took it home and used it for target practice. It was a really effective book. I got to share some of my books too and worked on a new book for geography. I'm not too thrilled with the book I started. I'm hoping tomorrow I can just work on one of my unfinished altered books instead.

When I got home I had to can the tomatoes I picked yesterday. I wound another 22 quarts canned with onions and sweet banana peppers . I finished at 11:00 PM. I'm bushed, but need to unwind before I go to sleep. Too tired to journal I'm afraid.

2007-07-22T22:47:00.000-05:00

My Grandma is Gone...

It's a haunting refrain that echoes

Over and over in my head,

Or pops up to announce itself afresh

When least expected.

After one of life's small pleasures, I think,
I should write Grandma -- she would enjoy this.
Then I remember...
My grandma is gone.

Leafing through a magazine

I spot a faded photo in a frame.
And there it is again...
My grandma is gone.

The ceramic ducks that graced her kitchen counter

since memory began
Now find their home on mine.
They murmur every day...
My grandma is gone.

When I look into the mirror I see her shape, her legs.
My grandma is gone -- yet some of her remains.
I send a card to cheer, to thank.
There she is again.

The last two months of misery and pain, she begged,
"Pray for it to end." -- so I prayed.
And when it came there was sorrow,
But more relief.

And now, weeks later, the ache and emptiness reign.
The tears stream down my face.
I weep. Too soon, too soon.

My grandma is gone.

I felt really close to my grandma tonight when I put her ducks up on the window sill from where they usually sit on the counter underneath it to photograph them. I knew I had to dig out this poem that almost wrote itself one morning in 1996, a few weeks after my grandma died.

I still miss her. She was my rock. Since my mom worked, she babysat me from the time I was 18 months old until I was seven. When we moved to California from Ohio a couple of years later, I always spent summers with her and Grandpa.

Her presence always fills my mind on her birthday, July 13, especially when it falls on a Friday like it did this year. She was born on a Friday 13, 1906 and always said it was her lucky day.

Why journal?

2007-07-21T00:12:00.000-05:00

Dawn Sokol asked the question on her blog a few days ago, "Why journal?" I just ran across the post tonight and it sent looking for a spread I did in one of my journals on the same subject. I didn't find the spread, but it did inspire another one.
It reads, in part...because I have a lousy memory and would forget too many things I want to remember without it...because it gives me a creative rush...it's a way to satisfu my need for color and pattern... I love sharing my journals with family and online...it's a place for all those bits and pices that I've always kept, but never had any place to put them...intorspection...a record of the snippets of daily life... it calms me down after a stressful day...things don't get lost in my journal...it's a place for addresses, recipes, birthdays... I like to...it's an excuse to buy cool pens, rubber stamps and other stuff...I don't seem to be able not to for long...it's a place to practice ideas and skills...my doodles have a home...it makes me feel good when I'm done... probably a more important question, at least for me... Why not?

I could have added that it's a reason to stay up all hours of the night and be tired the next day. That's happened more times than I care to think about and here I am again. My picture turned out lousy after searching for ten minutes for the camera. Sorry. I'll probably try to take it outside again tomorrow for flickr. I was afraid that I had left the camera at church this morning. VBS is over and I'm pleased with the way it turned out and glad it doesn't happen again til next year. It is definitely worth it, but those little ones take so much energy.

I really need to get a new camera and a light set up. I even have a camera picked out and the money to buy it. I just need to get it done.

I wanted to mention a bit about how I did this page. One of my favorite ways to start a page is to find something in a magazine that speaks to me and go from there. I like matching the colors and the mood on my page. Tonight it was the arm and bracelets of a model in a Free People catalog. The page was laying on my art room floor. I must get that place cleaned!

Canning time again

2007-07-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

No journal pages today. After VBS I helped figure out how big to make the windows in our new dining room and exactly where to put them. After helping mark the boards, I headed to the garden to pick tomatoes. It didn't take me very long to determine that I would be canning tonight.

