In Progress

There is a lot of activity going on but there is not much finished.

I took these towels off the loom yesterday but now they need to be washed and hemmed.










This is another warp ready to put on the loom. It is hand dyed silk and I am going to make a kimono like top out of it.










Then there is my new mailbox, here it is with its first coat of paint. I haven't decided what I will paint on top of this yet.










Here is a sneal peak at the suitcase I am altering.

I started on the journal using the  Creative Awakenings: Envisioning the Life of Your Dreams Through Art

This is the cover, you are supposed to decorate the aluminum with alcohol inks but I really didn't like how it looked so I took it off.  The cover is supposed to have symbolic elements. I chose a raven and the four directions are here along with the moon, sun, stars and a spiral. I also stamped things I liked on the cover like turtles, hands and dragonfly's.













This shows the center piece a little better.



I do like how the back cover turned out too.

In the beginning of the book she asks you several questions and I am going to do journal pages on some of them.  This first one was all about the past year.











This one was all about your personal and creative strengths. I thought it would be easy but found it difficult to come up with very much, I know I have more strengths so I will probably be adding to this page at a later time.


Paper Bag Journal

After countless hours trying to get a video made of my paper bag journal I went to Slide and had them do it.  Its on my sidebar if you would like to look.

Marcus McAllister

This is a video by Cynthia Morris, she is a coach in Denver and just spent some time in Paris and has a whole series of videos on that experience.  You can find her here  His journals are fantastic, you will love this video.

What a fun day

It is so exciting to find that there is another blogger who does mixed media right in your own town.   I have wanted some local Art friends but just didn't know how to find them and then one found me, I think that is pretty cool.

The lovely and sweet Jolene came to visit today. We planned to get to know each another a little more and work on our journals. You can see her blog here














She brought along this  prayer flag that she made for me to hang in my garden. I just love it.














This Is Jolenes's page, it is in the shape of a question mark. How cool is that. She is doing pages for a journal following the book  Creative Awakenings: Envisioning the Life of Your Dreams Through Art. In addition she has really taken with Ingrid Dijikers article in the latest Art Journaling Magazine. Its all about not having a rectangular shape to your page.












Here is my page, I took her example and made a page with differente edges. I actually did it to all three sides. I started with the pennants by painting them all yellow and then more paint and stamping. Oh what to do next, I thought circles and then I drew the circles and painted them and then I drew some more. They sort of reminded me of river rocks. I cut around the rocks to make that edge different. I had drawn these scallop on the other side and then decided to cut the paper away too. I love how this page turned out.










Here we are after an afternoon of art. Thanks to Sarah for taking our picture. Wow this is fun to sit and journal with someone else. I did this once with my friend Kate but its been a long time. There was an exchange of techniques that was fantastic. Jolene showed me how to draw on metal with a stylus.  Now I have no excuse I may just have to make that journal for Creative Awakenings and begin that book too. I shared a tip for StazOn Ink pads and enticed Jolene with my Tim Holtz ruler. She had a chance to look at all my collaborative books.  We really had a fun afternoon. It is great to have someone to share your mixed media passion with.

Free Hugs and Some Journaling

I loved this video.  Since I have been showing so many other things it time to get back to some art.

This is an old page and since I started reading 'The Necklace: Thirteen Women and The Experiment That Transformed Their Lives it seemed to fit and I felt it need some journaling added. Over at wish studio they had a group going about this book.  Although I didn't join I am reading the book and its pretty fascinating how the necklace changed the lives of these women.














In this one I was trying out a new stamp and I really liked the movement of the image. My journaling related to some not so great medical news.  My blood sugar is up so I really have to watch what I eat again and I need to go take another test because my kidneys were dehydrated.  It could be because I was fasting so that is why I need the test redone.  It just took me down that how much more of this can I take at one time lane. So I do what I can, I took a walk in nature and did some journaling. All we can do is take it one step at a time.














The background was created with a gesso resist and then I could not decide what else to do.  I went through my stash of animal images and these bears just all wanted to be there.  I think they are so cute.

Right now on my roof are two morning doves all puffed up , they look so cute just preening their feathers.  It seems that I can be endlessly fascinated by birds.

Bears in Yellowstone

This is so cute to watch.

Out of town

On Saturday we went up to Ennis and Virginia City Montana for the day. As we drove through the town of Ennis I saw this sign and knew I wanted to stop.










It was a lovely Quilt shop run by a couple from Delaware.  The rooms were full of wonderful fabrics and I got seduced by these batik's. They had an entire room full of these fabrics, it was really hard to choose.









But of course I managed to find a few to take home.










Then we found a knit shop and I got this silk/wool lace weight yarn.  I had a great chat with the store's owner Christine. I found out she was a spinner too. She  asked if I might want to come back and teach a spinning class and I said I would think about it.  I just might do it, I used to teach both spinning and weaving.










Ennis had all these interesting features.  This group of pack animals was on the roof of the Ennis Cafe where we stopped for lunch.










and then across the street was another spot called the Blue heron.
Virginia City

Virgina City is a historic mining town, full of new and old buildings from back in the 1800's.  The first place we went was Boot Hill, a cemetery. The signs told us that this is where the road agents were buried.










Well I had no idea what a road agent was till I saw the graves and saw that they all had been hanged. They were the outlaws of the period.

Then we saw this little cemetery for the rodent agents.  Someone really had a sense of humor to set this up.  Click on the picture and you should be able to read what their crimes were.










In one of the shops was this beautiful poppy paper.  I just had to take it home.

Lastly I went into a shop called Victorian Sisters. I found this necklace and it  seemed so fitting.  It says Follow your Heart.
All in all we had a fabulous outing, sometimes it feels so good to just get out of town and explore something new.

Synchronicity

I had the most fun thing happen tonight.  This evening I headed over to Barnes and Noble to see if this magazine was out.  I saw that there were only 3 copies so I grabbed one and then headed over to the mixed media section.  There were two women standing there so I walked around them and started looking at the books.

I had wanted to see if the book Drawing Lab was there.













 I saw the two women chatting and I think I said something and the woman looked at me and said "Are you Kate, and I said yes and she said I'm Jolne."  Oh we laughed at that.  Well you see Jolene had commented on a post and we realized we lived in the same town and have been planning to get together and meet but it just had not happened yet. We have mostly scrapbookers in  my town so it was so exciting to find another mixed media person.

We were looking at all the new books and she pulled out one and said oh I am excited because this on the way.  The book she pulled out was Drawing Lab. So I did get a chance to look at it.  We also realized we both were carrying a copy of Art Journaling.  Oh that was just too much fun. Wow more synchronisicity.

I wished I had my camera with me so I would have had pictures to post but I didn't.  It was one of those fun moments where you meet someone where you instantly have a bond.  We must of stood there for fifteen minutes or more just gabbing away about mixed media art and blogs and books we liked or wanted to buy. We still plan to have a day for a real meeting but this spontaneous one was fantastic.  It was so nice to finally meet you Jolene.

Videos with Michale Losier

I thought I would share a series of videos done by my friend Lilou.  She interviewed Michael Losier author of the Law of Attraction.  Since YouTube limits the size of videos she had to split the interview into 5 videos. Below is the first one and you can find the others on her channel. Every one of them has something good to offer. 

If you are at all interested in how the law of attraction works or have done vision boards and still can't seem to bring the things you want into your life I highly recommend these. 

I have managed to manifest many times in my life but not with the consistency that I would like. It was clear after watching this series of videos just what I have been doing wrong.  The thing I like about Michael is he put things in practical terms and really tells you what you need to do.