Psst, More PoGo Print Fun with Cool Music

OK I found another PoGo manipulation video. This one is way gooder than the other. Someday, I will figure out to make them smaller, but for now, enjoy.




Happy New Year everyone. Thanx for coming here to see my adventures in journaling.

Christmas Has Come & Gone!

Just a short post on the Xmas thing. It came, it sucked my wallet dry, it moved on. That is pretty much what happened.

We had dinner at the parents. My Mom is 88 and almost cooked the whole meal alone. (Well that's the way she wanted it) For gifts I got my TH Vagabond from Hubby, $20.00cash and dish cloths from the parents, B & N gift card from my adopted daughter, Starbux gift cards from my neighbor's, GPS from my boss, a baggie of small images from Lotus, some pictures from my son and his family and finally a mixed media collage painting from Cheryl. Ahhh, great Xmas.

Speaking of Cheryl. She and the folks she is traveling with are in Grants Pass Oregon this morning. They have about 500 miles and approximately 8 hours left before they get to Belligham probably this evening. I am so glad we have cell phones to chat it up, cause now I can't just jump in the car and drive 100 miles to see her for the day.

Well off to the races again and back to work. I have to drive to the Bay area this morning along with all of the back to work commuter's. Ugh!

New Toy's and Friend's

Here is what I was talking about last week on my last post. I got my new Vagabond last weekend and only got to play a little with it so far, but it is so cool. On the left of that on the bottom shelf of a bookcase, is the air compressor and the copic airbrush attachment. Click on the pic to get a better look. And also a chunk of my sewing machine is in the picture. And if I ever find that elusive darning foot, I will be set.

I recently went on a road trip to meet up with my friend Cheryl and we went to Berkeley. OMG!! I got to go to Dic Blick's and every other art store I could cram into one day. Her job with Verizon was out sourced to India and she is leaving right after Xmas to travel back to her home in Washington and we won't see each other for a while. We had such an excellent day, exchanged Xmas gift's and if my camera would stop crashing my computer each time I try to download pictures all of a sudden I would show you one of her paintings she gave me. WOW! It is so cool. I will post it soon. Please go to Cheryl's bog at http://mysticmissive.blogspot.com/ and see what we actually did that great get away day. She took some fun pics.

If my day job doesn't kill me, I will be back soon. Have a great weekend.

Hard Picture to Post

WOW this is a very difficult photo to post anywhere. UGH!

This is a pic of what I did when I was practicing with my copic air brush system. Looks cool because of the colors I used with the stencils. I will do some more soon.


More on this, the great art get away today, and the rat hunt!

1902 Studio and New Toys

I love this pic of this artist studio from 1902. The best part, he has a bed in there that in case he needs a nap, he can just walk less than 3 feet and snooze to regain some strength and refresh his creative mind. I like that idea.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to taking a day off to spend some time with someone very special to me. I will use that subject for my next post.

My camera has been crashing my computer lately every time I try to import pics from it. As soon as I get that figured out I will show you my new toys. But until then I will just tell you about them.

First I got my Tim Holtz Vagabond Machine. OMG! It is very cool. I only have a naked tree die to play with right now and a couple of texture fades but I am learning how it works.

The next happy thing is my hubby found a very small air compressor at the flea market and worked on it this weekend and got it hooked up so I can use my Copic Pens for air brush painting. That looks totally cool with stencils. Amazing.

They last thing I want to get is a darning foot for my sewing machine so I can doodle freehand on fabric and paper. But the darn darning foot is not as easy to find as I thought it would be. So I have to wait on that.

Well, I have blabbed long enough and I need to go get a hair cut as I am looking pretty shaggy.

Have a great week and be safe out shopping. Tis the season....unfortunately, if you know what I mean.

Clean Studio?? Who Me?? Yea Right!

Well this seems to be a lazy but fast weekend. The only thing I got accomplished was doing some laundry and bought a fav song for my Ipod, and, well not much else. I actually thought about cleaning up my studio, but it was just a thought.

I worked a little in my journal, but nothing earth shattering there either.

I am just being lazy. WOW! I need a shot of instant energy and motivation.