As I type the jars are clicking to let me know they are sealed. I would up with 20 1/2 quarts. I stopped to snap a few pictures as I was working them.

I thought I'd share. One more day of VBS tomorrow. I'm enjoying it, but it will be nice for it to be over too. I have to figure out how to make the angel ornaments and cut the parts before I leave tomorrow.

VBS Week

2007-07-18T17:57:00.001-05:00

My mornings this week have been spent at Vacation Bible School. My niece is going with me and we are having a good time together. It doesn't leave a lot of time or energy for much else though. I'm used to older kids. The little ones require so much energy! That's me on the journal page back when I had lots of energy.

I did manage to finish up one journal page yesterday and then went on to do another simple one. On Monday we went to McDonald's after VBS. On the counter was this huge fake $100 bill with the president's portrait cut out. My niece told me that I needed it for my book. The girl behind the counter told me I could have it, so here it is.

Most of my journal pages get photographed here on the back deck. Our cat Harry is usually tons of help.

Today was a tomato kind of day

2007-07-13T23:08:00.000-05:00

I had a request in a comment on the last post to give more information on how I made the "Jenga" stamps. I got the whole Jenga set for a quarter, so I've been using these great little blocks for stamps ever since. Any wooden or plastic block would work. The striped stamps used strips of leftover rubber from full sheets of unmounted rubber stamps that I bought. I just cut them to fit and stuck them to the block with double-sided tape. Another style of homemade stamps I've made use fun foam. The checked one you can see in the photo (last post) was made with fun foam. I did these the same way as the scrap rubber ones. You can also use the fun foam shapes.

Now on to the tomatoes. I knew I was going to have to pick them today and that before I could do that the branches that were hanging down over the tops of the cages and blocking the rows would have to be tied up. I got an old skirt that I've been trying to convince myself needed to go in the trash and tore it up in strips to do the job. We have our normal fifty or so plants, so it took me a while. When I was done my hands were a horrendous shade of deep green. I cleaned up and took a nap.

After dinner, I started washing jars and tomatoes. By the time I got ready to can it was after nine o'clock. I didn't finish until 11:00. Wound up with eight quarts. We usually can around a hundred quarts each summer. We'll see how the tomatoes hold up.

Blog surfing

2007-07-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

I spent an enjoyable evening surfing some new blogs Tuesday. I saw Belinda's blog for the first time. What a treat! She takes part in Michelle Ward's GPP Street Team Crusades which I had somehow managed to miss also. What fun! Now I just need to find the time to follow all the links on the Crusade blog. They are up to Crusade (kind of a challenge) number ten, but you can join in on the current one and have your blog linked by doing one of the past ones. How cool is that! They all look like fun. Crusade No. 8 - Cheap Tricks is one I can for sure contribute to. On of my favorites is to cut an eraser with a serated knife and stamp with the resulting edge. You can see that to the left of the row of postage stamps above in red and black.

Another new favorite is to use a hospital wrist tag as a stencil. I like the row of tiny dots like you can see above the lady's portrait.

Another favorite is to make new stamps from the scraps from UM stamp pages. The tone-on-tone stripes at the top and bottom of the page above were done with a stamp made from a Jenga block and some strips. I used a different one for the writing part of yesterday's page.

The current crusade No. 10 is mail art. Too bad I was in too big a hurry last week when I sent some off to take a picture. That's what happens when you procrastinate getting things sent. I did enjoy the recipient's telling me that her mailman hand delivered it with a big smile on his face because he didn't want to bend it.

More wall building is in tomorrow's plans. I'm hoping that we will have some of them vertical by the week-end.

The Wall

2007-07-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

I spent yesterday helping to frame the first wall in our new bedroom. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought it might be and when it was finished I had a sense of accomplishment as well as sore shoulders and a bit of a sunburn. You'd think that I'd realize at this stage in my life that my fair skin burns even when the sun is hiding behind a cloud. I wasn't a tremendous amount of help I'm sure, but I did measure and mark boards and helped carry a few. It doesn't look like much in the photo, but this new wall will have two large windows facing Bay Creek. I'm starting to get excited about the prospect.

