Art Journal Every Day and my art journal page #1

i have been playing around with digital art journaling for a while now but i finally decided to get out my paper, glue, scissors, etc. and create a page the 'old fashioned' way.

 

 

 

what do you think~!?

i will be using quotes as jumping off points within my first pages and am looking forward to binding them together in some artistic presentation (when i get that far).

this page is created on a lightweight cardboard base (cereal box).
some of the supplies/techniques that i used:

• newspaper
• water color ~ paints & pencils
• paper napkins
• various found images & words
• lace
• some stitching
• micron pen
• lots of glue

this page was put together bit by bit over the course of a couple of weeks and inspired by my love of gardening.
i've enjoyed making art journaling a (mostly) daily habit during this time and i hope to keep it up. with that in mind i found a group of like minded souls over at  Balzer Designs. Julie Fei Fan Balzer has an "Art Journal Every Day" link-up on fridays and i'm going to jump in today. if you're a fan of mixed media art and/or art journaling you might want to check it out and join in too. today she has three fabulous short video's to share not to mention what surprises you will find if you visit some of the other artists links.


i also had the time to create a digital art journal page using a crop from a photo of this cut and paste journal page:

so looking above you see 'before' and below you see the 'after' the digital magic page.

would you share with me which one you like the best: the digital page or the one that i created with lots of glue? any particular reasons why?
i had fun making both. different skills and supplies needed and different surprises within the processes.

as always you should be able to click on any of my images and see the details in a larger size if you wish to do so.

a STRONG beautiful world on wordless wednesday

our beautiful world on an almost wordless wednesday

 

 



slow sunday stitiching ~ august 18, 2013

thinking of you Kathy.





it's sunday and i went back to work on my flower garden quilt. during the week i sewed  the necessary background hexies to the unit i wanted to add next so it was all ready to sew directly to the growing main body of the piece.  






slow stitching means slow progress but it definitely grew. if you are interested in seeing more slow stitching or in sharing/showing what you yourself are slow stitching then hop over to Kathy's Quilts for today's Slow Sunday Stitching event.


  



later on this evening i will get the label made and sewn onto my doll sized random sampler. i'm not sure why i always put labeling off but i won't cross this piece off of my list until the label is on. i need space on my list . . . more about that next week.

 

 

i know that this is not the best photo and you can only imagine the amount of cropping that i had to do but i am very excited to announce that i have baby fish in my pond~! they are fast, nervous and really really really TINY so getting a better shot was more than i had the patience for.

this one was in the process of darting from under one lily leaf to darting under another. the bigger fish in the pond don't have any problem with eating their own and so only the fastest, smartest and luckiest fish survive. in fact, i've had baby fish during almost every summer season but rarely do they live to be part of the regular population.

 

i discovered my baby fish while i was in the process of checking up on five new fish that i've purchased for the pond. they are only feeder fish size and mostly white. i'm happy to say that so far, they are all present and accounted for. i was careful to buy fish that i could identify in some way so that i could keep better track of them. so it was an additional surprise for me to find yet another mostly white small fish. this fish appears to be a surviving baby from earlier this summer(?). it is actually a bit bigger than my new five and luckily has slightly different markings than the rest of them.  i hadn't seen it until it started to hang around with them which is amazing given how much time i spend by the pond watching the fish. i was quite confused until i finally figured out what was going on.

i suppose it felt that there was strength in numbers and that with new fish friends in the pond that were closer to it's own size it could safely come out into the open.

 

happy days in the late summer pond~!

 

recent gifts include:

• the population "explosion" within the pond
• time in which to resume some art journaling
• my daughter's trip to (and safe return from)Ireland
• the doctor's approval of the continuing health of my new hips
• fresh summer fruit

 

 

wordless wednesday ~ august 14, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

slow sunday stitching ~ August 11, 2013

 

 


i've been thinking
about my hexie project a lot lately and wondered if i could get it out and figure out where i was quickly enough to make it my slow sunday stitching project. it was surprisingly organized. i had a pin in it where i felt the next flower unit should go and i even had it all picked out. everything was ready in a matter of minutes so i sat down and began stitching. 


and now the piece is just a bit bigger than it was.

i think that this might be the next hexie sewn in . . .







  i'm once again linking up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching. it's always fun to see who else has linked up and what they are working on.


i'm also linking up with Our Beautiful World. i like the friendly atmosphere there and i can share my world as seen through my lens with others who want to learn, share and inspire each other.
there is a prompt each week and this week it is "wonder".
when i look that word up in the dictionary one of the definitions is "exciting amazement or admiration".
that's exactly how i feel when i see things through the world of macro photography.

 

last week i was asked about the way that i hang my prayer flags and so i thought i would share the backside of this one and talk about it a little.

i follow the basic instructions on making a prayer flag from the prayer flag project blog.
i should say loosely follow those instructions. sometimes my flags are a slightly different size depending on what i find to make the flag out of. i enjoy making this an intuitive process so i keep my rules minimal.
 i do make the flag longer than necessary as i fold the top down in the back to form a little sleeve. i invisibly stitched this one and then embroidered a feather stitch over the top of the seam.

i like to add a patch onto the back that has the prayer of serenity printed on it.
stitching a bell onto the bottom of my prayer flags makes it an auditory reminder as well as a visual  one. 
btw: if you know where i can find more bells similar to this please let me know. i just happened to have a few and a they are nearly all gone.

i add my initials and the number of the flag on the back. the capital T that you see after the number indicates that this flag has a twin. i'm not sure why i do it this way . . . but it seems right.

currently i hang mine at the entrance of our home. i have a sort of clothes line thing going on there right now and i fill it with a variety of things that i enjoy. sometimes seasonal. i created this for the prayer flags in particular but until it's full of prayer flags i'll continue to add other bits.
i have also seen the prayer flags hung using a branch from the garden. i think that's a great idea too.



 
recent gifts include:

• breathing fresh air
• clean running water. hot or cold or anything in between!
• seeing colors 

 

wordless wednesday ~ august 7, 2013

 

 

 

 

slow sunday stitching ~ august 4, 2013

 today i've been finishing up my current set of prayer flags. i'll send one of them to my mom and hang the other on my front porch. i always make two very similar flags at a time; it seems like a good way for me to remember the other person in my thoughts and prayers.

i'm joining up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching where she has a gorgeous hand pieced and appliqued block posted. there are other slow stitchers with beautiful work to show if you are interested in checking it all out.

this is my wonderful daughter's july postcard.  i included bits of garbage that were collected while she was home for the fourth of july holiday as well as some alphabet brads, a stitched felt watermelon, and a smashed ginger ale bottle cap  (from our own holiday table) with stitched sunny "rays". all placed onto a background woven out of skinny red, white and blue fabric strips. i randomly embroidered the strips to hold them in place and there is a blanket stitched edging around the whole thing. i used the "spine" of the blanket stitch to add more embroidery stitches around the outside of the card.

i mentioned to her that i thought this card was a bit chaotic/busy looking and she responded by saying that  that was also a good demonstration of the fourth of july holiday.

:-D

 

 

 

 

recent gifts include:

• this weekend quietly spent with my daughter; pleasant chatter and some time for identifying the resident humming birds
• playing peek-a-boo with a cicada. it seemed very interested in hiding from me until it heard the clicking of my camera lens
• numerous white lilies blooming on the surface of the pond
• the gold fish willingly eating from my hands
• the taste and look of heirloom tomatoes
• homemade vanilla bean frozen yogurt