Collage Swap

My friend Janet is hosting this 6 x 6 collage swap. It was really fun to participate.














I was paired with my friend Judi and these are the collages she made for me.














Here is the second one she made for me.  I love how she added glitter to the robe.  The beads on the side also include a key. I think these are both really beautiful.














And these are the ones I made for Judie.














She really likes birds so I had fun making these two bird inspired collages.

Creativity Boot camp is over with now but I never showed my last journal page. The prompt was smile. This little two week exercise was lots of fun. I am glad I participated and also happy that I was able to do it all. Sometimes a sense of accomplishment is all you need to keep going.

Boot Camp Continues

This is the last page in my paper bag journal. I feel great to have finally finished it.  I plan to make a slide show of all the pages sometime this week.

More Creativity Boot Camp














On Day we were introduced to morning pages. Well that was not a new concept for me and its something I already do everyday. So off to the prompts.

For Day 7 the prompt was Fly, a very easy prompt, I decided to switch from birds to butterfly's.  Instead of painting  the page first I glued down the image and worked from there.  I used PanPastels for the background and stamped blue butterfly's using Rangers Adirondak Denim.














Day8's prompt was Ornament and could be interpreted as beauty or grace but I chose to do the page literally. I found this page of vintage ornament wrapping paper and just wrote between the lines. I tried embellishing with my gold pen but alas it was a strikingly different shade of gold.














On day 9 Maegan had us go back to when we first started making art and to regain that sense of play.  The prompt was drizzle so I made a fun funky background with a credit card and added this image and then tweaked the background to extend the image.  This was fun and I enjoyed the play aspect of it all.

Time in the Garden

I have been working hard the last three days in my little flower garden.  It had really become a garden of weeds. I decided that I wanted to spend time there this summer and the time to deal with it was now.  After a lot of weeding, digging, clearing and such I manage to plant things in the half that get some sun.  In the shady half I am adding a little table and chair so I can sit there on those hot summer days and have a glass of lemonade . It will be like a little nook where I can escape the heat.  I still have a lot of work to do but it is heartening to see some progress.

A Surprise in the Mail

Look what I received in the mail today. A surprise gift from my sister Marianne. Now I have some of Kelly Rae's art, how cool is that.

Boot camp day 5 we were to listen to the old music tapes of high school years.  I started thinking of the music of my era, Beatles, Stone, Moody Blue, Turtles and so forth.  I didn't really listen to the music as I would of spent some time doing that and I had other pressing things to deal with.  I did remember those songs and the diversity of all the musician and the wonderful music.  I'm still singing the Turtles Happy Together. 

 Our Prompt was GROW and I decided to take a different tact by focusing on the garden. The letters were cut out with my Cricut machine with the Wild Card cartridge and writing was done with a Zig writer pen.

















On day 6 we talked about creative style and doing things in the same way all the time.  Oh I am guilty of that.  I usually paint a background and then look for an image or paint one and then think of a theme to go with it.  So for this page I knew the prompt was fluid so I picked an image that covered almost the entire page.  I had one spot on the end so I took some unspun wool fiber and made a trim out of it by  making little loops and sewing it down the middle right onto the page. I wrote with a Uniball Signo white gel pen over the whole page instead of just the empty spots.

This page has had the angel on it for months, didn't know what else to add.  I found this quote in my file of words I have cut out from calendars and magazines. I like what it had to say.














 I have always wanted this chair and ottoman.  I have never seen any in stores here.  Maybe I have to take a road trip.  Are there chairs like this in your town?

 Another multi layered page.  I liked this image and imagine all sort of reasons why this woman is up on this ladder.
What do you think she is doing?  I hope you all have time for some art this weekend

Boot camp day 4

Its Day 4 of Creativity boot camp. I am really having fun doing these exercises. Our exercise today was to take our camera out in nature and just play. I haven't done that in awhile so it was great to get out there and shoot just for the fun of it.  These are some of my favorite shots of the day.

One of the pansy's in my flower barrel. This reminded me how much I would like a macro lens for my camera.










This little guy is peeking out of the other flower barrel.

Some wild mushrooms that popped up in my flower garden in the backyard. I liked all the lines that are on these mushrooms.