The bug is a photocopy of a dobsonfly. It spent the night in my bathroom last night. I thought I recognized it from my oldest son's 4-H bug collection. It was on the floor dead this morning, so I thought, "Cool, I'll scan it for my journal." I was checking online to make sure it really is a dobsonfly and discovered that the females can use those pinchers to deliver a painful bite. Who knew?

2007-07-08T16:48:00.000-05:00

After I finished yesterdays post, I went to Big Huge Labs and made my first mosaic there. It won't be my last. I see now why people make so many of them. Fun, fun.

Beth found the link for me for the face generator. I'm looking forward to playing with that again.

2007-07-07T22:57:00.000-05:00

I got up today looking forward to taking photos for the 07_07_07 Flickr group. 7,777 people from all over the world are supposed to take and post seven photos each. Being the over-achiever that I am, I wound up taking 148 photos. I narrowed it down to 28 photos to actually upload to a Flickr set. I still haven't picked which seven will get posted to the group. I took photos of our house, Bay Creek, our cows, our yard, etc... I didn't leave home so they were all taken close to home.

One of the photos I post will definately be this journal entry. I like the idea of promoting journaling to people who maybe haven't seen visual journaling yet.

I've been wanting to try a self-portrait stencil since I read a post from Mary Ann a couple of days ago. She's been doing portrait stencils and they look great. For a first stencil, I think it turned out pretty good. Unfortunately, it slipped when I was putting it on the journal page. The practice tries look a lot better. I'll be trying it in the journal again. I want to make one of a photo I have of my grandma with marcelle waves. I'll be making more I'm sure. I hope I learn to keep them still while I'm spraying the paint.

The self-portrait at the top-left of the journal page is one that I made online quite some time ago. You uploaded a photo and the web site gave you portraits as if they were painted by different artists. The only one I liked well enough to save was this one in the style of Modigliani. I'd like to try again with a different photo if I can find the site again.

Newest journal pages

2007-07-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

I have a few journal pages to catch up with here, but I think I will just post this one tonight. Dial-up internet is so slow when it comes to uploading photos. All of the recent ones can be seen at the bottom of my Flickr art journal set. If I get a chance on DSL at my son's I may try to post them here too.

One Window to the World - 1,000 photos

2007-07-05T21:21:00.000-05:00

I put my 100th picture of my kitchen window into my Flickr set earlier this week and just today the 1,000th photo went up in my One Window to the World group. We have 343 members from 38 countries on 6 continents.

It has been great sharing my view with others all over the world and even more so sharing their view also. I've learned so much from looking at these photographs, reading the captions and asking questions. I'm looking forward to the next 1,000!

Summer is flying by

2007-07-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's the fifth of July already. I spent a week taking down wallpaper, texturing and painting three of the walls in my computer room while trying to get over a summer cold. The cold is gone now and the walls look wonderful. The color is called paper sack and that's probably fitting since I covered the ceiling in the living room with actual torn brown paper feed sacks. It took me another two days to put my photo wall back up. I'm still not completely done. I picked this blurred photo on purpose because it doesn't show my family member's faces. I'm not comfortable putting them on the blog for all to see, but I did want to give you a peek at what the room looks like. I love sitting here surrounded by photos of all my loved ones.

2007-05-25T21:35:00.000-05:00

I went for a walk yesterday evening with my camera. I've been wanting to take some pictures of the daisies that are covering our fields and those of many of our neighbors.

When I came home I put the daisies I picked into a vase and sat them in my kitchen window. I've been taking pictures nearly daily of this window for the last three months. You can see many of them along with some older ones here.