Where I am Amazed at a Couple of Things

OMG!! First, I figured out how to put a you tube vid in my blog post. OK, I know you are all rofl right now, but this is a BIG thing for me. Anyway, Traci Bunkers just wrote about this technique on her blog. http://www.tracibunkers.blogspot.com/ and since I have a PoGo Printer, I watched this video and wow, this is going to be fun to mess around with. Watch the following video:



Well? Cool or what?

I will be back this weekend..............

OK so I don't know it all. The video box is too big for my blog, but I will try to learn how to fix it for the next one. Enjoy.....

4 Days of Rest & Creativeness

OK while I wanted to post two pics of what I have been up to this weekend, alas I cannot because of dumb computer problems. This pic is just some doodles I have been messing with. Remember the orange monkey, cause he may be seen again.

I can tell you that I did actually get some rest these 4 days, though.

Thanxgiving was good being that we stayed home and didn't venture out because the husband was sick with a cold and cough. I made spaghetti, worked on my art journal, watched a few Ustreams and we were good.

On Friday, I caught up with some work email and worked in my journal some more. I bought gold and silver leafing paint pens and deli paper and did some backgrounds with them. You take the gold or silver pen and make a puddle of paint on the deli paper and blow it with the heat gun and it splatters around and looks very cool. And if my dumb computer would not be a jerk, I would share the pic I took of that back ground. I got the idea from Roc on her blog, http://whatsuproc.blogspot.com. She and her friend Terri make some great videos.

Last night I went to the Hand Born craft fair downtown and only spent 45.00, not too bad. I won't say what I bought cause one thing is a special gift for a special friend, but I met some great folks as always, and it didn't rain, Yeaaaa!

As a family we had a very bad tragedy. On Friday, my BIL fell about 100 feet down concrete steps and an embankment at his lake house. He broke his back in 3 places. He had to be air lifted to 2 hospitals before they could do surgery. Today they told him he had a year to get back to walking and if he could not by then, he would probably never walk again completely. Unfortunately, his age, (71) is against him. Please pray for a miracle for him. He had polio when he was a kid and he has no upper body strength for crutches, walkers, etc. My SIL is a very strong lady and she is determined that he will walk and she will make him believe he will.

That is about all of the news from my side of the universe. Hope everyone had a great Thanxgiving and got to be creative this weekend.

Ghost Journaling for Lack of a Better Description

Thai picture doesn't really show you what really happened, but I am not feeling the best this weekend, so I am not going to try to take anymore.

In short, first I saw this technique when Paula Phillips showed us on her UStream last week and I flipped out.

She painted the page with cheapie black craft paint. Once it was dry, she took stencils and sprayed a green color wash ink on the page. You couldn't really see the stencils but that is OK. After that was dry, she took a circle stencil and a spouncer and spounced gesso on the page in circles, and the inks showed thru the gesso. It is really a very cool technique. Looks like ghost journaling.

Please go here and watch Paula's recorded UStream, http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10843297

It is the coolest thing I have ever seen, and I know you will love it.

Oh yea, if ya don't know what a spouncer is, it is a sponge on a stick used for stenciling. Very cool tool. Spounce, spounce, spounce.

One more thing, if you are on twitter, look me up as journalchic. I am following a bunch of great art journalers. We have quite a time, at times.

Na No No Mo and Flop

Well work is almost killing me, so I am so far behind now, UGH!! But I did make a couple of pieces of journal art pages, but not in my journal. And one turned into a floportunity! Before Flop:




After Flop:



I was trying to put a rub on of ink running down on the top and instead of cutting what I wanted off of the rub on sheet, I was lazy and just laid the whole thing down and some of the other rub on stuck to my page. of course I freeked cause I actually liked this page. So I went looking for something to cover up the flop. Found a piece of an old paper tape measure, rubber some distress inks into it and used that. So I guess it is OK, but it was looking cool as I had added alcohol inks to some paper tape and stuck them on there.



So on this one I tried to continue the paper tape distress grungy looking page. This one turned out ok except for it being a little too dark.

I hope to get back to NaNoJouMo, but this week I am teaching a class 8 to 5 everyday, so will be bushed at night. Hey, maybe I will go on strike from my job for a week so I can just play, take naps, play, take another nap and play some more. But ya know what would happen? That week would be gone before I could turn around, way too fast, but maybe I could have some time to do some art.