Flynn was running around with me so he had to get a photo too










 These white lilacs smelled so beautiful.














Dave planted this foxglove just a week ago and it is looking lovely.  We are hoping some hummingbirds are attracted to it.















The prompt for today was heavy metal and here is the page I did for it.  At first I had a hard time coming up with an idea till I remembered these armor pages I had. I ended up layer copper lumiere paint over a burgundy Luquitex,  the color looks wonderful in person.  Then I added stamped images in silver.  It was a fun page to do.

This a page about a trip to see hummingbirds being banded.   I have been planning a post on this but I just ended up doing a journal page instead. I like having a nice record of an event that was so much funn

What leap do you wish to take?

Its  Wednesday and I have missed wishcasting the last couple weeks with so much going on.

This week  Jamie asks this great question.


What leap do you wish to take?


Oh what a great question.  My wish is fairly simply in idea but perhaps not so much when putting it into action.  I wish to leap over all the obstacles that I feel are holding me back from my creative dreams. I write about things a lot but I don't seem to make plans or follow through. I'd like to leap to the other side where everything flows easily and I am living that dream.

Creativity Boot Camp Day 3

















Today we looked at Creative buzz killers, those things in your life that stop you when you just get going or prevent you from being as creative as you would like. Our prompt for the day was multi layered so I did a textured page and added the buzz killers for me. Then I changed the words around to make them more powerful for me. The page has tissue papers, paint, stamping and more paint and stamping.

More Journal Pages

I am still doing a couple journal pages a day trying to finish up the book. This one is just some random scraps and when I threw the heart up there I thought of Kim and her Big Love which led to writing about slogans.

















In this one I had multiple layers of paint and stamping and I really liked how it turned out. Then the image seemed to be the exactly the same color. I like how they matched so well. I ended up journaling about a new situation in my life. Since some of you will enlarge and read I guess I had better just tell all.


I had my surgery follow up yesterday and yes they found something.  It is an early uterine cancer and they believe a hysterectomy will take care of it.  I will be having surgery next month. Now this is not what I hoped for but if you are going to get cancer you do want it in the early stages so its easier to cure.  So I am grateful for that at least and whatever other lessons it has come to teach me.  I may have to postpone my trip to Ireland and I am not happy with that but it is what it is. It doesn't mean I won't go but perhaps not at the time I had planned.

Kim had sent me some of her Rock My World rocks to pass around on my adventures but I think I will keep this one for myself.. I am sure she won't mind.

Then I went for a walk in the backyard and found this. A gift from the Universe.

When you compare it to this other owl feather I found its really small although it could have come from the adult bird I like to think it is a feather from the baby.  If I go out at dusk sometimes I can see the owls again.  It feels great to know they are still out there soaring and living their lives.

I Am Going To Creativity Boot Camp

First some more journal pages that I did before I get to talking about Creativity Boot Camp.

I have had this image for awhile. it came packaged with some Buffalo Fiber that I purchased to spin. Yes you can spin buffalo, they have a very soft down that is very warm. The background on the page was done with some glitter mist, colorwash and walnut ink sprays. I love playing with them. I use Golden fluid to paint the moon. Writing in acrylic ink with a dip pen.

















This page came about from the picture and the thought of taking time out to re charge to cultivate those dreams we all have. I used a ZigWriter pen with this.


BOOT CAMP BEGINS. 

I heard about a Creativity Boot Camp on my friend Kim's blog.  It is run by Maegan from Madeline Bea Photography. It sounded like its going to be really good.  It runs for 2 weeks and there is work to be done everyday.  The class is free so if you are inclined go check it out.  It started on Sunday but I figured I could easily catch up.



















Day 1 the prompt was Ivory. I took a piece of paste paper that I made last year and sewed it to the page. It had all these angular spots that seemed tusk like. I added sticker letters that look a little crooked  and then journaled.  An easy page. Now on to day 2 and then I will at least be caught up.

Day 2 was to write about owning the artists title. So I wrote about it and how I have dealt with it.

















The prompt for day 2 is Picnic.  I decided to go on an artist picnic and take you along.  Now tell me what will you bring?