November BJP Completed

Happy Birthday to me....

This is my birthday month so I did a page on that subject. It's true that in every life a little rain must fall but remember that every cloud has a silver lining!!

This page is a reflection on three of my birthdays. The first is the birthday I turned six years old. I was a first grader and rather timid. My mother said my sister and I (her birthday was pretty close to mine) could each invite a few school friends for a birthday party. I took the invitations to school and when others than the ones who got them asked if they could come I didn't know what to say so I said "sure!" I never said anything to my mother as details have never been something I have been good with. On the day of the party my mother was REALLY surprised when all the kids showed up! I don't remember details of the party (of course) but I do remember it was the last real party I ever had. So this was one reason for the cloud.

The next birthday I'll tell you about is my tenth. It's a very simple story; I was playing with my dolls on our front porch. Our house was very small especially to hold eight people so I escaped to the porch to play. Back then (too many years ago) the rainy season actually started around October and so it was a beautifully (if not too damp) rainy day for me, my dolls, and my musings. I was hoping so badly my mother would have understood all my hints and would give me the Italian doll I accidentally found on the shelf in her closet. She did and the doll became Dolly and was my favorite forever. See clouds do have silver linings!

The last birthday is recorded only because it happened while I was part of the BJP. So, there are 54 candles around the edges of this page to commemorate this year. I made them in many colors as I just love color and the more of it the better. I don't know whether this is a "rain must fall" or "cloud with a silver lining" event. It's been a good year getting to be a part of a good group on the internet but it is my 54th year and that is not small stuff so you decide for yourself which it is.

Hope you enjoyed my musings and now I need to start December before I get further behind!!

Pink for the Cure

On Monica Magness' blog Girl Gone Thread Wild, I found a request for 2" squares to be attached to an art doll for an auction to benefit The Susan G. Komen Cancer charity. She has only asked for one square but is game for more. I made two today and will mail them off next time we head to town.

This is a good time to try something new as she doesn't care what media you use as long as she can sew it to the doll. So click on the link above or on the Pink Artist picture on the right side of my blog and get your own squares going!!

TIF update

I have the cover done except for the binding which will be a spiral wrapped hopefully, around this blue pencil (I'll tell you why on one of my pages).


I am happy with the way the cover turned out but almost wasn't as the red Sharpie penwork started to smear when I added acrylic medium to glue on the tissue edging. I should have known better as others on the BJP have mentioned the red sharpie wasn't colorfast but I got caught up in what I was doing and didn't think about it till too late. It didn't smear so much that it ruined it; perhaps I shouldn't have said anything as it would have seemed like part of my "plan". LOL on that one!


First I gessoed two pieces of cardboard I had cut for the covers. I tore around one picture of my mom and edged it with Color Box's chalk ink. I used markers to do the checkerboard (and should have stayed with the Marvy ones for the red - you are now WARNED). A dryer sheet was dabbed with paint, dried and torn to fit a corner with a tad to go somewhere else. Then I glued the picture, dryer sheet bits and a part of one of my mother's old earrings to the front. My email address and web name were glued to the back.


I painted the inside of the covers with yellow acrylic paint to which I added pearl white. Then I toothbrush flicked some red paint across. When dry I added a purple glaze which was mostly rubbed off right away. I added flowers punched out from another section of the print tissue paper and rubber stamped butterflies on each half.


I wanted to use the same tissue for the edges as I did for my first page on the heart/body but I didn't want it to disappear on the background as tissue has a tendency to do when glue is applied so first I glued the printed tissue to plain white tissue. When it was dry I cut my strips and glued them with medium over the edges. I like how it turned out.

November BJP Started

At last! I have begun to work on my November page. I really have a bit more done but I took the picture while I still had some sunlight or I would have had to use a flash which doesn't work too well as you all know. I feel SO good to be back at it!

Frogs

Since I am a collector of frogs, my daughter gave me a picture of some very strange looking ones this Christmas!

I guess there is a park near my daughter's house that has these lily pads in the pond there. Can you imagine asking someone to take a picture of your family while you all pose as frogs?

She put the picture in a green frame and gave it to me to add to my collection. I laughed out loud when I saw this picture. It certainly belongs in my collection, whether of frogs or of the eccentrics in my family though, I am not sure!!

TIF update

I was really getting worried as, once I had set my
heart on an ATC book of paper dolls, I found I couldn't come up with a good figure. Finally I decided to skip the idea of a real looking figure and use the spirit of my mom instead.

So my first page of the book is of my mother's heart. On the front side I used chalk to color the white page (which is from the blank part of the photo paper as I only printed heads on part of it). Then I stamped music notes and a butterfly on top. I cut out a heart and covered it with tissue paper and placed threads under it (left from making my Christmas cards for arms and legs. The blue thread seems to have a permanent kink in it which I decided fit the image perfectly.


On the backside I wrote how I felt my mom's heart fit the image I made.

