More in my favorite journal...

I am into the journal thing these days...and I actually do better when I have detached pages and put them in but so far I have enjoyed working in my favorite journal with these pages. In the page spread above I colored the face with copics and painted the flowers with dabs of acrylic. When it dried the face was very flat looking so I painted over her with gloss ModgePodge which, by the way, I LOVE! So now it all looks as if it was all painted with acrylics. And below, as you see I have a bit of Pam Carriker flair. Her journal pages are really nice and I enjoyed her class on Shades of Grey. I turned the writing backwards because I was whining a bit so I did not want to subject you to that. If you are interested feel free to read it backwards! :)

This page below (and above) was sprayed with my copics air compressor sprayer (man, so ever love that toy!) with a stencil and I used stamps for the Scripture. The two girls are transferred with Sheer Heaven which is the transfer that works best for me most of the time. I really have a love- hate relationship with transfers! Apollo Transparency paper with inkjet printer and Golden gel mat medium works pretty well also...sometimes...

The page below has a pocket as you can see with some spray painted tags that I painted in the red shed the other day. The weather is cooler so I can spray again. The tags come in a bundle from Office Depot. I just made a little pocket for the tags. The girl is drawn with copics and the lettering is a calligraphic lettering called Blackletter. I think it can an an interesting element to a journal page. I am thinking about offering a little online class on it in the new year. Surprisingly it is very easy with no prior calligraphy knowledge required. Kids can do it. This page probably needs a little more but I will come back to it.

And below are the tags. Some are better than others but most of all--it was fun. Isn't that the main purpose of our creativity anyway?? I have to keep reminding myself of that. Well, with that in mind, have any of you ever read The War of Art? Our son, Zach, the Renaissance man, had read this book a while back and thought it would be interesting for me---and it was. I am not necessarily recommending this book but I think, at least for me, it held some truths about the resistance we all experience as artists. I had some trouble with the book, the Artist Way. I guess because I was just lazy and wasn't faithful in completing the morning pages but I might try it again because so many people have had their artistic lives changed by this book. I guess for me, and this is just me, if I was going to spend that much time on morning pages I should be reading my Bible and meditating on God's Word as my morning pages. Again, that's just me. And whose to say I can't do both? Lazy again... I know saying that is not PC these days... but actually I am PC... I'm Pursuing Christ.

I made a fabric journal

I had not sewn anything in too long and when Bernie gets put aside she gets pesky. I am sure it was just me. I need to sew more often because I couldn't even figure out how to wind the bobbin---good grief. How quickly we forget. And I will do anything to avoid instructional manuals. It's true, if you don't use it- you will lose it---at least for me anyway. I didn't get the bobbin figured out so I just had to use the one that was in there. I used Fabriano note cards that come already folded. It has 4 signatures of 4 pages each. So that give me---hummmm...oops-- math involved!...lots of front and back pages...!

Official Portrait of Bernie and her colorful friends

Bernie, the official portrait.
I made another stencil book yesterday with the intention of sewing it on the machine. The background above is a left over scrap of the book. Well, I think I pushed my little Bernie to a point she wouldn't go---but what I did was rather stupid come to think of it but it didn't hurt her. She is a tough little thing. This top image was ---well, just sewn on to see what it would look like. I had written the quote the other day on a scrap. Looks ok.... I wouldn't frame it or anything but it's kinda interesting. It might look like it was just stuck on there with no cohesiveness or integration. So here is my new motto---"just because I can stitch it on doesn't mean that I should! "

 I will take some pictures and blog the stencil book tomorrow.
Here are the scraps left from the Random Rag book from yesterday. It's small and here are just a few of the pages.
This  is my favorite one. I think that I will save all my calligraphy scraps and even make some more to sew in books. 

...some little acrylic flowers in the pocket...not sewn shut this time...

Bernie and I are becoming fast friends. She has adapted to her new home quite well.