Second try

My second try for the day turned out better.

Maritime mess

This background started out pretty, but it went downhill from there. I added journaling that is barely legible. Tried again to go over the lettering with a lighter pen and it didn't help much. I was frustrated with the results, so I went on and made another spread. When I'm in the mood to journal, I don't seem to be able to stop until I get something that satisfies me.

Summer dreaming

This one started out with some images left over from my White Book.

Our inverted spring

I wanted to journal and didn't feel like going upstairs to my art table, so I used several images from a magazine that was downstairs and a bag of pens and glue that I try to keep close to my journal.

Time

Somewhere I saw a challenge to do a spread in blue on one page and red on the other. The theme was to be pairs or something like that. My red turned out kind of orange.

Cinco de Mayo

I've given myself permission to journal about a day or event after it happens, even if that's long after it happens. I had such a good time on my day off on May 5 that I wanted to journal about it. I just didn't get time for a while. I bought the two stamps that I used on this page at Big Lots for $2 each. They are wood mounted too. Big Lots sells all their stamps for the same price, big ones and small ones too. The big ones are sometimes quite a bargain.

My little guys grew up

I used this copy of a photo taken of my boys at the Toledo Zoo for another journal page. I couldn't throw away the scraps. Their postures tell so much about them. I rode on the same giant tortoise when I was a kid. It was too old for them to have a ride when they went to see it.

More fruit stickers

From blog to journal to blog again.

Variation on a theme

I was feeling really uncreative the other night, so I pulled out my stack of magazines. The first thing I saw was this article on math featuring the math head. I knew it had to go in my White Book. As I was painting the black background, I got the idea for the other spread for my Black, White and Red all over book. I need to scan some of the spreads in it and share them too I guess. It's a fun book to work in. I've been really loose with it. I liked the pages and decided to chronicle them here in my journal. The black flower that I journaled on is a pad from Dollar General. It came with a gel pen for a dollar, but the pen didn't work.

Shed sketch

Last Sunday I had some time before church, so I sat in the car and sketched an outbuilding at the edge of the parking lot. This is my first try at crosshatching. I'm not sure how successful it was, but I'm glad to get back to sketching.

I used a large headed straight pin dipped in acrylic paint for the green dots. I like how they came out in varied sizes.

Fruit Stickers

I love having this area to look at while I wash dishes, so I thought I'd share it. Yes, I'm one of those people who don't have a dishwasher. I do use paper plates ~ I know shame on me cluttering up the environment.

I've used this spot for ages to stash the stickers I take off my fruit until I do something else with them. Usually they wind up in my journal, but lately quite a few of them have turned up on postcards. I put on my postcrossing profile that I like fruit stickers and I've received them from Finland, France, Germany, Canada, Estonia and Israel. How cool is that? Maybe I'm just easily pleased, but I think it's so cool to see that oranges eaten in Finland come from Israel or kiwis eaten in Canada were grown in Italy. I never even knew that kiwis came from anywhere other than New Zealand. I really like the graphic little stickers just to look at them too. I googled and found this site, Fruit Labels - the web's first fruit label site, that prooves I'm not the only one who likes them. There is also the Flickr: orangepaper and fruit sticker group that made me aware that there were stickers on fruit in other countries.

Backwards?

I've been journaling backwards lately, so I guess I might as well blog the same way. I usually do everything chronically, but my journaling as well as my blogging has been really sporadic lately.

A Bit Blue

The day I did these spreads I was feeling sorry for myself. The first one turned out awful, so I needed to do the other one. I often find that if I'm feeling down working in my journal picks me up... but only if it turns out decently.

Spring has arrived!

Can't think of a thing to add to this. I'm loving the flowers and even the bugs so far. It's a bit colder today, but still definately spring. Too bad my spring break is over and I have to go back to school on Monday.

Wednesday with Madelyn

We had fun watching our sweet granddaughter even though she was recovering from a bad cold. I had the chance to sketch her while she was staying fairly still, well still for a two-year-old anyway. I'm not particularly happy with any of the three sketches, but they each have parts I like. It's pretty obvious that I haven't had much practice sketching people.

I mention in the journaling that when I came out with the pen and paper, Madelyn looked at me sorrowfully and said, "I don't have a pencil." Her grandpa got her a pen and she shared my paper. I put a bit of her drawing in my journal as well.

