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. :)

Art Journal Plans 2016

 I am participating in a number of groups this year to help inspire my creative juices. Last year I really missed joining in with One Little Word (OLW) and The Documented Life Project (DLP) due to my busyness with the His Kingdom Come community. This year I am already enjoying slowing down and spending time on projects that foster reflection and changing habits, life planning and documenting memories. This is what these two projects bring to the table.

One Little Word is led by Ali Edwards - you can learn more about her on her website here. Ali offers a year full of prompts and ideas to incorporate with your word for the year. The Documented Life Project is a year long project done in a planner that uses prompts and technique challenges to record daily life throughout the year - you can learn more about their project here.

 

Originally I thought I would combine my different art adventures into one, or maybe two, journals. But as time progressed and I got involved in the plans for each group I decided on separate journals. And I decided to actually use the journals each group was offering their members. But then, just because I love making my own journals, I added an altered book journal in which I sewed the signatures and bound them into the spine of the book. I found this wonderfully worn German book at a book sale and the pages were literally falling out of it. It's worn cover and beautiful red spine were calling to me to be made into a journal and I intend to use it for miscellaneous art projects and classes throughout the year. In addition to that I made a small pamphlet style booklet to use as a travel journal on my upcoming road trip with my sister (I made one for her also!).

Here are some glimpses of my various art journals:

One Little Word:

OLW January divider page with my word circled: Rest

The Documented Life Project

Altered Book Art Journal:

Sisters Road Trip Travel Journal:

I will still do art and make recording from my photo walks in my Nature Journal. Who knows what else I'll get involved in this year. I'm just going with the creative flow!

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Tips for Using Old Books and Papers in Art Journaling

From time to time I receive questions from blog readers, Pinterest followers, Etsy customers, and members from groups I belong to. So I want to take some time throughout this month to answer some of them in a series of blog posts. I'll start with old books since so much of this started here for me.

The first time I made an altered book art journal I was hooked. I started going to book sales and buying books, making journals, using the book pages on my art journal pages, and stacking up books in my studio/office. I started my Etsy Shop, {found on brighton}, as a way to use up the books and leftover insides that were accumulating in my house.

So, what do I do with the book pages? It is quite rare that I make an art journal page where book text isn't peaking out of it somewhere, in some way. I love the look of book text in my backgrounds peaking out through subtle layers of gesso or paint.

I like to cut shapes and letters out of painted book paper.

Or make mosaics.

So these are some of the ways I use old books and book paper in my art journaling. Altered book journals and themed paper packs are available in my Etsy shop.

Are there ways you use books or book paper in your art journaling different than the ways I listed?

30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 7. I missed posting yesterday, so now they are not consecutive. But I press on with the challenge!