Twitter, NaNoJouMo, Chat, etc......

I have now become a twit, LOL:-D. I am on twitter every chance I get. How much I have missed by being stubborn all of this time. It is definiately interesting meeting new arty folks. I am learning so much cool stuff from so many. I am in heaven.



This is my first installment for nanojoumo with the word inception. It is very lame, but I did something at least. Click on these to get a bigger view.



This is for the 2nd - choice - 3rd - fortune - 4th - quarter - 5th - equanimity 6th - esoteric. Again, not alot of creation here, just trying to get some thing down in my journal.



For the 7th, the word was moment and George Strait has a new song out right now called The Breath You Take. It is so true, that I used the chorus of it for my journal entry, since the word moment(s) was in it. Today the word was virtue and I haven't even thought of how I want to use it yet.

I have been in a slump if you have read my previous post, but am trying to pull out of it, and I will, but the sadness of the circumstances for me is strong. But I WILL get through it and get back to my crazy self, just watch me.

And if you don't know it, I am an Area Safety Director for a Passenger Transportation company and I was over seeing 13 divisions, but on Friday I was gifted with 4 more for a total of 17. Still all in Northern CA but whew, I thought I was busy before. Yea right.

Sadness Of the Times

I am having a major melt down this evening and even though I am not going to put the particulars in this blog post, I have a very heavy heart. It is a Sadness of the Times we are living in that has caused these feelings for me.

I have been trying to keep up with Nanojoumo each day, but it is getting a little too much right now.

My job changed yesterday and even though I can handle it, it will take alot more effort on my part to keep going at the pace I like.

I need to get out of this slump and be happy for the reason of this post.

Good night

I'm Baccck and in the Groove

Made it home Wednesday afternoon. And even though I dreaded the trip, I actually enjoyed myself. The workshops we attended were the highlight for me because I am all over any kind of education. Phoenix was beautiful and never got above 85 degrees, so not bad at all. We got together in teams and built 25 wheelchairs that we donated to the Indian Nation whose reservation we were staying on. It was fun! Never would have happened if we didn't work together. Great experience.



This is what I have been doodling lately. I like it. I will add it to my journal as I measured it to the page size. It's all in black with a Uni-ball Signo RT Gel 0.38. Cool!

Please check out this: http://craft-therapy.blogspot.com/ and sign up for Barb's Into the Groove Micro Workshop. It is wonderful for beginner's and experienced journalers alike.

And then go to Dawn Sokol's site: http://www.dblogala.com/blog/2010/9/8/the-return-of-nanojoumo.html and have a month load of fun with "nanojoumo" each day of the month of November. I am on it!!

Hope everyone has a safe productive week ahead.

ATC Trading

Hey folks, just wanted to show you the ATC's I traded for today at the local art shop I go to. The one of the bat is cut from a velvet board. And the post card on the right? That is the announcement of this year's downtown craft show for indie artist's called Hand Born. I missed last year so hope I can go this year. They have such cool stuff and this year there will be 50 vendors!! Wow!! I already feel lighter in the pocket book;-)

I am leaving in the morning to go to Phoenix for a 3 day meeting. It is for the corporate support side of the company, which means I have to behave and dress nicer. Grrr!! I like being me, just a good ole girl simply but nicely dressed. But when I have to attend things like this, I must become someone that dresses better and fancier and I am never comfortable like that. But I guess I will get by, and it won't do any good to complain. So I will be home Wednesday afternoon, and back to ME!!

Have a great week.

Artful Weekend

Had a great artful weekend. Spent yesterday with my friend, Cheryl, in Folsom. We hadn't been together for awhile so we caught up chatting, eating, shopping and then her teaching me about mono printing as you can see from this first photo. I had to choose blue as it is my fav color. Then Cheryl said we needed some yellow and gold and green luminares. WOW!! I know you can't really tell how shimmery they are but believe me they are! There is just something cool about smooshing paper onto alot of paint poured on freezer paper and making back grounds. Fun!