I felt good when I finished this page. It wasn't realistic and it started out with a real struggle but I like how it flowed once
I got started. I hope my other pages flow like this one and that it isn't a one time only deal.

The reason I worry is because I can't recall just making art for it's own sake before this past year after I joined the BJP. I have always been a Necessary Artist - if I needed something, I made it and if I didn't I didn't make it. So this challenge I have entered is a real challenge for me in more than one way!

TIF Planning

I finally found 3 photos of my mother that I can use to give a face to my paper dolls. I woke up last night realizing I hadn't thought about the face but only about the personas I saw in my mom. I started to panic thinking perhaps this challenge would be too much. I think I am starting to breathe again.

I cut some thin corrugated cardboard into ATC sized pieces as I am hoping to turn this into an ATC book. I printed out some faces but they are too big so need to do it again. At least I have started.

Now I need to decide if I will do all the dolls in black and white to go with her pictures or add some color to the pictures and make the dolls in color. Enough for today; I am still getting over a cold I got from the grandkids and I have other projects that are plenty behind that need some work too.

Spirit Doll Update

It's January and it's time to get busy on my projects again.

This is how my doll looks at present. I've beaded the front sides of the wings and now have to do the back sides. Then I can move on to making a fringe at the bottom of the doll and a beaded cord to attach to her head so she can be hung. I think of her as more of a tassle-to-be.

Take It Further Challenge

I have joined the Take It Further Challenge I found on Sharon B's In a Minute Ago page. This month she asked us to use the concept of admiration for someone as the idea for "something" out of paper or fiber.

I think I am going to do a piece on my mother. I've never done anything on her before. I've beaded a page for my father for the Bead Journal Project but not for my mother as yet. I think I am going to use paper for this project. In fact, I think I will make paper dolls to show the many things she was during her somewhat short life (she died at age 56). Hmmm, now just to work out the fine points and get started.

Merry Christmas

I just want to wish everyone a very happy Christmas. I hope you have a wonderful year coming up. I hope you enjoy family, friends and pets and find yourself blessed through them. I know I have been blessed by all of these this past year and I am looking forward to next year.


This card is made by collaging a sheet of cardstock with old tissue paper and old gift wrap. I sponged a little gold glaze over the whole thing and then stamped stars on it with gold paint. It was then cut into card-sized pieces and glued to blank cards. I spray painted a sheet of corrugated cardboard with gold spray paint and then stamped it with black ink and images from Stampfrancisco.com. I took fibers from On the Surface that I got several years ago and strung seed beads on them. Then I cut them into segments leaving a bead on each segment which I glued with a touch of Elmer's glue.

You'll see I goofed on the font size. When you change fonts, don't just glance at it to see if it's still okay. READ it. I didn't and I left off the very last word but everyone knows what the word is. I didn't notice till all the pages were glued into the decorated cards!

I hope you enjoyed the card and I thank you for visiting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

October in December!

Well here it is - October is done!

This is a picture of the big old bean pot my mother had. It was never used for baking beans. Instead it was brought out on Halloween for us kids to put the candy we collected into. Then we would all share the candy. It was a big pot but with eight people in our family it seemed the candy didn't go far enough.

Halloween has changed a bit through the years. My mother remembered moving outhouses in her day. (I bet people were not too happy about that). In my day, one of my older sisters (no names will be mentioned) showed us how to soap the windows of people who weren't home. Hey, this was a mild trick for no treat! Now, the kids go around with their parents if they go trick or treating at all.

I used a picture of the bean pot my sister Kathy sent me. I beaded right over the picture and then removed the picture by bits with a needle nose tweezer. It was great to work over the picture but not fun to remove later. Still, I would use this method again if I want a more realistic picture when I am done. I didn't have any disc shaped beads for the suckers so I made some of the candy out of Sculpey polymer clay. I am quite happy with the way this page turned out.

Now, on to November and December!!

Midnight!

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits. Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle. Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?

Yahoo! I'm Done!

Now I have September done. Doesn't it look like September and
back-to-school days? Mind you, that was when school started in September for everyone; we didn't have year-round school and kids didn't start in August before Labor Day.

When I was out of kindergaarten and ready for "real" school my mother bought me my own lunch box. In those days this brown and whitish weave metal box with a Thermos was the best thing going. We didn't have cartoon characters or Disney movie themes on our boxes. We were very happy not to be carrying a brown bag! (At least in those very early grades- later a brown bag was more "cool"). So my first special memory here is first grade.

