Around Here Lately

Lately I have been doing art journaling on a small scale - 3 x 5 to be exact. I started working on smaller art when I started my Rolodex art journal (see the start here). Lately small has been quick and easy. I stumbled on the Index Card a Day (ICAD) art challenge and 30 Days of Bible Lettering. These two challenges have been running at the same time and I am "loosely" following them when I need a creative spark.

June in Review

Summer is here and the busyness of the school year winds down for just a bit. It amazes me when I think about the fact that my daughter graduated from high school 18 years ago! The first year after she graduated it felt strange not to have the school year dictating our schedules and our calendar. We got past that - along with numerous other empty nest transitions! But then our church began a ministry to the elementary school nearby, and I soon became the leader of that ministry, and over the past 11 years I find that the school year once again has the greatest impact on my schedule and calendar! So, while I am not a teacher or a school employee, I find I release a huge sigh in June when the calendar and the schedule slows down for a while.

For the Love of Creative Energy

Last week was a week full of creative energy. It started out with a long weekend for the Easter holiday. We had Monday off as our holiday day and I took Thursday off as a vacation day since school is out this week. Working only 2 1/2 days really helped amp up the creative energy! I think having a loose schedule probably benefits most creative types.

One of the Documented Life Project (DLP) challenges was to create white-space on a pocket card (PAC). Rae Missigman had a quick little tutorial on how she used shaving cream and alcohol ink to get a bit of swirly color on her background, so I thought I would give her method a try. My results did not end up with many swirls since I tried using a small Styrofoam tray with large sheets of paper. But the background on my card didn't turn out too bad.

Last week my sister and I started a Facebook group for those who love to use vintage items in their home decor and/or art. It's a place to share resources like the new vintage section of my Etsy shop, the adventures of vintage hunting my sister and I go on, vintage shops we find online and in the Ohio/Michigan area, ideas for using and repurposing vintage items in the home and in art, etc. You can check it out here and join the conversation and adventure!

On Thursday we met in Ann Arbor and spent the day hunting vintage finds. We also visited a shop we had found online. Tamara has a Facebook group for her shop and vintage findings as well as a new website. Despite the fact that it was pouring down rain, we had a great time meeting Tamara and exploring her sweet little shabby shack shop. We picked up a metal sign I had ordered online.

We then spent the rest of the day exploring thrift shops, antique stores and simply enjoying being together. Some of my vintage finds are below. They will appear soon in my Etsy shop in one form or another!

Saturday I had a finance team meeting at church and then poked around a few thrift and vintage shops in my area. A few of the vintage finds from Saturday:

Through this wonderful vintage brick alley in downtown Maumee you find a nice store full of antiques and repurposed vintage furniture. Encore Furniture 306. Saturday was my first visit to this shop.

On Sunday we had a full breakfast room at church. Having lots of kids around always fills my heart!

After church a few of the boys went with me to watch birds at the park.

One of the ongoing art projects my sister and I have is our altered Rolodex file art journals. We love sharing this project so I am always on the look out for more Rolodex card holders and boxes. This week I came across three! They will be listed in my shop in the next few days. I made some art journal cards to display in them and will include them as a bonus with each holder.

Left side: Anne's. Right side: mine.

A week full of creative energy was good for me in so many ways! Enjoy the week ahead. :)

Meandering 2.26.2016

"Meandering: adjective; the act of following a winding or indirect course. Ramble, roam, zigzag, circuitous. A blog post about a variety of things; a little bit of this and a little bit of that."

I have a "thing" for office supplies. I love to walk into an office supply store and wander the aisles and ponder all of the new crisp papers and folders; the variety of planners and products to organize my life; labels, dividers, envelopes, pens, pencils - the list goes on and on. I don't exactly get what the appeal is, but I'm hooked! It is no great surprise then, that office supplies have made their way into my art practices. I shared previously that a stop on day one of our sisters road trip provided a wonderful supply of new and vintage office supplies. So once I was home I started playing and using these new found items in my art journaling projects. One of our great finds were two dusty boxes of old ledger paper. I had fun the other day stamping and stenciling on it.

Along with the ledger paper I have used some other office supplies in my art.

Hole reinforcements decorated with ink and paint

Mailing label, plus ledger paper as a background page.

These office supply goodies have made their way into my Etsy shop too. I now have a few Office Supply Ephemera Packs available here.

I have written posts about my recent road trip with my sister  here and here. I didn't get much of a chance to visit any parks and do any birding while on vacation, but I did see some birds. One of the highlights for me was on a walk on the trail behind my daughter's when I spotted an Eagle!

I saw a few birds that we don't have in Ohio:

Northern Mockingbird

Best I can tell this is a female Boat-tailed Grackle

And then it was just nice seeing some of the water birds again since they have migrated from the north for the winter.

Last Sunday after church Sai'Vion and I and my friend Rox went to the Window on Wildlife to watch the birds for a while. Sai'Vion is very interested in animals and is really enjoying birding. He is doing a great job of remembering the birds names and how to identify them. I, of course, am a biased god-grandma, but I'm pretty impressed with how engaged he is for a nine-year-old! We're ready for Spring to come and bring the migratory birds back to our area.

Well, that's all the meandering I have for today. 

Thanks for stopping by!