Another WOW!! Cheryl recently learned how to do Iris Folding and here is an ATC she made with this cool technique. And this other one she made the back ground look like leather. I'm telling you folks this lady is super talented.



I worked all week on making a few ATC's to trade and here are the rest that I had not completed from the last post. They are fun to make. Remember just ckick on any of these photos to enlarge them for a better look.



Cheryl works for a company that (I won't mention the name because I am VERY upset with them right now, but that is for another time) gave them new phones for their offices and so she brought home these super cool boxes that the phones had come in. They are 14" long X 9" wide X 3" deep just perfect for mounted rubber stamps, short tubs of paint, paper or a gazillion other things. She gave me 6 of them and so now I am going to begin to reorg my studio. I have too much stuff, even though I share with my two art friends, Lotus and Cheryl tons of stuff when I see them, I still go buy more. I am hopeless.

Hope you all have a great week.

PS: Kelly Kilmer is coming back to the Bay Area next weekend to teach some more classes and guess what??? Yes, you guessed it, I can't go because my work is sending me to Phoenix next weekend for a 3 day meeting!!!!!!! Can you believe it?? Just my luck.

ATC Time

I have been working on some ATC's for the last couple of days as you can see above. They are a lot of fun but I want to make each one different and then I want to keep them and that is NOT what they are for. I need to make several of the same type and then keep one and trade the others.

This has been a crazy week and I usually try to use Friday's to wind down, but tomorrow I have a full day scheduled. Yuk! I have to sit in on alot of Conference Calls and Friday's I always have two. One that I conduct with my divisions and one with my boss, cause we all travel and never see each other and that is the only time he gets to have a meeting with us. So then after that I have to drive only 35 miles away and sit in on a interview for another Safety Manager at one of my divisions. Then I will come home and be the weekend artist again. YES!!

What are you planning for the weekend art wise?

Looky Looky at what I was Gifted>>>>>>>>

Extraordinary if I do say so myself!

Thanx to Cathe over at somethingimade.com for creating this image and my friend Lotus for putting it on my blog, cuz I just could not.

I love the blogging dancers!!


Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Journaling Classes Up the Kazoo

Happy Sunday folks.

Just wanted to say hi to everyone and tell you about the fab classes that are going on right now.

If you haven't heard about 21 Secrets, please take a minute and go to Dirty Footprints Studio and check this crazy out. 21 different workshops with 21 different instructors like Paula Philips, Samantha Kira Harding, Dawn Sokol just to name 3. All of it bundled for $59!! It comes out to just about $3.00 a class. Tons of videos, PDF's, fun and enough classes all in one place to get a little overwhelmed but this IS the place to be at the moment for instruction! Click on the badge on my Blog and go check it out.

Also check out Barb's Craft Therapy blog to sign up for a workshop that begins on Oct 18 called Into the Groove. It is a Micro-Workshop, and only costs $15.00!! WOW! A great deal. Head over to her blog http://craft-therapy.blogspot.com/ and sign up.




This is a page I used alot of purple on. I am not a fan of purple so I had to push to make it, but I like the way it turned out. You can see up on the right that I have added two tabs to a couple of pages. A tag and a bird.




This is a pretty good attempt at another collage jumble. It has another conference call sketch included. AND something brand new I just found out about this week.............I will let you figure what:)

Have a great week and be safe!!

More Journal Time

I have actually been working a lot in my journal this last couple of weeks. I have created a couple of "Flopportunities", a new arty word I learned last night on Paula's UStream. But I kept changing them until I was satisfied. And I went out searching for Golden's Colbalt Teal paint this weekend. This must be the most popular paint color in the world, because I could not find it anywhere. I wanted it in liquid but alas I finally settled for Liquitex Heavy Body in a tube because the lady that sold it to me gave it to me for 50% off. I actually bought a craft paint turquoise that I thought I could live with BUT it goes down very grainy so that was out.



This is a journal page I worked on this weekend. That creepy face above it (that I didn't know I got a shot of) is for a another page I am thinking about. I have a ton of books and magazines that I buy only to cut images out of and that is where he came from. You will see him again soon.