My second memory depicted here is a saddle oxford shoe. Most of you will recognize them but perhaps never have had them. When I was going into the sixth grade I asked for these shoes. I guess it's time to confess I was a bit nerdish or at least a bit different- my family says I live in a different world than most people (okay, than everyone). Most kids wouldn't have been caught dead in these shoes in sixth grade. Some of the girls were moving to flats and no socks but not me! No way! I wanted black and white oxfords. We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up so we got only one pair of shoes for school, perhaps a winter dress pair at Christmas and a spring dress pair at Easter. That's it. So picking shoes for school was a big deal and I would have to wear whatever I got. My parents gave in and I got the saddle oxfords. I tell you, I wore them happily for the whole year. Maybe I was just a bit different and not too strange as no one ever laughed at me; I was accepted well enough, just not the popular one.

I liked my lunch box and shoes so much that when my kids were in school they got their own fancier lunch boxes and my daughter got a pair of saddle oxfords. She hated them! She still reminds me to this day how much she hated them!! Every child it seems, comes with their own likes and dislikes-it's not all taught.

Now, on to October! I know we are in November already. I am trying to catch up but time isn't cooperating. It keeps moving forward no matter how hard I try to stop it for a bit!

August Page Finished!!

My August page is finally, finally finished! It took a lot more time than I expected but I like how it turned.

Of course there is a story here. It's simple and short but a good memory just the same.

When my sisters (the two who were closest in age to me) and I were in our early teens we got bored with just having the pool in the summer time. We got to go to Mission Beach in San Diego, CA at least a few times during the summer and also to the San Diego Zoo. Usually the whole family would go to the beach while just us sisters would go to the zoo.

Mission Beach is a great swimming beach. Sometimes there was too much kelp and once in a great while some jellyfish but mostly we got to enjoy clean, warm sand and great waves. We'd spend several hours trying to body surf and then we'd walk over to the bay area (Santa Clara Point was our favorite spot) where we'd finish the day with a barbecue. Sometimes we got sunburned but not often except for the one fairhaired sister of the bunch as we'd already be tanned from using our pool. Dad would always tell us how the beach wall was built in his day because one year their was a tsunami which eroded the beach area pretty badly. He'd also tell us how the tsunami left a boat on a tall building. I don't know if his story was true but he would insist we could see a picture of it in the San Diego Union's archive. As far as tall buildings, they don't get too high in that area but hey, a boat on any roof would mean a good sized wave!

My sisters and I would spend a whole day at a time at the zoo. Back then, the zoo was free for anyone 16 years and younger so this worked out great for a summertime break. I don't know how we got there. Both of my parents worked and we only had one car so they were already shuffling back and forth between them just to get to and from work but somehow they managed to get us to and from the zoo also. I wish I could remember how they accomplished this and now I realize how much extra effort this cost them I appreciate that we got to go even more.

The first thing you see when you have entered the zoo is the flamingo pond. On hot summer days that looked so refreshing just as the bird house did when we went through it (I think the bird house is gone now). The bird house was built on the side of a hill and there were waterfalls, a running stream, and huge trees in it with loads of birds. It was as close as we would ever get to anything so "tropical". Sometimes we'd see the seal show and other times we'd see the elephants, giraffes and other animals in the "safari" area. The San Diego Zoo has plenty of flora to go with the fauna making for a pleasurable walk even if you weren't particular about where you were headed. There were plenty of monkeys but their cages back then weren't so nice so we didn't care so much for them and preferred the more natural settings.

August being the hottest of the summer months helped us really enjoy the beach and the lazy strolling through the zoo. I don't get to the beach or the zoo often now but I have great memories of them.

Old Quilt/New Quilt

As you can see in these pictures, my old quilt has had it. It is torn all over and well faded. I have used this quilt for a solid 8 years daily as my bedspread. I have napped on top and my animals have used it daily also so it served me well. It was a scrap quilt made from an article I saw in a Threads magazine. I had fun making it and enjoyed using it although it would never have earned any prizes either for style or quality of workmanship. I used fabrics at hand and stitched it for longevity, not prettiness.



I have looked for a new bedspread locally that I wouldn't have to make since I am busy with the Bead Journal Project and need to get working on Christmas items. But, I have seen quilts, pretty fabrics and manipulated fabrics on many of the blogs I have been reading so these blogger/artists have inspired me to get off my duff and make a new one.

In my new issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine (Sept./Oct. - issue #14) there was an article by Debbie Crane about making an easy quilt by making a "pillowcase", sewing the bottom of it shut and appliqueing squares to the finished layers. I am going to use the idea by making two crazy quilts and putting them together for the "pillowcase". Then I will tie the layers together in places instead of sewing squares through the layers.

So, I have pulled out my boxes of fabrics (yes, I know about the acid content but expediency at the time came before conservation. I'll try to change that). I have set myself up in the living room with a folding table down the center of it, my fabrics on the loveseat, and my sewing machine on my fold-down desk.

I have begun some squares and decided I will put a fan on each one in the colors I have painted the furniture in my bed/craft room and of which I am using as background colors for my BJP pages. This way my whole room will come together at the end.


I will show off some of my squares when I get closer to being done. I will not be doing a lot of handwork as again, this will be an often used item and receive hard wear and lots of washings.