Little Scraps of Magic

Goodbye, Utah

 

We've had an absolute blast; the balloon ride was AWESOME! I learned so much at the conference that my head is spinning! Just about time to head for the airport and back to reality. Life is good!

How Now, Brown Cow!

 

Most cows contentedly graze within a fenced pasture. They wander aimlessly, content with life as it unfolds.

 

Not so this fellow! He declared himself king of the open field, defender of the ladies in his herd. In fact, he declared himself master of the universe.

He stamped. He snorted. He glared.

Phil remained behind the closed doors of the jeep. This fellow, you see, plainly weighed more than the jeep.

Talk about free range cattle!

Our time here is nearly at an end, and we head home on Monday. We snapped hundreds of pictures and captured countless memories...

....a moonlight lift ride at Sundance

....wine and cheese receptions

...train rides

...the scent of wildflowers

...riding the lifts up and hiking back down

Tomorow morning, a balloon ride and a champagne toast!

Silliness Abounds...or There's Nothing Like a Great Hat

 

You'll find this dashing young thing on Historic Main Street in Park City, Utah. Gorgeous, no? Phil and I are winging our way there tomorrow morning.  I'll be attending an educational conference by day, and bumming around with Phil at night!

In the meantime, we've left these fine, young, upstanding adults in charge of our home and critters!

 

Wild parties have been known to break out!

 

Tuxie strikes a pose, and...

 

...and Buffy firmly believes she's auditioning to become a Shriner!

Meanwhile...

 

....Kara's working on the invitations! Look for one coming your way soon!

I'l be in touch; I'll have my laptop and camera, and hopefully will find time to check in!

Journal Pages Galore!

Here's what I've been up to! The first pages are from my atlas journal, which is huge, so it's difficulate to get decent pictures. The prompts...visual and written, are from Kelly Kilmer's awesome class!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next few pages are from a calendar round robing I'm involved in; I don't tend to let myself play as much in these books, since they're not my own. Also, the paper in these calendars seems to have gotten thinner over the years, and they become frustrating with which to work. I've always loved the end results when I get mine back though!

 

I had a bunch of ephemera from our trips out and about during May, so I stapled it all along with paper scraps to some tags!

 

The background on the left was made using left over paints as I worked on various journal pages and postcards.

 

The postcard on the right, from a class with Sas Colby, flips open and has journaling on its back.

 

Stenciling fun on the left and 35th anniversay on the right!

 

I usually do a gratitude list here on Thursdays; this is a complination from a few weeks of posts.

 

I hope you've enjoyed these! Have a wonderful holiday!

Joyful Simplicities

 

Simplicity. I know it's the right word for me this year; I know it in my heart. But, somehow, for some reason, I've not been able to wrap my head around it so easily for most of the first half of 2009. So, I've focused these past few days on clearing out more clutter, and it feels wonderful. I don't think Phil is as enamored; he equates decluttering with a trip to Goodwill. At any rate, out went some clothes (How many tshirts does one lady need?), and out went some silver trays (What ever made either Mom or I think I was going to polish them? Or even use them? She generally didn't, which is probabably how they ended up with me. I confess that these were a bit harder to part with; they're a connection to her. I've been lugging them around for years, and every time I see them, a guilt pang runs through me. Poor neglected babies. I'd rather not equate Mom with guilt though, so into the box they went.

Here's what I'm enjoying this week:

1. Sunflowers in all their "Look at Me!" glory.

2. Cherries in a pail waiting for me to take them home. (I did and have been enjoying them for breakfast!)

 

3. A Farmer Markets' Visual Feast

 

4. Family

 

5. Taking photos and capturing memories

Making It My Own

 

June's crusade for Michelle Ward's GPP Street Crusade was to "make it your own." It took me several years to figure out that not only "could" I stamp and paint over store bought/magazine images and papers, but that I "should!" After all, those papers were professionally designed and manufactured and who was I to "deface" them? But, I finally realized that if I didn't want my art to look "cookie cutter" in style, I needed to do something. Now, I cheerfully cut, tear, stencil, paint, etc. over all of them! On the journal pages above, the blue outlined rectangles came from an old Somerset calendar. I rearranged the words, left out a few, and made them my own!

 

You can see a bit more of the idea on this spread. If you click and enlarge it, you can see some paper scraps peeking through on the left. I also obscured part of the stamp with the license tag - something I never would have done in my early journals!

 

More of the same here...behind the "Altar Boyz" are several paper scraps that have more than one layer of paint over them. Can you see the dots peeking through from one?  I repeated those dots with a stencil on the left, and again used bits and pieces of a quote from a stamp. 

More pages to share later!

Smiles and Paying It Forward!

 

Well, are you smiling back?  I hope so!

I picked up a package of "vine ripened tomatos" at Giant a few days back. They came prepackaged in one of those plastic crates, and after doing a cursory check for obvious bruises, popped them into my basket.

