Book of Days: April 25th - 30th

Golly Gee... got behind with the pictures again.

April 30th:

Full Spread

 

April 25th:

WOYWW 'cheater' day

April 25th:

Full Spread

April 26th:

 Inspired by a uote posted by Tracey Lewindon for the Sisterhood:
"Once in a while you meet someone, and soon you both discover the two of you are truly something special to each other... you share your thoughts and feelings so relaxed, so openly, and right away you know your friendship's truly meant to be." ~ Gary Har ~

 

April 26th:

Full Spread

April 27th:

Errand Day... dreaming of the escape.

April 27th:

Full Spread

 

April 28th and 29th:

All weekend long 'Game of Thrones' Marathon!

 

April 29th:

Full Spread

 

April 30th:

Good Bye Imbolc. 

Hello Beltane...

BUSY day.

Yee-Haw... 29 Faces here I come...

Looks like I'm jumping in feet 1st for another month long challenge!

 

See you there?

29 faces May over at Ayala Art

Back by popular demand! We start again in May 1st.
We have 31 days to make 29 faces. That means 2 extra days of room to wiggle!

Guidelines: PLEASE READ
* It's all about a face! Any medium, size, techniques and forms are welcome.
   --It is OK to post an unfinished work too! Don't stress if you can't finish the  whole thing the same day.

* Your posts have to include the label/tag 29 Faces (make sure you type it in every post for this challenge!)

** Write an introductory post in your blog, tell people what it is etc AND use the tag/label. THEN click on that label, (it will take you to another blog page) then you copy the URL from your browser and paste it here in the Linky

Example: http://ilove2paint.blogspot.com/search/label/29faces  

The link you post will take the readers to ALL your individual challenge's posts. This way we only post one link, and have all our 29 postings showing!. (^._.^)  

Grab the button in the left column for your blog. The more participants the merrier! 

Don't hesitate to ask me any questions if you need help!

Unrelated links will have to be deleted. 

P.S.  Please make sure your verification code "captcha" is off. I am told blogger has issues in many blogs and people can't post.

Soulistry: The Well Within

 Finished Art-ing the next section in Soulistry for the Book of Days -Premium Program. 

Only a partial share this time... 

The actual written bit was quite personal so I'm not posting it on the Blog. 

Will share the round-up Quote added to that section:

Knowing what is right is like
deep water in the heart;
a wise person draws from the well within.
~Proverbs 20:5~ 

 

Which led to the Quote I used on the opposite Art-ed side:
To fulfill the well within, we must 

commit our bucket to the well of another. 

Only then will you pull a full pail of 

living water from the well spring of life’s 

love. Only then will you have sufficient 

living water flowing into the cups of friends, 

coworkers, and neighbors. Commit your heart to 

loving another with the freedom to share from the 

well of love. ~Lee Down~

 

Picture was taken several years back near to when I reached a major cross-roads in my life, 

One that had me re-evaluating and learning to reach out again after being isolated within for too many years.

 

Journaling:

A single drop of water is not a well

In the deep I learned I needed to TRUST... Reach out... and share... TO BE.

I need more drops to fill my well... and I need to help fill others wells... TO BE.

Row-Houses: ~Book of Days~ ART STORES!

*standing up, shuffling over to the podium at the front of the room, clearing throat*

Hi, My name is Sarah... I'm a Row-House Addict.

But really I'm not looking to recover anytime soon. In fact I signed up for another group within an hour of finishing these... how bad is that? lol 

Decided I had made 'home' Houses and also the Boudoir Houses so it was time for sumtin' different...

What does every BOD Sister need right.on.her.street? 

Why, a 24 hour, 7 days a week ART STORE!

This is what I'm doing with them, for now...

Building my BOD Wisteria Lane across the Studio Door Frame. 

When the 1st row is done I plan to have hubby place a piece of 1/4 round (painted white) above that row. 

The door is directly opposite my work space so every single time I look up: There they are! They never fail to make me smile. It also feels like the are guarding my sacred lil'Art-ing Space.  

Sister Guardians, I really like that. :O)

 

Started these with large Manilla Shipping Tags, set them up on the water bottle board I use for spraying. Forgot to take a picture: Spritzed them down with 6 colors of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (red, purple, blue, green, yellow and orange). Then I grabbed 6 colors of paint (red, purple, blue, green, yellow and orange) and splattered away!

