Play and Draw Happy pages ...21 Secrets Plus Some

Some extra pages I did in the Childs Play and Draw Happy classes after I completed the workshops.

This page, using magazine pages, was inspired by Alma Stoller in the Childs Play class. I have done a little bit of a lot on it. I machine stitched around the edges and all over the papers, gessoed it on both sides, and left to dry.

The dream words were cut out of the front of an old knit sleep t-shirt gown and machine stitched onto the front. You can see evidence of bubble wrap stamping in the white dots under the layers of fluid acrylic paints. I also used some oil pastels on top.

I'm thinking I may add something else later and use it for a journal cover, but this is how it is for now.

The next two sketches are the same page, only the top one I scanned as a magazine photo and the other was scanned as a regular photo. As you can see, the top one didn't pick up all the color, but I like it.

It's an extra drawing from Jane Davenport's class in Drawing Happy and Doodling. I used a sketch and wash pencil and watercolor pencils with a damp brush. She was born of my imagination, then had a pink flower cut out of scrapbooking paper and pasted on with gel medium for some flair.

Not perfect, but she has character, don't you think? :)

My cousin sent me an email with a lot of cute animal pictures in it, and I couldn't resist doing a quick sketch of these two. They were in two separate pictures, but had similar expressions. I used a mechanical pencil and the lead is light unless you really put the pressure on it. It's a cheapie from Wal-Mart, but I like it. :)

I also finished reading "The Curse of the Holy Pail" by Sue Ann Jaffarian and thoroughly enjoyed it. The protagonist is an overweight middle-aged woman, so I can identify with her, except that she's feistier and braver than I am. There were lots of twists and turns to the mystery, plus humor, and it kept me guessing right up until the end.  I look forward to reading more books in the series and solving more mysteries with Odelia Grey.

Thanks for visiting! I hope something on here made you smile! :)

3 Little Words Poetry Journal Pages-21 Secrets 2

These pages were inspired by Aimee in her 21 Secrets workshop Three Little Words. I learned how to take word strings and create poetry and a journal page with them. I love this class. It's one of my favorites, but I would hate to  have to pick THE favorite workshop from all of them, because I have learned from and enjoyed them all, and I still have 5 to take.

I've been taking a little break to do some cleaning and stuff that needed doing badly. When I do art, write, listen to music, or read, I tend to ignore everything else, but eventually I have to play catch-up, or at least clear a path for walking. :) My workspace is also in shambles, because I started organizing and cleaning, and right in the middle of it I got sidetracked and haven't gotten back to it. Right now, I can't find anything, and I wouldn't have a space to work if I could. So I'm catching up on my reading until I get re-situated and back into my journaling.

I have discovered the world of electronic reading via Kindle on my pc. Love it! I read "God Don't Like Ugly" by Mary Monroe a couple of weeks ago, which was hard to put down, and I'm now reading "The Craggy Hole In My Heart And The Cat Who Fixed It" by Geneen Roth, also very hard to put down. I purchased these two, but there are tons of free ebooks and short stories that look interesting on Amazon, and I've downloaded a couple of those, as well.

Whoops! I got sidetracked again, but when I find something that I enjoy I love to share it. :)

All three pages are on 8 1/2 x 11" cardstock, the phrases are from Anne Rice's book, "Violin (I love Anne Rice!)," and I used fluid acrylics in different ways, such as fingers, brush, spray, stamping, etc. I kind of overdid the background on this one, I think, and the gold glitter butterfly and swirls don't show up in the scanned image as pretty as they are, but you get the idea.The face was drawn and painted over the background, but before the bubble wrap and the glitter glue. The journal phrase is in the necklace around her neck, and it says, "Dizzying golden swirls Touched her check."

This page also has collaging and cut-out butterflies, one from scrapbooking paper and one from a text page, a page from an old dream dictionary, and black "stitching" with a Pitt pen. The poem says:

I reached out full of hope

Just to rest, to be free

The words melted like a veil from my soul

Stood in fear, shut my eyes in the rain

Caught the light, opened my eyes

No longer afraid of all memories or the unknown

Stomped my foot!

Confessed with laughter!

