Art by the Inch Goal Met

These last two pages took me over the top on my goal of 5000 inches with two days to spare!

5,153 / 5,000 (103.0%)

We had our family Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. Right before people were due to show up, in between the final cleaning and the last minute cooking, I got the idea to paint a page of squares and ask everyone to decorate a section. I hurried upstairs and painted a quick background and grabbed some gel pens and some Zig pens. Then I came back down and finished the meal. After dinner, my 7-year-old niece spotted my new journal and said she didn't think she had seen this one before. I told her to look at it and mentioned my idea for the project. She immediately sat down to do her square. Then she asked, "Do you think everyone will do a square?" I told her that I bet if she asked them to they would. Well she did a wonderful job taking the journal from person to person and watching and discussing as they filled their section. I was busy being hostess, but overheard tidbits of the conversations. I heard everything from, "I'm not very creative." to "What does a goat look like anyway?" My favorite line came from my 4-year-old niece. She was busy playing and ran into the kitchen and did a few quick lines and came back to the toys. Her sister and mom were trying to get her to do some more to her square, and I said, "I really want you to do a square." She jumped up and headed back to the kitchen. I heard, "Why are you drawing a square?" Her answer, "Because Aunt Dawn really wants me to." My 15-month-old granddaughter is just learning that pens make marks. I helped her hold the pen and she made her marks. I love all the drawings from My granddaughter's marks to my niece's square, to my youngest son's stinky cheese and flies buzzing to my eldest's fisherman self-portrait and everything in between. I cheated and drew my contribution in the quiet relaxation after everyone had headed home. After putting everyone else on the spot, I couldn't think of a thing to add and wound up copying the Van Gogh Sunflower print that hangs on our wall. This will be a treasured part of my journal and I'm already wondering if I can get everyone to do it again for Christmas. 

I was looking for more color a few days ago. I think I found it. I've included the tag from our turkey, a poem by William Stafford, some tags and labels that I found when I cleaned out my dresser, and lots of writing. I wanted to sew on some buttons from a skirt that I had to throw away because a mouse chewed a hole in it, but the last time I put something that bulky in my journal it made it really hard to write on the following pages. Instead I just drew the buttons. 

About Panache Faces Plate

Here is the link to the faces rubber stamp plate from About Panache. For some reason I can't get it to print in my last post.

Lucid Dreams Collection

This is the first time I've done a four-page spread. I thought I'd better do some explaining after my last sorry-for-me page. I'm not sure why flowers are suitable for Thanksgiving. I was wanting to try out the one on the last page with the stamped face and petals cut from the page of a book, and I just continued with the theme. I love using these face stamps from About Panache. There are so many varied faces that I always find one to suit the mood of what I'm working on.

I am getting close on my Art by the Inch goal.

4,860 / 5,000 (97.0%)

We decided to have our Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday, so the boys wouldn't have to run between suppers. Even though it was my idea, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. The text on the left is a description of Thanksgiving from my one volume encyclopedia. I find all kinds of things to use in my ABs and journal in it. It was a great buy for a dollar. It even has an index. The leaf on the left is a color copy of the endsheets from my grandma's Ave Maria. I love using the copies and thinking about how familiar the book was to her. 

Sometimes it's hard to keep it all in the air. I came home and made this page after I stayed late at school to do grades and send out yearbook bill letters. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with my juggling act I guess. There is vertical writing on the page in purple gel pen, but it doesn't show up in the photo.

My last page for the Colors Altered Book RR. I know nothing about New York, but the song title kind of took over the page. The fellow is bidding on the stock exchange. 

I scanned this one and it turned out a lot better. 

I finished the cover of my Oct/Nov journal last night. It's labeled Volume 1 because although I've had many journals over the years, this is the first one that came close to successfully combining the visual and text elements. I tried several times to get a decent picture and this one turned out the best of any of them. The No Boundaries text was on the compostion book when I bought it. I think it goes well with the purpose of this book. 

The back of my recipe had the word heritage on it. That led me to dig out some photocopies of photos of my grandma and her sister. That's Grandma in 1921 at the top of the page and Aunt Marie in the tree. I've always loved both of these photos. The group photo has my grandma's sister's family visiting with grandpa's family. It was taken in 1937 while Grandma was pregnant with my dad. She has tucked herself behind my Uncle Chuck in the center front to hide her belly.

The red letters in the word heritage didn't go well with the page, so I went over them with a copper gel pen. I like the way that looks and will try it again I'm sure.

I've been wanting to try out these muffins. I figured if I put them in my journal, I'd be more likely to. The right side has ideas that I got from listening to Michelle Ward on HeartsART radio. I made a leaf stamp from a foam gardening knee pad after seeing something similar in one of her pages. The stamp faces are from a great plate from About Panache Unmounted Rubber Stamps.

My hand doesn't really look like a man's hand. This is the first time in years I've tried to draw a hand. They are hard! The pear is from some great wrapping paper I got from my daughter-in-law.

Art by the Inch- 3847/5000.

Looking at Kelly Kilmer's journal pages caused another swing toward the purely visual.

I used images laying on my worktable again. The stamps are from Melanie's Rubber Stamps. 

I started thinking about the fact that I'm doing much more visual journaling than text. This page is a result. 

Perfectly Preserved

Another spread for Becky's book. This seemed to fit the fall theme well. I'm getting more secure about adding handwriting to my AB spreads since I started journaling so much.

Art by the Inch

2,902 / 5,000 (58.0%)

I've been working on Becky's book for the Colors Altered Book RR. Becky chose fall colors which suited me perfectly this weekend. This is similar to a spread that I did in my compo journal, but different enough that it was fun to do. 

There was a Spider. Inch count for Art by the Inch.

2,544 / 5,000 (50.0%)

Half way there!