Focusing on Life: Create. Art.

Two little words.  Create.  Art

This week, Week 4 of focusing on life, those words meant friends, paints, papers, messes, gelatin plates, acrylics, lace, stencils, brayers, more papers, wine, color, experiments, tools, sharing, rearranging, layering, scissors, smocks, and most important, JOY.

My one piece to share this week is a collage of a few of the 102 papers I printed last weekend with my dear friends Carol and Bette.  I met these likeminded ladies through various workshops, including Art & Soul, over the last couple of years.  They're just a small bit of the wonderful people I've met through art, and I love spending time with them since it's so non-day-job-bureaucracy.  It's totally recharging.

I invited myself to Carol's house for a road trip weekend and loved spending time with her and her sweet doll husband, Steve.  He lets me come back even though every time I show up the entire townhouse gets rearranged into a creative "enclave" and there's no room for much of anything else.  We had to eat our rib dinner on our laps because there was too much action on the dining room table to clear it off for a meal.  haaaaaaaaa  Plus, he has his own creative bent with a wood shop in the basement and I always leave with wonderful hand-turned treats.  

Anyway, Carol and I spent about 10 hours standing around that table trying out something new (to us): Gelli plates.  Bette joined us on Sunday and we wiled away the afternoon trying new techniques to monoprint using acrylics on this gelatin-sort-of plate.  I'd never heard of it before, but was, of course, thrilled to go out and buy some more art supplies.  Bette's a paper master, so she brought her collection of stencils with her.  It was like having a personal artist's supply shop right there since she has hundreds of them.  No joke.  

Another key activity of the weekend involved Carol's blog...she's up and running at Carol DeeZigns and has a post with more details about our weekend's "business."  

With aching backs from standing so long, we were able to look back over our weekend thrilled with all our new, cool papers and excited about printing some more...oh, and about buying more stencils and paints and such, because you can't start a new craft without using it as excuse to buy things!  haaaaaaaaaaaaa  So, even as I play with my papers, or play with my pictures of those papers, and shop for new toys to make more, I think of the JOY we felt all weekend and can only smile.  :)

A Hint of Storm

India ink is one of my new fave things.  I've never really painted before so I don't know any "official" way to manipulate ink or watercolors.  But, that didn't stop me from going to town sweeping big brushfuls around onto watercolor paper to see what happens.  My intention is to cut the papers up and roll them into beads.  I'm so excited by these color mixes and the unplanned but but completely awesome drips and blends that it might be hard to slice them apart.  But, then I reminded myself that I can make more...as long as there's a sale on paper and ink at Hobby Lobby...haaaaaaaaaaa  Oh, and this post got its name when I showed these to Curt and he commented that this one looked like "a rainbow with a hint of storm."  My very non-artsy-craftsy husband came up with such a lovely, descriptive thought...what a sweetie. :)

I love this yellow and orange piece...brings saffron to mind.  

And this big mix of sunset reds, pinks, oranges, and golds...luscious!

Whooo hooooo....have a colorifically wonderful day!

Spring Flowers on my Bead Table

I went in to look at my bead table and see what I could post about for Bead Table Wednesday, but it was too hard to see beads because there's a big cookie sheet filled with paper flowers on top of everything!  Last weekend I had a little burst of energy...not enough to get up off the couch, but enough that I wanted to make something.  So, I grabbed the big containers of paper flowers that I've accumulated along with some of the scrapbooking embellishments I've had for years.  After a couple of hours with DVR'd TV I ended up with a huge garden of pretty paper goodness!!  I don't know what exactly I'll do with them...I'm thinking more paper boxes.  Creating for a purpose is not my strong suite. haaaaaaaa

Oh, these flowers just reminded me of a funny from the other day.  I had lunch with my friend, Jeff.  He's an Air Force officer like me and we've known each other for years and worked on a lot of huge manpower reduction issues together at Big Air Force back then.  We could solve all the problems if people would just take our advice, I'm sure...haaaaaaaaa  Anyway, we ate at the cafeteria over at the NASA side of Langley Air Force Base--I call it the NASAteria--where we eat at least once a week.  While walking back to his office he feels the need to point out the flowers that have burst out around his office.  They were yellow and I couldn't remember what they were called (because my mind was addled by the sugar rush from the whip cream on the cafeteria-style banana cream pie) so he quickly responded "Daffodil" when I asked.  I burst out laughing at his 6'5" bald tough guy look with the details of springtime flora at the top of his mind.  It was just so incongruent...made me laugh all afternoon thinking about it.

Paper, Paper, Everywhere!

With four days off, you'd think I'd be knee deep in new beaded masterpieces...alas, no.  I had lists of things to do:

- Get in touch with old friends--I hate talking on the phone, so I bought a little earpiece thing hoping that I'd find it less annoying.

- Create wedding jewelry for my friend, Monica's, wedding that's next weekend in Hawaii--that's right, I leave on Wednesday...how did that come up so quickly??

- Run outside in the crisp, clear weather--I'm down seven pounds (whoo hoo) and it's totally motivating.

- Scrub the kitchen floor since it's been months since the last big clean.

- Find some promotion paperwork buried deep in a file drawer so I can try to get another promotion--maybe I need some new pretty colored file folders?

- Pack up a care package for my honey so he has some love and joy at Christmas.  :)

Alas...none of these things happened. 

Instead, I discovered (or, rather, re-discovered) paper.  

I flippin' love paper.

There was a little tiny link at Art Bead Scene the other day to a tutorial on making paper boxes.  Well, that little link, combined with my overwhelming urge to use "doorbuster" coupons at Michael's and JoAnn's means that hours and hours were lost to folding...

The best part about this whole venture?  I don't have any reason to have all these boxes!!!!  What am I going to do with them?!  haaaaaaaaaaa  Sure, I could use some for packaging my own little gems and baubles, but really...do I need hundreds of them?

I stayed up late digging through this stack of paper pads (which is only a small portion of the whole selectcion) and decided to make little stacks of "nesting" boxes.  For what?  I don't know.  I just think they're cool.  Be ready, family...it's pretty apparent what you're getting from Jen this year!  haaaaaaaaaa  Then you can figure out what to do with them!

I haven't even mentioned the card "festival" I had on Thanksgiving day...if I could take some dang decent pictures of them, you'd see them, but I've almost got myself convinced that I need a new camera....haaaaaaaaa

On that note...THANKS!  I'm thankful for having the time to procrastinate and play with paper all day.  I'm thankful for friends and family who understand my need to procrastinate and play with paper all day.  Oh, and, Curtis...your package is almost done!  :)  Love you!  Jen

Craftmageddon!

I have a snow day from school today! I peeked out from under the covers this morning to see if it was snowing and then jumped up like a five-year old and ran to see the flakes falling! Whoo hoo!! My friend, Jeff, who's in Florida (75 and sunny) for the weekend called this morning to see how the weather really was...I told him my plans for the next four days (yep, it's a holiday weekend, too) and he called it a "Craftmageddon!" What a perfect word!!!

So, I'm in the groove...all the supplies are coming out: paper, punches, pens, pencils, fibers, fringes, inks, whatever! I'm on it!

I went punch happy with the flowers...
Some Cocolicious cards in honor of my girl!!!

Plus, I'm gonna practice on my minitorch today, too. Wish me luck with that...I had a near fire yesterday with just a toaster and an English muffin!! haaaaaaaaaaaa