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