When I unpacked them, this little guy smiled hello. It amuses me that someone, most likely working on a production line, took the time to carve a little smiling face. Creativity in a world of conformity...pretty cool!

On to business...

Awhile back, I received an art gift (fantastic necklace) from Jeane over at:  http://mizz-frizz.blogspot.com/

and the promise of one from Aimeslee over here: http://paper-paisleys.blogspot.com/

so, I need to pay it forward!

Here's the deal:

I will make you something over the next few months - what it will be, I'm not quite sure, but there are several ideas floating around in my head. One of them will go to Aimeslee, and I'll pop one over to Jeane. Would you like one? I can do another 4-5! What you need to do, is (if you haven't done it recently) promise to do the same on your blog.  Pretty simple and tons of fun.

So, if you'd like a little art surprise later this summer, please leave a comment!

35 and Counting

Years, that is...not postcards!

 

What an absolutely lovely day! Our three and their wonderful spouses threw a surprise party for us!  35 is not the typical anniversary to celebrate this way, but as my darling daughter put it, "We figured it was your turn after planning two weddings two summers ago!" To which one of her brothers added, "Yeah, and we did miss the 25th!"

Lots of family, friends, and coworkers gathered with us. We ate, and then we ate some more!

Mother Nature cooperated beautifully; we had sunshine and blue skies after a week of mostly rain.

Turns out that the 35th anniversary's symbol is coral with the modern version being jade. So, Kara and Christina opted for jade colored tablecloths and a beach theme.  Gorgeous!

 

Kara and Christina outdid themselves, stashing away theme related goodies since January.

 

Wine seems to have been the gift to buy, along with some wonderful gift certificates, baskets of summer fun, and much more.  I spent this morning sorting most of it out, and arranged a few goodies on our table. I smile each time I go past my dining room table.

This morning when I got up, I realized that I've been married to this very cool person for over a third of a century...and for more years than not!

Your Criteria, Please

 

So, why do you journal?

Are we too influenced by all the eye candy found on the web?

Do I really want to be doing what I am doing?

So many questions floating around this world wide web this week. So many good questions; ones that we need to stop and think and make sense of.

I journal to make sense of my world, of what I'm feeling and thinking, sometimes to rejoice and at other times to vent. As I sit here typing, I'm thinking..."Why do I share my pages?" Partly, I think for validation. Sitting alone in my studio, it's just me, the paint and paper, and sometimes, Miss Buffy. She offers no opinion whatsoever. So, yes, I like to be told, "Oh, that's awesome!" Yet, many times there's no feedback, and that doesn't bother me. I just keep slapping paint around and gluing paper. I journal for me. I journal to see what will happen if I do this...

I don't journal to be published; that, really was a happy accident. Did I enjoy it? Oh, yes. What fun it is to pick up something from the newstand and know you're in it. Yet, that wasn't my plan. Really, trust me. It's a bit nerve wracking to tell your boss you're in a magazine, and that the page published was one where you complained about being over worked! I winced at more than a few pages that showed up in those magazines.

Are we too influenced? Maybe, maybe not. I think artists have always copied. I've seen many an art student diligently copying away in a museum. It's how we learn. Can I recreate this technique? Do I even like it once I manage to do so? Then, hopefully, we take what we like and make it our own. Remember all those wings and crowns? I could spit those out with the best of them, but I lost interest very quickly. Been there, done that, and I really don't want my art to look like everyone else's. I very quickly figure out whether I want to pursue some new art trend. I take what I like, but most importantly, as said earlier, I need to make it my own. Copying a style exactly and putting it out there as your own is stealing, plain and simple.

Do I really want to be doing what I am? Yes, I think so. I love teaching my sixth graders, and I love making art. I had a chance to sell my art this summer. I dithered about it, and finally, decided no. I just didn't want to make it on demand at this point. I am already stretched with other things, and I didn't want it to become one more thing on my to do list. Maybe, hopefully, the universe will offer it to me again, but if not, that's okay.

The page above was a bit of a rant and a bit of questioning myself. No one else really needs to inhale all that negative energy, myself included. Spilling it out on the page helped immensely. Then, I played with paint and paper and covered most of it up. I know what's there; that's enough for now.

Now, I think I need to be quiet! I managed to create lots of pages yesterday, and I'll share those later! To anyone who's read this far, thanks for "listening!"

Firefly Magic

 

I've been watching the fireflies flitting all over my yard...pure magic! They take me back to being a laughing giggling little girl, roaming the yard, glass jar in hand, with my sister, intent on capturing as many as we could.  In retrospect, we were trying to capture magic. In many ways, I still am.

Phil and I have filled the last few days with a trip to Pa and lots of yard work.  One of the nicest things about procasticnating as far as planting flowers is that you get to buy them at a discount. Yes, they look a little ragged, but so do I! With some love in the form of fertizlizer and whispered prayers, they're doing quite nicely. I still need to find some mint, and hopefully, a bit of lavendar and lemon balm, simply for their lovely scents. Pure bliss and relaxation.