2007-05-25T21:20:00.000-05:00

I've been terrible about blogging lately and only a little better about journaling. I have been adding lots of pictures to my flickr account, so if you'd like to see what I've been up to check it out.

I did get this page done this week. I started out to make a grocery list and started sketching my Blythe doll who was sitting next to the computer. The Free People catalog that I had picked up to support the paper as I wrote wound up getting sketched too and it seemed natural to put it on the journal page.

Today was the last day of school for the year. Yeah!!! I'm off to the zoo tomorrow with my son and his family. Hopefully I'll have more time and desire to do the things I like to do now that I don't have to go to work for a while. Summer is definately the best part of teaching.

Yikes, it's been a month

2007-04-28T21:47:00.000-05:00

I haven't just been ignoring my blog. I've been ignoring my journal too. I can't believe that it's been a month since I've posted and I only have two pages to show. Actually on the day I did the second page, I also did three spreads in my White Book and I'll post those too on my White Book blog. I've been taking lots of pictures, mostly of my kitchen window. If you're at all interested they can be seen here.

I actually have several other pages in my journal, but they are just lists of the members for my Flickr: One Window to the World group. I wanted to have a list of the locations and member names and figured since I wasn't putting anything else in my journal I'd put them there. Hopefully, I'll get back in gear now that I've started journaling again. This reminds me of my old days of text-only journaling where every other page began, "It's been ages since I've written..."

If my hands are stained black and red...

2007-03-28T12:17:00.000-05:00

it must mean I'm journaling again. I have been in a black hole of journaling lately. No excuse either since I'm even on spring break this week. Keeping up with my blog seems to be even harder since I did journal around the fifteenth and that's not been posted. I have been sticking things in flickr. To see what I've been up to go there and scroll down a bit.

Surfing the web again.

2007-03-03T16:56:00.000-06:00

I don't seem to be able to tear myself away from the computer lately. There are just too many interesting things to see, especially in people's flickr photostreams.

I stopped at the thrift store on the way home on Friday and got a cool vest. It's all wool patchwork. It and a rayon skirt, five Fisher Price peek-a-boo blocks for my grandbaby (I keep adding to her collection.), six small stuffed animals to use in my Spanish stories at school, a small plastic doll chair and a McDonald's Happy Meal hamburger transformer came to $2.15.

New eraser stamp

2007-02-28T21:18:00.000-06:00

I'm back to doing a little at a time. I saw the idea for an erasor stamp online and sketched it here, thinking I might carve one later. Instead I went right uptairs and carved the stamp. I used it to decorate a couple of envelopes and of course the next page in my journal which isn't done yet.

One Window to the World

2007-02-24T13:27:00.000-06:00

Text on the red reads: One of the members of my Flickr: One Window to the World group posted a picture today of two of the most famous volcanoes in Mexico, Popo and the Sleeping Lady, as seen through her window. I just love the idea of this group and hope it catches on and a whole community forms world-wide, sharing their every day views.

I started the group three days ago and we already have 46 members and 27 photos. I'd like to invite all of those who read this to check it out and join in. We already have some awesome photos. I can't wait to see what we get over time.

By the way, if you do check out the group, I know there are a bunch of typos on the group page. I was tired and excited about starting the group when I typed it and I can't figure out how to edit it. If anyone knows how, I'd appreciate your help.

Parakeets

2007-02-23T20:06:00.000-06:00

Well, I just got switched kicking and screaming to the new blogger. We'll see.

The lower left drawing was done by my sweet Madelyn. She is writing her name now. I need to have her write it in my journal soon.

More TV sketches

2007-02-20T19:14:00.000-06:00

I had a post typed earlier and we got a pop-up thunderstorm. After loosing several televisions and a couple of answering machines to lightning over the years, I'm a stickler for unplugging stuff. So I lost the post and the train of thought.

My living room

2007-02-17T13:12:00.000-06:00

I sketched a corner of my living room while watching a movie this week. I wasn't able to get much journaling done, but I did add a few sentences over several days.