Bay Creek in Bloom

Redbud season is one of my favorite times of year on our farm. We have so many trees behind our house that the whole creek bank glows with the fuscia colored blooms. When I spotted the cows coming to drink a few minutes ago, I had to run out and snap a couple of photos. It was beginning to sprinkle, so I didn't stay long.

Orange paper and fruit sticker

A couple of months ago Kathrin from Germany invited me to put one of my journal page scans on her new Flickr orangepaper and fruit sticker group.



I've always liked fruit stickers and use them in my journal often. I fell in love with the fruit papers she had on flickr and we swapped postcards. She also sent me some of the fruit papers. They are great to work with. I love how they feel after they are glued down. I've already blogged about the cool postcard that she sent, but I had to put the awesome envelope and some of the fruit papers in my journal.

I enjoyed using her photos, here and here to print out and put on my pages.

Not much journaling going on

I really haven't been jouraling much. I need to get back to it, just haven't been feeling very creative either verbally or visually.

I did finally finish my granddaughter's tutu that I started before Christmas. It took me all of an hour. Oh well, at least it's done now. I can't wait to see it on her.

March 15

This is the second time I've used a large curtain photo. I like the way it looks on the page. I used to have curtains with a similar print and a light blue background.

Doing a litttle web surfing

I like the paintings by Amy Ruppel from: : amy ruppel likes to draw & paint : :. I am especially fond of the last one on this page.

I had seen The Altered Diva's work before, but not her journals. I laughed out loud when I saw the first one. With my slow dial-up, I'm still working my way through the others.

I Have No Desire to Create Today

I love the look of rubber stamped words, but boy does it take a while.

I'm Ready for Zinnias

Sometimes a full-page photo in a magazine just reaches out and grabs me. When it does I put the whole thing in my journal. I enjoyed sketching these zinnias. I wanted to put some color on them, but I was afraid of messing them up since I haven't tried painting on the brown paper yet. I thought maybe colored pencils might work.

Blue Bird of Surgery?

I spotted this little bird on someone's blog. Mom used to embroider birds like this on pillow cases. It didn't turn out exactly like the one I was sketching from, but it's ok.

Mom had the port put in yesterday for her chemo. The surgery went ok, but it took five tries to get the IV in. I had my surgery on Thursday. I only found out Tuesday that I needed it, but I'm just as glad I didn't have to think about it long. I'm doing ok, just a little sore. Still using the ice which helps.

Fruity postcard from Kathrin

Brief_Dawn0002.jpg
Originally uploaded by Kathrin2305.

Kathrin sent me this handmade postcard from Germany. We are both interested in fruit stickers. She also sent the coolest orange papers. They are beautiful printed tissue papers that come wrapped around oranges. If you'd like to see them click on the picture to go to her flickr page.

Far From Home

It's funny, sometimes journaling seems like a real struggle. Nothing goes together and nothing flows. Then when I look back at the pages, I wonder what the problem was.

So much happened lately that I didn't even get to mention my idea for shared journals that is mentioned in this spread.

I Need to Break Down and Buy a Camera

Diary of Anne Frank

We went to see this at the local community theater. I loved the set with all of its various levels. I wish I could have had more time to draw it and add color. The quilts especially were really bright. I used the brochure for the play along with my sketch and some water-soluable crayons for this page. Sorry about the scan. I prefer to take pictures of my journal, but don't have the camera at home.

Motivated to Work on White Book

I was so irritated that I forgot the camera at school and we had all this beautiful snow. I guess I really do need to get busy and decide what kind of camera I want to buy. I've been supposed to buy one for three years now.

Finding this picture of snow in Arkansas in a magazine helped a bit and it got me busy working in my White Book. I got on a roll Monday and made five spreads. I also cleaned out a bunch of magazines. I've posted most of the new spreads on my White Book blog. There are 51 spreads in the book now! It's really filling up nicely. There are three left to scan because my scanner is behaving badly. It will do one scan (maybe) and then crashes the program and sometimes the computer on the next one. Gotta love technology.

Heart sketches for postcards

I spent an evening at Hastings looking at books and magazines. I didn't take my journal, so I sketched out an idea for some postcards I planned to make on a piece of paper and put it in the journal when I got home. I made an extra heart for the journal page when I made the postcards. I also collaged the right page like I did the postcards, but then I wound up writing all over it. Not a very successful outcome.



One of my favorite of the swap cards. The others can be seen on my postcard blog along with Postcrossing cards that I've been sending and many that I've been getting in return.

