My Little Book of Affirmations

So much free time on my hands allows me to go down the rabbit hole of places like Instagram.  It was here that I discovered consie_atopserenityhill/ .  She has been having 'creative playdates' during the pandemic and I snuck in to play at one of them.  I ended up with this.

The process of making this was very freeing and no-pressure.  We started with plain old printer paper.  It's not intended to be an amazing masterpiece but rather an exercise in just going with flow and creating.  I loved making it.

You can see that the paper is bit wonky and wrinkly and that's all good.  (I have to admit that I went back after taking the picture and glued the middle pages together.)

We started by folding the paper into sections that would eventually become the pages.  Then we drew a random shape on each page and added collage-y bits.

After that I put down some watercolor, watercolor pencil, and watercolor crayon.

Random marks with watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons came next.

Acrylic paint and flowers drawn with Sharpies followed as did still more random marks.

 I finished by pulling out some old sentiment stickers and dying some seam binding with Distress Sprays.

I loved using bits and pieces in my stash that I wouldn't normally reach for.  I also really enjoyed that it was truly about the process of playing around and the end product wasn't the goal.

What has your Muse been calling you to do lately?

Halloween Mini Book - Guest Designer Spot for Mixed Media Monthly Challenge

Oh, I love October!  It was a wonderful surprise to be asked to be a guest designer over at the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge blog and when I realized it was for the month of October (my favorite month!) I was extra pleased.  When I ran across a Halloween poem by Jack Prelutsky I jumped at the chance to turn it into a mini Halloween book.

I started with 8 playing cards which I covered with torn paper scraps.  (Apparently I got very into the project because I only remembered to take two pics!)

I gesso'd both sides of the cards and on some of them I applied modeling paste through a stencil.  Once those were dry, I painted all the cards.

I used stamps and die cuts to decorate each page to go with the lines of the poem.

 I like the way the paint moved around the stencilled parts.  I used crackle glaze over the moon and when it was dry I rubbed some Distress ink into the cracks and Inka Gold around the edges.

I turned my buddy, Cecil, into a ghost by stamping him on vellum and then heat embossing so the ink wouldn't smudge.

Spooks made spookier with tissue paper ...

...and watercolor crayons.

 Jillian is all fancy with her glitter eyeshadow and rhinestone spider.

There is something about this Sizzix die that I just love.  Probably because Halloween is my hands-down-favorite holiday and I secretly want to dress up and go trick-or-treating.  :)

Oliver and Pigtales make a delightful, if grim, Halloween couple...

The tricky part was trying to determine what type of binding I wanted to use.   I really thought I was going to go with the Bind-it-All but decided to simplify and go with the chain instead.

This was a lot of fun to make and I loved digging into my stash to use things that had been collecting dust.

Many thanks to the Mixed Media Challenge Blog for letting me play along with them this month.  How abour you playing along, too?  Simply create a project based on their October mood board.

Happy Halloween!


Products Used:
Playing cards
Gesso (Art Alternatives)
Archival ink (Ranger)
Dye ink (Memento)
Crackle glaze (DecoArt)
Inka-Gold (Viva Decor)
Stampotique stamps (Cecil, Spiral, 3 in a Round, Heads, Oliver, Pigtales, Web, Jillian)
Acrylic paint (Americana)
Cardstock
Vellum
Stickers (Karen Foster)
Gel pen, white (Signo Uniball)
Alcohol markers (Copic)
Watercolor crayons (Caran d'Ache)
Light modeling paste (Liquitex)
Distress inks, paints, sprays (Ranger)
Grungeboard (Ranger)
Glossy Accents (Ranger)
Texture paste (Art Extravaganza)
Stickles (Ranger)
Tissue paper
Sequins (Recollections)
Stencils (Ranger, TCW)
Dies (Sizzix, Cricut)
Rub-ons (unknown)
Book pages
Cheesecloth
Chain

December Daily: Dec 1 & 2

Every couple of years I decide to create a December Daily mini album/journal to document our December adventures.  It's always amazing to me how much I forget until I look back at these little shapshots of time. Each day I try to take at least one photo of something.  Then I write a little something about it.  It might be a snapshot of cookies, one of my kiddos, a favorite decoration - could really be anything.  I meant to get it all set up and ready to go this year, but being the procrastinator extraordinaire that I am, yesterday found me in the studio cutting, inking, etc.   (As luck would have it, I reached into my Christmas stash and pulled out the one I started last year but never finished.  Still have the pictures though so we're all good....)   Here's this year's cover:

