junque journal swap

 I joined SwapBot recently and discovered that post cards are more fun to swap than one might imagine. I also joined a Junk Journal swap. You start a junque journal in a cheapo composition book, then send it off to someone, and receive one from someone else. You're supposed to do at least 10 pages, plus add about 25 prompts to blank pages. I'm all done with the decorating part, so thought I'd share them.

This was oddly freeing, knowing that I wouldn't be the one working in it. Not that I mean I didn't do good work, just that there wasn't any sort of pressure to do it "right," since I have no way of knowing who my victim will be or what they like. I tried out some different techniques, I added pages from old books, all sorts of fun stuff. Can't wait to see what I get back.

This also cured me of thinking that people who journaled in composition books were nuts. Who wants thin, lined paper? I used to think. Certainly not me. Well, turns out it works just fine. I even painted a little, altho not real wetly. So, while at Wally World today, I bought another blank comp book, just to have on hand, if, in case, you know, the mood strikes me to start another one. Gotta do something with those hundreds of magazine images I tore out back in my frenzy days of cleaning out old mags.

Anyway, here are my pages.

1st pic is the cover. I used some cool looking scrapboook papers. I love the colors in these and they already looked all distressed. 


2nd pic is the inside cover. Old books, torn up and patched, plus the eyes from a magazine, the word ART, and a writing hand.

3rd pic is torn brown paper bags, a mag image, and tucked into a fold of the bag bottom is a bit of bright crepe paper from a Mexican store in San Diego, bought when I visited Julie in January. (finally used some of it!)

4th pic - woven strips of old book pages and blue squares made with Derwent inktense watercolor pencils.

5th pic - background is paper from a music writing notebook. I like the spacing of the lines. Part of a map showing where I live, some painted paper, and part of a gift bag sewn to make two pockets. I decorated a tag for the small flap pocket and stuck two ATC bases in the other. In the word search puzzle, I circled the letters to spell out 'blue sea.'

6th pic - painted acrylic square bordered by the untwisted paper handles of a gift bag. I love the texture of the paper after it's untwisted.

pics 7 and 8 - background is a bunch of receipts from the last few days - grocery store, Walmart, Starbucks - torn and glued down, painted yellow, then brayered with some blue. The tip-in is a page from one of my journals stuck to the back of an ad card torn from a magazine.

pic 9 is two large book pages with an image of a crumbling old mansion and a tag hanging from a grommet. The tag says "but it's magical". This is my favorite spread, I think.

last pic is several diff colors of tissue paper put down with gel medium - sort of an impressionistic garden scene, I suppose...

June 4th... sort of

The calendar says so, but I think we've been transported back to March.
Or maybe Idaho.
Certainly not northern California on June 4th.

loco

June first and I'm dressed in full winter gear - camisole, corduroy shirt, fleece vest, jeans, sneaks. And that's to work inside. When I go out, I add a jacket. This is the weirdest June first of my entire life.

When I was at Staples a couple hours ago, it rained just as I ran to the car. Rained pretty good, too. Usually we're done with rain by the end of March. Two years ago, I was in shorts by the middle of March.

Just loco.

'journey of you' journal class pages

I signed up for Kelly Kilmer's Journey Of You online class. For $20, I'm always up for some new technique instructions or fun ideas. This class is based on a few simple materials and is extremely adaptable to your own style and input. I've been working away in it almost every day but just finally got time to scan and post a few pages.

This is the left side of a spread. The right side is below. It's mostly about travel and how I love to see new places but hate the whole getting there part - the lines, the waits, the endless airport hallways, the coughing, smelly, drunk passengers. I've been to Australia (fabulous place), Munich (not bad), Mexico (great coast) and Canada, which I like a lot.

I would dearly love to see Italy, especially Tuscany, and all the blog talk about the upcoming art retreat in Orvieto is killing me. But it's not in the budget, so I'm thinking about taking a class in July in Fremont, which is only about an hour from here. That, I can afford lol.

This is a single page, some musing on my lack of introspection and self-awareness. I'm just not a navel-gazer, and when I read some profound artist's statement, I just scratch my head. I simply don't have profound thoughts. Just a simpleton, I guess.