This page is what I created along with Paula last night on her UStream, Journal Artista is Paula's name on everything she does. Look her up, you won't be disappointed. I used the insides of some security envelopes for the strips on this. I was glad I thought of those. I think it came out OK. Don't know if I am completely finished with it or not yet.



And one more page. This time I used alcohol inks on it and then I didn't spritz enough water on the ink to make them run real good, so this is what I got. I do believe I see about 5 faces in these, including a couple of bunny's. So I will have to get them to peek out soon. Faces are fun to create. There is a technique that I don't know the name for where you just look away from the paper and scribble, and then try to create something out of that scribble. That is always fun to do when you just don't know what you really want to do arty. I always try for faces.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

What's Going On?

The title of this post reminds me of a cool song Marvin Gaye song. But besides that, thought I would catch up on what's been going on around my studio.

So here is the first shot of a new comp journal with cool kraft paper in it, and some japanese papers.



This next shot is of my new Pip Squeak's Color Mixing Markers. You pump them to mix the colors and they write with two colors. Awesome, and cheap. These cost $10.00 at Target. Remember, Crayola makes a ton of very cool art supplies for kids on the cheap. And we are still kids, right??



This is a face I created with the markers. Great color and I simply have to buy makers when I see something new or I think I just have to have them. Yes, ya all know what I lust for...............Art Supplies:)




Now I am getting to the good stuff. Remember these?? Garbage Pail Kids cards? Well I recently picked up some at a Estate Sale and couldn't resist them. I am thinking of trying to make a journal spread and use these in it. Or maybe a give away to my kind friends who follow and actually leave comments on my blog......I'll think on it awhile. Anyway these are the goofiest things to look at. Love them.




And now the best for the last. This Steampunk ATC was sent to me by my very good friend, Cheryl. Isn't it the bestest? WOW!! I was so amazed when I opened it. This lady is very talented and I wish we could get together more often for creation days cause she could teach me so much. I am very blessed to have two close friends, Cheryl and Lotus that love to make art and help me. Color me lucky.




And so I am actually off again this weekend, thinking about buying a new, but very cheap new camera. Mine is a old Sony Cyber-shot 6.0 megapixel. I am not a photographer and can't spend a lot of $$ on a fancy one that I will never use all of, but I can afford something like I have now only with more pixels, and stay withing $75 to $100.00. I will wait until the ads come out tomorrow and see what's on sale.

This post is crazy long, but I really try to post at least once every week if for nothing else just to entertain you.

I'm Almost Back to Normal

Well, I only have a few days next week to wrap up the project I have been involved in since July, and then my Boss promised me I could stay in my own area and work with my divisions that I haven't seen since March and not have to go to the next start up that is going on now in LA for a November 1st start. And I have this weekend off, the first one since July, so I am happy and I took a nap, wow!!

The only journaling I have done since this began is a few pages I am dedicating to Paula Philips the Journal Artisita, because every Wednesday and Saturday nights she has a Journaling UStream. I try to watch when I can and the ladies in the chat tell her that we see faces in her pages. So my pages are about faces just for Paula. It is on tonight on 6:30 Pacific, 9:30 Eastern. Check it out, you won't be disappointed. She does cool journal pages.

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Just wanted you to know that I AM alive, although just barely. 12-15 hour days, 7 days a week are not the best, but yesterday I was at the peak and beginning tomorrow, I will begin the descent. This has been a challenging adventure for my health also, because of the heat and dust where I am working at. I have been working in a humongous warehouse that is dirty and dusty and of course very hot. I have been sick twice with bronchitis and asthma and sinus problems. Yesterday was the mini first day of revenue service and we got posession of the offices and so the "war room"(temporary office) moved into them yesterday. I immediately moved into the war room and now have AC and less dirt and dust when working except when I am in the shop or the yard.

I have been trying to work in my journal, but verrry little. I get up at 4:00a, leave at 6:00a, get home at 9:00p, go to bed at 9:30p. So not much time for play. But tomorrow is the BIG first day and then I will begin to see a "Get out of Jail" soon card on the horizon.

I will be back soon.................

Doodling Away

OK so here I am back again with a new thing. I told y'all a while ago that I doodle when I am on conference calls and I am on a few every week, whew! Since I have to have a notebook to write notes of the call in I also doodle on the pages.