2007-02-12T19:55:00.000-06:00

I'm kind of journaling back and forth lately. These two spreads are the inside of the last two I posted. I like working on the old book pages for a change. This brings up something that has kind of bugged me lately. I keep seeing the phrase "altered art journal". Just exactly what is that supposed to be? Isn't a journal for writing, painting, arting, etc...? Don't you call one that hasn't been worked in just an empty journal? I get altered books. They were meant for another purpose and using them for art is altering or changing them. Calling a journal altered just seems silly to me.

Ok, I'm getting off my soapbox and going to watch 24.

Cows I have known

2007-02-10T11:47:00.000-06:00

One of my lists had an assignment to make a spread on your favorite animal week before last. I thought and thought and didn't come up with an animal that I liked more than others. Then we got a sales paper that had this photo of three pretty Jersey cows. I got to thinking of all the cows I have been around and this spread came about. I wrote two pages of cow tales, but could have easily filled two more, and if I had gotten started on bulls...

What if I wanted to paint the sky green?

2007-02-08T21:02:00.000-06:00

I was so irritated with this page when I first finished it that I thought I wouldn't post it. The flowers/date especially drove me crazy. The more I did the muddier and uglier they got. I just do not like working with Sharpie markers. I like the idea and will try it again, but this time it sure didn't turn out. Maybe I was just too tired.

The next day it still did nothing for me. I got some great fruit stickers from Spain and added them in. Still not one of my best, but somehow the balance was corrected I guess and it's growing on me.

Women of the World

2007-02-05T19:53:00.000-06:00

I posted a challenge to the CompositionArtJournals group on Saturday to make a grid page using this inspiration page and share it with the group.

This is my grid. I started it by drawing some squares with a pen and then pulled out a couple of issues of one my favorite magazines to cut up: Veranda. Most of the images came from the two issues with a couple from a Victoria magazine and the three from an issue of Metropolitan Home that had a top 100 design issue with tons of great numbers to use.

The women theme developed as I went along. I had sketched the three faces the night before and wanted to include them. At first I wasn't pleased that they weren't going to fit into the squares, but I love the way they overlap now. The color and designs started out because the one face looked medieval to me, so I picked the dark reds and the rich fabrics to match. I think it's cool that all these images and words came together from such a few magazines.

Snow days

2007-02-03T18:03:00.000-06:00

Yeah! My disk drive worked just now so that I could upload my photos. I've tried since Thursday to put my snowy day photo on the computer so that I could print it out in my journal. That's why I have a blank page in this series of pages ~ waiting to be able to add the photo to it. I'm enjoying the challenge of working with the vintage pages. These are the first ones I've come to since starting the journal.

The small drawing of the girl and dog is my Ann Estelle doll by Robert Tonner. I made the outfit she's wearing.

I'm loving this new concept of doing pages a bit at a time over a period of days. There are days when I just don't feel like doing a whole spread or really, really don't have the time. On those days it's nice just to do a doodle or write a little bit. Often, I do a whole spread just like I always have once I sit down to journal and get in the groove.

I glued in the magazine photo of the Matisse drawing to remind me about sketching loose. He managed to get so much recorded with just a few bold lines. The sketch of the girl is one I sketched from a drawing I found online.

Fighting with the computer

2007-01-27T12:02:00.000-06:00

I just spent an hour messing with my computer. First when I put floppy disk in to take this photo off, it wouldn't read the disk. I peeked in and decided that maybe all the dust bunnies in the drive had something to do with it. So, I vacuumed through the little door which I held open and broke. By the time I figured out how to get the case off so I could figure out what to do with the broken drive door, I was pretty frustrated. More dust bunnies inside the case, so I vacuumed there too. May not have been a good idea. I finally decided I couldn't get the little door to work and just took it off. When I got all the cords plugged back in and started it up all it would do is beep. I took it apart again and managed to get it to start and read the drive for one photo. I suspect the drive is about shot. Speaking of shot, it now shoots the disks out like a gun. I may need a new computer in addition to a camera.

