{Christmas Art Journal-the beginning}...

The beginnings of my personal Christmas

photo book

The cover. 

The tree photo is an altered photo I started last year with so many layers I can't remember them all.

Obviously, it's not going to be a traditional red and green Christmas journal. 

I've been working on this in my head for at least a year maybe two.

So the best way for me to begin is with the front cover.  That way I would know what

size book I'm going to be working with.  It's  8.5" x 10.5" and it should be quite thick.

It will probably be the first of at least two Christmas journals.  I have decades of photos to sort through.

I will need to complete the back cover and their reverse sides before I start the pages.

I think this will be a work in progress for quite sometime.  So I'll post as I go.



{Nancy's Texture Challenge}...

My photo using 2 of Nancy Donaldson's textures.

You can check out the rest of the photo entries here on Nancy's blog.

These are some of the same fall branches I used for

my fall Pumpkin Festival garland wreath.

I really did have a lot of fun playing with these leaves.

When I was a child we lived in Michigan, so unlike

here in Arizona, we had tons of leaves.  And my sisters and neighborhood friends

would rake up mountains of leaves and spend many afternoons jumping in them.

Leaves are given freely

for everyone to enjoy.

Today I still enjoy (and always do) kicking up the piles of leaves that gather at the curbs.

And I love, just love seeing them fall from the blowing tress as I drive under them.

So how do you enjoy them?

{Erosion Bundle Art Journal final part}...

I think it's been about a year since I first created the fabric bundle and buried it.

And after many additional dye attempts and processes

the project is complete.

The cover

 New pages,  This includes the lace pocket.

The lace was also dyed in blueberries.

  I found this specimen jar on a road trip this past summer.

The label really does read 

"Specimen of Painting on Linen"

 Page with hair embellishment

 Page including stitched "sunflower"

And the back cover

{11-11-11}...

11-11-11 -

quite a powerful number

And on this day, its Veteran's Day in the US, I find I need to say Thank You

Thank You for

the freedom I enjoy

for helping keep my family saver and free

to your families for their sacrifices

{"Captivating" - a book review}...

Captivating 

by John & Stasi Eldredge

 I  was just wandering, just looking through the bookstore for nothing in particular when I came

across the title -

Captivating

It caught my attention.  I didn't buy it right then, though

 I kept thinking about it.  So after a week I went back and bought it.  The only problem was I grabbed the wrong Captivating by "accident".  After getting it home and looking though it I realized I'd bought the Captivating Workbook.  And after skimming though it and thinking about some of the questions it posed I went and got the book and read it with these questions in mind.  And I am glad I did.

In my first "Book Review" on one thousand gifts - by Ann Voskamp.

 I said that that book

could change your life and indeed it has changed my way of thinking about my life.  (I'm on 365)

Now

In Captivating

I will tell you

that this book can help HEAL your life.

Possibly in ways you don't even know

need healing.

It will also show you a beauty, Your beauty, the beauty

of all women in a greater and more profoundly real way.  Possible in ways

you may ever have believed true.

These are things every female (and perhaps even as importantly every male) should have been shown and taught about herself. 

You will also begin to see why your beauty is so important to this world.

It will help you remember things about yourself. 

Things you already knew deep inside.

After read Captivating

you will never again look at yourself in the same way.

Anyway -

I think I might go back and re-read it and do the workbook along with it.  After all

I do have it.

{Erosion Bundle Art Journal part 6?}...

3D butterflies attached to the page.

And how it looks as part of the center spread in the book.

 Two more pages in the process.  I did add the shadow photo to

the journal.  The colors were so perfect I couldn't pass it up. 

A close up of the "lace" I made. It was an idea

I thought I would try out. I like it for a first try.

Hopefully you can see the flowers in it.

And it's facing page quote.

These last two pages include the beautiful dress

photo I featured on the cover of a recent art journal a few posts back.

 Again the color was a good match.