Well, in my studio, I have a table next to my computer and I always cover it with newspaper. So for quite a while now, every Wednesday and Saturday if I can get home from work by 6:30 I have been watching Paula Phillips work in her journal live on UStream, and while that is going on when I am not in the middle of the chat I have been doodling on the newspaper on my table, hence the photo above. I have found that I love to draw and doodle on the small print on the public notices pages and because of the state of the economy, there are a lot of public notices.

It is now almost 4 o'clock. I actually came home early from work and fell into bed for a 2 hour nap. Now I want to work in my journal and make a page with the above doodle drawings, maybe I will, and I have to go over to my folks this evening to see how things are with Daddy.

Oh well, Later days and better ways!! Ha! You thought I was going to say something else, didn't you? Never *wink*

100th Post....Irony

Here we go. My Dad came home from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Here he is looking all cool in his shades on the porch after the drama of the weekend calmed down. We were told that his heart is now beating at only 20%. 3 years ago when he had his heart attack, it was beating at 40%. So if you do the math.......

He always said he wanted to live to 100, and so that is the gist of the title of this post. I now know that will not happen. They did not give us a month/year range, but I'm thinking a year or year and a half, IF he does not have another heart attack or something else. And I hope he beats my prediction and knowing him, he just might do it.

The Dr told him he could still drive, so the first thing he did when he got home was to grab my Mom and the dogs, jump in the car and head for KFC for grilled chicken, cause he ate very little in the hospital and he was starving or so he said. Last month he turned 92 and renewed his driver's license for another 5 years and told me that this would be the last one. I teased him and said Thank God, the other driver's on the road thank you!! We laughed alot over that one, and then he said, I can drive just fine cause I have Cat Eyes!! Obviously cats can see damn good while driving!! He is a funny old guy. He will tell you a VERY dirty joke, just to watch you freek and then just laugh and laugh!! I am going to miss him desperately when all this happens.

I wanted my 100th post on my blog to be a happy one, maybe the 101th.

Just a Quick Update

Sorry it has taken me this long to post. But since I am now working 7 days a week, I am not taking the time to post, and work in my journal?? What's that?

So yesterday, my husband called me to tell me that he had taken his OWNSELF to the Hospital ER because he was having some issues that we had talked about, well he talked, I bitched..........So I came home, dropped my laptop off and went straight to the ER to meet him. Imagine now that we were there beginning at 2:00pm. At 3:15, he got called in, yea, not too bad, at 3:30 my Mom called and said my Dad was having problems, so I left husband at ER and took off to my folks, took one look at my Dad, called an ambulance, and he went to another hospital. So I had to take my Mom to Daddy's hospital and we waited, waited, waited, while my husband was waiting, waiting, waiting at the other Hospital. We texted all evening back and forth until finally he went home at 9:00pm, after 7 hours at the ER. My Dad ended up being admitted after, are you ready??? after 8 hours in ER. I got home at 1:00am and got up at 5:15am, cause yes, I have to work today, and so here I am with sand in my eyes and that's the rest of the story.

# 98

Hi all, just a quick note to say that I just ended my last free weekend and beginning now until after September 1st, I will be working 7 days a week. Yuk!

I just realized also that this is my 98th posting! WOW!! A couple of years ago I didn't even know how to blog! And even though I have 24 followers, only 3 read my blog on a regular basis, ladies, you know who you are, I am happy cause I have those 3 folks interested enough in my craziness to post comments. I certainly wish I could get more comments from the followers, but patience is a virtue..............

I am thinking about having a giveaway for my 100th post, but just thinking about it at this point, cause with only these 3 that I already give stuff to on a regular basis it seems goofy when i can just say all 3 win something. I will think about it.

Have a great cool week ahead. I am off to take an online Business Ethics course that I only have until Friday to complete.

Just Plain Fun

I have been having some fun this weekend. First check out this fabric package I received yesterday from India. WOW!! This the coolest piece of mail I have ever received. I ordered Mendhi Stencils for Henna on Ebay. And they were shipped in this! It looks like muslin cloth. Check out the way they wrote the R's in my name and address. Very cool.


Another shot of the address on the back.