However... 

The splatter was *eeeeeverywhere*!

I'll be picking lil'dots off of everything on/near the desk for the rest of eternity.

Enthusiasm: A+ 

Forethought and Prep: big fat F

Ooops!

Next I had to make a way in...

Used a Mini-Tag Punch for the Doors, so they're the same shape at the Stores. Punched a circle out for the window and added the 24/7 print out from the back. Red handles...la oh la la!

Signs are printed then inked in Pink, them framed out on Black paper.

Not  pictured here but the 'crest' at the top is the aweeeesome BOD logo one of ladies designed for us all to use, also framed out on Black Paper. 

Roofs are made with Starbucks Cup Wrappers, inked with Black Sharpie. 

24/7 Art Stores + Coffee... a must!

Stores on Parade...

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 151

First off a reminder to go check out the other (less messy?) desks at:

Stamping Ground

This week there has been very little going on for the 2nd half... 

It seems the Drummers of the World have moved into my head and set up shoppe. 

I'm on Migraine Day 4: It's on the downslope though, thank-goodness!

Yesterday I called it 'one-eyed-pirate-artist' day... my right eye was heavily blurred and has a large floater that blocked much of my vision for the past few days. After 2 solid days a bed I was sick of being idle... so one-eyed or not: Art was happening! ;O) 

That's what's still sitting out on my desk. In the group Art Journaling for Women on Facebook a call went out for everyone to make an "I Am Am Artist" page for our Journals. Made mine last evening after supper. It's still sitting out with the black backing for photos. 

Under it the Celtic Jewelry I wear every day, it's pointy... not good for sleeping in. ;O)

Celtic Prayer book at the right, many extra prayer this week for my Mum and some other sh-tuff we have going on in and around her accident. 

...and the usual smattering of pens, paint (ooo... need to empty the brush-beaker, forgot that last night...), glue, papers, 'puter and sh-tuff.

 

Update on my Mum:

She did have the eye surgery, it did not go as well as the other eye. 

Seems the lens was not placed 'just-so' so it's needed to be re-adjusted. Now we wait again. She gets the stitched out on her face at some point this week. The torn part seems to healing OK. 

She is however having the hardest time sleeping, which of course she needs to do to heal. 

If you can picture the wounds going around in a spiral starting with her face: Torn up on the left (it was the left part of her nose that was torn off and re-attached), twisting around to her left side (shoulder and elbow still quite swollen and black even a week later) and then around her thighs and across the back of her lower thighs, knees and calves. Makes it *very* had to find a way to lie down that isn't affected.

She tried for a day or 2 to lift herself into their bed and ended up tearing her right shoulder with the effort of holding all her weight. We did manage to get her a cane so she can move a bit more securely as the left leg keeps giving out on her.

She is however one tough cookie and being amazingly cheery about it all. 

That's my Mum! 

As Julia said, 

If anyone (WOYWW Card-Crew) would like to send her a card,

 I'm *sure* it would help cheer her along...

Please contact me for her addy at:

sarahccooper (at) rogers (dot) com

I Am An Artist... Challenge Met!

 Despite the one-eyed art-ing issues today I decided to take a crack at the 'I Am An Artist' erm... we'll call it a 'Challenge', for simplicity's sake, issued on Art Journaling For Women on Facebook. 

In a comment below a picture of one of her own Art Journal Pages loudly declaring that she was an artist... 

According to Dyan Reaveley:

"All of you should have this written in every single one of your journals. We are ALL artists and don't let anyone tell you otherwise." 

...it then continued ...possible slap threats maaaay have been involved *giggle*

... and then it kept growing, resulting in an impromptu group wide challenge.

Here is my Page:

Size: 12" X  8"... page torn out, may frame it for the Studio wall. 

 Started with a photo of myself, sketched the 'hair' out with Sharpie, then painted in with DecoArt Acrylics. 

Retraced the outlines in Sharpie and wrote 'I Am An Artist' in the white hair section. . 

Used a Sakura White 'Pen-touch' marker to draw in the white 'hair-lines' and dot in the 'I Am An Artist' lettering. 

Silver 'Metallic' Marker by Studio used for the earrings and ear-cuff. 

Voila!

 

Book of Days: April 20th - 24th

Picture catch-up... and DONE the 11th Multi-Day Spread!

