Simple Woman's Daybook

I came across this project on a few blogs I read and thought it would be a good way for me to focus and revive my blog. It is called the Simple Woman's Daybook.

FOR TODAY

Outside my window... sunshine, puffy clouds and blue sky

I am thinking... about my friend and the decision she has to make this week

I am thankful for... my health insurance, what would I do without it

I am wearing... 1 size smaller pants than I wore 1 month ago

I am creating... assemblages in my head

I am going... to take things one day at a time

I am reading... Butchers Hill by Laura Lippman

I am hoping... to do this list for one month

I am hearing... monthly city emergency siren checks

Around the house... art supplies needing a permanent home and calling to be used.

One of my favorite things... waking up to two furry faces telling me it’s time for breakfast

A few plans for the rest of the week… get my taxes submitted, work on Spring cleaning, Rally-O class with mom and Gabby

Here is picture for thought I am sharing… toes are ready for sandals

Another sad day

The last post to this blog was about loosing our sweet Daisy. Now we've lost our Daphne. It is so hard. No more greetings at the door, tails wagging with smiles full of unconditional love. Dogs mean different things to different people. In my family they were one of us, my canine siblings. So much love was received from them and so much given back to them. They didn't ask for much, just food, water and to be with you. It was so easy to give it to them. They gave us so much more. They filled our lives with love, companionship, smiles, a sweet face that would melt your heart, a devil dog that would make you laugh and big, warm bodies to hug. Truly gentle giants, these dogs called Mastiff. If one of them felt a threat they would subtly put their body in front of you to make sure you were safe. My heart hurts but I know they are together now taking care of each other and our 4-legged friends that went before. They are both free of pain, able to run and play and are waiting for us until it is our time to join them. Be at peace sweet girls. We love you.

Such a sad day.

Kacy's Daisy Belle

4/30/00 - 2/14/09

You were so greatly loved and will be so terribly missed.

We had to say goodbye to our sweet Daisy yesterday. It was time and the right decision but so very hard. The tears keep coming.

It's been a long time coming,

but tonight,

because of what we did on this date

in this election

at this defining moment,

change has come to America.

BARACK OBAMA

Thanks to the Happy Zombie for this button.

Crusade 21 - Irresistible

My first attempt at posting for one of Michelle Ward's Crusades. This one is called Irresistible - make wax rubbings.


Tools: paper, crayons and rubbing templates.

Rubbing with black crayon.

For this one I used a 12 x 12 scrapbooking template.

Colored with acrylic paint.

Here are my first attempts.

The Painted Page part 3 - my new designer jeans!

One of my favorite parts of the workshop was Michelle spray painting a pair of my jeans. They ROCK!!!!

Michelle painting my jeans.

Michelle and I with my awesome Michelle Ward original jeans. Michelle's jeans ROCK too. (Her finger is black because I kept missing the paper when she was helping me with the spray paint. Did I mention that she's a good sport?)

The Class

Check out Michelle's blog for her post about the workshop. My jeans and I made her blog (my hands did too).

Thanks to Kathy and Bill for another fantastic weekend at Valley Ridge Art Studio. I met some wonderful people, learned a lot, listened to some fab music, had some great food, enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere, came home with my head full of ideas and the coolest pair of jeans!!!

This is just a little part of the great view from the Studio.


Did I tell you I love my jeans?!!

The Painted Page Day 2

Day 2 was spent working with materials that Michelle provided to start putting content on our pages. She also gave us a demonstration on using spray paint and stencils. We were able to spray paint some of our pages. I immediately bought some spray paint when I returned home and have been practicing. You can see all of my pages on my flickr site including pages I've done since I returned home.

Here are some examples of my work from Day 2.

Painted Page (aka A Trip To Valley Ridge) Day 1

I was very fortunate to be able to take a workshop called The Painted Page given by Michelle Ward at Valley Ridge Art Studio (thankfully someone cancelled and I was able to get in). We worked on painting pages for a visual journal. Day 1 was techniques to get some color down on the page. Michelle is a great instructor and had a wonderfull handout prepared. It has really helped me a home as I continue to work on my pages. You can see all of my pages on my flickr site.

Here are a couple of samples from my pages on Day 1.

Great song!

I just love this song.

MIA

Sorry I've been missing in action for a while. I've been having some health issues. I'm on the mend and hope to be back to blogging soon. Hope all is well with my blogging friends.

Deco Book #2

These pages are for the second deco book I received. The pages measure 2 5/8 x 2 7/8 inches. I used another background made with acrylic glazes and stamping. I painted the branch and leaves. Stamped the bird (Memory Box) on a page from a Korean book and colored it in with layers of fluid acrylics so the text shows through. The bird was cut out and glued on the page with gel medium. I stamped the Asian symbol (Hero Arts) for Sky. The egdes are done with oil pastels.

For the back page I stamped and embossed the symbol for Destiny (Stampabilities).


It feels calm and serene to me which I'm needing right now.

Deco Pages

These are pages I made for a deco book round robin. This is my first deco book and I was the first person to add to this book so I was a little nervous. I used one of my painted background pages.

I hope she likes them.

More Background Fun

I've been making more pages. I plan on using these for pages in a book I want to make.



The first two are actually front and back of one piece of paper. I just used a piece of plain, white paper from my printer.



Side 1: I stamped with a script stamp and my new favorite stamp (Stampabilities Crackle Berry F1141). I love the way this stamp looks and have been using it on everything. I even bought a second one because I've been using the first one with paint and wanted to keep one decent to use with ink. Anyway, after stamping I painted over it with acrylic glazes made using Satin Glazing Medium with Quinacrodone Magenta, Quinacrodone Nickel Azo Gold and Quinacrodone Burnt Orange. These are my three favorite colors at the moment. Each glaze was painted on and allowed to dry before the next layer was added. I used paint rollers I bought from Dick Blick to apply the glazes. My local Dick Blick store doesn't have the rollers so I ordered them on-line. The regular foam rollers from the craft store didn't work as well and fell apart fast. The corners were taped down with painters masking tape to hold the paper in place for the first coat of glaze that is why they are a different color. I just tape the paper to my table which is covered with a plastic table cloth that way I can paint over the edges of the paper to get good coverage for the entire sheet. (One of these days I'll have to post a picture of my table cloth. It is georgeous and changes every time I paint.)





Side 2: I painted over a stencil with gesso. I absolutely LOVE this stencil. I bought it a one of my local scrapbook stores in two different sizes, this is the large size. It is made by
TheCraftersWorkshop.com, the name for this size is Botanicals and the smaller one is Mini-Botanicals. Then I glazed over it with glazes using Quinacrodone Nickel Azo Gold and Quinacrodone Burnt Orange. I really love this one. It is very subtle and the color is awesome. I'll have a hard time covering it up.

This is one of my "waste" sheets. I always have one on my table to use up extra paint and clean off rollers, brushes and stamps. I stop when I decide I love it. If I don't love it then I keep adding to it. This one probably has 10-12 layers. These are becoming some of my favorite pages.

Chipboard Swap

These ATCs were made for a swap. We had to use chipboard. I thought the theme was appropriate for this time of year. The background is made with tissue paper, then glazed with acrylic paint and stamped. The chipboard hearts were colored with distress ink and then embossed with clear EP.