Blue

2007-01-25T20:45:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I go for a cup of herb tea when I'm in one of these moods. Last night I attempted to journal it away. I was somewhat successful. At least I was able to sleep well when I was finished. I really need to get around to getting another camera or figure out how to get better quality inside photos out of this one. There is a lot more detail on this page then is showing in this photo. Maybe I'll try again when it gets warm and sunny out. Probably not.

Time to take down the fruit stickers

2007-01-20T19:51:00.000-06:00

When I have fruit, I take the sticker off and put it on the shelf over my kitchen sink. Every so often it gets full and I stick them into my journal. It looks a little bare for a while afterwards until they start accumulating again.

More faces

2007-01-20T19:42:00.000-06:00

I did some sketching while watching TV. I'm not quick enough to get anything from just a glimpse, but fortunately most of the actors keep reapearing in nearly the same pose. The lady in the corner is from a photo I posted on the Jan. 6 journal spread. I want to try drawing her again. She has such an interesting face.

The gold candy paper seems to need something on it, but nothing I tried worked. Something will probably turn up.

Coveralls

2007-01-12T21:48:00.000-06:00

I was going to just write, but Johnny's coveralls hanging on the log wall made me want to sketch them. I had told the story of the patch on the new coveralls earlier to some of my students just before the bell rang.

These photos stink, but the rain isn't supposed to let up all week-end so that I can get some outside.

2007-01-12T21:44:00.000-06:00

I like the challenge of the vintage pages sewn in ~ at least for now. The other journal I did this with irritated me at times because I just wanted to journal and not deal with challenges.

Journaling reads: Top left from found words in a magazine -

Fresh starts belong
in everyone's attitude
perpetually painting improvements

And in the circle on the right:

Little girls who can't sing are told to mouth the words.

These pages are from an old Brownie book. I wasn't ever a Brownie, but I sure liked the idea of being one.

A little restraint

2007-01-12T21:37:00.000-06:00

The next morning after sewing in the velvet, I was pondering what to do to cover up the stitches on the reverse side of the page. I decided they look like chicken tracks or grain and quickly sketched in a scrawny hen and grabbed the flap off a cracker box that was sitting on the wood cookstove that we have in our kitchen. I peeled it down to make it thinner, wrote my journaling and glued it in.

The journaling says, "Occasionally one needs to show a little restraint. A minimalist approach if you will."

I think the fact that I had been reading Dwell, a modern interiors magazine, had something to do with my sudden desire to make an uncluttered page. I got a little carried away stamping the date. Later that evening, I added the sun.

If a thing sits around long enough...

2007-01-12T21:29:00.000-06:00

I was journaling along in my new a-little-bit-each-day style when the strip of black velvet that has been appearing in different spots in the computer room ever since I finished Madelyn's Christmas dress showed up one too many times. Despite my good intentions to get into bed at a decent time for a change, I wound up sewing it into my journal. I didn't cut the needle off because I didn't want to take the time to hunt up a pair of scissors. Now I think I like it there. Some how it reminds me of the thorns that always come with roses.

A little each day

2007-01-08T20:55:00.000-06:00

I've also decided to change my habit of having to do a whole spread every time I sit down to journal. That's fine for the days when I have time and energy, but it leaves way too many days totally undocumente. There are just too many days with neither time, nor energy left at the end. So, I'm writing in small blocks, sketching on bits of copy paper, grabbing the time as I find it.

So far it's working for me.

New journal - volume seven

2007-01-08T20:24:00.000-06:00

I think it's pretty cool that I'm starting 2007 with volume seven, and even cooler that I've filled six compo books since I started painting the pages.

I finally decided to take apart a compo book and put it back together with pages from old books interspersed with the regular pages. What I really wanted to use was a graph paper compo book, but I haven't been able to find one. I hate the thought of paying $5 shipping and handling for a three dollar item or I'd order online.