Well that's another 6 pages assembled.  I think I have approximately

4ish more to assemble before I focus a bit more on the embellishments

{Playing with the Falling Leaves}...

Enjoying autumn leaves by making a pumpkin festival garland.

A photo op with the leftover leaves scattered on my front steps

that I used for Nancy's Texture Challenge which you can see here on Tuesday night.

We don't get a lot of falling leaves here in Arizona so I had to go hunt some down and

brought them home where I thought they looked so quaint on my front porch.

{Erosion Bundle Project part 5?}...

While I still have a lot of pages to create I thought I would give

you a bit of a peek into the creation of this art journal.

One of the page spreads so far. 

In order to allow the Erosion Bundle fabric to be a dominate feature in this journal I'm going to keeping the layering limited.

The sheerish layered fabric on the right was dyed in blueberries to blend with the

original bundled fabrics coloring. 

 Currently this page will become the cover.

Again I took the commercial printed fabric and dyed it in blueberries.

This spread has been embellished with embroidery stitches representing

the fields and roadside niches of tiny yellow flowers that are everywhere here this time of year.  They

are so spectacular.  I spent the day just walking barefoot in them.  And as you can

read from the poem on the left I was not the only one enjoying it. 

It reads

Forget not that the earth delights

to feel your bare feet,

 and the winds long

to play with your hair.

                                              ~Khalil Gibran

{Nancy Donaldson's Texture Challenge}...

I know I've been gone awhile so busy, busy, busy.

But I got this texture challenge from Nancy Donaldson using her texture.

You can see her post on her blog here

Nancy's Texture

I used a shadow photo of myself which I took a couple of

months ago.  I caught the photo "op" by chance when I walked in my front

door early one morning.  The sun was shining directly behind me

where it created a shadow image of myself standing in my front doorway.   I have an old metal calendar hanging on the wall just inside the front door which created an interesting background.

I wasn't sure how I would use it but I really liked it and didn't dare miss this photo op.

So I took the photo and waited to see what would come up for it.

I added a boken photo layer and several blending modes and duplicate layers later I created this

It's the perfect color for my Erosion Bundle art journal

I'm in the process of putting together. 

I hope to be able to post that art journal soon.

{Canvas Wrapped Photo}...

I had an opportunity to have a photo, canvas wrapped onto

a frame.  So I took it.  I just received it back and it's wonderful.

It's 16x20 made from a simple photo I sent them online.

Well, maybe not that simple of a photo.  I did present them with a bit

of what I would consider a placement challenge.  But they pulled it off without a hitch.

The wood is nicely sanded so the back of the art looks nice too.   I like the look plain canvas wrapped art gives and a home printer

can only go so large.  Canvas Dezign makes it easy to get a quality wrapped piece of art

made from one of your own photos.  Canvas Dezign can be found here if your interested. They also

gave me a 10% discount code that I can pass along to anyone who wants to give them a try.

Just enter code 93HEXWF35U at checkout.

I've got knitting on the needles, progress on my

Erosion Bundle art journal as well as what I'm reading coming up.

{Erosion Bundle part III ~ I think}...

I've decided what I will do with my Erosion Bundle.

I'm make an Art Journal with it. 

Not a big surprise I know.

But it's something I can get excited about. 

I plan on it being a journal based on the flowers from my garden this year.

Along with some poetry and meaningful words for the year.

Here are the newly washed colors.

Also no surprise, their lighter.

But I like them.  Their a really nice shade of blue gray and

a purple piece.  The pieces that were treated for printing are the lighter blue gray while the untreated piece remained a fairly dark purple.

{what ifing and my erosion bundle}...

I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to do something with my erosion bundle.

Nothing seems to get me excited about using it.

So back in the pot it went.  This time with some of the blueberries

left over from my smoothie.

First I boiled the blueberries

then left the fabric to soak in the pot for a few hours.

This time I'm letting it hang and dry for a few days before rinsing it.

As I've been having trouble keeping much color in the cloth.

I really love the color.  But I haven't rinsed it yet.