Red sketch

I started out doodling and wound up sketching my foot and surroundings. Too bad I wasn't holding a black pen at the time.

I've been doing pages in a black, white and red altered book. The color scheme leaked over into my journal.

Not in the Mood to Embellish

I like making grid pages. The flowers on this page are some more little erasers from Dollar General. This time there were three different sizes in the package. When I started out to embellish the right page, I wasn't in the mood. Obviously after a few swirls, I got into it.

Paper doll

Inspired by these postcardsby Annika Sandin, I grabbed my scissors and came up with this lady.

Working on the Dutch ad paper background was a bit of a challenge. My water-soluable crayons prooved themselves again. All of the small images were on the ad paper and I colored around them giving everything a good smear. I like the bits of Dutch writing that still show.

Grocery list and waiting room chair

On Sunday I browsed through Sabrina Ward Harrison's Spilling Open and was reminded how much I like some of her handwriting styles. I had just a few minutes before leaving for church and I was needing to write a grocery list, so I decided to try out her style. Somehow I got so engrossed in the letter forms that I mixed up red and black.

On Monday I went to the doctor to get my cholesterol checked. It took longer than I was expecting, so out came my pen and the only paper I could find a Wal-mart receipt and I sketched the chair across from me. Ten minutes of impatience was turned into ten minutes of enjoyable sketching. I must remember to put some more paper into my purse.

I'm still getting lots of mileage from my bill envelopes. The 25 and the grid paper behind the chair are from one of my favorites.

The righ-hand page was done on an advertising circular from the Netherlands. I sewed several pages of it into this journal.

Postcrossing again

I spent some time last weekend making three more postcards. This is sort of a larger version of one of them. I really liked the guy and was pleased to find another shot of him on the magazine's table of contents page. The words The View from Afar from the same magazine just seemed to go with the whole postcrossing idea.

Postcards

You have to appreciate a country that makes a heart shaped stamp. How cool is that? Inside this neat envelope from Finland was an awesome handmade postcard from Emma Laiho. On the right side is a photocopy of a postcrossing card I sent out.


I attached the envelope so that I could lift it up and put stuff inside.

Roz Stendahl's Before and After Journal

I have just had the best time looking throughRoz Stendahl's Before and After Journal 2005. She shows her journal page backgrounds with notes about her materials and then the finished pages. This is a don't miss for anyone interested in journaling.

First Lutheran Church Little Rock

We were able to visit First Lutheran while we were in Little Rock visiting Mom. It is a beautiful old church and the service was good too. The drawing of the church is from their bulletin. The inside is even prettier with stained glass on both sides and in the front too. There is a carved alter piece and wonderful ceilings. I love old architecture.

The background on these pages was done with the water-soluable crayons with no paint behind them. It's not my favorite way to work, but will do in a pinch.

Visiting Mom

We visited my mom in the hospital this weekend. This page was done at the hotel. I pre-painted the background at home and brought a zipper pouch full of supplies to work on my journal. I have a 10 piece set of Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Junior water soluable crayons that are small and fit great in the pouch. I used them to make the rubbing of the take-out box from the Chinese restaurant.

Eraser carving

I spotted the design for this eraser stamp on Kathleen's blog in the December 18, 2005 post. I sketched it and stuck it in my drawer to journal later. Last night I was wondering what to do a page on when I came across the bit of paper and got out my carving tool.

Puppy Chow

I was working on collaged postcards and liked this one so much I made myself one too. The jar was fun to draw, but I got tired of drawing the Puppy Chow.

January 8, 2006

I found this tree poem on someone's blog. When I googled just now to look for it, it appears that it has been around for a while and found its way around the net too.

At the Hospital

I didn't bring my journal to the hospital, but I did bring some copy paper. I had plenty of time to sketch while I waited for my mom to come out from the heavy sedation. We joked that the nurse had forgotten to change the date on the marker board. Mom missed two days instead of the one she first thought when she looked at it.

I discovered that the vintage sheet music really is too brittle to use for a page base. I had to use lots of masking tape.

December 30, 2005

I'm starting to use the pages I added into my current composition book journal. This first one was some vintage sheet music. A self-challenge was to open a book at random and draw the first thing I saw. The sink was it, and it was fun to draw as well.This is one of the things I added to Keri Smith's 100 things. So far it's the only one I've completed.