Journal Friday

Today is Friday and, lo and behold, I did get one journal page done this week. I was surprised! I had thought about using this journal page for Camera Critters for this week, but decided that Musashi deserved his own post -- again! In some ways, it was an easy page for me to do. Musashi's Garden is a bit of everything -- cutting garden, herb garden, vegetable garden, citrus garden. I took the empty seed packets I had saved and the daffodil and iris pictures from the packages and plopped (love those artist terms) them down on the page I had painted green. The emotional part came when I started looking at Musashi's pictures, scanning and cutting them out to place on the page. We really do miss him -- still.

I hope you'll take the time to read about Musashi's Garden here and here.

Thank you and TGIF!

Super Hero!

I was visiting Lori's blog yesterday and look what I found -- Super Hero!

This is one of the Super Ladies I made at The Hero Factory.
I have another that I'll share tomorrow.
Who knows? I may go and make a third and fourth and .....!!!
Go have some fun and make your own Super Hero.

To all of my super hero friends in blog land -- have a super day!

It's Done!

The lap afghan was finished just in time for a cold day at Minute Maid Park.
(In case anyone wonders, our Owls won all three baseball games last weekend.)

I plan on making several more lap afghans.
They are just handy!

I've talked about some of our *tribe* members in other posts.
Here is a frame that my favorite niece made.
Her mother (one of my best buddies and one of my chosen sisters) went to visit and
came back with the frame for me. K is a wonderful artist and unfortunately
doesn't have the time right now to spend on her art. Her husband
is a marvelous photographer. K and Z have a new home
and a baby on the way.
They have a blog OUR TIMES. Go by and say *Hello! Your Auntie sent me!*

Back to the frame! I couldn't decide what picture to put in the frame. Then I thought
that I had been hanging on to a picture of K and Z, just waiting for the perfect frame and voila. This has to be the perfect one!
Here they are -- mom and dad to be -- precious members of our tribe.

The frame wasn't the only surprise in the bag.
K made these wonderful note cards
in two different sizes.
They are mixed media with stamping and collage.

Aren't they great?!!!

I love note cards and I love that she made these for me.

Happy Tuesday everyone!
I hope the sun is shining brightly wherever you are and there is a smile on your face!

Camera Critters 47

It's Saturday so it must be Camera Critters time!

Teddy is back and needs only a few words.

Everyone needs his own special space.

Journal Friday

It's Friday and it's time for another journal page. I've been proud of myself for getting one page done every week. Life is always interesting and I'm now on a deadline at the museum for some work I'm doing for the new Arts of India Gallery. I hope I can keep up with the journal page a week.




This was fun. I did things I don't normally do. I have some Fiskar Texture Plates and started with rubbings of the leaves. Then I rubbed some different green inks over the rubbing, cut some of the paper into squares and tore some of the paper. The background page was brown. Then I plopped (artistic term!) and glued the pieces of paper on the background page. (I sometimes use golden matte gel medium, but I have mod podge left over from a project I made ages ago and have been using the mod podge to glue.) Then added the two pictures (me) and the woodpecker. The right hand page I did separately. I used a sponge (ordinary household cut down to about 2"x2") to apply different green acrylic paint to the page and then stamped both pages with a feather stamp. Have I told you before that I love smushing (another technical term) paint around? The sponge was fun -- almost as much fun as fingers!




This is the finished journal page with the writing. I have to have a story -- no fun without a story! I found a book at half-prize books (you are going to think I spend my life there -- just a visit once a week) titled The Secret Language of Birds. It has all sorts of myths and stories about birds including signs of the zodiac with their assigned bird buddy. I'm a Gemini and my bird is the woodpecker. The writing is about Gemini and the bird and at the end of the page is a list of other birds that a Gemini might be drawn to and I thought it was very true for me -- Jay, Crane and Vulture. I love that a woodpecker (like the one in the picture) is pecking away at near by trees right now!

I normally post about The Next Chapter and The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women on Friday. It is time for Chapter 8: Selecting Empowering Partnerships and Alliances. When I went to look at my notes, I didn't have any!!! Not even a quote I particularly liked! I know I read the chapter, so I guess that's that! I do have some empowering alliances with friends who like my crafty side and a good buddy who is an art teacher and every now and then invites me to her class to paint along with the class! New techniques!

College baseball season has started and we have three days of baseball -- 3 games a day -- at the College Classic at Minute Maid Park starting today. Some of the top college baseball teams will be playing the next three days and the Dragons are ready for some baseball!

Have a wonderful weekend filled with only the things that make you smile!