To make the mini I took 8 sheets of solid 12"x12" cardstock and scored them down the middle.  Next I cut them in half.  After folding this gave me 32 6"x6" sides to work with.  I like doing it this way in case I want to staple, sew or use brads; that way it won't show on the other side.  When I've got the pages all filled in I'll bind them with a wire binding and add it to the December Daily collection.

In hopes that I'll stay on top of it this year I collected all of my Christmas-y stuff in a a couple of boxes - stamps in one and other embellishments in another.  Since the pages are all cut out and ready to go it should be pretty simple to whip something up.  I'm using the calendar in the background to jot notes about each day so that when I get the photos printed (once a week) I can refer back to it to know why I took that photo.  If I don't get a photo that's okay too.  I can just write about something (or have a family member add their 2 pennies!) - a favorite memory, something one of us said or did, plans we have, whatever strikes my fancy.

Dec 1st and 2nd are ready to go...

 

Better get off the computer so I can get Dec 3rd done.  Ciao!

Back To School Already??

The Back To School sales are on and it's time to start thinking about school clothes, schedules, after school activities and...gulp...homework.  I have mixed emotions about school starting.  On the one hand, I look forward to seeing my preschool kids who I've really missed this summer.  I love watching my own kids play their various sports and, hectic as it is at times, I look forward to it.  On the other hand, I love the lazy, unscheduled days of summer and being able to be more relaxed about bedtimes and the ability to spontaneously take off on an adventure.  This is what crossed my mind when I saw this challenge over on the Blockhead Stamps blog to make a mini book.  If you are a stamper and haven't heard of Blockhead Stamps then hold onto your seat and zip over to their website to take a peek.  There are stamps there for every style.  I have been so impressed with their speedy delivery and excellent customer service.  Check them out.  Seriously.

About the book...my little project looks at what we love about summer and how the kids feel about returning to school.  I used all scraps from my stash for this little project..  I also tried to pull out stamps that I haven't used in a while (or ever!).  Here goes...

The background stencil is one I just got in the mail the other day from Blockhead Stamps.  Love it.  The title kind of got lost so I doodled around it to make it stand out more.

The book is bound using a pamplet stitch.  I added some beads and a little worksheet button to the ends of the bakers twine that I used for binding.

Ahhh...summer.  Bountiful gardens, the breeze whispering through my curly locks and days at the beach.

Camping and ice cream - two of my favorite things about summer.  It's criminal that we haven't gone camping once (yet) this summer.  I used the stencil again on the cone.

The background page is a math worksheet that I printed out for one of the kids thinking they would want to stay up to speed on their math skills during summer.  Ha-ha.  Fat chance, Mom.  On the left page I stamped the days of the week using distress inks.  Then I added some water to make them blurry.  The idea being that I frequently have to stop and really think about what day it is during summer.  The summer half of the book is done; time for back to school with the date circled on the mini calendar on the right hand side.

My oldest doesn't mind starting school too much.  Other than the early wake up time she's good with it as she gets to see her friends every day and flirt with random hotties.  It's all about the social life, right?  My middle child is less than enthused.  I often have to go in several times to wake him up on school days.  Strange.  He can have a 5 a.m. alarm for hockey and he hops right out of bed.  Hmmmm...

My youngest is somewhere in between the other two.  He isn't crazy about school starting but he'll suck it up and get with the program.  He's my laid back, go-with-the-flow kid.  On the right page I stamped the days of the week again, clearly this time.  Our fall schedule is insane between school stuff, soccer for some, hockey for some, etc. Never a dull moment.  The hokey pokey sentiment was kind of poking fun at ourselves and a reminder to keep all in perspective.

Finally the back cover.  I love my coffee and between my work schedule, my Etsy shop, the kids' activities and my husband and I both playing on adult teams (hockey and soccer respectively) a little jolt of caffeine now and again is just the jumpstart I need.

If you have indeed read this far thanks for taking in my babble.  :)  Until next time...