April 24th:

Full Spread

11th Spread DONE

April 20th:

 Worked on my Soulistry Animal Totem: Rabbit spread so I made a small version in my BOD. 

Background was created with scribbled Stampin'Up! Markers then worked around with a wet brush. 

Rabbit is colored with SU! Markers too. 

April 21st:

Worked on Dragonfly Soulistry page today.

Used the scrap page I flipped the sprayed Mask over onto as the background.

 

April 21st:

Full Spread.

  

April 22nd:

Earth Day!

My migraine started today, thankfully I had already planned to use some sort of clip-art 'Earth' for today. I'd set the page up for a circle in the middle... made for a quick write up before slipping off to bed.

 

April 22nd:

Full Spread.

April 23rd:

Migraine Day 2... another 'cheater' with a printed image.

More Marker-Washing in the background. 

April 23rd:

Full Spread

April 24th:

One-eyed Pirate Art Day!

Day 3 of the Migraine and loss of vision. 

Had a little fun with my face and some fancy pirate duds. 

One-eyed Pirate Artist Day! Soulistry: Nothing You can Do

Today has been an interesting Art Day... I only have one eye to work with!

MAJOR Migraine started very early Sunday morning, still in residence in my head... it seems far to cozy there. My eyes feel ice cold and the inside of my head feels like it's full of hot molten lava pressing out. The pain is something I can work around it's the vision loss, which is not uncommon for me the rare time I get these, that's more of a 'pain'. 1/3 of the vision in my right eye is 'wavy': picture looking out over a hot stove element or over a very hot cement road. It gives me nausea. The past 2 days I spent heavily drugged and in a dark room, mostly asleep. I can't do that very long, just not in me to be idle. yuck. Idle time lets me think about my Mom, her accident and the other stresses we have going on... which likely aided heavily in the making of this migraine. That and we had SNOW yesterday... system changes much?!

So Today I said F**K iT! got up, made a pot of coffee and have tried to pick my way through emails and some Art-ing. Still on meds so I may be here-der-and-everywere...

er... the emails worked fine...

Art has been a disaster. 

But I don't believe in hiding the bits *I* don't like so here it'll be the good, the bad & the ooogly. 

First a bit of a taste from my Book of Days for today... 

I'm going to try to get the past 5 days blogged after this if the pain holds back. 

We'll see, reading seems to make it worse. 

Today I am a one-eyed Pirate Artist!

 

The topic as Effy summed it up so simply this time in Soulistry is:

The 'G' Word.

The question:

Where are you at with God?

I made 2 spreads since that is were my Muse was heading... 

First spread I started by looking up Dog and God: Different spelling same unconditional love and found this lovely *perfect* video that expressed *exactly* what I was trying for...

Sketched and traced out before the Migraine started, colored it in today.

Spread is based on this little song:

Made a pencil sketch, traced in sharpie and colored in with Stampin'Up! Markers. The background was made by washing scribbled marker around with a wet brush (like water paints). 

God's love is that simple to me... unconditional, like my dog. 

This is a snippet of my 'answer-y' bit to the question of where we're at... 

(the rest doesn't pertain to *this* page...)

"Unconditional Love as a parent: Like God I 'Love' my children, all  of them, equally... there are times I don't 'Like' them or what they are doing, BUT my 'LOVE' doesn't change for them."

This is the page I made entirely today, with 1 eye and I.am.not.happy.with. it. 

but meh, it is what it is and that is DONE.

Started by doing a bad image transfer, then tried to make it look like a Plaster Fresco, think Sistine Chapel Ceiling... I traced in some outlines, drew in my gurl and colored her with markers... Then I used straight TopBozz ink refill brushed on and UTEE. 2 layers... then I scrunched it up to crack it. At this stage some peeled off so I gave it a coat of Matte Gel Medium to keep the rest on and an few spritz of Caramel Glimmer Mist for aging. I does look 'better' IRL, the light reflect really sucks the color out of it.

Meh... not my favorite by far but DONE.

I have bad days too.

Scrap Our Stash Design Team Page: April SPRING FLING Challenge

For my 2nd project this month, decided to go with more SPRING than FLING. 

Scrapbooked our March 31st trip to The Log Farm Sugar Bush near us and the YUMMY Maple Candy. 