For some reason, I am really into purple and pink this summer. What do you suppose that means? Anyway, I used pages from the old dream dictionary to collage the background, sprayed them with thinned fluid acrylics, then added some torn shapes from the same book that I had already painted pink over a resist word (Faith) on at the bottom. I cut the upper butterfly from one of the pages and used it as a stencil negative to spray over, leaving the bottom butterfly pinkish and the top one purple. Again, I used a black Pitt pen to "cross-stitch" the torn paper with the poem to the page. I'm not sure I'm finished with this page. It seems to be calling for something else, but I'm not sure what just yet. I love my poem though! The poem says:

A dipped pen

Grand purple ink

Just the moon, mellow and soft

Caught in transcendence

Expressed my soul in that moment

Shut my eyes

Let it go



These pages got covered up, along with my friend's birthday card, for a few weeks, during the re-arranging of my work space, and I just found all of them a couple of days ago, a week after my friend's birthday. :/  So she now has her card, and I can share another of my workshop projects with you.

I hope you enjoyed your visit and that something on here made you smile just a little. :)

I'll be back soon!

Happy Holidays and Computer Freeze

Hi all!

I hope you are all having a safe and happy holiday season.

Hubby didn't get to be home this year for Christmas so Mom and I spent a quiet day together yesterday (we live next door to each other). We both got cards and phone calls from family members and friends, which we enjoyed very much. She cooked and I helped her eat it. :) I did fix a banana cream pie, but we got too full of cornbread dressing, dumplings, and mashed potatoes to eat it yesterday, so we'll have leftovers for a couple of days. Didn't bother with a turkey since it was just the two of us.

She gave me a gorgeous Aigner purse and I gave her a new toaster oven, things we had both said we'd like to have, plus we had a few stockling stuffers for each other. We will have Christmas again in 2-3 weeks, when hubby gets home, with his family and with Mom again. Believe it or not, I still have a few Christmas gifts to buy, hubby's included (no idea what to get him, but hopefully I'll come up with something).

One of my best friends came Christmas Eve evening and stayed a while with me and hubby got to call that night. I also got Christmas cards done and mailed at the last minute, however, I didn't get any hand made this year again. I still can't get my mind wrapped around the fact that it even is Christmas for some reason. Maybe I'm getting too old or scroogy or something. :) I'm just thankful for all my friends and family whether we're actually together physically or not.

I still am not writing or creating any art much right now. Maybe after the holidays I will get settled enough to pick up a pen and brush again. I have finished reading two good novels though, which I will post reviews about later. I have several more stacked up to read. Reading also inspires me to write, so not only am I reading a good story, I'm priming my writer's pump! :)

First I have to get my laptop pc fixed. The Windows XP operating system locked up on it just like it did my desk top pc last spring. It won't even open up. I wound up having to completely reinstall the operating system and all other programs on my desktop after hours on the phone with tech support trying everything, so I"m pretty sure I'll have to do the same on the laptop.

Fortunately I have all the photos and my writing saved to a disk, however I didn't think to save my email address book and favorites list, so they will have to be re-compiled, because I never put them back on the desk top when I got the laptop. So I'm in for some time and work to get it going again. Those of you that are in the habit of getting emails from me, if you don't get any for a while, it's because I lost your addy in the crash and I don't know it by heart, so I'll have to wait til you send me something to add it to my list. Next time I'll save them to a disk too, in case of another freeze up. Freeze ups are definately not fun, especially if you lose a lot of stuff because you haven't taken the time to back it up to disks or something. Hard lesson learned. :)

The locked up pc is another reason you haven't heard from me much on the blog, groups, or email. It's been locked up for a couple of weeks now. I'm on the desk top pc today, but it's a hassle to use and it's cold in the room where it is so I'm only checking email every few days and not online much. I'm grateful that I have it for a backup though. I'd be lost without a computer and my internet buddies. :)

Anyway, just wanted you to know that I'm still out here, it's a gorgeous, cold, sunny day here, and I'm loving sitting by my gas fireplace reading or dreaming while siipping on a cup of coffee.

I'm signing off for now. Mom brings my mail and visits a while every morning, and it's about time for her, so ya'll HAVE A WONDERFUL, SAFE, HAPPY, AND BLESSED NEW YEAR, and I'll be back soon with something more interesting, I hope. :)