Well, I don't know what the hell is wrong with Blogger lately. I can't get it to let me type under the photo of the binoculars lady, but I've always had trouble positioning photos in posts. Anyway, that's the left page of a spread. The right page is below.

This one is about getting older and what I see in the mirror vs how I feel and how I think I look. And wondering how other people see me. The count down to 60. I just can't f*cking believe I'll be 60 in January. How is that even possible?

floral Friday (photo heavy post)

There's a house about a mile from me that has the most gorgeous hollyhocks in the spring. The vast majority of them are self-seeded, so they're all over the place - inside the fence, outside the fence, between the sidewalk and the street - just about any place there's dirt. I drive by there a lot and think 'I should stop and take some pictures of those darn hollyhocks before they're done.' Well, today, as soon as the thought entered my mind, I pulled the car to the curb and spent a few minutes snapping away.

Behold the hollyhock loveliness...

the lone sunflower among the pinks and reds

Sunday studio shots - in the family room

I guess I should just rename this series Monday Meanderings or something, since I've rarely managed to post it on Sunday. But I think I'll just consider it things that happened on Sunday, and not worry about what day it gets posted.

My side of the love seat - books, afghan, art stuff, Ott light, mocha

DH has been feeling lousy the last few days and spent most of Sunday on the couch looking wan. At 5:30 an NBA playoff game started, so I rolled a cart full of stuff out to the family room and and watched it with him while messing around in a 6 page folio that will be bound in with a few others eventually. Right now I'm keeping them separate so that I can work on one while another's drying. This batch of pages will be a garden theme with birds and the occasional bug.

I started with a blank spread, about 5.5" x 9.5", a floral paper napkin, a TH grunge board flourish and a couple nature prints. After much muttered cursing and lots of picking and plucking, I got the 3 layers of the napkin apart and tore the top sheet into the flowers I wanted to use.

With gloss gel medium and a brush, I glued down two of the flowers.

Without waiting for it to dry, I watercolored the background with a wet mixture of yellow and green.

I also went around the edges of the page with the Antique Linen color of TH's Distress Stain that I just got from Collage Stuff. 

They had the best price I could find online - only $4 a bottle. (I think it retails for $6) I got 4 colors and it's very

cool. Kinda like an ink pad in a bottle.

Thanks to Lenna for using it in her journal recently and making me have to go buy some LOL. 

Then I went over the flowers and leaves with various watercolors until I liked how it looked.

A piece of the original napkin is shown so you can see how much I deepened the colors.

Then I dabbed the Peeled Paint Distress Stain thru the flourish here and there. This is where I left it on Sunday. 

Today I began journaling on the page with a Haiku I made up while waiting for the flooring guy to show. I'll post it once I'm done with the page. 

I did a couple other things too, but I'm out of steam for today. Have to go eat another brownie before I pack them up for work tomorrow. It's someone's birthday.

The Great Doodle Pen Review

Daisy Yellow grabbed every marker she could find in her house and tested them all in a geometric design she drew. Very cool to see them all like that. Then she invited her blog readers to get involved. Looked like fun to me, so in between customers today I fiddled with various designs to use as my base. None of the doodley ones did much for me, so I made a rectangle and divided it up. The Gellyroll Moonlight pens I ordered the other day conveniently arrived in today's mail at work, so I started with a couple of those. When I got home, I got out everything I owned and finished it off. When I made the base design, I was actually a little worried that I'd run out of spaces, but I guess I don't have as many markers as I think I do, because I have a few spots left, even with repeating a few of the markers in a different color just to see a dark and a light of the same pen.

This was done on white card stock. A few things bled through the back, most notably the Copic Ciaos and the Prismacolor. A couple you can hardly read, even tho they're quite bright on the actual page - left side 4th up from the bottom is a neon orange Gelly Roll Moonlight medium, and right side just above the Prang is another Zazzle liquid ink hi-liter in bright pink. I have no idea where some of these came from, and two of them had no markings whatsoever on the pen. Way to go marketing department of forever anonymous company. If I loved this pen and wanted more, I guess you'd just be S.O.L. huh?

This was fun. Makes me want to do a great big color test - all the purples lined out next to one another, then all the greens, etc, on thru the rainbow. Hmmm... maybe I'll just do that.

If you have questions about any pens or markers I used, just ask.