Slowing down

I've been thinking about doing more sketching and the other night I finally just did it. I sketched my feet right where I was sitting, without making a big deal out of it. I just started on the page I had prepped. I like the way it turned out ok. My feet really aren't that ugly, but they are that big. ;> I actually thing the right foot turned out pretty well. I don't have a strange bump on the other one. I just drew the ankle bone in the wrong place to start with.

The other page has some cool stickers I got in the mail and a page from my daily devotional, Portals for Prayer, that particularly spoke to me that morning.

I need/want

This isn't finished yet. I'll be adding to the list. I had the background painted and just grabbed a magazine image that appealed to me to glue on. I got to looking at the pattern on the Delftware plate in the image and decided to try sketching and painting it. I haven't sketched in a while and really enjoyed it. I'd like to
get back to more regular sketching. The one-a-day grids I did a couple of years ago were such good practice. I couldn't believe how much I improved in a short time. Then I just quit.

One Week Done

The first week back to school is always the hardest it seems. I'm always glad to have it over and get on with the year.

I want

This turned out a little busy or something. Not one of my favorite spreads. Maybe it's the co
lors.

Magazine photo mini-challenge

I picked the magazine photo on these pages because I loved the colors and the paisleys. Then I challenged myself to make a background to go with it. I spread the paint on with an old credit card and drug out all three of my paisley rubber stamps. Two of them are eraser stamps that I carved. The colors match much better in real life than they do in the photo.

My vacation has me noticing recipes again. It was so nice to eat food that was cooked by other people who just happen to be good cooks. I tend to get into a rut with cooking and cook the same things over and over.

Yesterday I sorted my creative space

August 8, 2006

It was good to do a journal page and have access to all of the supplies I've gotten used to. I went stamp happy on this spread.

I used gesso around the edges under the black on this spread. I'm still getting a feel for using it. The car stamp came in a grab bag. I would have never picked it out, but I've gotten a lot of use out of it.

August calendar

I carved an eraser stamp for my calendar pages this month. I was thinking it would be an easy way to make them, but I'm not sure how I'll be able to vary them in the future. Maybe I should use the other side as a shadow stamp under the frame. These are stamped with acrylic paint sponged onto the stamp.

Pocket page

I made two pocket pages for our trip receipts, one going and one coming back. It was a really handy way to save them. I'm planning to photo copy them though because I've learned the hard way that receipt ink is very unstable.

The journaling on the left was done on a scrap of paper and glued in later. Yellow acrylic paint is transparent and works great to integrate this kind of journaling onto the page.

New shade

Last week I got the idea to make a new window shade. I was sorting my art space and found some fabric that was really stiff. It made a great shade and wasn't that hard either. The fringe on the bottom is the selvedge of the fabric. I just sewed on the part from the other side to make a pocket for the plastic rod at the bottom doubling the fringe. I used the old roller and just taped it on with strapping tape.

Newest member of my doll family

I finally found a Robert Tonner Gracie doll to buy this week. I haven't had a new doll in ages. She's the one in the red and yellow dress. They are all wearing clothes sewn or knitted by me. The taller blond doll is one I bought for a quarter. She turned out to be an Avon Hello Kitty doll. She's wearing an outfit scavanged from a cheap porcelain doll. In the back you can see a bit of my postcard display. I found a black frame and have been hanging my favorite or newest postcards with push pins and clips.

My journal covers

Here are all six of the covers. I really need to do something with Volume Three. I sanded the cover and stained it a bit and then never got back to it. I found after that one that I really prefer to work on the journals and carry them around when they have a finished cover, so I've been trying to do that before or soon after I start a new journal.

My journals

I always like to see photos of other people's journals on edge and I got the idea it might be fun to take a photo of all five of mine. Each one seems to be a bit fatter than the previous one.

First spread in volume six

These are all out of order which isn't at all usual for me. I've been posting them as they get finished and this one is nearly there except for a photo. I'm not crazy about posting family photos on the web anyway though, so here's the page. I always put my address and phone number in a new journal first thing. That way if it gets lost at least it has a chance of coming back to me.

Volume Six

I played around with the cover for my sixth journal since I started painting the pages. This one is totally different than all the others, but I like the way it turned out. I used a wooden backgammon piece to stamp the dots. I love the colored duct tape.

Last day of our trip

This page is mostly just writing. Too bad you can't read it very well. We had a great day going along the western border of Iowa. I didn't know before then that Iowa has Loess hills. They are really pretty. I wish we could have gotten off the interstate to travel down the scenic route. We wound up a bit more off the interstate than we planned when we decided to avoid Kansas City. Road construction caused the two-lane road we were on to suddenly end. It took us a while to find our way back to it. We got to see some wonderful scenery and small towns in north- central Missouri because of it though.