This envelope was hand whipped stitched closed. OMG!! I have never seen anything this fabulous in a while and I get to keep it. WOW!!


And these are the stencils that I ordered. WOW! I don't actually remember how many I ordered but this is what I got. I can't wait to try them out in my journal. Remember to click on any of the pics for a bigger view.


And speaking of journals. I went to a yard sale this weekend that was being given by a guy I know that deals in antiques. And I found this cool cabinet card of this guy in a velvet suit. Well of course it must have been red velvet. So I made a copy of it and altered it with a red glitter Spica pen, and a pink Souffle gel pen. He is headed for a journal page that is circusy looking. I am looking for some ballons for his hand and maybe some other circus looking stuff to finish the page. I will show you how it turns out next post.

Hope everyone is staying cool or at least trying to. And I hope you have had an arty weekend.

Where I Learn a New Word....Hauls

Hello folks, well I survived another Daddy BD, and of course he is very happy he survived another LOL. I wanted to tell you all about a new word in my vocabulary. "HAULS". I have been doing hauls forever, but never realized until recently, that this is a class all of it's own. So this begins my hauls posts. I actually drove into Reno this week 3 times for business and found a Joann's, (yes business). I found these stencils, had to have them.



And then I had to have these black and white napkins. Love black and white anything. And I happen to know someone that is in a journal swap right at this moment and her journal's theme is Black and White and Red All Over. Lotus, are you listening????



Next is this cool cardboard traveling trunk I found at B & N last weekend. It has faux leather handles and straps. For $11.95, I couldn't resist.



And as you can see as soon as I found this, I changed journal bags again. I got all of my portable paper all of my pens, markers, etc in it. It is packed. And I cut from 3 bags to 2 for when I travel and take my journal and supplies with me.

And I just counted this week and realized that I take 58 pens and markers, and 15 water color crayons with me. That of course does not count the tissue tape I have to have now, and my Peerless Water Color Sheets that I can't live without and everything else I think I need. But this is a thin cardboard piece, so I must be careful or the handle might break and then I would cry.

My brother is still here because of Daddy's BD and I know that a great yard sale is going on today and so I am sneaking over there with him and get back here before I have to get on my every Friday Conference Calls, Yuk!

But the good news is.......................No more Truckee!! I packed up and left for the last time (I hope) for awhile. Woo Hoo! But I am going straight into another start up next week, but it is only 40 miles away and at least I can come home each night. No living out of a suitcase again for a while, just a trunk, LOL.

Daddy's 92nd Birthday Weekend

Hi folks, just an update to what has been going on in my life the last week. As you can see from the title and pic, Daddy has had another BD. Big party yesterday with too much food and too much heat in a small house. Of course the plan was to have this shindig at my house, and so after all of my deep cleaning, we had it at my parents little very small house, because of their dogs!!! Too much hassle to bring them over and I have cats, etc. Grrr!! And half of the neighborhood came to join in so it worked out.

The cake says "Hot Rod Lincoln". This came about when I was there last weekend, he got up and went outside to mess with the water.....and their yard is very uneven and I thought he might fall, so I said, "Where do you think you're going, Hot Rod Lincoln?" My Sister thought that was the funniest thing she had heard and had it put on his cake.

I also gave him his annual age dollars. This time I handed him 92 one dollar bills. I began this when he turned 90. My Mom is waiting for her turn.. She just turned 88. He takes that to a casino as soon as he can get to one every year. Big gambler's, always have been. Guess that is why I love it also, but I work too much to get there much.

I did get one journal page complete, but will show it next time as I am suppose to be working in the real world.

Hope ya'll have had a great weekend.

The Long Weekend Comes to a Close

To call this a whirlwind 3 days is an understatement. I have been in the running to see how much I can get done marathon! My brother from out of state is coming this week for 2 weeks to celebrate my Dad's 92nd BD and though I will only be home occasionally I had to deep clean the house. And contrary to popular belief when you have other folks living in your house, THEY DO NOTHING BUT HIDE STUFF, so it's not seen. So onto what other cool stuff I have been doing. I am not a big tattoo fan at all but the art these artist's create is amazing, so I bought a tat zine and made some gel medium transfers in my journal as you can see below.



