Lance Armstrong and Life

Hi everyone, thought I would post a pic of my latest journal page attempt. Last Tuesday the Amgen Tour of California with Lance Armstrong made their way to Modesto. Very exciting. Of course, I had to work, but what a day.
1. First every downtown street was blocked at 6:00am, when the bikes were not scheduled to be here till around 4:00pm, because they started from San Jose at 12:00 noon. Which meant that our buses were on major detours right off the bat. Which meant many yelling complaints on the phones all day about us being late. Yikes!
2. Next, it rained sooo much, I think we got about a 1/2 inch, that I thought they would have to come in by boat:) 3. Crazy day all around. But from my downtown office I can see our over the railroad tracks overpass and I got to stay warm and dry and see them when they rode into town. They ended the day in Modesto before heading south the next day.

There were 150 vendors downtown, giving away stuff and selling everything from bike safety stuff to giving away free stickers. I wanted to go down just to be involved in that. The Modesto Bee said there was 5000 people down town that day. WOW!! 5000 very wet people. Anyway here is my page, not really complete yet. I want to journal on it, and I took my friend, Lotus' advice to get closer to the page when I take pics of them. Someday I will learn how to scan.

I am going to tell you that I will only be able to post probably on the weekends, as I work so much 6:00am to 5:00pm and most of the time later and I am exhausted when I get home. But I want to keep going with my journal. Yesterday we went to the flea market and I was on a magazine hunt as this summer, when I was going to have company from out of state and was cleaning, I threw away EVERY magazine in the house that didn't have to do with art. So now I need fodder. So all I found was a stack of national Geo's for $2.00 (about 6) and some really cool wierd art catalog for free. So last night while watching Cops, I sat and clipped eyes, faces and letters and numbers and other interesting collage pieces.

Next weekend will be interesting as we are switching from DSL to Cable Internet. It is like 16 times faster, I hope. Can't wait, but with my luck it will be buggy.........Have a great Sunday!

Journal Pages

WOW!! Maybe I have figured out how to do something with posting pics to Blogger. Anyhoo, this first journal page is one of a tree and is still in progress. The background is blue paint and scratched with a Tonic Tool Scratcher that Tim Holtz puts out. (Timmy is one of my heros). I am still adding to the tree and need to find a cool moon and some other collage to finish it.

This next one is two pages still in progress. I can tell I should be looking at the photos before I post so I can retake until I get good shots......but the collage on the left came from a score I found at the flea market of a ton of graphics that had been printed on adhesive back paper and so they are stickers. Again the back ground is paint and scratched. The page on the right is a blue green back ground with spirals written in paint with the end of the handle of the paint brush dipped in the paint.

And finally this page was finished on 4-20-06. Yes, the same Moleskine I am working in now. The back ground is a napkin with the bamboo plants and dragonfly's. I added the man, the birds and the large music note and the words. Plus the fairy on his shoulder with wings. Again, the pic is not the best. Napkins are so cool for adding to a journal page. This one was 2 ply napkin and I separated it to glue it to the pages. It has held up well for almost 3 years.

I have some more pics of this journal to share and will soon. Let me know what you think about this post, since you all have a ton of experience and I am a newbie.........

Have a great Prez Day!

Journal Cover

Happy Valentine's Day.............

3 days off and I am going to go wild with my journal. I am so proud of me as I actually worked in it everyday last week.

This is a cover shot. I bought Sharpie Water Based Pens from Teesha Moore a while back and wanted to know what they will write on. So I used them for the cover. They are the best pens ever! I have quite a few now. My journal is a Moleskine that I bought in Feb 05 just to write in. Well, did a little bit and then that Dec, my friend Lotus, http://whymsicallotus.livejournal.com/ intoduced me to art journaling so my Mole became a place to learn journaling the way it was meant to!

I wanted to add some more journal pics that I have been working on this week to show you, but when I tried, it placed it on the top of this post instead of in the middle. I need to take a lesson in blogger....Arggh! If anyone that knows how to place photos in the middle of a post, let me know, please. Thanx.

Oh well, onward and upward. I have a whole 3 days off and want to journal, journal, journal.

Just a Short Post

This morning after talking about my Dad, I thought I would post a pic of his 90th BD party last summer. Yea, that's me giving Daddy 90, one dollar bills, for his present. Of course they went straight to a Casino, which was the idea in the first place.

He can't wait for July cause he just knows I will give him 91, which of course I will........

I Have Actually Made a Dent into Journaling

I prefer the one on the left, but there has been so much crazy at work lately, I am thinkin' about the one on the right. Ha! LOL!

Now back to the title of this post.........Last weekend, I jumped in and worked in my office at home to try to first, find it, and second to make a more organized space for my tons of art related items. You know the stuff I buy constantly that I just had to have, and then never use. But I must say, it looks waaaay better than last weekend, and I made a major dent into journaling.

I have decided that to make a really good shot at journaling that I need to try to cut down on the intimidation of my Mole Journal. Well, what that is suppose to mean, is, I still have 3/4 of it as empty pages and NO journaling attempts. Now first before this gets too blurry, I will tell you that I bought this Squared Moleskine in Feb 05. It is now Feb 08 and I need to get busy. So I have come up with a brilliant solution.......Drum roll, please..........I am going to glue a couple of pages together every 4th page to help cut down the number of pages in this journal. Get it? The Moleskine's have 140 pages. I need to cut that down to fewer pages I have to put art on. Genius!!! Well, maybe not the way you look at it, but it will also help strengthen some pages for wet art, like paint. I will let you know how this works out.

This weekend I have to work, some, of course, at my real job and then tomorrow (Sunday) I have to take my parents to a Casino, yes this is a chore, but my Dad is 90 and DOES NOT NEED TO DRIVE there, but is going to if I don't drive them myself. My Mom said last night, she would feel safer if I drove. Well, Yea!!! My Dad thinks he drives fine, but since I am a driving instructor by day, I know better. It's only about 2 hours away, but is suppose to rain, and with not driving there in years and in the foothills, he just don't need to do it. So if I don't go, he will drive. Argh!! He's a crazy old man and thinks he is 50 again. And they don't do much except sit around the house most of the time, so they need to go out once in a while for gambling purposes as long as I drive. Oh yea, his license expires when he is 92. He is already talking about the renewal. Just shoot me!!