My 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' mini journal is great for some quick art explorations. The background for this page was made after watching Carolyn Dube's lesson in Creative Jumpstart. The leaf has been floating around my desk since November when I made a bunch of leaves as part of the Thanksgiving table setting.
The table setting looked like this. 😏
Last year it was a total bust for me. I decided I was going to do a mandala every day and it lasted about 10 days - I just wasn't inspired. In fact, I wasn't inspired enough that I was planning on skipping it this year BUT as I was finishing up one of my Creative Jumpstart projects The Muse elbowed me in the side, a little violently I might add, insisting that a perfect theme for me would be to scope my stash.
Truth be told, it is getting a little hazardous trying to move around in my creative space. I've got boxes all over the floor, enough so that I have to contort my body like some Cirque du Soleil acrobat if I'm trying to get something out of the closet. My desk looks like an explosion of paper and random odds and ends with a tiny space carved out where I can work...with my elbows pressed to my sides. Ha ha...maybe I exaggerate slightly, but you get the idea. Not only that, but yesterday I was digging around in a drawer looking for something and I found some printing plates that I totally forgot I bought. I love them but one of them hasn't even seen any paint. It's ridiculous.
That's the deal friends. Between Feb 13th and May 24th I'm going to dig deep into the depths and use supplies that are dust-covered, empty boxes of pretty paper scraps "too good to waste" and deplete my index card collection (why in the world do I have so many index cards???). At the end I'll have a, hopefully, delightful collection of arted up cards that I can bind into a little book to remind to use it or lose it.
You with me??
IG hashtag is #scopethestash
The lesson in Creative Jumpstart today had to do with shapes and playing around with supplies. It struck me that this concept, courtesy of Amanda Trought, is great for getting the creative juices flowing. I was so inspired that I created two very different looking pages in my art journal this morning.
The first I made using on Kwik Stix. I bought some for myself a few years ago after playing with them with my preschool kids, but I've hardly used them at home. They've got pretty wide tips and are crayon-like so precision isn't a thing when using them.
Page #2 was made with scraps of paper in my collage box (i.e. my paper hoarder, don't-throw-anything-away- because-you-can-probably-use-it-for-something-later box). I decided to go for a monochromatic look to keep it cohesive.
This was a really fun exercise that I see myself coming back to over and over again - especially when The Muse is being stubborn.
Cheers!
That's a very dramatic-sounding title. It had been quite a week or so though. The hubs had the contagion aka Covid and was in quarantine in the back of the house for a week. (He's doing fine now.) The plus side of that is that I had a bit more time in the studio...glass half full so to speak.
Here's what I was up to...
Inspired by Drew Steinbrecher, I created my own stencils to use on the gel plate. Several pulls later I cut and stamped some of the prints to make a page in my art journal using the Creative Jumpstarts lesson from Nancy Curry.
I wish I remembered where I got this idea. I love using book pages in my art. Somewhere I saw an artist making a bunch of marks in a book and leaving the pages in there. Brilliant! Neat and tidy storage, marked up and ready to go, and easy to find. I started marking up the pages in an old book I've been ripping pages out of.
This little book holds a quote that I found on my Well Said Pinterest board. I love it and it is perfect for the Creative Jumpstart theme of "Connections". Really happy with the way this turned out. Bits of inspiration from both Dee Dee Catron's and Tina Walker's lessons in CJS.
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Next up is another little book I made after watching Tania Ahmed's CJS lesson. It stared with a masterboard (or a few in my case). I also went through my gel print stash and picked out prints that had been in there for a while. I hadn't used them before because they were 1) too pretty or 2) too ugly or 3) too busy or 4) too boring or 5)...you get the idea. These suckers just needed to find a home elsewhere. I'm planning on using this mini journal to just play around in during quickie art sessions.
Before I made the masterboards above I thought I was going to an all-green bunch of pages. I had a delightful gel printing session that left my work space awash in a sea of lovely greens...
My son tossed out this old journal of his when he was moving out. I, of course, grabbed it knowing that it could use some arting up. I love that it has some of his wonky sketches from he was little. This page was created over some shapes he had drawn. It came about because I joined the Creative Jumpstart workshop and this was one of the lessons.
The idea was to create texture with layers. I really enjoyed the exercise.
Cheers!
Postage stamps are fun to use in mixed media creations. I joined a postage stamp ATC swap and struggled to figure out what to do at first. Then it dawned on me to use the postage stamps as a background.
Here's what I came up with...
I hope it makes you grin.
Cheers!
The title says it all. I always am aghast when December 1st rolls around and I haven't done anything about Christmas cards. If I enter this challenge every month, at least I'll have 12. Ha ha!
I bought a pack of silver and gold card bases years ago thinking I'd be able to whip up some Christmas cards easily with them (and yet, here they sit...). I die cut 'Believe' out of white cardstock and layered it over a solid gold base. The stars were stamped and then embossed with silver embossing powder. Can't get much more CAS than that!
Cheers!
I love Stampotique stamps. After a bit of a hiatus I joined their monthly ATC swap. To start I dug around in my stash and found a music sheet that I had gel printed over a while ago. That was the basis for all of the bits below.
I can't believe we're halfway through January - yowza!
It's kind of strange how I go through phases with ATC-making. I go for long periods of time with no interest in making and trading them and then I realize I miss getting pretty stuff in my mailbox. I'm only trading on SwapBot these days and the following of some of my recent ATC makes.
This morning I was looking up old ATCs that I created and I discovered that my blog was a great resource. Why have I been neglecting it?? A year or so ago, I read something about blogs being obsolete now with other social networking platforms taking the lead. My thinking was that why should I bother blogging if there isn't an audience for it. But wait! I'm the audience! So I'm back...at least for now.
At the beginning of this month I started a workshop series: Creative Jumpstart. Damn! I had heard about it before, but never could justify the price tag. Was I wrong! Each of the lessons I've watched so far has been well done and I've learned so much. We're still at the beginning and I'm so pleased that The Muse has been roused from her slumber. Here are a couple of the projects I've done so far...
Inspiration Journal