I only screwed up twice, before I had the patience to let them dry completely before I finished them. Kinda cool. So while ordering folks around about cleaning certain parts of the house and supervising them to make sure they got done what I told them to do the transfers dried and I spritzed them and finshed them.

But alas the 3 days are totally gone very fast and I am off to the shower and bed as I have to hit the floor at 3:00am to go back to work. UGH!! Hope you had a great holiday weekend.

I Actually Did It

If you looked at last weekend's post you will remember that I was nuts trying to make a YT video. Well today I decided to try one more time. And wa la!! Here it is. Now before you go rolling on the floor laughing until your sides ache, please remember that I am a YT video making virgin:) I really needed to edit a couple of things but here it is in it's complete RAW version. AND I was still talking when it stopped. Oh Well!!! Happy 4th folks. Be safe please with the kids and the fire works if you do that sort of thing. Out here in Cali, we just pray no bullets come through the roof and we end up with one in bed with us!!!

Oh yea, I don't know what's with the weird date. I guess that was the last time I had my flip on? Whatever!

Frustrated, UGH!!

I have had an interesting day, trying to make a You Tube video. How can it be so hard if so many people are doing it? I have a Flip Video camera, that I have never used. So today was the day. I made an 8 minute video of my studio slash junkpile:)this morning. Anyway I tried to upload it, and 3 hours later when I canceled the upload, it wasn't saved in the right program. Then I just tried to attach it to an email to send to a friend, that won't work either. A very nice young man I found while doing a Google search online helped some, but not enough. So I gave up. I do have it saved to my desktop, and that is where it is staying! Thank you! I will blame Vista.

I actually worked on a couple of journal pages this weekend in my new journal, but I have not got the enthusiasm I usually have. I will blame the heat!

Today my Grandaughter is 9 yrs old and my Grandson turned 14 on Friday and I haven't seen them for too long. I will blame the economy!

I am grumpy, and I need an ice cream....................

Learning How to Really Do the Blogger Thing Right

Please notice that I am writing under this photo of what I call The Haul. I am loving this. My friend Cheryl and i met on my way home from work and she showed me how to post stuff and get it where I WANTED IT. Fingers crossed when I push the publish post button, right now.........OMG!! It worked. And she also showed me how to post a You Tube video also. And she gave me cool rubber stamps and a ton of Orange Crush bottle tops for the faces.....

I am now writing under the Faces photo........OMG!! It worked. She is amazing and I am so glad we found each other. Art friends are the best!!!

After I left her last night I went for a long drive down Sunrise Blvd and found a Barnes & Noble and a Michael's where I of course bought a few little things, Some more tape and a 3 X 3 pack of 300 Origami sheets. Very fun. And perfect for ATC's.

Oh Oh Oh, I almost forgot we also traded ATC's.........I got home at 9:30pm, in bed at 11:00pm and no sleep for some unknown middle age reason and up again at 4:30am. Worked all day and now I am about to crash & burn....until next time.zzzzzzz

Trading ATC's and Retail Therapy

Ok, the ATC's in the first pic is what I created this morning. The bottom pic is what I traded for at the art store today. Very fun and cool as the girl that works there was excited that SOMEBODY actually wants to trade, so I must get busy and make more.

Now on to the retail therapy. A very large church in Motown had a zillion yard sales today. They have one every year and tons of folks bring their stuff and have a yard sale. There were at least 50 different yards sales in the parking lot. So one stop yard sailing for me!! I didn't actually buy too much. No scrapbook stuff. Rats!!

Then I went to the bad place.............Beverly's Craft store, and again I didn't buy anything BUT they always have an on going sidewalk sale and today they put out these crop tote scrapbook carry cases. They are black canvas for $10.00, or for 15.00 I could get black faux leather one. I actually walked away, but I don't know how long I can stay away. I really think I could get a hell of a lot of journaling stuff in one of those, so I wouldn't have to take so many bags with me when I travel with my journaling stuff. I swear I make 3 to 4 trips back and forth to the car when I arrive at the Hotel and when I leave the hotel to come home!!!!

I am the bag lady!!!!!!!!!!

Hope ya'll are having a artful weekend!!