It got unusually warm, unusually early here this year... which was nice but unfortunately not good for Maple Syrup production. This year was more about the nice stroll in the sun at the farm and less about watching the Maple Syrup workings, because there was none to see, they were all done by then.  

For the FLING part I used some trash: 

The base is a corrugated cardboard backing that came with a pack of papers. Sprayed it down and dribbled (ahhh... more FLING!) Glimmer Mist on it, then peeled some of the top layer off in long strip and around all the edges. Then I sprayed it again, a LOT. 

The pictures are all sanded around the edges with the rougher side if an emery board. Did this quick and hard to get a really roughed up look. 

Strip down the middle is ripped Bazzill, edges inked in dirty yellow... As in a dirty ink pad I save for just this kinda thing. Waste-Not-Want-Not!

Then I finger painted Tan paint across the strip so the rub-on letters from Daisy D would *pop*. 

The FAMILY was a white outline only, I filled it in quickly with a fat Sharpie. 

SWEET tag is a leftover form a Me&My Gig Ideas 'Baby Boy' embellishment kit.

 

Now it's your turn to take the April SPRING FLING Challenge. The April Challenge is anything to do with SPRING FLING. The possibilities are endless. Anything goes! So think SPRING FLING and take the challenge. To participate in the April SPRING FLING Challenge - just email a picture of your project along with a description to Scrappinpsycho@live.com All submissions will be posted to The Scrap Our Stash blog and on April 30th a winner will be chosen, and given the opportunity to be a Guest Design Team Member for the month of June. This challenge ends at midnight central time on April 30th.

Soulistry: Gifts. Animal Totem: Dragonfly

Back with the Second spread created based around my Totem Animals for the topic GIFTS in Soulistry for the Book of Days -Premium Program. 

About six or so years ago I started to notice more Dragonflies in my life.

A few at first, then as the years went by there were more and more... 

After reading about the Dragonfly Totem I am not at all surprised. 

They starting flitting in about the time my life started to subtly shift and change.

...big move, separation, divorce... 

...medical diagnosis that changed my life course...

...my art came back... 

...new relationships, new people... 

...and a new found joy with the simple things in life and peace.

On the left again (like I did for the Rabbit Totem spread) is some information gleaned from varied places on the internetz. This time I highlighted a few things that really *pop-ed* for me:

~Dragonfly is the keeper of dreams, the knower within that sees all of our true potential and ability. 

~Dragonfly also connects us with the power of color and the ability to work with many different colors to achieve anything we want to experience in life.

~People who carry Dragonfly medicine are often quite talented in the use of Color for healing.

~Dragonfly people are also very talented at helping others navigate their own emotional waters.

 

On the right I Art-ed:

Background was painted white then sprayed with Glimmer Mist (Blue, Pink, Purple). 

Then the Tattered Angels Dragonfly Mask went down, I adding more spray. 

Next I took Pearl White Lumiere and painted the wings in. At this stage I also took the frame stamp from the Stampin'Up!: Celtic Knots set and stamped everywhere in Pink. 

Also stamped the Tattered Angels Dragonfly stamp over the masked/painted image with black StazOn. This I only inked the edges of the image for and stamped twice... wanted to have a feeling of movement in the wings by making several impressions. 

Washed the whole page over with white paint and added a second layer of Lumiere to the wings. When this was dry I stamped and heat embossed the Dragonfly in black.

Then I cover the Dragonfly with the Mask again and splattered Glimmer Mist in an upward motion (wanted it to look like water spray, where the Dragonfly comes from...), then speed dried it with the heating gun. 

Used a text stamp in blue and corner flourish stamp in pale purple from Fancy Pants were used to continue stamping the page. 

The Tattered Angels Compass (with North at the head) was stamped over the Mask too. 

Then I removed the Mask, spray sealed it and started journaling...

 

Around the bottom of the Compass;

"Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long."
~James Thurber~ 

Across the top:

"What matters is to live in the present, live now,

 for every moment is now. It is your thoughts 

and acts of the moment that create your 

future. The outline of your future path 

already exists, for you created its pattern 

by your past."
~ Sai Baba ~

It's a very shimmery, shiny and lovingly layered page. 

I took many pictures since none of them are truly splendid... 

Very pleases with this one, as I was with the Rabbit Totem page, it just... came. 

In fact this one was keeping me up last night... lol. 

Woke up (read gave-up on sleeping) and hour early to get into the Studio this morning.