I had to add the Frappuccino label because Johnny bought one on the last day of our trip last summer too. He didn't remember it and I wouldn't have if I hadn't put it in my journal then too. I just realized that I didn't post that page or all of the finished versions of the others. I finally got photos on them about 5 months later. Hopefully I'll do better this time. I'll try to get pictures taken and go ahead and post them. Better late than never.

I have several more pages from this summer's trip , but they aren't anywhere close to being finished. I'll post them when I get them done. If last year was any indication, I won't hold my breath til then though.

South Dakota

We had a great day driving through South Dakota. What's not to like about the Black Hills, the Badlands and the Mitchell Corn Palace. We stayed on the interstate as we'd been through the Black Hills and Badlands once before. If we'd had more time we would have gone again as both are beautiful. Even what we could see from the interstate was great. We were there the Wednesday before the biker rally at Sturgis. It was really funny to us since the last time we went through it was the actual weekend of the biker rally. The first time we kept wondering why there were so many bikes on the road. This time we were a bit more savvy. I was impressed with the fact that almost all of the billboards in Stugis and surrounding towns were geared to the bikers. I guess it's a big industry catering to them.

I was thrilled to get to see the Corn Palace. My grandma had been years ago and talked about it to me often. I think it's so cool that they change it every year. My only disapointment was that there is a doll musuem across the street and it was closed.

July 31 Driving through Washington and Montana

More of my travel journal pages. I thought I would only post the more complete ones. I need to work on fast sketches. I am out of practice, so it takes me even longer. Seeing the eagle on the nest was really awesome. We saw another nest later that week, but there wasn't a bird in it.

Knitta in Seattle in Fremont

Knitta in Seattle in Fremont
Originally uploaded by knittaplease.

This is the knitted graffiti that I journaled about in my last blog entry. When I got home that day, I looked online to see if there was a photo somewhere ~ no luck. I've been trying on and off since we got home. Finally, last night I found this photo of it.

I had read a bit about knitted graffiti a few months ago, so I recognised it when I saw it. It turns out that there is a group called Knitta that knits their way around various cities.

Journaling on the Fly

The white parts of these pages were written as I rode through Seattle. We went to a mall and also to Ballard Locks. I didn't get the Locks photos printed on the trip, so I will journal those pages when I get them printed. I did manage to paint a background. The little sketch on the bottom right is some knitted graffiti I spotted and didn't have my camera ready. Actually I spotted it twice as we were having difficulty finding a restaurant we were looking for due to Seattle's founders naming two or three streets Freemont.

Wine tasting in Yakima Valley

This was my first experience with wine tasting. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It wasn't so much tasting the various wines although they were good, but meeting the wine makers and talking with them. I also enjoyed just riding around in the wonderfully abundant Yakima Valley. All of the fruit trees were heavy with fruit and there was so much of it. A truly fun day.

Last spread of Volume Five

This has been a full journal and a fun one since I took it apart and reconstructed it partly with vintage papers. I learned (the hard way) to make sure those papers are strong enough. Some of the music pages I used weren't. Those were heavily covered over with masking tape or other paper to give them strength. I was having a hard time deciding whether or not to make a similar journal for my next one. The fact that it ran out in the middle of my trip decided that for me. I went in to Wal-mart and bought another compo book for 50 cents and started that one.

This sketch was done in Motel 6 in Ontario, OR. It was my first time in a Motel 6 and after the awful motel the night before, I was happy to be there. It was also my first time in Oregon.
The door looks a little plain to me. I may stick some photos there.

And into Idaho

These pages were painted in the motel room. I picked up a little piece of pipe (or something round and plastic) in the parking lot to use as a stamp. There were plenty of things laying there. We stayed in the dirtiest motel I've ever been in. We were tired and the others were filled and it was a long way to the next town.

And on to Wyoming

I left spaces to go back and put photos when I get them printed out.

Driving through Nebraska

I was expecting Nebraska to be boring and I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed the landscape. We were ready for a stop to get out and stretch our legs and maybe see something interesting so we looked in our Reader's Digest books and came up with Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska We wound up spending over three very enjoyable hours walking around and seeing not nearly everything. Just now searching for their web page to include here I found that there was a textile exhibit while we were there. I would have loved to have seen that. I left two pages blank to go back and journal with the photos we took there. I kept wishing that I had a crayon and a piece of paper to make rubbings. They had some really cool bricks in the sidewalks that had writing on them.

License tag?

I decided to play a game I played as a kid when we traveled. I still have to add a couple that got recorded on different pages instead of hear. I excluded semi-trucks because it seemed like cheating.
I also made a pocket to save the receipts. After gluing receipts into my journal and having them disappear in a very short time, I learned my lesson. Why in the world do stores make receipts with disappearing ink?

First day of our trip

We had to get the oil changed before we left for WA so I sketched while we waited.

So much to say

So little time to record it.