This one will be fine and maybe one with the squares will appear for the volume eight. I used a variety of papers which will be showing up in my journal pages in the days to come. Volume five also was done like this. It's a challenge to use the papers.

I'm also planning a different cover for this one. We'll see. I want to participate in the Take a stitch Tuesday Challenge, so I'm hoping to work on a crazy quilt cover for this journal. I haven't done a fabric cover because I always journal on the front inside cover. I'm leaving this one blank on purpose.

1-1-2007

2007-01-02T19:57:00.000-06:00

I sketched on New Year's Eve and journaled on the first. This may be a pretty good rhythm to attempt. I really enjoyed the Bomba y Plena show and was disapointed this morning to discover that the VCR was on the wrong channel while I was recording. Wish I had stayed up and watched the end of the show. I was looking forward to sketching some more of it.

Happy2007!

2007-01-01T11:51:00.000-06:00

I have finished up 2006 with a bout of sketching. Now if I can just keep the momentum into '07.

It seems I am sketching again.

2006-12-30T10:36:00.000-06:00

I saw a magazine article about an artist and I loved her quick sketchy style. She did etchings. I sat down immediately and sketched one of her prints on this page. The painting I glued to the next page.

I thought I was done for the night, but I sketched four women I found in the same magazine. The first one I put on the endpaper of a book I had by my worktable to take pages out of for collage. I wound up gluing it into Maya's collaborative journal. The next three are here. I've never really wanted to sketch people before, but lately that's mostly what I've drawn. I am determined to overcome my fear of drawing noses! This morning I did two more drawings, this time from someone elses drawings. I'm hoping that will help me learn how to do the hard parts. I'll post them when I finish the pages I glued them to.

Not burned beans again!

2006-12-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

I don't cry over burned beans, but they still stink!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-26T20:29:00.000-06:00

I've been doing these calendar-like dates lately. I like the way this one turned out. I love this old junior dictionary. It has awesome drawings on every page. The bit in the bottom was my attempt at journaling on scrap paper because the page wasn't prepped and I didn't feel like going up and doing it. Maybe I should start buying nice journals, so I don't have to worry about prepping page if I don't want to. I'd better decide soon. I'm about to the end of this one.

This photo has been moved from one stack to another for weeks. I finally got tired of seeing it everywhere and glued it into my journal. This is the first time since I started painting my pages that I've left a background raw.

Journaling...

2006-12-25T15:58:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about journaling and if I want to make some resolutions or changes with the new year. Of course there is always the resolution to both write and do more artsy stuff in my journal.

I came across Judy Wise's blog a few days ago and was totally inspired by her journal pages. One thing that I love about them is that she does blocks of journaling when she feels like it, often a spread will include two or three days or more worth of journaling. For some reason I have felt compelled to complete a spread in one setting. I have very few spreads that include more than one day's journaling. I'm hoping to try this new style this year.

I spotted another group of journal pagesthat appealed to me. I love the blend of words and pictures.

One thing I will probably do is to continue journaling on bits and pieces of paper. When I feel like recording and don't feel like prepping a page in my journal or even hunting it down, I can just pop down the thoughts on whatever is handy. It has been working for the past month or so. The bits just get glued in when I do feel like taking my journal out.

Deck the Halls

2006-12-23T18:40:00.000-06:00

Our halls didn't get decked out much, but I did get busy last night and dressed my 10" Tonners for Christmas. Of course I had to hunt up their holiday attire first. It's been so long since they've donned seasonal dress that I had to hunt up some old photo cd's to even figure out what I had. There were a couple of things I didn't find, but I'm tickled with what I did locate. I made everything they are wearing except the shoes, the socks on Sophie and her crochet collar which my mom made.