SO we'll see how much color stays in.

I like these top two best. I had already treated the fabric for printing before

deciding to do the blueberry soak.  So what if ,   what if I left the treated fabric alone.

I did and so far I'm glad I did.

{Bright Star}...

"When I don't hear from him, it's as if i died."

When I watched this video my heart wept knowing that within me, I too, have felt this way.

Beautiful.

 

I will now have to find out more about this movie?

{How to use PSE Photos}...

OK, so what can you do with all those photos you alter in PSE?

Yes, I love to put them in art journals. And I could frame them and hang them on my walls. 

But I do have a few art quilts already on the walls so that doesn't leave

a lot of wall space for other art.

So I made a pillow.

I enlarged and printed the photo of the hydrangea from the last post onto fabric.

Leaving the edges loose I messy stitched around the photos to secure

it to the pillowcase and tacked the corners with knotted pieces of scrap fabric.

Now I can see my art and remember the poem.

{enjoy me}...

a poem and a flower

Laughter Came From Every Brick

Just these two words He spoke

changed my life,

"Enjoy Me."

What a burden I thought I was to carry ~

a crucifix, as did He.

Love once said to me, "I know a song,

would you like to hear it?"

And laughter came from every brick in the street

and from every pore in the sky,

After a night of prayer, He changed my life when

                                  He sang,

"Enjoy Me"

                                              ~ Teresa of Avila

{one thousand gifts}...

I just finished reading one thousand gifts by

Ann Voskamp.

And it sounds so cliche ~ but this book can change your life.

It is one of the most heartfelt, soulful books

 I have, or perhaps, ever will read.

I read a fair amount and I will count this book as a keeper.

I have empty my large book shelve 3 times, keeping only the best

though each recycle.  This book will remain always.

I have a long way to go.  But I am thankful for each one.

{are you having a hard time posting comments?}...

I have been having a hard to impossible time leaving comments on blogger

and I know some of you have too.  So I looked it up.

And yep, there is a "known" problem.  Here's a work around  fix.   

When you are directed to your account's Google page connection, do NOT check the box "stay connected"
I tried it
and it worked for me!
Thanks for trying. I really do enjoy getting and reading your comments.

{ok, so I was just wanting to relax}...

and feeling like trying something new in PSE.  So a bit of

layering on the painting from the previous post.

It's not exactly what I set out to try. But I just went with it.  (I'm a bit sleepy too}.

 And while I was playing around I started doing a little what ifing and thought I might try using

just the eyes, nose or mouth on some project.  So these might be showing

up on some art doll or maybe even on a small quilt.

{be...dream...play...}

Just being ~ playing around with a bit of face painting.

This time using watercolor pencils and acrylics.  I used acrylics mostly because I got impatient with the watercolor.  But will continue to practice with them. Maybe with flowers

or animals as I would not need to be so concerned with flesh colors.

{how do you define beautiful}...

The new art journal is done.  Well, done in the sense that's it assembled.  Are they ever really done.

The cover photo of course was my inspiration.

I just love this dress.  Makes me wish I had somewhere to wear such a beautiful dress.

And 30 years younger.  Or maybe 30 years older.

This dress and many others was made by Nattyboho at http://www.etsy.com/shop/nattyboho .

This particular dress has been sold.  But Nattyboho was so generous to allow me to use her photo.

Which is almost as wonderful as being able to wear the dress. 

 Above ~ the covers opened out showing the binding.

 And the complete book page by page

 including six blank pages.  That's a blank paper page on the right. 

Ready to add additional thoughts to or whatever.

 I must say I have gotten over my, shall I say phobia, of loose threads.

Loose threads were always a big no no when I was taught to sew.

Not any more.  I've been allowing more and more frayed and loose

threads in all my journals.  But this one is over the top with them.

And I am loving it.  Although I must admit I still trimmed the thread after sewing

with the machine.  Oh well.  Maybe next time I can leave them long too. 

It's size it really fun to hold.