Last of the hollyhocks

I love the way this one turned out. I have to remember to use more of my photos. I carved the tiny heart stamp from a pencil eraser trying to get a look like that couch on the July 2 page. It's actually a V, but when stamped with paint it turns out like a heart. Cool!

Detritus - 2

I like these pages with smaller inserts. I will miss that about this journal now that it's full and I'm on to another one that I didn't deconstruct and put back together. Some things like the sheet music pages that fell apart I will not miss.

The text reads: I need to keep walking morning or night. It clears my head and strengthens my heart and builds my bones, primes the pump of my creativity. So much to see.

The roses are basically done, but there are a few bunches in bloom. It's like they don't want to give up.

Don't be (from the dictionary definition) faint-hearted.

Why is it that I can look at pictures of him only now that she is gone? Why is it?

The picture is a wedding photo of my mom and dad that I had enlarged for her memorial service. My dad killed himself three years ago. They sure look happy here. I was born 9 monthes and 2 days later.

Detritus

At least I didn't embarrass anyone when I picked up this trash to include in my journal like I did on our vacation last week. I love the method I worked out for stitching it into the vynal and then glueing it on with scrapbooking adhesive. That stuff is great! There are also some rjose petals. I put a photo of the roses on the next page. The black stamping on both pages was done with more trash that I picked up, a piece of tire on the left page and I'm not sure what the circular thing was.

July 4

I've been trying for more balance between visual pages and written pages lately. I love doing the visual, but I enjoy reading entries in my old journals.

July 2

The colors and patterns on this couch really appeal to me. I like adding magazine photos that grab my attention to my journal.

July calendar

I need to go back and fill in the last week. I always wind up going back for at least a few days during a month. For instance I haven't done the Aug. calendar yet.

Tin ceiling

I wasn't too thrilled with this spread. I had put up some tin ceiling look wallpaper on our hall ceiling and was trying to decide how to paint it. I finally decided on a walnut colored acrylic because it gives it a two-tone effect which the latex paint doesn't. Now I just have to paint it.

TPRS workshop

I've been using a new method for teaching Spanish (TPRS ) and was able to attend a wonderful workshop in June. I learned so much and hope to be able to put it to use when we go back to school, gasp, week after next.

June 26

I love finding different ways to add the date to my journal pages. My daughter-in-law told me recently that looking for it is a bit like "Where's Waldo?"

Time for an update

Wow, it's been over a month since I posted here. I don't think I've ever gone that long before. I've been on a two-week vacation. My husband and I drove to Yakima, WA to see my son and DIL. Well, he drove. I navigated.

Before that we spent over a week painting walls and refinishing our tongue and groove pine kitchen floor. We started the whole floor project because somehow a bottle of Future floor polish (purchased as an art supply) that I put in the trash leaked out in a stream all over the floor as we were on our way out for a day of inservice. When we got home it had dried in a stream around the kitchen. At first I thought someone had come into our house and gotten a drink from the sink and left a trail. It didn't take long to realize that it was something shiney dried on. When I tried to scrub it off the stain and polyurethane came up with it. What a mess!

We were needing to redo the floor anyway, but had decided to put it off for another year. My husband rented a floor sander the next day. While he was sanding, I painted our bedroom dark green (a planned project). It looks great - quite a change. I'm usually not that brave with wall color.

Day three we finished sanding and bought stain and paint. We decided that since the house would stink from the kitchen we might as well repaint the living room floor too.

I did half of those projects (furniture on the other side of both rooms) on day four while Johnny was at an inservice. We slept in the camper because of the smell. Or I guess I should say crashed in the camper. I felt like I had been working out and trying to keep up with Mr. Universe.

Day five I could barely move, but it was back at the floor with a coat of polyurethane. The bad thing about doing floors is that they have to wait so long between coats and the stuff stinks so bad.

We also did some patching with mortar on our logs, since we had all the furniture at one end of both rooms. Day six we painted the living room walls with texture paint before we finished the floor. The furniture was already moved and the room was stinking anyway. Day seven we painted the living room and worked more on the kitchen floor. Day 8 we did the other half of the living room. The whole time we were still sleeping in the camper and cooking in the bathroom on a hot plate. The day we left for our trip I added a second coat of urathane to the kitchen and painted the second half of the living room floor. I get tired just thinking of it all now.

I took photos of my journals tonight and there were, yikes, 26 spreads! It will take forever to get them all posted. I'll try to do a couple a day til it's done.

Some of them aren't complete yet as I left spaces for pictures when I get around to printing them out. I think I'll go ahead and post them both ways. Who knows when I'll find time to finish them with school starting soon. It took me months to get the pictures into last years vacation pages.

We had a wonderful trip, so much packed into such a little time. Coming home was great too. We are blessed to live in beautiful northern Arkansas, and it was so nice to come home to all the newly painted walls and the re-finished floor. Oh and the tomatoes too, I guess. I canned 36 1/2 quarts today.