I guess I never did make Ann Estelle a skirt to go with the Sophie Hope outfit I knitted. I had in mind to wrap a piece of fabric around her for a skirt, but while I was looking for the other things I spotted the perfect piece of plaid taffeta ribbon to make her a skirt. Since I was working on the red corduroy dress for Madelyn's doll to match the dress I made her I went ahead and made Ann Estelle a skirt. Isn't it adorable? The hat she's wearing is too big and not finished. I never did turn up the one that actually fits and has the embroidery. No matter, they look festive and I have done at least a little decorating. I also switched out the postcards and photos for Christmas cards and photos on the bulletin board behind them.

Now I just need to make some Strawberry Divinity and pumpkin bread and precook the rolls for tomorrow. Oh and sew the zipper in Madelyn's dress, and the snaps on her doll's dresss, and wrap the presents... guess I'd better get off this computer.

The Christmas Spirit Arrives on Bay Creek

2006-12-19T20:55:00.000-06:00

... at least on our part. I wanted to print out the photo I took yesterday and put it in my journal, but J. was already asleep, so I decided to draw the dress and tree instead. It looked so pale this evening with the wire tree that I had already glued in that I painted it. It may be the most ambitious I've gotten with water color, or at least in quite a while. The white edge of my craft shop looks kind of unbalanced. Maybe I should use artistic liscence again and make it a darker color.

After I posted the photo last night, I got to thinking that many of my hobbies, pasions are represented in this little corner of my house: the sewing of course, but also my doll's Christmas tree, my travel doll Sara, other dolls and teddy bears, the crazyquilt tea cozy that I made my mom, and even a photo of my grandpa to represent my on again, off again fascination with genealogy. I guess I need to prop the journal entry up and take another picture. Then I would have one more hobby represented. Or maybe I won't.

I sewed something!

2006-12-18T18:46:00.000-06:00

I have had the sewing block of all sewing blocks for the past three years. Oh, I have made a few little things, a tutu, a doll dress, maybe something else I don't remember, but I used to sew - all the time, clothes, curtains, whatever. I love to sew. For some reason I haven't been able to make myself do it. Yesterday I made this dress for my sweet granddaughter. She is three and I haven't sewn her anything but a tutu. When my boys were little and I was making them corduroy pants and vests, I would dream of a little girl to sew for. When I finally got not just one, but now two, I didn't sew at all. I hope this is the start of new, unblocked, times. I do still have to sew in the zipper, but surely I'll get that done since I have a deadline. After all, I want her to be able to wear it for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, I have been surfing blogs looking at all the wonderful decorations. This is our total so far. I got out the doll tree from it's storage bag and sat it on the table. I haven't even adjusted the brances yet, so it's a bit wonky. Ok, it's a lot wonky. The ornaments that fell off are sitting on the table next to it. I would take credit for the decorations in the mini craft shop, but it's always decorated. The pile of dolls in the floor is from a year or so ago when I took a photo of my tiny dolls. Can't even think of a reason to have them all in the middle of the floor.

Silver Sofa

2006-12-17T14:17:00.000-06:00

This has to do with one of my passwords. I had to send for a new one and liked the one I was sent. I've been looking for a silver sofa for a while now to put in my journal.

December 9, 10, 11?

2006-12-12T19:19:00.000-06:00

I prepped the background for this spread on the 9th, but dated it the 10th because I liked the number I found and figured I would journal on it the next day. Not so, I got a migraine and didn't touch it til the 11th when I did write some about the 10th. I did some more sketching at the doctor's office. It was kind of interesting seeing the guys come out and claim their hats and jacket. One guy was snoring away three seats from me. I thought about sketching him. He sure wouldn't have noticed.

Sketching Memoirs of a Geisha

2006-12-12T19:06:00.000-06:00

I sketched these portraits from the DVD case while waiting in the truck at the farm store. It took a couple of weeks of them sitting on my craft table to get them in my journal finally. I hate to admit that I found the candy this wrapper is from in the car from our trip this summer. Yes I did eat it and enjoyed it too. It reminded me of our day in Seattle.